Durst arrest leads to questions about unsolved murder

NEW ORLEANS, March 18 (UPI) -- The weekend arrest of alleged murderer Robert Durst has led to a request of information about a missing person case from 1997.

Durst, 71, was arrested in New Orleans Saturday and charged Monday with one count of murder, in the death in 2000 of Susan Berman in California. Berman was a friend of Durst's wife Kathleen, who disappeared in 1982, and while Durst remained a suspect in the disappearance he was never tried. He was tried, and acquitted, in 2001 for the death and dismemberment of a neighbor in Texas.

The eccentric heir to a real estate fortune was the subject of a six-part HBO documentary "The Jinx," whose broadcast concluded Sunday and included him muttering "I killed them all," what may have been an admission of guilt.

On Tuesday, the day he was moved to a mental health facility in Louisiana's Elayn Hunt Correctional Facility, in Eureka, Calif., police announced Durst could have information about the 1997 disappearance of a local girl, Karen Mitchell.

Mitchell, 16, was last seen entering a car as it left a Eureka mall parking lot, and Durst was living 25 miles away, in the town of Trinidad, at the time. No one was arrested in connection with Mitchell's disappearance, although foul play is suspected. Durst has not been singled out as a suspect or person of interest, but Andy Mills, Eureka police chief, said Tuesday, ""We are certainly interested in any information that may or may not come out of interviews with Mr. Durst. If information comes to us that allows us to further our investigation we will certainly take the opportunity to do that."