The Jinx: How HBO Caught a Billionaire's Dark Secrets
Andrew Jarecki's documentary series exposed Robert Durst's suspected involvement in three deaths—and captured his accidental confession on film
Andrew Jarecki's The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst arrived on HBO on February 8, 2015, as a meticulously researched documentary that would reshape the true crime landscape. The six-episode series, produced alongside Oscar nominee Marc Smerling, emerged from nearly a decade of investigation—drawing on police files, witness interviews, never-before-seen footage, private prison recordings, and thousands of pages of previously hidden documents.
The documentary's genesis traces back to Jarecki's 2010 feature film All Good Things, which starred Ryan Gosling and explored Durst's life. That project led to an extended interview with Durst himself, igniting Jarecki's broader investigation into the man and the three deaths that defined his legacy.
**The Three Cases**
The first shadow over Durst's life is the 1982 disappearance of his wife, Kathie Durst, a medical student at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. Though long suspected of involvement, Durst was never charged, and the case remains officially unsolved—a thread The Jinx revisited in Season 2.
The second case examined is the 2000 murder of Susan Berman, a writer and family friend who was executed-style killed in her Los Angeles home. For decades, this remained cold; the documentary suggested a motive linked to the Kathie Durst disappearance. In 2021, a jury convicted Durst of Berman's murder—a verdict that vindicated years of investigation.
The third involves Morris Black, Durst's neighbor in Galveston, Texas, who died in 2001 in circumstances that included dismemberment. During this period, Durst was living in Texas as a mute woman. Though he confessed to Black's death, he claimed self-defense and was acquitted at trial.
