LOS ANGELES \u2013A Hollywood producer testified Wednesday that a friend claimed to have impersonated the first wife of real estate heir Robert Durst in a telephone call that prosecutors say took place after the wife was dead.<\/p>\n
Lynda Obst, whose films include \u201cSleepless in Seattle\u201d and \u201cInterstellar,\u201d took the stand during a pre-trial hearing for Durst, who is charged with shooting Susan Berman in 2000 at her Los Angeles home.<\/p>\n
Obst said that Berman, a mutual friend, confided that she had pretended to be Kathleen Durst in a 1982 telephone call to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine Center in New York.<\/p>\n
A previous witness has said the woman claimed she was sick and couldn’t make it to her first day of a clerkship in pediatrics.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors contend that Kathleen Durst already was dead at that point.<\/p>\n
Her body never was found but in March a judge in Surrogate’s Court in Manhattan officially declared her dead.<\/p>\n
Durst isn’t charged with her murder but he is accused of killing Berman. Prosecutors contend that he was afraid she would implicate him to investigators looking into his wife’s disappearance.<\/p>\n
Durst, 74, has pleaded not guilty to murder. A Superior Court judge hasn’t determined whether he will stand trial.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, another friend of Berman’s, Miriam Barnes, told the court that years earlier, Berman had told her: \u201cIf anything ever happens to me, Bobby did it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barnes said she never went to police because she feared Durst could harm her.<\/p>\n
Testimony is being taken from so-called secret witnesses whose names aren’t made public until they appear in court.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors have suggested that Durst, who is jailed and has health issues, could use some of his fortune to have witnesses killed. The defence has scoffed at the suggestion.<\/p>\n
However, the witnesses’ testimony is being video recorded for use in case they are not available for trial.<\/p>\n
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