Susan Berman’s paean to the Las Vegas mob
Outside the world of journalism, for which he became great copy, I suspect few will mourn the prison death yesterday of three-time killer Robert Durst, 78. He’s the real estate scion who (1) in 1982 after a fight made his wife disappear in the New York City suburbs, (2) in 2000 killed a good friend in Los Angeles who probably helped him avoid justice in the case of his wife, whose body never has been found, and (3) in 2001 shot and dismembered a nosy neighbor in Texas who might have been about to tell authorities where he was hiding out. The amazing 2015 HBO documentary miniseries “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst” sussed this out with stunning details, including Durst’s tape-recorded confession to all three killings.
I’m here to focus on the good friend he killed in Los Angeles, whom he was finally convicted last year of murdering after a televised trial. Her name was Susan Berman, 55 at the time of her death. As an adult she worked on both coasts as a journalist, author and wannabe Hollywood scriptwriter and producer. But she spent a part of her youth in Las Vegas, as the only child of an extremely, uh, influential person.
Her life and death say something about Las Vegas–then and now. Continue reading
