When I started watching HBO’s The Jinx, I never expected it to make such compelling television. I certainly didn’t expect the program to do what multiple police departments had failed to do, which is to prove that Robert Durst is guilty of committing one of the two murders he is suspected in but hasn’t admitted to committing. Of course, Durst has been acquitted of killing a man in Galveston, Texas, despite the fact that he chopped up his body, put the pieces in garbage bags, and threw them in the bay.
If there is one main factor that makes The Jinx so interesting, it’s the enthusiastic participation of Durst in the production. In fact, the show was basically his idea. He sits for multiple interviews. He goes on location shoots. He discusses the details of all three murder investigations, as well as his legal defenses, his childhood, and the figures in his incredibly powerful family. And, yet, he probably never suspected that he would enable the show’s sleuths to find evidence that compellingly ties him to the death of Susan Berman. But that’s what happened, as was shown in last Sunday’s episode.
I’m not going to recount all the details here. The short version is that shortly after Berman was killed, the Beverly Hills police received a letter in the mail that was written in block letters and said that there was a “cadaver” at Berman’s address. The only real clue in the letter was in the spelling: “Beverly” was spelled “Beverley.”
That clue remained dormant, however, until recently:
Then, in last Sunday’s penultimate installment, Berman’s adopted son Sareb Kaufman found a long-forgotten letter from Durst to Berman with the address written in block capitals, just like the cadaver note, and the Beverly in Beverly Hills misspelled in exactly the same way, with an extra “e”.
It appears that no one from the program told the police (or Durst) that this letter had been found prior to the show airing on Sunday. But the evidence is so damning that the Los Angeles District Attorney immediately announced that they are reopening the investigation.
I have no idea how Robert Durst will explain that he sent the cadaver note or if this piece of evidence alone will be enough to convict him. If you’re familiar with the case, however, there really isn’t much doubt.
What I don’t understand is how a man can attend UCLA for any period of time, as Durst did as a graduate student, and not know how to spell the name of the adjacent city, Beverly Hills.
Berman, of course, was the daughter of one of the mobsters who founded Las Vegas, while the Durst family manages Freedom Tower at the new World Trade Center.
Suffice to say, The Jinx is not your ordinary television entertainment.
