Robert Durst has bladder cancer, his lawyers have revealed in a motion seeking to delay his murder trial.
The real estate heir, 78, who was the subject of the true crime series The Jinx, is suffering from a ‘myriad of life-threatening health issues’, his attorneys claim.
They filed an emergency motion requesting he be released on bail into an outside medical facility.
Suspected serial killer Robert Durst has bladder cancer, his lawyers have revealed in a motion seeking to delay his murder trial.
Lawyer Dick DeGuerin told CNN: ‘We are very concerned about his health. He’s really gone down in the last year. He’s been in and out of clinics and hospitals frequently.’
Durst’s trial for the killing of his best friend Susan Berman in 2000 is due to recommence on Monday after a year-long break caused by the pandemic.
But his lawyers claim a criminal trial is ‘grueling for a healthy individual, let alone a 78-year-old man with serious health conditions’.
They said he is currently suffering from ‘bladder cancer, prior esophageal cancer, malnutrition, coronary artery disease with drug-eluting stents, atrial fibrillation, and chronic kidney disease’.
Durst was present at his most recent court hearing on March 17 although he looked frail and sounded weak.
He is still being held in the Twin Towers correctional facility in Los Angeles.
Durst is on trial for the December 2000 murder of his best friend Susan Berman (left)
His legal team said they are willing for him to pay for his own security, be subjected to GPS monitoring and have a high bail amount if he is released to a medical facility.
In July, a judge denied a request for a mistrial after a delay from the coronavirus outbreak.
Judge Mark Windham said Durst’s right to a fair trial had not been compromised by putting the case on hold in March just days after it began.
Durst is on trial accused of the killing of his best friend, Susan Berman, who was shot in her home in 2000.
He has denied any role in her death, but his lawyers acknowledged he sent a note with the word ‘cadaver’ written on it directing police to her body.
Berman was shot dead just days before she was set to be interviewed about the 1982 disappearance of Durst’s first wife, Kathleen (pictured on their wedding day). Kathleen’s disappearance is still unsolved
Prosecutors allege he killed Berman because he feared she was going to tell New York police that she knew he had killed his wife in 1982 and helped him cover up the crime.
The body of Kathleen Durst has never been found, though she has been legally declared dead.
Durst has never been charged with any crime related to her disappearance and has denied any role in her death.
Berman was killed just days before she was to give an interview to New York investigators looking into Kathleen’s disappearance.
Durst’s defense lawyer told the jury in March that his client found her body, ‘panicked,’ and wrote an anonymous note to the police, which included Berman’s address and the word ‘cadaver,’ leading them to his friend’s home.
In 2003, Durst was acquitted in Texas of the murder of his neighbor Morris Black, whom he admitted to dismembering after shooting him in self-defense during a struggle inside the Galveston apartment they shared.
The trial had been in the works for five years, since Durst’s arrest on the eve of the airing of the final episode of The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst.
The HBO documentary included interviews with Durst that helped lead to the charges against him.
In one pivotal scene, Durst was overheard mumbling to himself, ‘Killed them all, of course.’
This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk
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