The Jinx creator opens up about “guilt” he felt after Season 1

Ahead of the release of Season 2, The Jinx creator Andrew Jarecki has opened up about the guilt he felt after the first chapter. 

The Jinx remains to be one of the best true crime docuseries ever made, in part due to the shocking twist ending that led to the conviction of Robert “Bob” Durst. 

In the finale, Jarecki had to confront Durst with the infamous ‘cadaver’ note that implicated him in the murder of his friend, Susan Berman. 

For the filmmaker – who is gearing up for the release of Season 2 – this was a mix of emotions, as he revealed in a new interview with Vanity Fair.

Given he spent more than 20 hours interviewing Durst, there was a level of affection Jarecki felt towards him, separate from the crimes he’d committed. 

When Jarecki was asked whether he spoke to Durst even though he was in police custody, he replied, “I wanted to talk to him. To some extent, I felt sort of sad about [the turn of events]. 

“Even if the person that you’re dealing with is the Antichrist, which I don’t think he is, even if he’s an extremely problematic, troublesome person who’s created disasters for lots of other people, he is a human being. 

“I did get to know him very well. He doesn’t know a lot of people. He doesn’t open up to a lot of people. So I did feel a sense that I was betraying him. It didn’t stop me from doing it, but it was a burden to me a little bit.”

Jarecki admitted that, prior to Durst’s 2022 death, he tried to see him in jail but he declined the visit. “I wasn’t that surprised, but Bob is such a curious, interesting fellow,” he said. “I kind of felt like he would want to see me.”

That being said, the filmmaker doesn’t want to exaggerate the guilt, explaining that he feels greater responsibility to the family of Kathie McCormack, Durst’s ex-wife who disappeared in 1982. 

“Helping them strongly outweighed any feelings I had about Bob,” he said. 

As for Season 2, it will focus on the “village” that contributed to Durst getting away with his crimes for so long. 

These individuals are the “centerpiece of Part Two — the idea that there’s this constellation of people who all see themselves as good, decent people… and yet here they are helping a murderer,” according to Jarecki.

The Jinx Season 2 premieres on April 21, 2024, on HBO. Until then, you can find all of the true crime documentaries hitting streaming this month, as well as the TV shows to add to your watchlist.