Robert Alan Durst was born on April 12, 1943, in New York City, into one of the wealthiest and most powerful real estate families in the United States. He was the eldest of four children born to Seymour Durst, a prominent real estate magnate, and Bernice Herstein. The Durst family patriarch, Joseph Durst, was a Jewish immigrant from Austria-Hungary who arrived in the U.S. in 1902 and eventually founded the Durst Organization in 1927, laying the foundation for the family’s vast fortune and influence.

Robert Durst had a privileged yet deeply troubled upbringing in Scarsdale, New York. At the age of seven, he claimed to have witnessed his mother’s suicide—a traumatic event that left a lifelong psychological mark. His younger brother Douglas would later dispute this account, but psychiatrists who evaluated Durst in childhood reported signs of serious mental health issues, including personality decomposition and possible schizophrenia. As a boy, he was considered socially isolated and later described as a loner by peers at Scarsdale High School.

Durst attended Lehigh University, where he earned a degree in economics in 1965. He later enrolled in graduate studies at UCLA, where he met Susan Berman, the daughter of a Las Vegas mobster, who would later become a key figure in his life—and ultimately one of his victims. Disenchanted with the expectations of his powerful family, Durst opened a health food store in Vermont during the 1970s but later returned to New York under pressure from his father.

Although he was the eldest son, Robert was passed over as successor to the Durst Organization in favor of his younger brother Douglas in 1992 due to Robert's increasingly erratic behavior. Feeling betrayed, Robert permanently severed ties with the family and sued for his inheritance. The legal dispute ended with a $65 million buyout in 2006, which left him independently wealthy for the rest of his life.

Despite his wealth, Durst lived an increasingly unstable and paranoid existence. He drifted across states under various aliases, lived in cheap lodgings, and displayed behavior that raised red flags among friends and associates. Over time, he would be connected to three deaths, two of which remained unresolved until the final years of his life.

Robert Durst’s descent into infamy began with the disappearance of his first wife, Kathleen “Kathie” McCormack Durst, on January 31, 1982. At the time, Kathie was a promising medical student nearing graduation and had reportedly been in an abusive relationship with Durst. That night, after attending a dinner party, Kathie left abruptly and was never seen again. Durst initially told police that he had dropped her off at the train station and later spoken to her by phone, but his story soon unraveled. Over the years, suspicions mounted that Durst had killed her and disposed of the body, but her remains were never found, and he was not charged at the time. In 2021, he was formally charged with her murder, though he died before the case could go to trial.

The second death linked to Durst was the execution-style murder of Susan Berman on December 23, 2000, in Los Angeles. Berman, a journalist and daughter of Las Vegas mobster Davie Berman, had long been considered Durst’s confidante. Prosecutors argued that Berman was killed because she was about to speak to investigators about Kathie Durst's disappearance. Days before her scheduled interview with police, she was shot in the back of the head in her home. In a bizarre twist, a note with her address and the word “CADAVER” written in block letters was mailed anonymously to the LAPD — a key piece of evidence that would later link Durst to her death.

Durst then went on the run, eventually settling in Galveston, Texas, disguised as a mute woman. While there, he became embroiled in a violent altercation with neighbor Morris Black, whose dismembered body was later found floating in Galveston Bay in September 2001. Durst was arrested and charged with murder, but in a stunning legal upset, a Texas jury acquitted him in 2003 on grounds of self-defense, even though he admitted to killing and dismembering Black. The verdict drew widespread criticism and deepened the mystery surrounding Durst.

For years, Durst remained a free man until the release of the HBO documentary The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst in 2015 reignited public interest. In the final episode, unaware he was still wearing a live microphone, Durst muttered in a bathroom: “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.” This apparent confession, combined with new evidence, led to his arrest in New Orleans on March 14, 2015, the day before the episode aired.

Durst was extradited to California and stood trial for Berman’s murder. On September 17, 2021, he was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Weeks later, New York prosecutors announced that he had been formally charged in the 1982 murder of Kathleen McCormack Durst. However, he never faced trial. On January 10, 2022, Robert Durst died in prison from cardiac arrest resulting from multiple medical complications, including COVID-19. At the time of his death, he remained a prime suspect in at least three deaths.