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Prosecutors Say 'The Jinx' Finale Triggered Timing Of Robert Durst's Arrest
New court documents released Monday reveal that HBO's docu-series The Jinx pushed the authorities to arrest the show's subject Robert Durst, the New York real estate heir and alleged murderer who arrived in Los Angeles to stand trial early last month. The L.A. Times reports that prosecutors say that the LAPD was "was forced to make a swift arrest of the real estate scion because of an HBO miniseries."
The millionaire was arrested for the 2000 murder of his long-time friend Susan Berman on March 14, 2015, a day before the season finale of the six-episode miniseries aired on HBO. Durst sort of confessed to her murder while filming the show—during one of director Andrew Jarecki's filmed interviews of the real estate scion, Durst headed to the bathroom with his microphone still on and muttered “What the hell did I do?” to himself. “Killed them all, of course.”
Court documents released last Friday made for more Durst headlines, with transcripts from a March 2015 jailhouse interview revealing that Durst told prosecutors that he had been high on meth at the time of the confession. “I was on meth, I was on meth the whole time … it should have been obvious,” Durst said, according to the L.A. Times.
The court documents released yesterday reveal that prosecutors felt that the timing of the show “made the need to arrest [Durst] in New Orleans all the more urgent,” especially given his wealth and history of fleeing from law enforcement.
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“The Jinx’s final episode...was about to become public and [Durst] was about to hear for the first time this extremely damning evidence,” prosecutors wrote of the show's confession recording, according to the L.A. Times. “Preventing defendant’s flight, holding him accountable for his past actions, and protecting society from the danger he posed, were of the utmost importance.”
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