Wednesday, May 14, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

COLUMN: John L. Smith

Killer of mafia daughter probably won't get justice, mob or otherwise

Susan Berman's killer might never be tried for her December 2000 murder, and that's a shame.

Robert Durst, the man suspected of shooting the former Las Vegas casino princess in the head, faces a full slate of felonies associated with two other homicides, including the death of his wife, Kathleen Durst, and the grisly death of 71-year-old Morris Black. Durst's murder trial was set to start this week in Galveston, Texas, but now faces more delays.

This side of a day of reckoning in court, those seeking justice for Berman have Las Vegas author Cathy Scott's "Murder of a Mafia Daughter: The Life and Tragic Death of Susan Berman," which nails Durst for the crime. With California authorities monitoring the Texas case, and New York authorities next in line, it's questionable whether they'll push hard to prosecute a man already on his way to life without.

That's where Scott comes in.

Scott, whose book on the murder of Tupac Shakur named the trigger man before some media clued in, attempts to render a sympathetic portrait of Berman. It isn't easy. Berman was talented, but she was eccentric and often took advantage of friends.

Berman came from what once passed for Vegas royalty. She grew up the daughter of green-felt privilege, and as a kid had the run of the house at the Flamingo.

She also idolized her father, a charming thug. Davie Berman had done penitentiary time and was a suspect in more than one murder before making the move west in the wake of Benny Siegel. Berman maintained his organized crime contacts beneath a facade of legitimacy common in that day.

Although Davie Berman died of a heart attack in 1957 when his daughter was 12, Susan Berman kept his spirit alive in her writing all her life. She lived off the mafia princess image, produced the poignant best-selling memoir "Easy Street," and parlayed her felonious family tree into a successful free-lance writing career.

Although Berman's paychecks ebbed, a lack of cash flow didn't prevent her from living in high style. She borrowed money from friends and admirers until both became neither. One of those intimates was Bobby Durst, whom she acknowledged in "Easy Street" as one of her "very special supportive friends."

Scott's book makes it clear Berman borrowed from the increasingly desperate Durst even as a New York district attorney's office crept closer to solving Kathleen Durst's disappearance. The so-called loans resembled extortion. Not long before she was slain, Berman received from Durst three checks totalling $100,000.

Durst, Scott contends, was hiding a dark secret that in a weak moment he had shared with Berman. That secret, which police believe was the admission that Durst had killed his wife, became Susan's ace in the hole.

In that regard, she was as calculating as her wiseguy father.

"I think Susan knew too much," Scott says. "From everything I can tell from talking to her friends, Susan couldn't help herself. She talked too much. Durst was worried about the investigation and what Susan might say about the investigation. She was in the way."

The Berman described by Scott was a skilled writer and journalist with a penchant for landing the big story. But, overall, the portrait isn't flattering. She was a former rich kid who lived off a trust fund, then sponged off friends when the easy money ran out. She won big jobs, but couldn't keep them.

And she never really got over being Davie Berman's Little Miss Marker.

The question now is, will someone pay for her murder?

Although Durst has an alibi, Scott's interview with attorney Dick DeGuerin revealed something she finds compelling: the admission that Durst was in California at the time of the slaying. Berman's medallion was in Durst's possession when he was arrested.

"All the evidence points to him," Scott says. "People would get mad at her and just walk away from her, but Bobby was worried about what she might be telling people."

Durst is a long way from trial in the Berman slaying, but Scott hounds him with the facts.

It might be his only conviction for the crime.

John L. Smith's column appears Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0295.