Andrew Jarecki On Getting Into The Darkish Thoughts Of Killer Robert Durst

Filmmaker Andrew Jarecki is aware of that voice intimately. It has seeped into his consciousness — the distinctive New York rasp of Robert Durst, scion of a robust New York actual property household and a person suspected of triple homicide.

“As soon as it’s in your head, you may’t eliminate it,” he says.

Jarecki has heard that voice too many instances to rely: In interviews, jail cellphone calls, wiretaps, voicemails — the persistent, insistent whine that conveyed to Durst accomplices, enablers, attorneys, “That is what I want from you.” And his signature sign-off, “Bye bye,” uttered nearly mechanically, however with an open-ended undertone that despatched a message: “Till the following factor I want from you.”

“His voice was a giant a part of this sort of hypnotic high quality of Bob,” says the director of The Jinx, elements 1 and a couple of. “He’s capable of exert dominance via his voice and thru his supply.”

That larynx, its mesmerizing drone, obtained individuals to do issues they may not in any other case have accomplished — funnel funds to Durst when he was on the run, say, or eliminate probably incriminating proof, overlook his sample of deceit and murder. Typically with the implicit promise of a payoff. Each time issues regarded grim for Bob, somebody all the time got here via.

His scenario regarded significantly dire after the airing of the unique Jinx in 2015. In a shocking scene in that sequence, Durst, unaware he could possibly be heard via a wi-fi mic, appeared to admit to offing three individuals — his first spouse, Kathie, his pal Susan Berman, and a neighbor in Galveston, Texas whose dismembered physique had been discovered bobbing in Galveston Bay. “What the hell did I do? Killed all of them, after all,” Durst whispered to himself with that nasal whine. Authorities, armed with that recording and extra important clues found by Jarecki, zeroed in on Durst, who was then residing in Houston. Again towards the wall, Durst used his powers of persuasion, and the purse, to enlist assistance from Chris Lovell, a man who, it simply so occurred, had served on the jury that acquitted Durst within the Galveston homicide trial. After the trial, capital homicide defendant and juror had grow to be buddies. Think about that!

“Lovell, the juror within the Galveston case who mainly obtained him off, then went on to assist him escape from his house in Houston and go on the run,” Jarecki remembers. “Chris Lovell and his spouse obtained greater than $700,000 from Bob for serving to.”

Susan Giordano, one other Durst pal, carried out comparable companies — ensuring he had entry to money when authorities have been in pursuit. He compensated her to the tune of $350,000. At Durst’s 2020 trial in Los Angeles for allegedly killing Berman — his closest pal — the chief prosecutor questioned Giordano concerning the association.

“Your relationship consists of you and Bob speaking and him sending you a lot of cash?” Deputy D.A. John Lewin requested her. Giordano replied, “We additionally went to dinner.”

Half 1 of The Jinx, which gained the Emmy for Excellent Documentary or Nonfiction Collection, was all about Durst and the query of whether or not he would face justice after individuals near him saved being murdered or disappearing. Half 2, additionally nominated in that prestigious Emmy class, expands the lens to look at these in Durst’s orbit — alleged aiders and abettors like Giordano, buddies Stewart and Emily Altman, and his second spouse, Debrah Lee Charatan.

“This story was about pulling the digital camera again and taking a look at this constellation of individuals. It wasn’t simply, can Bob Durst maintain one other six episodes? It was actually, can the world that Bob Durst created for himself maintain our curiosity?” Jarecki explains. “And I feel the reply to that’s we’re fascinated by seeing ourselves on movie. And once you see individuals committing acts or serving to anyone do some very unhealthy issues, it forces you to ask your self these questions. It forces you to say, ‘What would I’ve accomplished in that scenario?’ And that’s when it begins to get actually fascinating for me.”

The query of complicity is well timed proper now, Jarecki maintains, pointing to those that surrounded a sure former president of the US whereas he was in workplace.

“You’ve obtained individuals saying, ‘Nicely, I wasn’t the one which did that factor. I used to be one of many guardrails. I wasn’t there separating youngsters from their mother and father on the border. I used to be one of many grownups. I used to be making an attempt to forestall it from being actually unhealthy.’ Oh, actually? However you have been accepting the title. You have been accepting a authorities job, you have been accepting your affiliation with this regime, and but by some means you got here up with a method of explaining it to your self or your children that it was OK,” Jarecki fees. “And that’s what we noticed in The Jinx. You see individuals like Susie Giordano or the Altmans simply actually going to the mat for Bob once they should have identified that Bob was committing murders.”

Jarecki’s journey with Durst, his plunge into the person’s “life and deaths” (to cite the sequence’ subtitle), started nearly 20 years in the past. As a local New Yorker himself, he was nicely acquainted with Durst’s repute.

“Bob Durst was a man who had been suspected again in 1982 of killing his spouse, Kathie, after which was form of floating round city,” he remembers. “And each time he would present up someplace, there’d be somewhat buzz about him as a result of he appeared to be a man who obtained away with killing his spouse.”

Flash ahead to the 12 months 2000 when then-Westchester County D.A. Jeanine Pirro (sure, that Jeanine Pirro) reopened the case into Kathie Durst’s disappearance. She took curiosity in Berman, who had acted as a spokesperson for Durst after his spouse went lacking, and seemingly had supplied him with an alibi. Durst, probably catching wind of this, despatched his pal Berman $50,000. Was it to purchase her silence? Regardless of the case, her silence turned assured after her physique was found in her Los Angeles dwelling, her cranium shattered by a bullet to the pinnacle.

After Berman’s loss of life, Durst hid out in Galveston, disguising himself as a mute lady. Loads of uncooked materials there for a screenplay. Jarecki turned the twisted story into the narrative movie All Good Issues, starring Ryan Gosling as a personality very very like Durst, and Kirsten Dunst as somebody very a lot resembling Kathie Durst, the spouse who disappeared.

“I assumed, nicely, let’s return to the very starting of this relationship in the beginning turned this darkish burlesque present, and let’s attempt to determine what that relationship was all about, therefore the casting of Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst,” Jarecki says. “It began with my curiosity in making an attempt to unravel who this inscrutable particular person was and the place he got here from and what these early days have been like.”

Jarecki had reached out to Durst throughout pre-production on All Good Issues, however the centimillionaire (because the director calls him) rebuffed him. Then, in the future, the filmmaker discovered himself on the opposite finish of the road from that hypnotic New York rasp. 

“He known as me out of the blue and he stated, ‘I’ve been listening to good issues about this film. I do know you known as me just a few years in the past… I didn’t know what you have been engaged on. Now it’s clear you’ve accomplished one thing that’s considerate. You’ve accomplished your homework; you’ve accomplished your analysis. I’d wish to see the film.’ After which we agreed to let him see the movie,” Jarecki remembers. “And that’s finally what led to the interviews, which turned the muse of The Jinx.”

If Durst had resisted the urge to speak to Jarecki — if he had simply saved silent, as he had satisfied so many others to do — he may by no means have gone earlier than a jury within the killing of Susan Berman. Who is aware of, he may even be alive. (He died in January 2022, lower than a 12 months after he was convicted of first-degree homicide within the loss of life of Berman). Jarecki discovered of Durst’s loss of life whereas in the course of an interview for The Jinx Half 2; cameras captured his response as he took the decision informing him {that a} coronary heart assault had introduced an abrupt finish to Durst’s life sentence.

“It was somewhat perplexing as a result of I needed to ask myself how I felt about it, and my feelings have been extra difficult,” he says. “There’s no query that I deliberately labored to verify legislation enforcement had the fabric they wanted to convey him to trial and finally convict him. That was a choice I by no means questioned. And but attending to know him the best way that I did and seeing that he’s a really broken particular person, it was simply extraordinarily unhappy. I didn’t suppose to myself, ‘Nicely, he obtained his.’ I actually thought, this was such a missed alternative. This was a man who had all of the sources on the planet, completely had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, had entry to any occupation he wished, and he might have spent his time, I don’t know, getting unfairly convicted individuals exonerated; he might have spent his time constructing homeless shelters along with his cash, and by some means he couldn’t discover his solution to that form of occupation. And all that ended up taking place was he form of ate himself up… I simply considered the chance he had squandered.”

After practically twenty years on the path of Robert Durst, the saga is receding within the rear view. Jarecki has shifted his focus to a different mission that appears to tingle with intrigue.

“We’ve been engaged on a feature-length documentary for the final 5 and a half years that I might say is confidential… as a result of it’s a risky topic and it’s one thing that we’ve wanted to research in an undercover method,” he says. “It’s a very totally different mission about one thing that’s disturbing and interesting.”

Of his course of, Jarecki says this: “I really feel like I wander round, and I’ve numerous curiosity, and I discuss to lots of people and tales emerge… Issues cross your path, and should you’re fortunate, you discover.”

He provides, “Our job as storytellers is to attempt to be open and take a look at to soak up these little hints and clues and take a look at to attract out tales which might be going to inform us one thing about human beings.”