In 1982, Kathie Durst's disappearance made front-page headlines. The beautiful twenty-nine-year-old medical student was married to Robert Durst, son of one of New York's most powerful real estate magnates. When she vanished after arriving home from a party, Kathie's friends pointed the finger at her reclusive husband. They told police that Kathie lived in terror of Robert and was seeking a divorce. They also knew that Kathie had uncovered confidential financial documents that cast a shadow over her husband and the Durst Organization's upstanding reputation. What they didn't know was a deeply disturbing Durst family secret.and an even deadlier secret held tight for twenty years by one of Kathie's friends. In 2001, a disheveled drifter was arrested for shoplifting at a Pennsylvania supermarket.

He was Robert Durst, heir to a family empire valued at two billion dollars, in disguise and on the run, wanted for the grisly dismemberment slaying of an elderly neighbor in Texas and a suspect in the murder of his best friend, a California writer. What transpired between Kathie's disappearance and the routine arrest was a 19-year, cross-country mystery of stolen IDs and multiple identities that raised some baffling questions about one of the country's most prominent men and his family. In 1982, after the Durst family's refusal to cooperate in the NYPD investigation, Kathie Durst's disappearance faded into yesterday's news. Now, two decades later, thanks to the work of two veteran police investigators and one Texas private eye, Kathie's friends and family can finally hope for closure.and justice. A Deadly Secret is the definitive account of the search for Kathie Durst, and the shocking secrets held by those closest to her.