This has been a big week for the Robert Durst case. Three months after pleading not guilty to the murder of Susan Berman, Durst's former friend Nick Chavin took the stand on Thursday to give a testimony that changed everything: Durst allegedly admitted the killing to him. However, on Friday, defense attorney Dick DeGuerin accused Chavin of concocting the testimony, according to The New York Times.
In 2014, Durst asked him to dinner to talk about "Kathie and Susan." Though the entire meal passed without the topic coming up, Durst said to Chavin outside afterwards, "I had to. It was her or me. I had no choice."
"He turned to walk away. I said, 'You wanted to talk about Kathie.' He kept walking away," Chavin said.
Chavin testified that he had thought his former friend was innocent until Durst admitted that he sat in a pool of blood and dismembered the body of his neighbor, Morris Black.
DeGuerin challenged Chavin's testimony, saying, "It took seven months for you to come up with the story about Bob Durst confessing to you?" As The Times notes, he was referring to conversations between Chavin and Deputy District Attorney John Lewin during seven months in 2015, when Chavin was debating whether to tell Lewin about Durst's alleged confession.
Though the trial is possibly a year away, 72-year-old Chavin was in court as part of a conditional examination—a rare examination in which "prosecutors can question witnesses before a trial if they are 65 or older and in danger of dying or being killed before the case is heard," according to The Times.
"[Durst] kills witnesses," Lewin said during the examination. "When pushed into a corner, he murders people."
In 2015, Durst appeared in The Jinx, an HBO docuseries that delves into Durst's life, the disappearance of his first wife, and the murders of Berman and Black. Durst was arrested after said to himself wearing his microphone during what he thought was a private moment, "You're caught...What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course."
(H/T The New York Times)
