Slaying May Be Tied to Missing Wife

Nov. 1 -- When a fisherman in Galveston, Texas found a beheaded torso washed up on the shore, a mystery began to unravel. Prosecutors in New York and California are investigating any links between two other cases and this apparent homicide.

"I was just shocked to see that it was just a torso," said the fisherman, "no head, no legs, no arms … It looked like it was a white male."

Later, the corpse's arms and legs were found in garbage bags, and the victim was identified as 71-year-old Morris Black, a Galveston resident.

Tangled up with Black's bloody remains were the cover of a bow saw and a newspaper with a delivery address that led police to the scene of the crime, an apartment where they found blood and a gun.

Blood in the hall led investigators next door, to a spotless apartment. But then police noticed deep knife cuts in the kitchen floor, with blood seeping through some of the slashes. A receipt in the trash led investigators to Robert Durst, the neighbor of the victim.

Neighbors told the police they had seen Durst carrying bags from his apartment to his car. "Based on that evidence," said prosecutor Kurt Sistrunk, "we then started looking for Durst."

When police arrested Durst, they say they found in the back seat of his car a bow saw that matched the bow saw cover found with Black's body. In the trunk of the car was a 9-mm handgun.

"When he was stopped … he was asked if he wanted to cooperate," said Sistrunk. "And it was a very terse 'no.' Short, sweet and simple 'no.'"

Wanted by the FBI

What Galveston authorities didn't know — until after Durst had been released on $250,000 bail — was that he was a multimillionaire New York real estate heir who has lived under a cloud of suspicion in connection with the 1982 disappearance of his wife, Kathie Durst. A close friend of his, Susan Berman, had been found murdered in Los Angeles last Christmas Eve, just before police were set to question her about Durst's notorious disappearance 20 years earlier.