so now two fbi agents show up at the hotel and they re talking to the clerk. well, do you have anyone booked here under the name of dorothy ciner? no. they go through ten other aliases. no. no. no. damn. where is he? they turn around and there s bob walking in the lobby, headed for the elevators. reporter: later they accompanied him to his room. and ultimately they turn up cash, a gun and some pot. reporter: so durst was booked for possession of a handgun and marijuana in louisiana and also arrested for the murder of susan berman in los angeles. and the very next day the final episode of the jinx aired, featuring the now infamous off-camera bathroom what was it? a confession?
jinx at the same time as everybody else did. and according to jarecki, the filmmakers had given evidence to the authorities two years before the show aired. which, to bob s attorney dick deguerin, meant the show was far from objective reporting. they edited probably 50 or more hours down into a few minutes. and i think the editing job was designed to make him look bad. reporter: but it was a simple comparison of handwriting samples that, on its own, seemed to condemn robert durst. it was episode five of the jinx series, in which a letter he admitted sending to susan berman was compared to the infamous cadaver note her presumed killer sent the cops. soon after seeing that episode, bob packed up and left houston. but the cops were monitoring his cell phone and eventually tracked him to the jw marriott hotel in new orleans.
whether or not he sounded believable with the story that he was telling. will the defendant please rise. reporter: the altmans said bob was convinced, 99.9% certain that he d be convicted. we the jury find the defendant robert durst not guilty. reporter: the jury took five days to save him from 25 years to life in prison. though he later served a little time in federal prison for skipping bail and dismembering morris black. but by 2005 he was a free man again. now the only person who could catch bob durst was bob durst. coming up what was he thinking? caught off camera and seemingly off guard on the jinx. did robert durst confess? why did he give that interview? thought he d be able to show he s not a horrible person. when dateline continues. man: sneezes
reporter: now the stories you haven t heard as those who knew robert durst best speak out in an exclusive interview. i hope and i pray that when all this is done, we all get answers. reporter: and hear his own account of his strange life. the reclusive millionaire has spent much of his time on the road. so where was he? what was he doing? who was he with? what is a guy of his wealth doing hanging out at a homeless shelter/soup kitchen? reporter: for decades, suspicions, questions raised anew on the series the jinx. will there finally be answers? bob didn t kill susan berman. reporter: the twisted tale of robert durst. and a new mystery. karen, where are you? he s definitely in the mix? he s in the mix. hello and welcome to
the troubled little boy? his name is well known. robert durst. by now you ve heard the bizarre saga. the multi-millionaire scion of a new york real estate empire. the disappeared wife, the dead friend, the dismembered neighbor. he s been the subject of several dateline episodes and the star, though not in the way he intended of hbo s the jinx. but do you, does anyone, know the truth about robert durst? the story behind the story. the trail we followed, the revelations we encountered, the personal account he wrote and we were given, which have led us into a very weird place, the lost years of the infamous robert durst. the tale is like quicksand. it sucks you in.