Kathie Durst's family wants probe into why it took so long for charges in disappearance

They succeeded this fall in a nearly 40-year quest to have millionaire Robert Durst charged with murder in the disappearance of his wife, Kathie.

Now her siblings want to hold accountable those they believe blocked justice for much of that time, including New York city police, a former Westchester district attorney and Durst’s family and other officials of the Durst Organization, one of New York city’s most powerful real estate empires.

Jim McCormack, Kathie's older brother, said the issues of who helped Robert Durst in the immediate aftermath of her disappearance and for years afterward had to be investigated not just for Kathie and her family "but for every family that has been victimized by prosecutorial cowardice, misconduct and corruption."

"We want both closure and justice for Kathie and our family, which has suffered from her disappearance, murder, and the concealment of her remains," McCormack said at a press conference Tuesday outside the Westchester County Courthouse with his family's lawyer, Robert Abrams.

indictment: Durst charged with murder in 1982 disappearance of his wife

Timeline: Robert Durst

Robert Durst, 78 and in failing health, is already serving a life sentence in California following his first-degree murder conviction in the 2000 execution-style slaying of his best friend, Susan Berman. Prosecutors argued Berman was killed because of what she knew Durst had done to his wife.

After his sentencing last month, Westchester prosecutors secured an indictment against Durst, charging him with second-degree murder. He is accused of intentionally killing his wife, a 29-year-old medical student, on Jan. 31, 1982, at the couple’s lakeside cottage in South Salem. Her body has never been found.

Kathie's brother and Abrams commended new Westchester District Attorney Mimi Rocah but said she and her prosecutors were simply doing their jobs. In a letter from Abrams Monday, they've asked her to investigate why her predecessors didn’t do the same in the 22 years since it became clear the investigation centered on Westchester instead of Manhattan.

Durst reported his wife missing to New York City detectives on Feb. 5, 1982. He insisted that he took Kathie to the Katonah train station five nights earlier so she could return to their Manhattan apartment.

And he claimed he spoke to her by phone that night once she had gotten there — though in recent years he has admitted that was a lie to get them to believe she had reached Manhattan.

Berman is believed to have posed as Kathie in a phone call to a dean of Albert Einstein College of Medicine on Feb. 1, 1982, saying she was too sick to attend the first day of a pediatric clerkship.

Abrams and McCormack took particular aim at former District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, who is believed to have dropped plans to present Kathie's case to a grand jury in 2004 after a meeting she had with Douglas Durst, the head of the family business.

They seek to link that decision to hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions by the Durst Organization and its principles to former Gov. George Pataki, Pirro's political mentor.

Abrams insisted that the Durst family did not assist investigators in 1982 because they were worried about the company's reputation.

"Their only concern was 'Hey, this could hurt our business,'" Abrams said. "All they cared about was money. They didn't care about Kathie."

A spokesperson for the Durst family fired back in a statement, assailing Abrams for a "long history of leveling hollow, baseless attacks without ever providing a single shred of documentation to substantiate his wild claims."

It cited Douglas Durst's recent testimony at the California murder trial at which he expressed fear that his brother wanted to kill him and denied "these wild accusations" about a cover-up.

"Abrams has now accused George Pataki, John Lewin (the Los Angeles prosecutor) and Jeanine Pirro of aiding Robert Durst in the cover up of his crimes," the spokesperson said. "His record of failed litigation makes it clear that he is a far better conspiracy theorist than lawyer.”

Pirro did not respond to a request for comment.

Twitter: @jonbandler

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Family wants to know why murder case against Robert Durst took so long