Robert Durst’s Female Victims Get Spotlight In Peacock Limited Series In Development From Dara Resnik
EXCLUSIVE: A new true crime series is in early development spotlighting the points of view of Robert Durst’s female victims and the investigators who believed he was a more prolific serial killer than the world ever knew, sources reveal to Deadline.
From UCP, a division of Universal Studio Group, for Peacock, the untitled project hails from writer, showrunner and executive producer Dara Resnik (Home Before Dark, The Horror of Dolores Roach). She also exec produces with Jimmy Fox and Emily Bon for Main Event Media and Matt Birkbeck.
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Durst was charged with the murders of his ex-wife Kathleen McCormack, his friend Susan Berman and neighbor Morris Black but served very little jail time. As the heir to successful real estate investor Seymour Durst, Robert Durst had extensive amounts of money at his disposal.
McCormack went missing on January 31, 1982, with Durst saying he put her on a train to New York City and never saw her again. She was legally declared dead in 2016 but it would take another 5 years before he was officially charged with her death. However, her body was never recovered.
Berman and Durst were tight associates with the former giving the latter an alibi in the disappearance of his ex-wife. On December 24, 2000, Berman was discovered at her Benedict Canyon home killed execution style. Durst revealed in a deposition that Berman told him police were interested in interviewing her after they reopened McCormack’s case. It is believed Berman, Durst’s confidante, knew too much about McCormack’s death.
Durst admitted to killing his neighbor Black in self-defense and was found not guilty by a jury. However, he pleaded guilty to charges involving evidence tampering—he dismembered Black’s body and dumped it into Galveston Bay—and violating his parole. Following a plea deal, he served around 4 years.
In 2015, the HBO documentary The Jinx premiered with six episodes giving insight into Durst’s lengthy conversations which spanned years with director Andrew Jarecki, who was also behind the feature film All Good Things inspired by the killer’s life. In a now infamous moment, Durst takes a break from shooting a follow-up interview not realizing his mic was still on. “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course,” Durst said.
Following his accidental confession, he was convicted of first-degree murder in connection to Berman and received a life sentence in 2021. Additionally, Durst was charged with McCormack’s murder but died in 2022 before going to trial.
Resnik, alongside Dana Fox, co-created the Apple TV+ series Home Before Dark. Most recently, Resnik served as the showrunner of Prime Video’s The Horror of Dolores Roach starring Justina Machado. She has previously written and produced on shows such as Pushing Daisies, Castle, Jane the Virgin, Daredevil and Marvel’s Echo.
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