By John Springer
Court TV
Robert Durst, the fugitive millionaire who jumped bail October 10 after being charged with dismembering his elderly neighbor in Texas, was apprehended in Pennsylvania on Friday, a day before his case was to be featured on "America's Most Wanted."
Durst, 58, had been the subject of a nationwide manhunt since posting bail and leaving Galveston, Texas, for parts unknown. But it was a Band-Aid and a hoagie that led to the fugitive's undramatic capture at about 12:45 p.m. in the town where he once attended college.
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| Robert Durst, as he appeared October 9 when Galveston police charged him with killing Morris Black |
Durst, whose head had been shaved in an apparent attempt to change his appearance, was captured in a Bethlehem, Pa., chain grocery store. Employees at Wegman's said that Durst appeared nervous when security guards followed him out of the store and confronted him about a Band-Aid taken out of a box. Later, they found a sandwich and a newspaper that also had not been paid for, police said.
"I guess we were a little more successful with freezing his bank accounts than we realized," said Galveston Lt. Michael Putnal, who supervised the murder investigation. Police had frozen nearly $2 million in a bank account Durst kept in New Jersey.
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| Durst is accused of killing neighbor Morris Black, above. |
"We're relieved that he is no longer in the community representing a threat to anyone else," Putnal said.
Although he benefits from a trust fund that reportedly pays him $3 million a year, Durst was living in a $300 a month apartment with no phone in Galveston when the body parts of his neighbor, Morris Black, were discovered in bags floating in Galveston Bay on September 30.
Durst told police in 1982 that he last saw his wife when he put her on a New York-bound commuter train from Katonah, N.Y. For years, police believed that the attractive, fourth-year medical student had made it back to her apartment in New York and disappeared there. In recent years, however, they have been investigating the possibility that she never got on a train.
 | | Kathie Durst |
Durst, the son of a prominent New York skyscraper builder, had long-since stopped cooperating with New York State police detectives when last year they jump-started an investigation into the 1982 disappearance of Durst's 29-year-old wife, Kathleen.
New York police had planned to reinterview Los Angeles writer Susan Berman, a close friend of Durst, last December about his wife's death, but they did not get the chance before Berman was found dead in her apartment. She had been shot execution-style with a 9 mm handgun.
Los Angeles police have refused to disclose whether ballistic tests done on a similar gun found in Durst's possession when he was arrested in Galveston matched the bullets recovered from Berman's body.
Colonial Regional Police Det. Gary Hammer said that when Durst was taken into custody on the shoplifting charge, he gave police his name, birthdate and an address in New York. A routine computer check disclosed that Durst was wanted in Galveston for bail-jumping and by the FBI for interstate flight to avoid prosecution, Hammer told Court TV.
"We asked him, 'Are you wanted for murder?'" Hammer said. "He said, 'I'm not saying nothing until I speak to a lawyer."
Among other things, detectives are curious about where Durst got the rented 1996 red Chevrolet Corsica he drove to Wegman's, as well as how he paid for it. Police are holding it for Galveston investigators to examine.
Durst was ordered held without bail at his arraignment in Pennsylvania. Lawyers for the Durst family trust and Durst's second wife 44-year-old New York real estate agent Debrah Lee Charatan contacted police in Pennsylvania Friday.
Durst married Charatan January 11 but it is unclear whether the marriage is legal because Kathleen Durst was never officially pronounced dead.
Durst is being held at the Northampton County Prison in Easton, Pa., pending an extradition hearing. His lawyers could not be reached for comment.
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