Is Robert Durst Connected to These 3 Missing Women?

In the wake of Robert Durst’s March 14 arrest for the alleged murder of Susan Berman in 2000, several law enforcement agencies have taken a closer look at the 71-year-old millionaire, trying to connect him with cold cases dating back to the 1970s.

The underlying question: Could Durst be responsible for any more crimes?

That question is not without precedent. Durst has long been suspected of wrongdoing in other cases. In 1982, his first wife, Kathleen Durst, vanished without a trace. In 2003, he was tried – and acquitted – in Texas for the murder and dismemberment of his neighbor Morris Black.

Now, authorities in three different jurisdictions have checked out leads that would link Durst to the disappearances of young women. The cases have some similarities: The women were in their late teens and looked physically similar.

Still, the evidence is circumstantial, at best. There is no physical evidence that ties him to any of these women – although authorities say they are still investigating the cases.

For his part, Durst’s lawyer denies his client’s involvement in any of these cases.

“It’s almost like roaches coming out when you turn the lights off,” attorney Dick Deguerin tells PEOPLE. “He can’t fight back, and right now he is looked on as the weirdest guy in the country. It’s just not fair that all these different police agencies are trying to clear up their old cases where there’s no evidence.”

“So what if Bob Durst happened to be in San Francisco when someone disappeared?” continues Deguerin. “There are a million people in San Francisco when someone disappears. If there is any evidence, then let them come with it.”

Lynne Schulze

The 1971 disappearance of college student Lynne Schulze has mystified authorities in the small town of Middlebury, Vermont, for more than four decades. On December 10, 1971, Schulze, then 18, vanished without a trace. In the hours before she disappeared, she bought dried prunes at All Good Things, a local health store. The 5’3, 115-pound brunette was last seen across the street from the shop.

Then, in 2012, a source called police with a fascinating tip: Durst had owned All Good Things at the time that Schulze vanished. (The store shares the name of the 2010 fictionalized movie based on the disappearance of Durst’s first wife, which stars Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst.)

Still, evidence in the 43-year-old mystery is hard to come by.

“We know that Lynne shopped at the store that was owned by Robert Durst on the day she disappeared,” Middlebury Police Chief Tom Hanley said in a press conference. “He is a person who had some proximate connection with someone who is missing. We can assume at this point there was some wrongdoing involved, potentially a homicide.”

Friends of Schulze don’t know what to think.

“I loosely followed the Durst story enough to have an idea that wherever he was, bad things happened,” classmate Rob Heagney tells PEOPLE. “When I heard he’d been in Middlebury when Lynne disappeared, I was shocked. I couldn’t believe it.”

Kristen Modafferi

Kristen Modafferi was last seen on the afternoon of June 23, 1997, at the Crocker Galleria Mall in San Francisco. Then 18, she had completed her freshman year of college in North Carolina and had recently moved to the San Francisco area to attend summer school at the University of California at Berkeley.

In 2003, when Durst was on trial for murdering and dismembering Morris Black, Oakland police learned that he may have lived near San Francsico at the time Modafferi disappeared. Although they investigated the possible link, they found no evidence connecting Durst to Modafferi.

“At this time, we do not have any evidence that indicates Robert Durst was involved in her disappearance,” an Oakland police detective tells PEOPLE. “This does not mean we will not follow up on leads connecting the two. It only means we have not found evidence at this point.”

But a Modafferi family friend and spokeswoman tells PEOPLE that no doors have been closed. “Oakland police are saying officially that there is nothing to link [Durst and Modafferi],” says Joan Scanlon-Petruski. “But they’re telling us, ‘Wait and see. Sometimes these things take a long time to come out.’

Karen Mitchell

On November 25, 1997, Karen Mitchell vanished while walking alone down a street in Eureka, California. It was five days before her 17th birthday. Durst owned a house 25 minutes away, in Trinidad, California. According to KRCR TV, he frequented a business owned by Mitchell’s family.

On the day she vanished, Mitchell was seen getting into a car with a man who looked like Durst.

“This is the strongest of them all,” says Matt Birkbeck, author of a book about Durst entitled A Deadly Secret. “When Karen Mitchell disappeared, a guy walked in to the police department, and he was so overwhelmed with some kind of guilt they thought he was the guy who took her. He wasn’t, but what he did was give a composite. He supposedly saw her getting into the car with an older man and gave a description. If you look at [the sketch], it is the spitting image of Durst.”

Eureka Chief of Police Andrew Mills says that the department is closely monitoring the case of Susan Berman. “We are certainly interested in any information that may or may not come out of interviews with Mr. Durst,” says Mills. “If information comes to us that allows us to further our investigation, we will certainly take the opportunity to do that.”

For more about Robert Durst – including information on these three disappearances – pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday

• With reporting by LIZ McNEIL, K.C. BAKER and SUSAN KEATING

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