LOS ANGELES—A close friend who for years didn’t want to believe Robert Durst was capable of homicide dropped a bombshell in court implicating the real estate heir in two killings.
Nathan “Nick” Chavin testified in Los Angeles Superior Court that their mutual friend, Susan Berman, told him years ago that Durst confided in her that he killed his first wife, Kathleen Durst, who disappeared in 1982 and has never been found. Chavin said Durst admitted to him that he killed Berman in 2000.
“I had to,” Durst said, according to Chavin. “It was her or me, I had no choice.”
The brief remark on a New York City sidewalk after the two had dinner in 2014 put to rest years of doubts Chavin harbored about the culpability of the best friend who stood up for him at his wedding and had given him a big boost in his advertising career.
Chavin, who became emotional during the testimony and reached for a tissue to blow his nose, said he still has warm feelings for Durst.
“It sounds ridiculous,” Chavin said. “This was a best friend who admitted to killing my other best friend.”
Durst, wearing headphones to better hear the witness, stared straight at his friend through a pair of large eyeglasses and showed no emotion.
