Durst had revolver on him when arrested

NEW ORLEANS -- Wealthy eccentric Robert Durst agreed Monday to face a murder charge in Los Angeles in the shooting 15 years ago of a mobster's daughter who vouched for him after his wife disappeared. But one of his lawyers said the trip may be delayed by new charges in Louisiana.

The heir to a New York real estate fortune was carrying a revolver when FBI agents arrested him without incident at a New Orleans hotel over the weekend, according to a police report. It wasn't immediately clear whether Durst had the required concealed weapon permit.

On Monday, he shuffled into a courtroom with his hands shackled at his waist, wearing sandals and an orange jumpsuit. He appeared to fall asleep before the hearing and later turned to the gallery and smiled.

He answered "yes" to a judge's questions about waiving extradition. Magistrate Harry Cantrell said Durst could be taken to California and could get pain medication after attorney Dick DeGuerin said Durst has had "neurosurgery."

DeGuerin later said outside court the trip to California may be delayed because New Orleans prosecutors are considering other unspecified charges against him. He wouldn't elaborate, and spokesman Christopher Bowman said the Orleans Parish district attorney's office won't comment.

The hearing came only hours after Sunday's finale of an HBO documentary detailing his life of privilege and links to three deaths: his friend in Los Angeles, Susan Berman; his wife in New York, Kathleen Durst; and Morris Black, an elderly neighbor in Texas.

Durst is heard muttering he "killed them all, of course," at the end of "The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst."

Authorities were hoping Monday this and other evidence finally would lead to a conviction.

Durst had been laying low at a Marriott hotel in New Orleans to avoid the growing attention from the documentary, his longtime lawyer, Chip Lewis, told The Associated Press.

This is not the first time in handcuffs for Durst, who still has millions of dollars despite his estrangement from one of America's wealthiest families, with assets of about $4 billion made from a New York real estate empire that includes the World Trade Center 1 building.

Last year, he was fined for urinating on the candy racks at a CVS pharmacy in Houston, where he keeps a townhouse. Lewis called that an "unfortunate medical mishap" caused in part by Durst's Asperger's syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder that can involve behavioral problems.

Former prosecutor Jeanine Pirro believes it was her reopening of the cold case into Kathleen Durst's disappearance that provoked the murder of Berman, who had been Durst's confidante. And she said Durst's own words now can be used against him.

In the documentary, filmmaker Andrew Jarecki and Durst discuss an anonymous letter that alerted Beverly Hills police to a "cadaver" at Berman's address. Durst says whoever sent it was "taking a big risk. You're sending a letter to police that only the killer could have written."

In a second interview seen in the final episode, Jarecki shows him a letter Durst had sent to Berman, which one of the slain woman's relatives had recovered and given to the filmmakers, with similar handwriting and the town misspelled as "Beverley."

"I wrote this one, but I did not write the cadaver one," Durst says, after burping oddly when confronted with the question. Then Durst says he's going to the bathroom. Still wearing his microphone, he is recorded as he seems to think out loud, pausing between each whispered thought.

"There it is. You're caught," Durst tells himself. "You're right, of course, but you can't imagine ... Arrest him! ... I don't know what's in the house ... Oh, I want this ... What a disaster ... He was right. I was wrong ... And the burping! I'm having difficulty with the question ... What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course."

Then the documentary fades to black, silently leaving law enforcement to pick up the story.

Jarecki and his co-writer and cinematographer Marc Smerling answered some of the questions raised by the finale in a New York Times interview published Monday. They said they had no idea they had the bathroom audio until editors found it in June, and they never confronted Durst about it because they didn't believe he would speak with them. But they shared evidence with authorities last year, they said.