Death and the millionaire drifter

It depended on how you looked at it.

Robert Durst was either the world's luckiest man, one who'd skated away from the murders of his wife and friend, or a snakebit soul stalked by just one tragedy after another.

Dick DeGuerin: Members of the jury...

In a Galveston, Texas courtroom, his lawyer now had to explain to a jury his client's plight. How Durst felt compelled to kill his neighbor, a loner named Morris Black, in a seedy apartment.

His lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, argued it was all in self-defense and set out to portray the victim, Morris Black, as a cantankerous old coot with a violent streak.

Dick DeGuerin: He was volatile. He was mean. He was seriously mentally ill. And been diagnosed in 1956 as being a danger to himself and others. Morris Black had threatened people before, for no reason.  And he turned on Bob like he turned on several people that we brought as witnesses.

As for what kind of relationship the unlikely pair had, they were portrayed as two scarred individuals joined by their version of friendship.

Mike Ramsey: It was an odd couple. It was. And, Morris was out front like a little terrier biting and snapping. And Bob was kind of coming along behind toking on a joint and letting, you know, the world pass by. They were as close friends as two people with their emotional problems could be, I think.

The defense argued that Durst had come back to his Galveston apartment only to find Morris Black, the cranky neighbor, inside waving one of Durst's pistols. There was a struggle for the gun.

Dick DeGuerin: We had a tremendous advantage. We knew what Bob Durst had done. He told us. Told us from the very outset what had happened in that room.

And, the jury would even get a chance to assess Robert Durst's character for themselves, because he would take the stand.

His defense attorney knew just how big a bet Durst was wagering.

Mike Ramsey: There's no question there's a risk involved in putting any defendant on the stand. Someone in a tender emotional state that Bob's in, certainly it was a risk. But I think it needed to be done. Even though the jury might not believe all that he had to say, I think they needed to see and feel him as a human.

Durst, testifying from the stand, told the jurors how the two wrestled for the gun. How it went off with Black slumping dead. The millionaire said he thought he had no choice but to dispose of the body. Given the suspicions that followed him in the disappearance of his wife and the murder of Susan Berman, who'd believe, he reasoned, that he'd killed a neighbor supposedly in self-defense. So in a daze, Durst said he cut up the body and dumped it in Galveston Bay.

As for Durst's bizarre behavior, that was attributed to a mild form of autism, argued his defense attorney.

Mike Ramsey: Bob suffers from a subset of autism, called Asberger's Syndrome. It doesn't mean he's less than intelligent. He's extremely intelligent. But the truth of it is his social skills are not what they should be, so far as expressing emotions concerned.

So, the defense conceded that Durst's mutilation of Morris Black's body was strange and gruesome.

But, how Durst behaved after he shot Morris Black didn't change what transpired in that apartment, argued co-counsel Chip Lewis.

Chip Lewis: This case boils down to one thing and one thing only: How Morris Black died. This case is not about what happened to Morris Black's body after he was dead.

Dick DeGuerin: He might have been guilty of some very poor judgment and might have been guilty of dismembering or desecration of a corpse but he was not running from a murder. He was running from what he saw was an accusation of murder that the police wouldn't believe his story.

Robert Durst: a Richey-Rich more to be pitied than envied.

Mike Ramsey: I don't personally think he ever liked being Robert Durst.  I think that he was disturbed with his role in life all-- all the through his life. And it led ultimately to tragedy. If he had not been falsely accused in the tabloid press in New York, none of this ever would have happened.

The best thing the defense had going for it was the head-scratching lack of an apparent motive.

The prosecution had offered up identity theft but on the defense's scorecard that sounded lame.

Dick DeGuerin: Well, they didn't have a motive. That was a real important thing. So, when they kinda flailed around-- trying to find what the motive was it was to our benefit.

After two months of testimony, both sides had rested.

A jury of his peers would finally decide whether Robert Durst was guilty of murder.

Female Juror: I have no doubt about my decision at all with the facts that we were given. 

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