Oddball millionaire Robert Durst confided to pal Susan Berman that he had killed his first wife — before Berman herself wound up shot to death, a mutual friend testified Thursday.
“Susan said to me, ‘Bob killed Kathie,’” Nathan Chavin told jurors, according to the LA Times.
Chavin added that Berman told him the confession came from the Manhattan real-estate scion himself.
“Kathie’s dead, we can’t do anything about it,” Chavin testified Berman told him. “We have to protect Bob.”
Despite her family’s best efforts, Kathleen’s body was never found.
Chavin, who was first hustled into court Wednesday by body guards, has been asked to testify early in the event he’s killed before Durst goes to trial for Berman’s murder next year.
Prosecutors have said Chavin could be in danger, given they believe Durst shot Berman execution-style in her Benedict Canyon home after learning she planned on speaking with New York investigators about his first wife’s 1982 disappearance.
Durst, 72, has previously pleaded not guilty to Berman’s murder.
Chavin told the court he once considered Durst a best friend, even serving as a groomsman at his wedding, and at first couldn’t believe he’d killed his wife.
But the scion’s old friend, also 72, revealed Wednesday that Kathleen had confided in him that she was scared of her husband, but never said anything about him being violent.
“[Kathleen] said she was afraid of him,” Chavin told the court. “She never said he hurt her.”
Durst was arrested on murder charges following the 2015 release of “The Jinx,” a six-episode HBO documentary in which Durst seemingly confessed to his wife’s slaying after wandering into a bathroom wearing a hot mic.
“What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course,” he muttered in an inadvertent hot-mic moment in the final episode.
His lawyers have since said Durst was high on methamphetamine during the filming and confession.
The documentary series covers the disappearance of Kathleen in New York, Berman’s death in 2000, and Durst’s 2003 trial in Texas for the murder and dismemberment of neighbor Morris Black.
The eccentric New Yorker was acquitted of the murder charges–as authorities never located Black’s head– but Durst pleaded guilty to weapons possession and evidence tampering in connection to the crime.
with Post Wire Services