It’s not surprising to learn that Douglas Durst was not willing to participate in HBO’s The Jinx when you consider that his brother, Robert Durst, says some severely unflattering things about him. Mostly, Douglas was afraid that his brother was going to murder him and had an unhealthy obsession with his daughter, so the news of Robert getting arrested and locked up was a huge relief to him. Douglas credits The Jinx with reigniting the flame that lit up Robert’s alleged criminal past and he says that he’s “grateful” to the filmmakers for the exposé.
“I no longer am looking over my shoulder,” he said. “I’m very grateful to The Jinx for having brought this about.”
Douglas recounted to The New York Times that Robert was stalking him the night that the third episode of the series aired and actually hired security when he learned that Robert was “five to ten minutes” from his home. If you watched the series, cameras caught Robert at his brother’s doorstep on a few occasions, so Douglas’s claims seem pretty legitimate. Also consider that Douglas says Robert would show up, uninvited, at his daughter Anita’s art shows. It’s easy to see why Douglas and his family are breathing a sigh of relief these days.
According to the Times, Andrew Jarecki repeatedly offered Douglas the opportunity to speak on camera, but he didn’t trust the director after seeing All Good Things, a fictionalized version of Robert’s story. As late as January, Douglas was still turning Jarecki down. He says he didn’t watch any of the documentary but did deny Robert’s claim that he talked to Nicholas Scoppetta, Robert’s lawyer, after Kathleen Durst went missing. Scoppetta also denies talking to Douglas.
It could be a coincidence that Robert was arrested the day the finale of The Jinx aired, and there are plenty of questions about how the production of the documentary handled the evidence that was uncovered. But I’m sure that Douglas isn’t too concerned with the gory details, now that he won’t become one of them himself.
Source: New York Magazine