A Deadly Secret

Robert Durst was the secretive heir to a vast, New York real estate fortune when a New York State Police detective began probing the disappearance of Durst's first wife, Kathie, who had been missing for nearly two decades. But as the investigation intensifies and receives national attention, more people die. Durst's best friend, Susan Berman, is shot and killed in Los Angeles. Another friend, a mysterious drifter named Morris Black, is dismembered and his body parts are found floating in Galveston Bay. Durst flees Texas but is found weeks later in Pennsylvania, his hair and eyebrows shaved. He's returned to Texas to stand trial for one murder while police in New York and Los Angeles try to connect him to two others. But as investigators probe deeper, they uncover new clues about Durst and uncover his terrifying secrets. Investigative journalist Matt Birkbeck, who covered the Durst case for Reader's Digest and People Magazine, tells the true story of the Durst saga in this stunning work of investigative reportage. The bestselling author of A Beautiful Child and the critically acclaimed Deconstructing Sammy, Birkbeck carves a gripping, page-turning narrative in A Deadly Secret. Based on first person interviews with many of the participants and access to the NYPD files into the original investigation of the disappearance of Kathie Durst, Birkbeck exposes the politics of police work, the power of an iconic family, and adds new, updated information to a True Crime classic that is sure to chill your spine.