A missing wife, a murdered friend, and a neighbor found in pieces—this is the chaotic, riveting middle chapter of Robert Durst. We pick up where the tension never really cooled: Kathy McCormack Durst vanishes after a fight in 1982, a dean gets a bizarre “diarrhea” call, and friends beg police to dig deeper while the case drifts into a cold, uncomfortable silence. Years later, an ambitious prosecutor reopens the file and the circle tightens around Susan Berman, Durst’s fiercely loyal confidante with a Hollywood-tinged past. Then Beverly Hills police receive a single-word letter—“cadaver”—spelled exactly as Durst habitually misspells “Beverly.” Susan is found shot once in the head, no forced entry, everything left behind but life. The spiral accelerates. Durst disappears to Galveston and reemerges as “Dorothy,” a mute, middle-aged woman living across from Morris Black, a cranky neighbor who soon turns up dismembered in the bay. Receipts, bags, a blood trail between apartments, and a CRV registration point back to Durst. He’s stopped with a pound of weed, guns, and wads of cash, then later caught stealing a chicken salad sandwich despite having money in his pocket and tens of thousands in his car. In court, the defense reframes horror into happenstance: a struggle, a gun that “just went off,” panic over pending scrutiny, and a clinical calm explained by an Asperger diagnosis. Without Black’s head, the prosecution can’t cleanly map the shot. The jury acquits on murder, convicts on tampering, and Durst soon violates parole by revisiting old ground—literally bumping into the trial judge at a mall. This episode threads the needle between spectacle and substance: how privilege stretches timelines, how friendship blurs alibi and leverage, and how a justice system can falter when a life of evasion meets a lack of definitive evidence. We unpack the “cadaver” letter, the Beverly Hills misspelling, the Galveston dismemberment, and the courtroom calculus that turned a grisly narrative into reasonable doubt. We also keep it human—sharing laughs, drinks, and a country song palate cleanser—because the darkness goes down smoother when you can still breathe between beats. If you’re hooked on true crime that challenges your assumptions about power and accountability, hit play now. Then subscribe, share the show with a friend who loves a twist, and leave a quick review to help more curious minds find us. Your take: did money outpace justice here, or did the evidence simply fall short? We want to hear it. AS ALWAYS CHECK OUT THE BAND!! https://matttejedalive.com/ LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!!! Ready to explore more shocking true crime cases with us? Subscribe to Drink About Something for new episodes every Friday, and visit drinkaboutsomething.site with links to see all our content, including visual evidence from the cases we cover. AS ALWAYS D-A-S
