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Convicted killer Robert Durst’s health has been improving in the Louisiana jail where he is being held, his attorney Chip Lewis announced in a statement to The New York Times.
However, Lewis said he will not disclose Durst’s medical conditions to his prison guards until he gets a hearing for his appeal in November.
In the past year, Durst has undergone an extensive process of physical and mental rehabilitation after being transferred to the jail from a Texas prison where he was serving a life sentence. Dr. James Pitts, a psychologist who specializes in torture cases and is conducting the work in Louisiana, told The New York Times last month that he believed his health had been seriously neglected in the past.
“His ability to move and communicate have been completely degraded,” said Dr. Pitts. “He’s tried to communicate by writing notes, to communicate with placards and symbols, whatever it takes to communicate.”
But the psychologist made it clear that even while improving, Durst was still in need of medical attention and consistent care.
“He’s got chronic dyscalculia, which is the inability to memorize numbers and letters,” Dr. Pitts said. “When you’re in prison, and you can’t memorize things, you have to spend a lot of time listening to things and retaining them. He’s going to require lifelong therapy on that.”
Durst, who has been described as the most infamous inmate in an Orleans Parish prison, was arrested last year in a hotel in New Orleans and was found to be carrying a cocked .38-caliber handgun, which has some similarities to the murder weapon used in the 2000 killing of his neighbor Morris Black.
Durst is serving a minimum term of nine years and eight months after a jury convicted him of weapons charges in connection with the arrest. Earlier this year, his trial on capital murder charges related to the killing and dismemberment of his elderly neighbor was delayed as Orleans Parish prosecutors continued their search for evidence. He is expected to be indicted again this fall.
Read the full story at The New York Times.
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