Robert Durst: Is Millionaire Murder Suspect An Alleged Serial Killer? Cops Checked Links To Missing Teen

As Robert Durst was moved to mental health facility in a Louisiana state prison Tuesday night after authorities deemed him “at risk of suicide” and displaying “several risk factors for acute mental illness,” the multimillionaire suspect in the 2000 murder of his own best friend may also now be under investigation in the cases of two teen girls missing since 1997.

The Inquisitr first reported, at this link, on the possible connections between Durst as the missing teens — 18-year-old Kristen Modafferi and 16-year-old Karen Marie Mitchell — on Sunday, but since then the two unsolved cases have drawn closer scrutiny as Durst, who was arrested on Saturday night, has been cast into the national spotlight.

The Inquisitr coverage of Durst’s arrest can be accessed at this link. Also, click here for an Inquisitr profile of Susan Berman, the 55-year-old writer and best friend of Robert Durst whom he is accused of murdering nearly 15 years ago. Finally, the Inquisitr reported on the final episode of the HBO documentary series The Jinx — in which Durst apparently confesses that he “killed them all” — in a story that can be read by clicking here.

The possible connection between Durst and the mysterious disappearances of Modafferi and Mitchell almost exactly five months apart in Northern California was first raised in a 2002 book by reporter Matt Birkbeck, A Deadly Secret: The Strange Disappearance of Kathie Durst.

Kathie Durst was the first wife of Robert Durst who in 1982, like the two teens 15 years later, vanished without a trace. Durst has long been the sole suspect in her disappearance.

“Karen Mitchell’s family spoke with the FBI as recently as a few months ago,” Birkbeck told The New York Daily News Wednesday. “They brought up Durst.”

Mitchell disappeared from Eureka, California in November of 1997. But Humboldt County District Attorney Maggie Fleming said she could not “confirm or deny” that Durst was a under investigation in the incident, because the case remains open.

But Eureka Police Chief Andy Mills said his department was “certainly interested in any information that may or may not come out of interviews with Mr. Durst.”

A police sketch, below, of a man seen driving a car in which Mitchell was last seen riding bears more than a passing resemblance to Robert Durst, who lived in the area at the time and was reportedly acquainted with the girl.

“Durst had visited with or seen Mitchell at a homeless shelter that she had volunteered at,” said Birkbeck. “Before these cases even came up before the public, he had been living this random bizarre lifestyle.”

The father of Kristen Modafferi says that he plans to contact with the FBI regarding any potential link between Durst and his daughter’s case.

“The Durst news has created enough of a question mark in my mind that I’m going to follow up with the FBI,” Bob Modafferi, 66, told the Daily News. “If he was in that area where Kristen went missing, it raises a bunch of potential red flags and questions.”

But the elder Modafferi said that police told him earlier that they had checked out Robert Durst in connection to Kristen’s disappearance and “they did not indicate to us there’s anything there.”

[Images: CharleyProject.org, HBO, FindKristen.com, MattBirkbeck.com]