Sunday’s finale of the HBO documentary series The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst ended with the eccentric protagonist muttering a seeming confession to three murders over the last 30 years.
“What the hell did I do?” Durst said. “Killed them all, of course.”
The revelation culminated an eight-year investigation into the life and trials of Durst, the estranged son of a New York real estate dynasty. He has maintained his innocence in the 1982 disappearance of his first wife and was acquitted in the 2001 slaying of Morris Black in Galveston, Texas. But Durst was arrested on Saturday, a day before the finale aired, in a New Orleans hotel after new evidence emerged that law enforcement officials allege linked him to the 2000 murder of confidante Susan Berman. On Monday, Los Angeles prosecutors charged Durst with first-degree murder in California, in addition to weapons charges in Louisiana.
All eyes will surely stay glued to Durst’s case as it unfolds, but The Jinx, a well-paced journalistic masterpiece, is over. The inevitable question for today’s budding Sherlock Holmes becomes: What to watch next?
Since True Detective reportedly won’t return until this summer, and the second season of Serial isn’t out yet, here are a few true-crime documentaries to check out now:
Central Park Five
The 2012 Ken Burns documentary looks into the 1989 case of five black and Latino teenagers who were wrongly convicted of raping a white woman in Central Park. The film, which is on Netflix, takes a look at the case and its aftermath from the perspectives of the accused, whose convictions were later tossed out after a convicted rapist confessed to the crime.
Into The Abyss
Acclaimed filmmaker Werner Herzog dives into the aftermath of a triple homicide in the small city of Conroe, Texas as part of a larger examination into capital punishment in the United States. This 2011 doc is still on Netflix.
The Imposter
A 13-year-old boy in Texas disappears in 1994, then reportedly resurfaces three years later in Spain. But that’s not the whole story. A French con artist tells all in this gripping 2012 documentary, which can be seen on Netflix.
The Paradise Lost trilogy
In this three-part series, renowned filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky focus on the infamous case of the “West Memphis Three,” a trio of teenagers who were convicted of the brutal triple homicide in 1993 of three young boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. The three men were later freed after 18 years in prison. You can find this one on Amazon Prime.
The Thin Blue Line
A throwback from 1988, Errol Morris investigates the questionable conviction of Randall Dale Adams, who was wrongly sentenced to life in prison for killing a Dallas police officer in 1976. The film, which is on Netflix, played a role in exonerating Adams a year later.
