Manhattan real-estate heir Robert Durst buried his wife, Kathie, in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, “Sopranos”-style, prosecutors are alleging at his latest murder trial.
Durst is on trial in Los Angeles for the 2000 murder of his best friend, Susan Berman, whose body was found in her home with a gunshot wound to the back of the head.
But as Deputy District Attorney John Lewin began his opening arguments on Wednesday, he gave jurors not only the police photos of Berman’s body, but tantalizing clues as to what happened to a body that has never been found.
Kathie vanished in January, 1982, and Lewin told jurors that he would offer phone records and other evidence showing that Durst buried her in the Pine Barrens.
“For any of you who’ve ever watched ‘The Sopranos,’ the Pine Barrens were famous . . . the soil at the Pine Barrens is sand,” Lewin said.
“It doesn’t freeze, so if you kill somebody in the middle of winter, you need to have sand you can dig into. This is a notorious Mafia burial ground,” he said.
Durst made four collect calls to his family’s Durst Organization real-estate company in New York City from southern New Jersey on Feb. 2, 1982, two days after Kathie’s disappearance, the prosecutor said.
All the payphones he used to place the calls were at the edge of the Pine Barrens in New Jersey, establishing that Durst was there, according to Lewin.
Days later, Durst told the NYPD that he had been in Connecticut on business on Feb. 2, Lewin told the jury panel.
Durst’s brother, Douglas, who heads the company, will testify that was a lie, Lewin said.
The prosecutor also told jurors they would see a cryptic note that was found in the South Salem, NY, home that Robert shared with Kathie shortly after she vanished.
“Town dump, bridge, dig, boat, other, shovel or?” the note read. “Check car-truck rentals,” it added.
Prosecutors allege Durst killed Berman — the daughter of late Las Vegas mobster David “Davie the Jew” Berman — because she was going to tell New York investigators that he killed Kathie.
Original Post https://nypost.com/2020/03/05/robert-durst-buried-wife-kathie-sopranos-style-in-new-jersey-pine-barrens-da-says/