Robert Durst’s own brother thinks he wants to kill him.
Douglas Durst took the stand at Robert Durst’s murder trial on Monday, at one point testifying, “He’d like to murder me.”
The Durst brothers had a falling out in the 1990s when Douglas, who is roughly a year and a half younger than Robert, was appointed the primary manager of their family’s money after their father passed away in 1995. Douglas later bought Robert out for millions of dollars and said in court on Monday that he hadn’t seen his brother in 20 years.
Douglas said he was so fearful of his brother, that he came to California with a security detail.
“I have a fear that my brother has threatened to kill me, and I fear that he may have the means to do so,” Douglas said.
He also said that growing up, Robert treated him “miserably” and would embarrass him at “every opportunity.”
Douglas also testified about the phone conversation he had with Robert when he told him his wife Kathie was missing.
“His tone was very neutral,” he testified. “There was no great anxiety in his tone. It seemed a little strange.”
Robert Durst has pleaded not guilty to the 2000 murder of Susan Berman. His trial first began on March 4 but was soon postponed several times due to the pandemic.
He was arrested in March 2015 by FBI agents in New Orleans, one day before the finale of HBO’s “The Jinx,” which chronicled Durst’s life and the death of three people close to him — Berman, his first wife, Kathleen McCormack, and a neighbor in Galveston, Texas.
Robert Durst was acquitted of murder in Texas after he said he killed and dismembered his neighbor, Morris Black, in self-defense in September 2001. He is also suspected of killing McCormack, who disappeared in New York in 1982 — however, Durst was never charged.