Extraordinary story of a millionaire Robert Derstya

For such in Soviet newspapers there were special section: “their morals” or “in the world of capital”. The story of Robert Derst - the atypical “sharks of capitalism” - in America is replicated by the “Yellow Press” sold at the cash desks of the Supremarkets, is reflected in the Hollywood film and the documentary: “Curse and the death of Robert Tryst”.

"Problem Millionaire"

The irony of fate-in the past, the heir to the multi-billion dollar empire of New York real estate died at the age of 78 in the medical institution of the California correctional institutions. Necrologues were published by leading American newspapers, they are read as a script for a detective series. For decades, battleship faced the investigation of the disappearance of his wife, the murder of his long-standing girlfriend, his former press secretary, and murders with the dismemberment of a neighbor in the night. Millions of dollars allowed him to hire the best lawyers, he successfully hid from the police, but met the end of his life behind bars.

Robert Alan Derst was born on April 12, 1943 in New York and was the eldest of four children in a family of real estate merchants, who stood on a par with the largest developers of New York: Trumps, Zecendorfs and Helmsley. His paternal grandfather, Joseph, a tailor from Poland, emigrated in 1902 and paved his way to the management of commercial and residential buildings on Manhattan. Robert, who friends called Bobby, grew up in the rich suburb of Westchester. The first -born, from a young age, became the most restless member of the family - a rebel and outsider.

As Washington Post notes, he constantly quarreled with his younger brother Douglas, who subsequently led a family empire bypassing his seniority. He was socially awkward, muttered something under his breath, bummed noisily in public and urinated in office garbage baskets. In other circumstances, he could be courteous and extremely generous. He handed out thousands of dollars to his friends, attended ballet and arranged parties in the famous Studio 54 disco club and other hot spots of Manhattan in the 70s. Master of camouflage and pseudonyms, he had a collection of wigs and masks with him and impersoned fictional personalities, but also used the names of classmates from high school. Once he falsely stated that he had two doctoral degrees.

“Bob is not capable of telling the truth,” said his brother Douglas bat in an interview with New York Times in 2015. “He is a real psychopath, without any emotions.”

Already in the mature years, Robert claimed that at seven he saw his mother fell from the roof of a family mansion. His brother Douglas said that none of the children witnessed death and that Robert used the tragedy to be more sympathetic at the trial. Death, according to relatives, was suicide, she left Robert emotionally injured. He went through a psychiatric consultation to control the outbreaks of anger.

At the age of 10, he was diagnosed with personality and, possibly, even schizophrenia, ”but, as his supporters say (such an outstanding personality on the local social networks found many fans), the then methodology for determining mental development is hopelessly outdated. Another version - Robert was struck by Asperger's syndrome. However, it was officially recognized by the court.

The victims of Robert Derst

In 1965, a battery received a degree in economics at the University of Lihai in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and then entered the University of California in Los Angeles for work in graduate school. There he met Susan Berman, a beginning writer, whose father worked for the famous mafiosi from Nevada Bugsi Siegel.

Between Bobby and Susan, immediate and powerful chemistry arose. Her mother also committed suicide, and her father died in the hospital when she was 12 years old. Although the relationship, according to the media, were platonic, they lasted for many years. Susan Berman defended Robert from accusations of the murder of his wife-the first death associated with the name of the bath, becoming his "informal spokesman."

In his youth, the behavior of the battery often seemed to be just impulsive and eccentric. After two dates, he invited Kathleen McCormak, a neighbor from a family of Irish Catholics of medium wealth, who lived in one of the houses belonging to the Fleet family, to move with him to Vermont, where he opened a healthy food store. They lived modestly, settled in the hippie area and traveled to Volkswagen-Zhuk. A year later, his father insisted that he return to New York and join the family business. The couple got married in 1973. She was 19 years old; He was nine years older. Robert made a party at Studio 54, on a wedding trip they recovered on a cruise on the Mediterranean Sea, and then to Thailand. Return to the family business did not set. A poorly suitable for this work and more and more removing from his brothers, sisters and father (it was then noticed that he was urinated directly into the office garbage baskets), Robert eventually agreed to leave the family fund, receiving 65 million dollars for this. The marriage also collapsed.

Immediately after the Christmas of 1981, Kathleen, ending with a hygienist, an assistant dentist, got into a New York hospital with bruises on her face and head. According to hospital records, injuries, according to her, were inflicted on her husband. According to her family, earlier Robert forced her to have an abortion. A month after the recorded injuries, it disappeared. The body was never found. A battery, who announced his wife’s disappearance in the police five days later, claimed that he had taken her from the house in South Salem to the Katon station and saw how she sat on a train going to Manhattan, where she had classes at a medical school the next day. He said that he had returned, drank with his neighbors, and later contacted his wife on the phone, she was in their penthouse on Riverside Drive in Manhattan. The recordings of phone calls did not show calls from home in South Salem to their penthouse that night. Freeze said he called from an automatic phone when he walked the dog. But the nearest Automatic phone was a few miles, and the night was rainy and cold. The neighbors said that they could not remember that that night they drank with him.

The story is reflected in the 2010 film “All Good Things) (Slogan“ An ideal love story. Until a crime ”), where Ryan Gosling plays, and his wife is Kirsten Dunst. “All the best” - that was the name of their family store in Vermont.

In 1990, Robert achieved a divorce, saying that his wife had not been found left him. Ten years later, against the backdrop of a new investigation of the disappearance of Kathleen, the battery married the development of Debre Charratan, she controlled his financial affairs, and also became the heiress of his condition. However, they rarely lived together, and in the media called a marriage fictitious.

The next death occurred in 2000. In her house, Susan Berman was found with a bullet wound in the head, a woman, according to neighbors, who never let strangers into her house. Just before this, there were reports that the authorities of the Westchert, the state of New York, resumed an investigation of an undisclosed case of the disappearance of the first wife of Derst. Next, I refer to the data of the court in the murder of the Berman, which took place only in 2020 (and the battery was arrested in 2015). During the trial in Los Angeles, the prosecutors claimed that Berman admitted that he had killed his wife, and she helped him in concealing the crime. The prosecutor's office claimed that Berman shot a bat, because she decided to tell everything to the investigators. At the trial, Nick Chavin, a longtime friend of Derst, showed that in a conversation on the street in New York in 2014, he admitted that Berman killed, saying: “Such a situation was: she or me. I had no choice. "

The prosecutor's office called 80 witnesses and presented about 300 material evidence. But the accused himself provided the main evidence against himself.

But about that - a little later.

In 2001, 71-year-old Morris Black, a former trading sailor, was killed in Galveston with a shot in the head. None other than Robert Dear was his next night neighbor. He lived in the image of ... a dumb woman. One night, two men argued, Mr. Durta pulled out a 22-caliber gun, and they grabbed the weapon. According to Mr. Derst, they fell to the floor, the gun shot, and the bullet hit Mr. Black in the face, killing him. The battery cut off his head, dismembered the victim and threw the parts of the body into the bay. Arrested on charges of murder, he refused his bail and disappeared. After a 45-day hunt, he was caught in the Pennsylvania supermarket for the theft of a chicken sandwich. In his rented car, the police discovered two pistols, 37 thousand dollars in cash, marijuana and Black's driver’s license. At the trial in 2003, he claimed that he acted for self -defense and got rid of his body, and then fled in a panic, fearing that no one would believe his history. It was justified, including thanks to skillful lawyers.

Self -disclosure

And finally, the finale of this story. In 2015, the director of the feature film about Dins, Andrew Jrekes, shot a 6-series documentary series for the HBO channel about him. For the reasons incomprehensible to the end (let psychologists understand) a bat, who never collaborated with journalists or directors, agreed to act and gave a total of a 20-hour interview in which he expressed jraxes in admiration for his work. In the last interview, Jrekes presented two envelopes for a money. One is the letter of Freech Berman in 1999, and the other is a note to the Los Angeles police, where the anonymous told the detectives where to find her body. The handwriting expert said that both were written by one person. In both, the word “Beverly-Hills” is incorrectly written, it would seem, irrefutable proof that he had killed Ms. Berman.

After the interview, the shocked Mr. Dirt went to the bathroom, not suspecting that his wireless microphone was still turned on, and made an incoherent recognition behind the scenes, having finished with the words: “What the hell did I do? He killed them all, of course. "

Later, his lawyers admitted that he wrote a “note about a corpse”, but insisted that she proves only what he knew about the murder, and not that he committed him. And the record shown in the film was shifted. “I killed them all” was inserted at the very end, the producer admitted to finish the series on a dramatic note.

The filming group before the air of the last series reported to the police that she had a recognition of the murder. Fearing that he could escape from the country, the agents arrested him a few hours before the air. He lived in New Orleans under a pseudonym and was detained for extradition in Los Angeles. Louisiana police charged him with illegal possession of weapons and the extradition procedure in another state, and then the pandemic only delayed the final. The jury of the Supreme Court of Los Angeles found Fraud to be guilty of murder of the first degree. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole and soon after that was hospitalized after a positive result of the covid-19 test. Before his death, he underwent several difficult operations, as if confirming the correctness of those who believe in karma.

However, paradoxically, the only criminal record of the millionaire accused of the murders of three people can also be removed. According to the laws of the state of California, due to the fact that the appellation of the battery did not manage to consider, the state’s appeal courts can reject it, but at the same time order the court of first instance to cancel the sentence. In any case, the family of his missing wife Kathleen McCormak-decisions never waited for justice after 40 years. Freech did not live to a trial on the main charges of his life.