Cutting up his friend after killing him in a scuffle over a gun was a nightmarish experience that left him "swimming in blood," American millionaire Robert Durst said on Tuesday in his murder trial.
He said he became physically ill while slicing buddy Morris Black into pieces he later threw into Galveston Bay in Texas.
"It was like waking up from a dream or a nightmare with blood everywhere," he said in his fourth and final day of testimony in the month-long trial. "I remember I was swimming in blood, I kept spitting up and spitting up.
"I don't know what is real and what is not real. That is what I remember," Durst, 60, said calmly.
Previously, the slightly built Durst said he was so drunk and in such a state of shock that he only remembered using two saws and an ax to hack up Black's body so he could get it out of his apartment. Fishermen found the remains floating in bags in the nearby bay.
Durst is accused of murdering and dismembering Black, 71, in cold blood, but he said Black died accidentally when they fought over a gun in Durst's apartment on Sept. 28, 2001 and it went off, shooting him in the face.
Durst is the son of late real estate tycoon Seymour Durst, whose billion-dollar, privately owned Durst Organization is one of the biggest developers in New York. He has described his life as one of unlimited wealth, but also troubled by family problems and his addiction to marijuana.
He testified earlier that he moved to Galveston in November 2000 and posed as a woman to escape renewed publicity about his wife's disappearance in New York in 1982. Police have named him as a suspect in the case, but he has denied any wrongdoing.
Police also say they want to question him about the December 2000 shooting death of best friend Susan Berman in Los Angeles.
He said he did not report Black's death to police because he did not think they would believe his story.
Durst testified he and Black became friends while living across the hall from each other in a rundown Galveston apartment building. Their relationship soured and culminated in Black pulling a gun on him, then dying as Durst tried to wrestle it away from him, he said.
In questioning on Tuesday, skeptical prosecutors alluded briefly to the possibility that he wanted to kill Black, then assume his identity so he could hide from investigators in the other cases.
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