A Deadly Secret: The Story of Robert Durst (18 page)

The holiday season had, thankfully, come and gone and Joe Becerra was ready to get back to work on the Durst case. He didn’t have a wife or kids to awaken with on Christmas morning, and that in itself was depressing. He spent the holidays at his parents’ home, spoiling his nieces and nephews.

Returning to work for Becerra was a godsend, lifting his spirits. He didn’t even mind following up on calls he’d received weeks earlier, the result of the
People
story, from professional psychics and others who claimed to be clairvoyant. The calls at first were amusing, then distracting, and Becerra returned them all.

By Friday, January 5, 2001, he was ready to finally begin interviewing the friends and family of Bobby Durst, and he was going to start with Susan Berman. He downloaded the e-mails Ellen Strauss had sent him one month earlier, with the addresses of five Susan Bermans in the Los Angeles area. He then called the Los Angeles Police Department to let them know, as a matter of courtesy, that he was interested in talking to someone within their jurisdiction.

Five minutes later, Becerra was frantically trying to reach Jeanine Pirro to give her the shocking news that Susan Berman was dead. Executed was more like it. At least that’s what the L.A. cops said. Even more mind-boggling, she had apparently known her killer.

The L.A. police explained that based upon their preliminary investigation, Berman was notoriously fearful and paranoid, always expressing fears that she was in imminent danger of being harmed. Neighbors and friends said she always kept her doors locked, and she would never invite an unknown visitor inside her home.

Becerra was told there had been no forced entry, and Berman was apparently leading the killer to the rear of the house at the time of the murder. It appeared that whoever had shot her lifted up a gun, pointed it at the back of her head and fired one shot.

Berman had had no idea that her life was about to end.

The entry wound was small, and homicide detectives determined the gun to be a small-caliber weapon, maybe a .22, or a nine-millimeter. It was hard to tell because the bullet fragmented on impact.

Upon hearing the news, Pirro, like Becerra, was dumbstruck, but quickly realized what had been a somewhat sleepy investigation into an eighteen-year-old mystery now had new juice—and the juice was flowing. A key potential witness is slain? And during an election year, no less.

For their part, the Los Angeles police were interested in what Becerra had to say about his investigation. They didn’t know anything about Bobby Durst or his missing wife or that he had been a good friend of Berman. They were intrigued by the possible connection, but never publicly considered Bobby a suspect. He was but one of many people of interest the L.A. police said they wanted to talk to. Aside from that, they were tight-lipped, unlike Pirro, who seized upon the opportunity, telling her subordinates to remind the state police that her office, and her office alone, would handle all media queries concerning the New York investigation.

Pirro also let it be known in a very public way that prior to Susan Berman’s death, Pirro’s office had been preparing to interview her in connection with the Durst case, and that it was more than coincidental that she was now dead.

Pirro used phrases like “her death is very questionable” and “the timing is extremely curious” to subtly implicate Bobby.

Becerra was miffed. He hadn’t mentioned Susan Berman’s name until after he found out she was dead. And he hadn’t made any effort to interview her until he placed his phone call to the Los Angeles police earlier that day. But Becerra kept his mouth shut and booked a flight to Los Angeles, where he was dispatched with John O’Donnell to debrief police there on the Durst investigation and find out more about Susan Berman and her murder.

Becerra knew little about Susan, only what Gilberte and Ellen and Kathy Traystman had told him about her thick bloodlines to the Las Vegas mob and her close relationship with Bobby Durst.

By week’s end Becerra heard all he needed about Susan Berman and her hard-luck life: how she had arrived in California in 1983, supposedly flush with cash after selling the film rights to her book, and married a twenty-five-year-old writer, Mister Margulies, in 1984.

The wedding was a lavish affair at the Hotel Bel-Air. Susan paid the bill. Bobby was there, and even gave her away, beaming like the proud brother he’d always been.

But the marriage dissolved almost as quickly as the romance had begun, and Margulies died just months later from a heroin overdose.

Susan’s cash stash had all but run out when she met Paul Kaufman in 1987. He was a financial adviser with two teenage children, Sareb and Mella. Susan became close with the children, particularly Sareb. And she remained close with Sareb, who considered Susan his mother, after her relationship with Kaufman went south.

In 1992, broke and virtually homeless, Susan declared bankruptcy. Her fortunes changed a bit two years later thanks to a television special and a new book project about Las Vegas. But by 2000 she was broke again, owed tens of thousands to friends, and was being evicted from her home. That summer, desperate, she tried to call Bobby for help, but his line was disconnected. She wrote him a letter in care of the Durst Organization in New York, but got no response.

That fall, out of the blue, she received a warm letter from Bobby, along with a $25,000 check. In December, she received another check, again for $25,000. Bobby had reappeared in her life, and in a big way.

Susan used the money to pay her bills and began work on a new book on the Las Vegas mob. She had found a source, the wife of an old mobster, who was willing to talk, providing the kind of inside detail even a mobster’s daughter would salivate over.

Susan was ecstatic following the interview, so happy that she told her friend, actress Kim Lankford, that she had information on a story that would “blow the top off of things.”

Kim had no idea what Susan was talking about, and Susan wouldn’t tell her.

When the rabid press got hold of that quote, immediate speculation was that Susan was going to tell all about her dear brother, Bobby.

It made for great headlines, but Susan still lived by the old code. She was a mobster’s daughter, and she’d never get Bobby in trouble. Even when she agreed in mid-December to an interview with the
New York Times
, there was no way she’d incriminate Bobby. But Susan never got to speak with the
Times
.

By Christmas Eve, Susan wasn’t talking to anyone.

The remains of six dogs were now visible in their shallow graves, the dirt removed to expose their large frames.

They were Akitas, and Joe Becerra, the dog lover, stood over them wanting to know who could be so cold to kill six beautiful dogs and bury them here.

They were found by a woman who was walking her own dog on a dirt path in Goldens Bridge. The smell was overwhelming. It was late March, and the winter snow had long melted away. The woman’s dog followed the unbearable scent and dug up one of the dead dogs.

Becerra was on duty at the Somers barracks when he received the call. He examined the site, unearthed the remaining five dogs, then decided to load them all onto the back of a pickup truck and take them for autopsies at the necropsy department of Cornell University.

Becerra had the time to investigate the deaths of six dogs because the Kathie Durst trail had gone cold, even after the shocking news about Susan Berman.

It was now three months after Susan had been found facedown in a pool of her own blood with a hole in the back of her head, and the media had drained every last word they could out of the story. The L.A. police were investigating, but remained closemouthed, sharing little with anyone, particularly Jeanine Pirro, who, in their opinion, talked too much.

Pirro had brought grandstanding to a new level, taking Susan Berman’s death and pushing herself to the front and center, sopping up every last bit of exposure she could find. CNN, MSNBC,
Geraldo
, all the networks, even the local New York stations. The Westchester County DA was everywhere, looking so attractive and confident, saying Susan Berman’s death seemed more than a coincidence and she was hot on the trail of Robert Durst.

“The Kathie Durst case is very much a priority,” was her standard line.

The focal point of Pirro’s newfound attention, Bobby Durst, remained out of sight. He was spotted once in Los Angeles in January, in a hotel, waiting to attend Susan Berman’s memorial service. But he didn’t attend the memorial, never leaving the hotel, saying his lawyers advised him to stay put. He checked out soon after.

Aside from Pirro’s statements, Becerra had little to discuss with Kathie’s friends or family, though the investigator would call Jim McCormack on occasion. Jim, for his part, didn’t want to hear any details or inside information. He was on a need-to-know basis. He was hopeful; judging by Pirro’s statements, it appeared she was prepared to move forward with her case. Becerra cautioned McCormack. He knew the pain his family had suffered, and he didn’t want them to believe that closure was around the corner.

Becerra also stayed in touch with Gilberte Najamy, who was furious that Berman had died before she could talk.

“I told you, I told you last year to talk to Susan Berman,” she said. “She was the key. She knew everything.”

Becerra agreed with Gilberte; it was an opportunity lost. But he couldn’t explain why he hadn’t been ready to approach Susan. He had figured Susan would run to Bobby, telling him everything about any interview she had with Becerra, what questions were asked, what information the police might have had.

This was how investigations were conducted, one piece and one interview at a time. Becerra had still been focused on the house in South Salem. Susan Berman had to wait. But Becerra knew losing Susan was a crucial blow to his investigation, and he kicked himself for not trying to reach out to her back in November.

As headlines about the Durst case once again faded from view, Becerra the dog lover would use the dead Akitas investigation to keep him away from Pirro, away from the Durst case, and busy for the next few weeks.

The autopsy results revealed that the dogs had been asphyxiated, strangled with some type of cord or wire. That much was certain. Becerra had an idea, a gut feeling, that only a breeder would have six dogs he wanted for some reason to kill. So he worked the phones, and by early April he had tracked down every Akita breeder in the Westchester County area.

On the morning of April 12, 2001, he made one last call to a breeder in Brewster, then took a drive to the gym to lift weights and clear his head.

Midway through his workout, as he was lying on a bench doing presses, his cell phone rang.

Becerra looked down and recognized the number. It was Gabrielle Colquitt.

He could hear she was hysterical, screaming into the phone.

“He’s here! He’s here!”

“Who’s there?”

“Durst! Robert Durst! He was in my backyard!”

“Are you sure?”

“He was here! Down by the water! Please, you have to come here now!”

Becerra ran to his locker, barking out orders into the phone.

“Stay in the house. Lock the door. I’m calling for help. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

He hung up with Colquitt and called the Somers barracks, telling them to get police units over to the house on Hoyt Street in South Salem immediately.

When Becerra arrived fifteen minutes later, several New York State Police cars were parked in front of the house and in the driveway.

Bobby was nowhere to be found.

Becerra walked into the house and saw Colquitt sitting on her sofa.

“Are you okay?”

Colquitt was shaken. She’d had no idea how her life would change when the news of the Durst investigation broke five months earlier. Her phone never stopped ringing, with calls from the media coming all hours of the day and night, not to mention the television crews camping out in front of her house and the satellite trucks taking up most of the space on the small street.

This wasn’t what Colquitt had bargained for. She liked Becerra, and she had thought she was doing him a favor when she let him into her home at least half a dozen times.

But this was unacceptable. Bobby himself showing up on her property. At her house.

Colquitt was angry and scared, for herself and her young daughter.

As she sat in the living room, a glass of water in her hand, Becerra knelt down on one knee in front of her.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

Colquitt took a sip from the glass then paused to gather her thoughts.

“I was going to the store and pulled out of the driveway when I noticed this blue car, it was parked in front of the house, idling,” she said.

“Did you see anyone inside the car?”

“No, the driver was bent over onto the passenger side. I thought maybe it was another reporter hanging out in front of the house. I drove about a mile and decided to turn back. I’d had it with those people. I wasn’t going to let him sit there in front of my house. I was angry, so I turned around. When I got back to the house, the car was in my driveway.”

“Do you know what kind of car it was?”

“It looked foreign, like a Saab, I think. I didn’t see anyone in the front of the house. I wrote down the plate number, got out of the car, and walked to the back, and there was this man, standing there, looking out onto the lake.”

“Did you know who it was?”

“Not at first. He was just standing there. He looked lost, like he was deep in thought. I called out to him, demanding to know what he was doing on my property. I told him to leave, but I don’t think he heard me. I saw my dog lying on the grass. She wasn’t moving. I kept walking toward him. He wasn’t a big man. He was small. I kept yelling out to him and got within a few feet when he finally turned around. I knew who he was. I was so scared.”

“Did he say anything to you?”

“Nothing. He just looked at me with this blank face, and walked right by me, got into his car, and drove away,” said Colquitt. “I ran into the house and called you.”

Becerra ran a check of the license plate number, and the car, a Saab, was registered to Robert Durst. The date, April 12, was of significance. It was Bobby’s birthday, and the day he married his long-lost wife, Kathie.

—

The flight from Denver landed in New York on June 10. As soon as Leonard Ammaturo exited the plane, he walked into the waiting arms of Joe Becerra, who handcuffed him and took him to Westchester County, charged with killing six Akitas, hanging them from a bicycle rack in his garage and then burying them.

Ammaturo was a dog breeder who had moved to Edwards, Colorado, in November 2000. Becerra had tracked him down, finding his Colorado phone number and calling him up in his home. Ammaturo acknowledged that he had killed the dogs. He said he couldn’t bring them with him to Colorado and didn’t know what to do.

Detectives in Colorado, at the behest of Becerra, interviewed Ammaturo, took his statement, and sent it back to New York. Becerra had his man.

A day after Ammaturo was arrested, a story appeared in the
Journal News
, the local newspaper in Westchester, citing Becerra’s investigation and crediting him with the arrest.

The story, short in length, nevertheless caught the attention of Jeanine Pirro, who was furious. She told her people to call reporters, informing them that
she
would be holding a press conference on Tuesday morning to announce the arrest of Leonard Ammaturo, which she did, telling the local media that Ammaturo was being charged with six counts of aggravated cruelty to animals.

Even though the victims were six dogs, it was still a gruesome, shocking crime and local residents were repulsed at the news that six innocent dogs had been strung up and hanged in a garage. Justice was demanded, and the credit for the arrest would go to Pirro, not some investigator with the New York State Police, even if it was the investigator who found the dogs, took them for autopsies, and tracked down their killer.

Still, it came as a great surprise to Becerra when he was informed that he would be working weekends that summer, that Pirro had called his superiors to remind them that she—and she alone—would speak to the media, that she alone would render justice in Westchester County, and that she alone would be credited for this, even in the case of six dead puppies.

Becerra reported to work the following Saturday afternoon.