Video appears to show murder suspect Robert Durst urinating in Houston CVS
<p>Surveillance video released by the Harris County district attorney’s office appears to show Robert Durst urinating openly in a Houston pharmacy last year.</p>
Surveillance video appears to show Robert Durst urinating openly in a Houston pharmacy last year, just months before he was arrested in the slaying of Susan Berman.
Durst, whose six-week stretch as the subject on a popular HBO docu-series ended with him charged in one of the slayings the show’s producers highlighted, was standing in front of a cashier station at a CVS in August when he apparently relieved himself.
The video shows Durst, wearing a white T-shirt and shorts, purchase something at the front of the store. When the cashier walks away, and as a bewildered fellow customer stands behind him, Durst appears to unzip his pants and relieve himself.
The second customer then tells the cashier about the scene unfolding nearby, and she sends another employee after Durst. A second video shows Durst standing outside the store for a moment before walking away. He left before police arrived.
The videos were released by the Harris County district attorney’s office in Houston in response to Freedom of Information requests filed by several news outlets. Calls to a spokesman for the office were not immediately returned.
Dick DeGuerin, Durst’s Texas-based attorney, told the Los Angeles Times that Durst simply had a medical emergency as a result of a recent surgery.
“The short answer is he just had to pee real bad,” DeGuerin said. “The more complex answer is he had recently been released from the hospital after having intensive and serious surgery.”
Durst was initially charged with exposing himself in public and injury to property, but after approaching prosecutors with his recent medical records, the issue was resolved after Durst was ordered to pay a small restitution and fines, DeGuerin said.
Durst underwent procedures related to esophageal cancer and encephalitis weeks before the incident, DeGuerin said.
The charges are unrelated to larger legal issues involving Durst, who will face charges in the 2000 shooting of his longtime friend Berman in Los Angeles. Police believe Durst killed Berman because she planned to speak to New York prosecutors about the disappearance of his first wife, Kathie, in 1982.
Durst is being held in New Orleans, where he was arrested on drug and weapons charges in March.
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