NEW ORLEANS — Los Angeles Police Department detectives say several handwriting experts link Robert Durst to an anonymous letter tipping authorities to the slaying of writer Susan Berman in 2000, according a search warrant made public Wednesday.

An anonymous note was sent to Beverly Hills police at the time alerting them to “a cadaver” in her house.

That letter is at the center of an HBO documentary series about Durst, who was charged Monday in Berman’s killing.

The HBO filmmakers uncovered a second letter Durst admitted writing to Berman. That letter had a similar block-style printing as the cadaver letter and contained the same misspelling of “Beverley.” The filmmakers at some point provided that information to Los Angeles police.

According to the search warrant, the LAPD had examined the letter several times over the last 14 years.

In 2001, a handwriting expert said it was “highly probable” that Berman’s manager, Nyle Brenner, wrote the cadaver note.

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A year later, detectives and a handwriting expert went to Texas to meet Durst and his attorneys as well as a defense handwriting examiner. Durst provided writing samples, the warrant said.

In 2003, the LAPD’s expert concluded it was probable that Durst wrote the letter and that Brenner did not, according to the warrant. That same year, an expert from the California Department of Justice confirmed those findings.

Last year, detectives began to look more closely at the handwriting analysis, speaking to the supervisor for the expert.

The warrant said that the supervisor acknowledged “she did not perform technical peer review and basically ‘rubber stamped’ ” the 2001 analysis linking the letter to Brenner.

In November, Los Angeles County prosecutors and LAPD detectives consulted with independent forensic examiner Lloyd Cunningham, who “submitted a detailed report stating that he identified Robert Durst and eliminated Nyle Brenner as the author of the cadaver envelope and note,” the warrant said.

A second expert reviewed Cunningham’s findings and concurred that Durst wrote the note, the warrant said.

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The warrant was served after Durst was arrested Saturday night in New Orleans. It’s unclear what authorities found in his home.

The warrant said investigators were looking for evidence he might have been trying to flee the country to avoid arrest or prosecution. The document also sought evidence of “obtaining false identifying information.”

According to the search warrant, FBI investigators had reason to believe Durst was about to flee the country.

They note that Durst had a net worth of $100 million and that he withdrew $9,000 over the course of 35 days since last October.

When Durst, 71, was arrested at a New Orleans hotel Saturday, investigators discovered he had rented the room under a false name, Everette Ward, and a matching fake Texas identification card.

Confronted by an FBI agent about the fake card, Durst said, “That’s pretty good,” according to the warrant.

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Investigators also recovered cash from the hotel room: $42,631, mostly $100 bills packed in small envelopes, according to the search warrant.

They also recovered a number of items from the room that indicated Durst was preparing to flee: his birth certificate and passport, UPS documents and tracking numbers “for a shipment of a large sum of cash monies,” a rubber mask and a .38-caliber revolver with one spent shell casing and four live rounds.

Items seized from his Houston apartments Tuesday included CDs, more than a half dozen credit cards, checks from seven different banks, a cellphone, court documents, photographs and two books about his wife’s disappearance, “Without A Trace” and “A Deadly Secret.”

The eccentric real estate heir was in a Louisiana jail Wednesday that treats the most severely mentally ill inmates, said an attorney for the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office.

“He’s suicidal,” said Blake Arcuri, an attorney who represented the Sheriff’s Office in the case.

Arcuri said that when Durst’s attorneys opposed the transfer to the sheriff’s facility at a state prison in St. Gabriel, La., Tuesday, he submitted Durst’s medical records, which were sealed, to the court.

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He said all inmates undergo medical exams when they’re booked, but he could not comment on specifics in Durst’s record because of privacy laws.

Suspicions about Durst exploded into a national sensation as they played out in a six-part HBO series, “The Jinx.” Agents took Durst into custody the day before Sunday’s finale, in which Durst uttered a possible confession after the filming stopped but his microphone continued recording.

“Killed them all, of course,” Durst muttered after stepping away from the set.

The role of the documentary in assembling evidence against Durst could complicate a criminal trial, but LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said Tuesday he was confident that the prosecution would not depend on the broadcast.

“It is a unique set of circumstances,” he said. “But our case is independent of the documentary. Our case will stand on its own.”

Detectives had actively investigated Berman’s death for nearly 15 years, Beck said. Its resolution had been delayed by the “legal maneuverings” of Durst and his attorneys as well as unrelated prosecutions in other states, he said.

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The chief declined to discuss details of the ongoing investigation, telling reporters that he did not want to jeopardize the case by making statements to the media.

“We are glad that we have finally come to a point where we can request Mr. Durst be extradited to California, to Los Angeles, so he can face a jury of his peers in the homicide of Susan Berman,” Beck said.

The charges in New Orleans relate to an earlier case, in which Durst was found guilty of skipping bail. That felony conviction bars him from carrying a gun, according to court papers. He’s also charged separately with having the gun in combination with a “controlled, dangerous substance” — legal parlance for the marijuana found in his room.

The maximum penalty for these charges is a $10,000 fine and five to 10 years of hard labor, according to court papers.

In L.A., Durst could face the death penalty for the murder charge with special circumstances. The indictment alleges that Durst lay in wait for Berman and that he acted to prevent her from speaking to police about the disappearance of Durst’s first wife, Kathleen Durst.

An attorney representing Durst, Dick DeGuerin, gave mixed signals about whether he would resist his client’s extradition to Los Angeles.

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Durst appeared briefly in court Tuesday, shackled and wearing an orange prison jumpsuit and rubber sandals on bare feet. During the proceedings, Durst sometimes glared at the prosecutor. At other moments, he appeared to smile and talk to himself.

Orleans Parish Assistant District Attorney Mark Burton asked Orleans Parish Magistrate Harry Cantrell Jr. to detain Durst for five days, “until a hearing to determine whether bail can be set, given his flight risk.”

Cantrell suggested a Friday hearing, but Burton said a longer delay would be needed to assemble relevant evidence.

In 1982, Kathleen Durst vanished after she expressed the desire for a divorce. She had been fighting with her husband the night she disappeared, according to a good friend, who said Kathleen Durst was worried about what her husband might do.

Berman had acted as an “informal spokesman” for Durst, giving reporters his side of the story. Durst and Berman went to school together at UCLA.

Berman died from a single gunshot wound to the head. Durst was residing in the L.A. area, but police said at the time that he was not a suspect.


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