Detectives searching for Karen Mitchell and Kristen Modafferi took a look at the mysterious Manhattan real estate scion back in 2003 when he was on trial in Galveston, Tex., for murdering and dismembering his neighbor.
Now that Durst will soon be heading back to Los Angeles to face a charge of murdering old friend Susan Berman in 2000, the search for 16-year-old Mitchell is back on the front burner, said an author who has covered Durst for years.
“Karen Mitchell's family spoke with the FBI as recently as a few months ago,” said Matt Birkbeck, who wrote "A Deadly Secret: The Strange Disappearance of Kathie Durst." “They brought up Durst.”
Kathie Durst was the cross-dressing multimillionaire’s first wife, who vanished in 1982.
Humboldt County District Attorney Maggie Fleming declined to discuss Durst or the Mitchell case.
“I really can't confirm or deny that Durst is a person of interest because anything said about the investigation could potentially hinder the investigation,” she said.
Modafferi’s dad said he hasn’t heard from the feds recently about his daughter, who was 18 when she vanished while visiting San Francisco. So he is reaching out to them.
“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 said. “If he was in that area where Kirsten went missing, it raises a bunch of potential red flags and questions.”
Mitchell, who vanished on Nov. 25, 1997, volunteered at a homeless shelter in Eureka, Calif., where Durst had been spotted, Birkbeck said.
Police said that after leaving the shelter, Mitchell walked over to the Bayshore Mall and visited her aunt, Annie Casper, at her shoe store.
Then Mitchell left for her aunt’s home — and has not been seen since.
Durst lived in the nearby town of Trinidad at the time and visited Casper’s store — while dressed in drag — at least four times, Birkbeck said.
Investigators also looked at Durst in connection with Modafferi, a college student from North Carolina who went missing on June 23, 1997, Birkbeck said.
“The investigators told me that one of the suspects they were looking at had dressed in drag, he had some odd habits,” he said, referring to the Mitchell case. “After I finished the interview, I mentioned that I covered Robert Durst, who also dressed in drag. They wrote his name down and then I discovered he was living in San Francisco at the time. The police just jumped on it. They started putting pieces together.”
Bob Modafferi, 66, of Charlotte, N.C. confirmed that cops went “down that road to see if there was anything to it.”
“They did not indicate to us there’s anything there,” he said. “As time goes on, realistically the hope starts to dim, but it never dies out completely. There are cases you hear about that finally have a break. We will never lose faith or give up hope.”
Durst’s lawyers have said they know nothing about Mitchell or Modafferi and deny he had anything to do with Berman’s murder or Kathie Durst’s disappearance.
Durst was acquitted of killing neighbor Morris Black, even though he admitted chopping up his body."
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