The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 80, No. 12, Ed. 1 Saturday, December 8, 2001 Page: 20 of 20
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Saturday, December 8,2001
10B The Baytown Sun
State
Fugitive heir a baffling, brazen figure while on the run
By DAVID B. CARUSO
The Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA — As he made
his way around the country in a bid to
evade arrest on murder charges, New
York real estate heir Robert Durst
behaved almost like a man trying to
get caught.
A day after jumping bail in Texas,
the millionaire fugitive brazenly used
the name of Morris Black — the man
he is accused of dismembering — to
rent a car in Mobile, Ala., police say.
At an apartment in New Orleans, he
left behind mementos related to two
other cases he has been investigated
in: a medallion belonging to slain Los
Angeles writer Susan Berman and a
videotape of a TV news report on the
unsolved 1982 disappearance of his
wife, Kathleen Durst.
His run ended near Bethlehem last
week when a security guard said he
tried to shoplift a $5.99 sandwich, a
Band-Aid and a newspaper from a
Durst
grocery store near his
alma mater, Lehigh
University.
Inexplicably, Durst
had $500 in his pock-
ets when he was
arrested.
Durst s behavior has
puzzled police, who
are struggling to reconcile friends’
descriptions of him as quiet, brilliant
and generous, with a man who posed
as a mute woman, lived for nearly two
decades under assumed names and is
charged with butchering a neighbor in
Texas.
“I don’t think we understand him at
all,” said Galveston, Texas, police Lt.
Michael Putnal. “We still don’t know
what possibly prompted him to kill
Morris Black. We don’t know why he
was acting like a fugitive long before
he was charged with any crime."
Black’s torso floated ashore along
Galveston Bay on Sept. 30, not far
from the apartment house where he
and Durst were neighbors. A trail of
blood led from Black’s apartment to
Durst s, authorities said. Blood was
also found under Durst's floor tiles.
Police said Durst was carrying a pis-
tol and butcher’s saw when he was
arrested Oct. 9. He quickly posted
$300,000 bail but failed to show up for
arraignment on Oct. 16.
Long before the lurid Texas case,
Durst, the son of late New York sky-
scraper mogul Seymour Durst, was
investigated but never charged in the
disappearance of his wife, who is pre-
sumed dead.
He is also a suspect in Berman’s
Christmas Eve slaying in Los Angeles
last year. Berman was one of Durst s
closest friends.
Durst denies involvement in his
wife’s disappearance or Berman’s
slaying.
His New York attorney, Michael
Kennedy, declined requests for an
interview. Durst s attorney in
Pennsylvania, John Waldron, said his
client was scheduled to meet with a
psychiatrist Wednesday. Durst is in
jail, awaiting his return to Texas. 1
For years, police said. Durst has
used phony names and occasionally
disguised himself as a woman to rent
modest apartments, even though he
was not wanted by authorities.
Investigators are still trying to piece
together Burst's movements during his
seven-week flight.
Detective Gary Hammer of the
Colonial regional police, near
Bethlehem, said Durst’s use of the
murder victim’s name in renting the
car, and the shoplifting attempt, were
“more like a man trying to get
caught.”
Police believe Durst went first to
New Orleans, then rented a car in
Mobile. Rent-A-Wreck manager
Johnny Foster said Durst used Black’s
driver’s license and Medicare card.
The cards said Black was 71. Durst is
58, but Foster said he had shaved his
head and eyebrows and appeared
older.
Police believe Durst later disguised
himself as a woman and went to visit a
friend in Plano, Texas. Investigators
searched the home on Oct. 19, but
believe they missed Durst by just two
hours.
In the days before he was caught,
Durst is believed to have stayed for
several days near his old Lehigh
haunts.
John Bozakis, manager of the
Golden View Diner and Motel, said a
waiter and waitress who served Durst
coffee the day before his arrest
remembered his outfit: a brown wig
and a blond mustache.
"They took notice of him right away
because of his funny ensemble,
Bozakis said. "I guess they got a kick
out of it at the time, and recognized
him immediately the next day from his
picture in the newspaper.”
He added: “It’s not how I would
have dressed myself jf I was trying to
stay out of sight."
Republic ofTexas members
sentenced to federal prison
MIDLAND, Texas (AP)
— Six members of the
Republic ofTexas separatist
group have received federal
prison sentences for federal
firearms violations during
the 1997 standoff with
dozens of law officers, the
U.S. Department of Justice
announced Friday.
U.S. District Judge Royal
Furgeson sentenced the sepa-
ratist group’s leader Richard
McLaren, 48, to a maximum
prison term of 10 years, fol-
lowed by three years of
supervised release.
In August, McLaren and
several other members
accepted plea agreements.
Four of them — Robert
"White Eagle" Otto, 50,
Robert Scheldt, 47, Gregg
Paulson, 50, and Richard
Keyes III, 26 — were each
sentenced to five years in
federal prison, followed by
three years of supervised
release. »
The four had accepted
guilty pleas on a federal
charge of conspiracy to
make, transfer, receive and
posses unregistered firearms.
A sixth member, Karen
Paulson, the 38-year-old wife
of Gregg Paulson, was sen-
tenced to 50 months in feder-
al prison, followed by two
years of supervised release.
She pleaded guilty to being
an Illegal immigrant in pos-
session of a firearm.
McLaren, the separatist
leader, is already serving a 12
1/2-year sentence on federal
fraud charges he was sen-
tenced to in a Dallas court.
The Thursday sentences
stem from the abduction of a
couple in the Davis
Mountains that led to a week-
long standoff between the
anti-government group and
law officers, including the
Texas Rangers.
After the group surren-
dered authorities found an
assortment of firearms and
explosives.
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Senators ask NASA nominee about future of space programs
WASHINGTON - Senators
made clear to President Bush’s
choice to head NASA that they
don’t want his cost-cutting
skills to be used to undermine
the scientific goals of the inter-
national space station and other
key NASA programs.
“I don’t think the leader of
NASA can be just a budget
cutter,” Sen. Kay Bailey
Hutchison, R-Texas, said
Friday at a Senate Commerce
Committee confirmation hear-
ing for Sean O’Keefe. In his
current position at the White
House Office of Management
and Budget, he has been
sharply critical of space station
cost overruns.
O’Keefe, who is expected to
win quick Senate approval,
said his first task will be to
identify the agency’s priorities
so that in the long run he can
"reinvigorate the entrepreneur-
ial spirit that motivated the
organization from its very
beginning days.” He agreed
with senators that reducing the
ability of the space station to
conduct scientific research
“would be a tragedy.”
The 45-year-old O’Keefe
served as Navy secretary for
Bush’s father and gained a rep-
utation for his budget cutting
when he worked at the
Pentagon in the early 1990s
under then-Defense Secretary
Dick Cheney. He’s been OMB
deputy director since March.
He replaces Daniel Goldin,
who stepped down last month
after serving as the National
Aeronautics and Space
Administration head for 9 1/2
years.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore„
chairman of the committee’s sci-
ence, technology and space
panel, told O'Keefe that “there
isn’t going to be ary massive
infusion of new funds for NASA”
during his tenure, and that unless
he does something about the
"horrendously mismanaged”
space station program, that pro-
gram will devour money for other
NASA priorities.
The U.S. cost of the interna-
tional program has grown from
an estimated $17.4 billion in
1993 to about $30 billion today.
To reduce costs, a panel of
experts last month recommend-
ed that space shuttle flights to
the space station be cut from
the current six to four a year.
It also endorsed a Bush
administration policy to
shelve, for the time being,
plans to expand living quarters
to accommodate seven crew
members. The current crew of
three is occupied mainly with
operating the station, leaving
little time for research work.
Hutchison said that would
result in “an operation that is
there to service the operation”
and pressed O’Keefe on his
commitment to meeting the
goals set by the United States
and its European, Japanese,
Canadian and Russian part-
ners.
“You can’t just keep cutting
without paying the price," said
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who
questioned O’Keefe about
reductions in shuttle flights.
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Cash, Wanda Garner. The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 80, No. 12, Ed. 1 Saturday, December 8, 2001, newspaper, December 8, 2001; Baytown, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1023587/m1/20/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Sterling Municipal Library.