“The State of Texas vs. Robert Durst”

Okay, this is just astounding.

This episode featured the trial of Robert Durst in Galveston, Texas on the murder of Morris Black, Durst’s neighbor while he was hiding out in Galveston, pretending to be a woman.

There are so many unbelievable things that happened during the trial that would lead to his being found “not guilty” that it is difficult to understand how it could happen. The thing is as you are watching this trial unfold, including Durst’s own testimony on the stand, you can see why the jury made this remarkably unpopular verdict, freeing the NYC billionaire in what seemed to be a slam dunk case.

I may have missed this, but why in God’s name did the prosecutors in Galveston not include charges against Durst for cutting up the body, destroying evidence or anything else along with the murder charge? By not charging him with these other offenses, they gave Robert Durst a clever way to get away with what he had done.

The fact was that no one could conceivably say that how the event in the room happened. Was it a murder-execution style or was it an accidental death coming from self-defense? Once Robert explained the decapitation part, in a way that made somewhat of a sense, the jury only could decide whether Robert had committed murder. They could not determine if he had cut up the body and disposed of the evidence. None of that was relevant to this case because there were no charges stemming from that.

That entire jury may have believed that he had killed Morris, but there was no proof that he had done so.

The creators of the docuseries added something at the end of this episode that is foreshadowing the bombshell that would be dropped at the end of the series. Andrew Jarecki had asked Robert if he needed a break and during the break, Durst was practicing what he was going to say, which was being picked up on his hot mike.

Durst said, “I did not knowingly purposefully lie. I did not knowingly purposefully lie. I did not knowingly, purposefully, intentionally lie. I did make mistakes.“

I literally shook from this. Durst is such a chilling, manipulative person and his words both at trial and the interview with Jarecki is what makes this more than just any true crime story.

And by the way, why does nobody ask Durst what happened to the head?

This is amazing. I remember how much this stuck with me after the first watch and it absolutely holds up and a compelling piece of drama.