#Westchester DA speaks about reopening Kathie Durst cold case

The Westchester County District Attorney spoke on Tuesday about her office’s decision to reopen the investigation into the disappearance of Robert Durst’s first wife — saying she hopes the probe will bring “closure.”

DA Mimi Rocah told News 12 Westchester that she’s assigned top investigators from the newly formed cold case unit to investigate the alleged slaying of Kathie Durst in 1982.

The investigators will hopefully bring fresh perspective to the case, which was first probed when authorities did not have the same grasp of domestic violence as they do today, Rocah said.

“At the time that this alleged homicide occurred … we did not have the same understanding of domestic violence, and how that kind of abuse could play into relationships and how it could frankly color law enforcement — and by that I mean police and prosecutors’ perspectives,” she told the news station.

“So we will investigate this … it is challenging to do it after so long and we want to do it right. This has been around, and the family obviously wants and needs closure, I think, a whole community wants and needs closure,” Rocah added.

Rocah’s office announced Monday that the case was among those reopened for investigation by the cold case unit — the same day Robert Durst’s trial for the murder of his longtime confidant resumed in Los Angeles.

Kathie Durst vanished in 1982 after her marriage with Robert Durst, 78, had soured and been marred by domestic violence.

She was officially declared dead in 2017 with a Manhattan judge ruling that her date of death was Jan. 31, 1982, the last time the 29-year-old medical student was seen by her husband at their home in South Salem.

The wealthy real estate heir has long been suspected in her disappearance and murder — but has never been charged.

He is now on trial for murder for the 2000 execution-style slaying of his close pal, Susan Berman, who allegedly claimed he had killed Kathie years earlier.

Robert Durst has pleaded not guilty in the California murder case.