When journalist and author Susan Berman was found murdered inside her Beverly Hills home in 2000, some suspected she had been shot by mobsters. Instead, the killer was her best friend — real estate heir Robert Durst.
HBOSusan Berman with Robert Durst, her best friend and murderer.
Susan Berman was a journalist, author, and daughter of a Las Vegas mobster. Her childhood was marked with both excitement and danger, which later led to her passionate pursuit of storytelling.
While studying journalism at the University of California, Los Angeles, Berman crossed paths with real estate heir Robert Durst. The two became such close friends that Berman emerged as his unofficial spokesperson and fiercest defender when his wife, Kathleen McCormack, mysteriously disappeared from Westchester County, New York in 1982.
Years later, Berman’s friendship with Durst led to her murder in Beverly Hills on December 23, 2000, after authorities in New York reopened the McCormack case and became interested in speaking with Berman again.
It’s believed that she was finally about to cooperate with the authorities and tell them everything she knew — which likely spelled her doom.
Life As A Mobster’s Daughter
Berman FamilySusan Berman with her parents.
Susan Berman was born on May 18, 1945, in Minneapolis, Minnesota to mobster David Berman and tap dancer Gladys Berman. The family ended up relocating to Las Vegas when Susan was just two months old.
Berman grew up under unique circumstances, especially since her father took over the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas after gangster Bugsy Siegel’s death in 1947. Though her father had previously been active in Jewish American organized crime in both Minneapolis and Sioux City, Iowa, his newfound control in Las Vegas gave him more power than he ever had before.
As a child, Susan Berman was treated like mob royalty, and stars like Elvis Presley and Liberace regularly performed at her birthday parties. She saw nothing unusual about all the kidnapping-prevention drills she had to do.
Berman FamilyFrom right to left: David Berman, Gladys Berman, and David’s brother Chickie Berman in Cuba in 1940.
When she was 12 years old, Susan Berman’s father died while undergoing surgery. And just a couple of years later, Berman’s mother died by suicide.
She went to live with her uncle Chickie Berman in Idaho and attended boarding schools before moving to Los Angeles for college in the 1960s.
While attending UCLA, Berman met real estate heir Robert Durst. He was the first-born son of Seymour Durst, the owner of the Durst Organization real estate company in New York City. Like Berman, he came from wealth and had also lost his mother to suicide. In Los Angeles, the two became very close friends — which would eventually prove deadly for Berman.
Susan Berman’s Emergence In The Writing World
Jeff RaynerSusan Berman’s 1967 UCLA graduation photo.
Susan Berman graduated from UCLA in 1967 and immediately continued her education by attending graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley. She soon received a master’s degree in journalism in 1969.
Meanwhile, despite having no direct involvement in the mob, Berman received millions from organized crime groups in Las Vegas. In total, Berman received $4.3 million, apparently an inheritance from her father.
Instead of entering organized crime herself, she used this money to fulfill her dream of becoming a writer. According to the Online Nevada Encyclopedia, Berman’s first big break came with her 1975 article in the City of San Francisco Magazine titled, “San Francisco, City of Sin: Why Can’t I Get Laid?”
A year later, Berman wrote a novel titled Driver, Give a Soldier a Lift in Israel after suffering a nervous breakdown. Though writing gave her great joy, she continued to suffer from anxieties throughout her life, including a fear of heights that prevented her from staying above the third floor at any hotel.
Berman FamilySusan Berman eventually built up a reputation as a respected journalist and author.
She later went on to publish numerous articles in New York magazine, where she gained a reputation as a clever and “sassy” writer.
Perhaps her most famous piece was a memoir about her childhood as the daughter of a mobster, titled Easy Street: The True Story of a Mob Family.
As she published more and more pieces, she steadily gained respect as a writer, and in 1996, she was even nominated for a Writers Guild of America award for her work on the A&E documentary The Real Las Vegas.
At the time of her death in 2000, Berman was living in Beverly Hills and working on an original series that would’ve been titled Sin City.
Susan Berman’s Relationship With Robert Durst
Berman FamilyRobert Durst and Susan Berman at her wedding to “Mister” Margulies in 1984. Margulies overdosed two years later.
Susan Berman’s relationship with Robert Durst was by all reports incredibly close. According to LAist, Berman referred to Durst as her brother.
Durst had even walked Berman down the aisle during her wedding to Christopher “Mister” Margulies in June 1984. (Margulies overdosed just two years later.) Andrew Jarecki, the director of the Robert Durst documentary The Jinx, said this to the Los Angeles Times about Durst and Berman:
“It’s really clear that he loved her, platonically. I’ve always seen that relationship as demi-romantic in that it was never an overtly romantic relationship. But I have to assume that she was in love with him. First of all, women love Bob. I don’t know that all women love Bob, but certainly some women love Bob a lot, and he’s had no trouble attracting women. I always felt that Susan had a thing for Bob and at some level figured maybe they would end up together when he was finished with all of this gallivanting around.”
By the early 1990s, Berman found herself struggling financially. Much of her trust fund and mob money was gone, likely due to her lavish lifestyle and her various professional projects that never panned out.
“Susan always was optimistic,” remembered Stephen M. Silverman, a friend of Berman’s. “There was always a Major Project around the corner.”
Shortly before her death, Durst sent her $50,000. Although it seemed like a generous favor between friends, the truth was likely much darker.
Susan Berman’s Death At The Hands Of Robert Durst — And The Turbulent Aftermath
HBORobert Durst wasn’t convicted of Susan Berman’s murder until 2021.
Susan Berman’s demise arguably began right after the sudden disappearance of Kathleen McCormack, Robert Durst’s wife.
Durst and McCormack had numerous issues for most of their nine-year marriage, including Durst being physically abusive toward McCormack and forcing her to get an abortion. And then, on January 31, 1982, McCormack vanished in New York. To this day, authorities haven’t found any sign of her. Durst later divorced her on the grounds of “spousal abandonment” and insisted that he had nothing to do with her disappearance.
Meanwhile, Susan Berman spoke publicly in defense of Durst. As an influential journalist, Berman became his unofficial spokesperson in the press, carefully arranging interviews with the media and even suggesting that McCormack had run off with another man (perhaps taking advantage of the fact that both McCormack and Durst had affairs during the marriage).
With no body, the case went cold and stayed that way until November 2000, when the Westchester County District Attorney ordered investigators to reopen the file, convinced that McCormack had been a victim of homicide.
Considering the fact that Berman had been so close to the missing woman’s husband, it was only a matter of time before law enforcement reached out to her. Now, some believe that Berman was finally ready to tell the truth about Durst to the police after years of covering for him.
Chillingly, in December 2000, Berman was found shot “execution-style” at her Beverly Hills home. And local police soon received a letter that simply read “CADAVER” under Berman’s address. This letter would later be linked to Durst, who often misspelled “Beverly Hills” as “Beverley Hills” — the same error that the letter’s author made in the note’s address.
Many theories emerged about who could’ve been behind Berman’s murder. Some initially believed that it could’ve been a mob hit — after all, she was certainly revealing a lot of information about her life as a mobster’s daughter. Other theories focused on her landlord or business manager. Durst’s name came up, but he was not initially charged with her death.
HBO Documentary Films/Hit The Ground Running Films/Blumhouse/Album/Alamy Stock PhotoAfter years of covering his tracks, Robert Durst accidentally incriminated himself during the filming of the 2015 HBO docuseries The Jinx, which helped lead to his conviction for the murder of Susan Berman.
Meanwhile, in 2001, Durst was linked to yet another death, his elderly neighbor in Texas, Morris Black. Though Durst admitted to killing Black, he claimed that it was self-defense — and since he was able to afford some of the best lawyers in the state, he was ultimately acquitted of murder in 2003.
For a while, it seemed like Durst had gotten away with everything. But in the end, his own arrogance became his undoing. After the release of the film All Good Things, which was based on Robert Durst and his relationship with Kathleen McCormack, in 2010, Durst contacted the filmmaker, Andrew Jarecki, about doing a documentary about his real-life story.
During the filming of the 2015 docuseries, titled The Jinx, new evidence emerged in the Berman case, including a sample of Durst’s handwriting that matched the “cadaver note.” Durst also confessed to lying to authorities during the initial investigation of the McCormack case. He was even caught on a hot mic saying, “What the hell did I do?… Killed them all, of course.”
While The Jinx was still in the process of airing in 2015, the 71-year-old Durst was arrested and charged with the murder of Berman. He went on trial in 2021 and was ultimately found guilty of killing his friend. He was sentenced to life in prison, and he was also charged with the murder of McCormack. However, he died at age 78 in 2022 before that trial could happen.
For Berman’s loved ones, justice for her murder didn’t come nearly soon enough. Sareb Kaufman, who saw her as a mother figure after his father dated her, said, “It’s been a daily, soul-consuming, and crushing experience. I’ve lost everything many times over because of him.” And one of Berman’s relatives said he visited her grave just to tell her she could now “rest easy.”
After reading about Susan Berman, check out some colorized photos from the early days of organized crime in America. Then, go inside the bloody rise and fall of Bugsy Siegel, the gangster who helped build Las Vegas.
