January 1, Millionaire Robert Durst found guilty of murder

A Los Angeles jury found New York real estate heir Robert Durst guilty of murdering his best friend in December 2000, a case galvanized by Durst’s participation in a documentary that linked him to his wife’s 1982 disappearance.

The jury reached a verdict after about seven hours of deliberations over three days.

Durst was convicted of the first-degree murder of Susan Berman, his long-time confidante who told friends she provided him a phony alibi for his wife’s disappearance.

Berman, the daughter of a Las Vegas mobster, was prepared to tell police she’d assisted the cover-up of Durst’s wife’s slaying. She was shot in the back of the head at point-blank range in her home in December 2000.

Police arrested Durst in 2015 on the night the final episode of “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst” aired, in which filmmakers confronted him with incriminating evidence, and he made what prosecutors said was a confession.

While in the bathroom, Durst was wearing a live microphone that recorded him saying, “There it is. You’re caught.”

In 2001, the dismembered body parts of his elderly neighbor were found in Galveston Bay. Durst was arrested, fled, and caught after shoplifting a chicken sandwich in Pennsylvania despite carrying $37,000 in cash. Though Durst admitted to the gruesome crime, a jury acquitted him on the grounds of self-defense.

Durst, 78, faces a mandatory term of life in prison without parole when sentenced on Oct. 18.

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NY millionaire Robert Durst guilty of best friend’s murder