I just finished watching it and I wonder that too. I wish they’d given a little more info about what happened to his mom, was that a suicide or a murder? His father seemed bizarrely unemotional, calling his son in to watch her jump instead of helping her or calling 911. Maybe his father was also a sociopath and passed it on to his son?
I’m not a professional psychologist but have stayed at the Holiday Inn and I think Durst might be a textbook sociopath. I don’t think he ever once referred to Kathie Durst as “my wife” or any other pet name that normal people use. He always referred to her by name as if she was a mere acquaintance. He also seemed to not care about her disappearance any more than if she was a sock lost behind the couch. Granted they’d been fighting a lot when she disappeared, most normal people would be full of all kinds of mixed emotions.
Same kind of thing with Susan Berman who was supposedly his best friend for many years.
Regarding the sandwich theft and asking to be interviewed, I felt it was a cat and mouse game. He was playing with “society”, thinking he was too smart to get caught and probably enjoying the exhilaration of seeing just how close he could come to revealing himself without getting caught. Of course he wasn’t in fact smarter than everybody else because even after getting caught talking to himself with a live microphone the time he was rehearsing an answer for Jarecki, he didn’t learn from that mistake and kept talking to himself in the bathroom with a live mic on.
I agree that someone investigating should have noticed the similarities between the envelope and the Cadaver note, but I also should point out Durst was not sought or even speculated to be a suspect in her killing. It was surmised right away it was a mob hit and it appears the investigation focused on that aspect, so Durst’s letter wouldn’t have raised much interest.
I just finished the series last night (I’m always late to the ball). I really don’t know what to think. I believe the ramblings will be of little consequence legally, and I am baffled how the film crew was able to handle evidence and basically proceed with their own investigation before handing everything off to authorities. The Times piece and the reality of what has happened don’t seem to sync, and I just don’t get how there’s not some level of obstruction of justice or something in there. And I’m not entirely certain there’s a strong enough case to convict Durst, even if I am certain the guy is a sociopathic murderer.
It’s a coincidence that prior to watching this I had watched another US TV show about how to spot body language of people who are lying.
Durst keeps a poker face pretty well during the whole series, but one of the scenes in the last episode has Durst saying to the police something like “you can put me in California at the time of the murder but you can’t put me in LA, right?”, and then the exact same ‘secret’ smile that the liars TV show talked about (when people lie and delight in confounding their accusers) comes across his face. It’s unmistakable. You have to check it out.
I haven’t seen a thread about Part 2 of The Jinx, which begins on HBO tomorrow. (I did do a search–if I missed it, I hope someone will post it to the top of the page.)
One element not mentioned in this thread is that the creators of the first series actually edited Durst’s infamous ‘bathroom confession’ to make it sound…well, more like a confession: