Real estate heir Robert Durst will be heading back to California to face a first-degree murder charge after waiving extradition during a hearing Monday.
Durst, 71, appeared before a judge in New Orleans. He was arrested Saturday in New Orleans on murder charges the night before an HBO documentary broadcast audio of him muttering "What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course."
Magistrate Harry Cantrell said Durst could be taken to California immediately. He also agreed that pain medication would be provided before the trip, after attorney Dick DeGuerin said Durst has had "neurosurgery."
Durst was taken into custody by FBI agents at a J.W. Marriott hotel for the 2000 murder of Susan Berman in her Beverly Hills, Calif., home. A police report said Durst was in possession of a revolver when arrested.
Louisiana law requires a permit to carry a concealed weapon. It was not immediately clear whether Durst had one to carry the revolver.
Durst had been laying low in the hotel to avoid the growing attention at his Houston home, his lawyer said.
DeGuerin told media Monday that Durst may face additional charges in New Orleans and may not be extradited back to Los Angeles this week. He wouldn't elaborate on what sort of charges Durst might face.
The heir to a New York real estate fortune shuffled into a New Orleans courtroom with his hands shackled at his waist, wearing sandals and an orange jumpsuit. He turned to the gallery and smiled, then appeared to fall asleep. Later, he answered "yes" to a judge's questions about waiving extradition.
On Sunday evening, HBO aired the final episode of "The Jinx," a documentary series about Durst, who has been tied to the disappearances or deaths of two other people in addition to Berman. In the final moments of the episode, after an interview with filmmaker Andrew Jarecki, Durst went into a bathroom still wearing a wireless microphone.
What followed was a rambling monologue in which Durst said, among other things, "There it is. You're caught. What a disaster." The program did not make clear whether the film's producers confronted Durst about his words, but The New York Times reported that more than two years passed before the filmmakers found the audio.
Jarecki told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Monday that he didn't notice the bathroom audio right away because it was a small film crew. It wasn't until later, when they brought on more editors, that one of them heard it.
"It was so chilling to hear it," he said. "It was disturbing to hear it. It makes you very uncomfortable to hear it."
Earlier in the episode, the filmmakers had confronted Durst with similarities between an envelope he had sent to Berman the year before she was killed and an anonymous letter to Beverly Hills Police around the time of her death warning them that they would find "a cadaver" in Berman's home. Both letters were written in block handwriting and the writer misspelled Beverly Hills as "Beverley" on both occasions.
In the documentary, Durst admitted addressing the earlier envelope to Berman, but denied writing to the police at the time of her death. Jarecki then presented Durst with enlarged versions of the misspelled "Beverley" from each envelope.
Read more: Arrested real estate heir Robert Durst to head to California to face murder charge
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