Death and the millionaire drifter

Galveston, Texas is an end-of-the-road place. The last stop on Interstate-45 before the Gulf of Mexico.                                       

Robert Durst slipped quietly onto the island in 1999, the year before Susan Berman died.

Robert Draper: He did not take up auspicious dwellings in one of the fine old Victorian houses that one finds on the island, but rather in a seedy little apartment on Avenue-K.                                       

A $300-a-month four-plex, but here's the head-spinner. He signed the lease as Dorothy Ciner, the name of a long ago high-school classmate.                                       

Robert Draper: He literally was dressed as a woman, wearing a woman's wig, wearing a woman's dress and claiming that he could not speak so he wouldn't give his masculine voice away.                                       

And it seemed to be more than just a bizarre disguise for a man who wanted to disappear from his old life, according to writer Robert Draper.                                       

Robert Draper: We would see him not as Robert Durst, but as Roberta, as a woman dressed very much as a woman, going to gay clubs and affecting the manner of someone who was into the transvestite scene.

Draper talked to people who said Durst bought drugs in shadowy alleys as a treat for the young male hustlers he pursued on the seawall.                                       

Now add to this decadent setting the man across the hall from Durst in the apartment on Avenue-K. Morris Black, a 71-year-old former Merchant Marine with a reputation as an inveterate crank, a bantamweight codger with a sharp tongue for one and all.

Robert Draper: And he had this constant palsied look of discontent to his face, as he would berate virtually anyone. 'I've been waiting for hours, or how dare you get in my way, or I’m gonna report you.

We'll never know what interactions the odd couple on Avenue K had--the millionaire in drag and the cranky seaman--but one day Morris Black wasn't around any more to harass city hall clerks or the utilities he waged war against.                                       

Out on Channelview Road a kid was fishing with his dad when he saw something bobbing in the bay.                             

Robert Draper: There were these suspicious plastic bags that were floating around in the water and the boy noticed them. Authorities came to the scene. And what they found were a headless trunk and then dismembered limbs.

In the garbage bags along with the severed arms and legs, police found receipts for some hardware store item purchases--a saw and a carving knife--and conveniently a piece of junk mail with the address 2213 Avenue K.

In short order the woman across the hall was unmasked as Robert Durst. Authorities got a search warrant and found traces of blood matching Morris Black's. There was a drop cloth and more garbage bags. It was a killing that almost solved itself.

And a few days later, Galveston police arrested Durst himself driving down the street in his silver Honda. He was charged with murder. And bail was set at $300,000.

Robert Draper: They had no reason to believe that a guy who lived in an apartment like that would be be able to pay that, to post that. But in fact, he did. And once he did he was outta there.

Robert Durst was a fugitive. He'd jumped bond and too late, police found evidence that he'd fled to the Dallas area. Then he was in New Orleans for awhile.                                     

Six weeks after he failed to show for an arraignment in Galveston, Durst re-appeared, on a security camera inside a Wegman's Supermarket in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley where he'd gone to college.                                        

On the tape, you see him opening a box of Band Aids and stuffing a few in his pocket.                                       

He puts a Band Aid on his freshly shaved upper lip.                                       

Then, the heir worth tens of millions shoplifts a $5.49 chicken salad on pumpernickel sandwich and heads for the door. Security stops him and minutes later he's under arrest.                                      

Officer Dean Benner: He just kept mumbling about I can't believe this is how it's going to end. He basically said I can't believe I did this, I’m such an ass****.

Police searched his rental car outside and found two loaded guns, some marijuana, $38,000 in cash and an ID for one Morris Black.                                       

And back at the police station it got even more interesting when officer Dean Benner ran the shoplifter's name, which he'd given voluntarily through a computer, for a background check.

There was a hit. From Galveston.                                       

Officer Dean Benner: I just got up to him and said when was the last time you was in Texas. With that he just kind of got a cold look like all the color ran out of his face and he just stared at me and said "I’m not saying another word till I speak to an attorney."

Soon Robert Durst was extradited to Texas to stand trial for the murder of his neighbor. The careless evidence he'd left behind was a prosecutor's gift.                                       

There was no question that Durst killed his neighbor, chopped up his body and dumped it into the bay. His new lawyers--high-priced dream-teamers all--had conceded as much.

If he'd eluded authorities in the case of his missing wife, as her friends charged.                                       

If he'd had a hand in Susan Berman's killing as those same people believed.                                       

Surely here in Galveston, justice would be an easy slam-dunk.   

Robert Draper: Yeh, things look bad for Robert Durst things look real bad.

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