NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) – Accused murder and millionaire Robert Durst was transferred from the Orleans Parish Prison to a mental health facility in St. Gabriel, La. Tuesday evening.
Just before 7 p.m. Durst was loaded into an Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office vehicle headed to Elayn Hunt Correctional Center.
This comes after the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the district court was wrong to hold Durst at the OPP and he should be moved to a facility that specializes in caring for inmates who are mentally ill.
ABC News reports that Durst was transferred to the “Acute Mental Health Facility” because clinicians evaluated him and determined he was a suicide risk.
Durst is one of about 30 inmates at the facility. Each inmate at Elayn Hunt lives in separate cells with 24 hour monitoring.
Durst is supposed to be back in Orleans Parish Criminal Court Monday. No word on whether or not he’ll be staying at the mental health facility until then.
St. Gabriel, La. is about 70 miles northwest of New Orleans.
New charges in New Orleans
Robert Durst appeared in Magistrate Court in an orange prison jumpsuit and shackles Tuesday. He appeared to be disoriented and did not immediately respond when his case was called.
Durst was in court to face more charges, this time for weapon and drugs stemming from his Saturday arrest at the JW Marriott in New Orleans. During that arrest, investigators found a .38 caliber handgun and nearly 150 grams of marijuana in his room.
Durst, who is a felon, faces charges for a possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and illegal carrying of weapon with controlled dangerous substance.
FBI agents arrested Durst Saturday in connection to a 2000 murder of his close friend, Susan Berman, in Beverly Hills. On Monday, Durst waived extradition to California where he’ll answer to the capital murder charge.
The real estate heir is also suspected of the possible murder of his first wife in New York. He was acquitted in 2003 of killing a neighbor in Texas.
All these developments are coming after a stranger than fiction HBO documentary on Durst that might have caught him confessing to the crimes.
