Robert Alan Durst, the disgraced real estate heir, convicted murderer, and subject of the Emmy Award-winning HBO crime documentary 2015's The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, has died at age 78. Just months ago, Durst was found guilty of killing his best friend and sent to prison for life. On Monday, the lawyer's office issued a statement confirming this news while serving a life sentence for murder in California. But with his death, also comes a legal technicality, that will allow Durst's murder conviction to be vacated posthumously.

“Mr. Durst passed away early this morning while in the custody of the California Department of Corrections,” his lawyer Chip Lewis confirmed to The Daily Beast. “We understand that his death was due to natural causes associated with the litany of medical issues we had repeatedly reported to the court over the last couple of years. We will issue no further statements and will not entertain any questions out of respect.”

The disgraced mogul has been plagued with health problems in recent years including surgeries for esophageal and bladder cancer, neuropathy, high blood pressure, chronic kidney disease, osteoporosis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Shortly after his Los Angeles life-sentencing in the Berman murder trial, his lawyer disclosed he had also contracted COVID-19, despite being fully vaccinated.

"What the hell did I do? ... Killed them all, of course"

Born in 1943, as the eldest son of a New York real-estate tycoon, Durst was next in line to take over The Durst Organization. However, he chose a much different life. Instead of a golden toilet, Durst spent his life going to great lengths to evade law enforcement. First, there were suspicious circumstances surrounding the disappearance of his first wife, Kathleen "Kathie" McCormack, who went missing in 1982 and is presumed dead. Less than 20 years later, he was arrested in connection with the killing and dismemberment of his neighbor Morris Black, who figured out Durst's identity in 2001 while he was hiding in Texas. Durst was acquitted by the jury on the grounds he was acting in self-defense.

Investigators also pointed the finger at Durst in 2015 for killing his friend, Susan Berman, execution-style in her home on December 2000, just days before she was slated to admit that she had a false alibi in the 1982 disappearance of Kathie. Later, he penned a letter to her home with the word “cadaver” and Berman’s address on it, which helped the detectives and filmmakers with the case. Until Durst's narcissism got the best of him, he mostly stayed one step ahead of the law, and ultimately, he was his own worst enemy, telling on himself during the making of The Jinx, in which Durst was caught on a hot microphone saying to himself, "What the hell did I do? ... Killed them all, of course."

Los Angeles County prosecutor John Lewin, who had pursued Durst for years, credited The Jinx filmmakers Andrew Jarecki and Marc Smerling for their revealing interviews with Durst, telling reporters after the verdict: "Without them having conducted the interviews, we wouldn't be where we are."

However, the conviction will soon be overturned thanks to a technicality in the California legal process. Lewin told PEOPLE that Durst's legal defense team filed a notice of appeal after the jury found him guilty of murder, but it was still in the process of filing briefs.

"The fact that [Durst's] death during the pendency of his appeal will cause the conviction to be vacated is an unfortunate technical rule which in no way diminishes or changes what we all know happened," Lewin says.