Robert Durst, Convicted Murderer and Real Estate Scion, Dies at 78

Robert Durst, who was convicted of murdering his best friend and had been charged with killing his first wife, has died at 78, PEOPLE confirms through multiple sources.

"Mr. Durst passed away early this morning while in the custody of California's Department of Corrections," one of Durst's attorneys, Chip Lewis, tells PEOPLE in a statement. "We understand that his death was due to natural causes associated with a litany of medical issues we had repeatedly reported to the court over the last couple of years."

Lewis told The New York Times that Durst went into cardiac arrest Monday morning at a medical facility in Stockton, Calif., and could not be revived.

Durst, a scion of a prominent New York City real estate dynasty, was convicted in September for the 2000 execution-style murder of Susan Berman, the 55-year-old daughter of a Las Vegas mob boss. Prosecutors said Durst killed the Los Angeles author because she knew too much about the 1982 disappearance of his first wife, Kathleen Durst, whose remains have never been found.

Berman, who met Durst at UCLA in 1965, was his unofficial spokesperson after Kathleen's disappearance. Prosecutors said she helped him cover up the murder and was marked for death when she told Durst that Los Angeles and New York investigators wanted to interview her.

In October Durst was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for Berman's murder. Later that month, authorities in New York charged Durst with second-degree murder in connection with the presumed death of his first wife, Kathleen.

In a statement to PEOPLE on Monday, the attorney for Kathleen's family said: "Although Robert Durst has died, the ongoing investigation into those who helped him coverup her murder continues. On January 31, 2022, the 40th anniversary of Kathie's murder, we will provide a further update. In the interim, please say a prayer for Kathie and his other victims."

Durst, the former scion of one of New York City's wealthiest and most powerful real estate families, had a strained relationship with his younger brother, Douglas, who took over the family's real estate empire after their father, Seymour, died. Douglas later testified that he came to Los Angeles with a security detail because he believed Durst would like to murder him.

The brothers had a falling out in the '90s after Douglas was put in charge of their father's real estate empire. Durst — who was known for his cheapness, would burp in people's faces and had an odd habit of urinating in garbage cans at the office — also allegedly became angry over a multimillion-dollar inheritance settlement in 2006 over his share of the trust, Douglas testified.

In a New York Times article, Douglas described how his brother had previously showed up in his driveway carrying weapons and had threatened he might have to "Igor" him, an alleged reference to Durst's multiple dogs named Igor that died mysteriously.

Durst became a tabloid fixture in 1982 when his 29-year-old medical student wife, Kathleen, vanished. Durst didn't report her missing for five days and told police that she had arrived at their South Salem, N.Y., cottage and consumed a bottle of wine, during which time they quarreled, and then he put her on a train to New York City.

Kathleen's family didn't believe his story and believed he killed Kathleen because she planned to leave him. Different investigators picked up the case over the years but ultimately Durst was not arrested.

He was back in the news again in 2001 when the severed limbs of 71-year-old Morris Black were found in plastic bags in Galveston Bay in September 2001.

As it turned out, Durst was a neighbor of the victim and was living at the dingy $300 a month apartment undercover as a mute woman named Dorothy Ciner — the name of a high school classmate.

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After his arrest in the Black slaying, Durst failed to show up for a bond hearing — skipping out on $300,000 bail — and became the target of a nationwide manhunt. He was caught two months later, in November 2001, in Pennsylvania shoplifting a newspaper, a $5.99 chicken salad hero and a Band-Aid from a Wegman's despite having $500 in his pocket and over $30,000 in in his rental car.

Durst went on trial in Texas in 2003 and the jury bought his claim that he shot Black in self-defense and then carved him up with a paring knife, two saws and an ax and subsequently disposed of the body in a panic. After pleading guilty to bond jumping and evidence tampering relating to the disposal of Black's body, Durst was sentenced to five years. He was released on parole in 2005.

Durst's life later became the subject of the 2010 film All Good Things, starring Ryan Gosling, and he later participated in the six-part HBO docuseries The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, directed by Andrew Jarecki, which premiered in 2015. In the chilling finale, Durst walked into a bathroom, seemingly unaware he was still miked, and mumbled, "What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course," appearing to have admitted to the killings of Berman and his wife.

The evening before the finale of The Jinx aired, Durst was arrested on a charge of first-degree murder in the shooting of Berman.

Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney John Lewin said Durst shot Berman in the back of the head around Dec. 23, 2000, in her Los Angeles home when she told him that Los Angeles and New York investigators wanted to interview her about the disappearance of Kathleen.

Lewin said Berman actually lied to Durst and that detectives hadn't yet reached out to her. But her assertion "sealed her fate," he said.

During his 2021 trial, a frail Durst, who by then was in a wheelchair and had suffered from esophageal cancer and fluid in his brain, admitted through his lawyers he found Berman's body in her home but denied having anything to do with her death.

In May of 2021, the Westchester County district attorney Mimi Rocah announced her office had reopened the investigation into Kathleen Durst's disappearance.