(Bloomberg)—Robert Durst’s former in-laws filed a wrongful death lawsuit against his estate, just four decades after the deceased real estate heiress and convicted murderer allegedly killed his first wife.
Four siblings of Kathleen Durst filed a federal lawsuit on Monday in White Plains, New York, claiming that Robert Durst killed his sister in January. 31, 1982, when she was 29 years old. The suit, which seeks unspecified damages, says that his “wrong, felony and tortuous conduct was the direct cause of Cathy’s death.”
Kathleen Durst, a medical student, went missing after leaving the couple’s home in South Salem, New York. He was later pronounced dead, though his body was never found. Her family filed a wrongful death lawsuit in 2015 following the release of a documentary film that presented evidence linking Durst to the shooting death of her longtime friend Susan Berman in 2000 and included her candid confession .
The plaintiffs in the wrongful death trial are Kathleen Durst’s sister, Carol Bamonte, who serves as administrator of her estate, and siblings James McCormack, Virginia McConn and Mary Hughes, who serves as administrator of her mother’s estate. .
Robert Durst’s family manages approximately 15 million square feet of major office and retail space in New York City and was one of the developers of One World Trade Center. He was found guilty of murdering Berman in Beverly Hills, California in September after he helped cover up the murder of his first wife. In October, Durst was convicted of Kathleen’s death after prosecutors reopened the cold case. He died of cardiac arrest in a California hospital in early January.
Durst was accused of murdering Berman on the eve of the last episode of the documentary, “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, during which he confessed off-camera to killing both women. Kathleen Durst’s The estate filed a similar lawsuit in March 2019 in a New York state court, which was dismissed until criminal charges were filed against Robert Durst.
The case is Bamonte v. Chartan, 22-CV-795, US District Court, Southern District of New York (White Plains).
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