Robert Alan "Bobby" Durst (born 1943) is a son of the late New York real estate mogul Seymour Durst

Seymour Durst

Seymour B. Durst was a New York real estate investor and developer. He was also a philanthropist and the inventor of the National Debt Clock....

, and brother of commercial developer Douglas Durst.
Durst grew up, one of four children, in Scarsdale, New York

Scarsdale, New York

Scarsdale is a coterminous town and village in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the northern suburbs of New York City. The Town of Scarsdale is coextensive with the Village of Scarsdale, but the community has opted to operate solely with a village government, one of several villages...

 and attended Scarsdale High School

Scarsdale High School

Scarsdale High School is a public high school in Scarsdale, New York, a coterminous town and village in Westchester County, New York. The school was founded in 1917...

. He completed his undergraduate degree at Lehigh University

Lehigh University

Lehigh University is a private, co-educational university located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of the United States. It was established in 1865 by Asa Packer as a four-year technical school, but has grown to include studies in a wide variety of disciplines...

 and attended graduate school at UCLA. Durst reportedly witnessed his mother's apparent suicide at age seven; she either fell or jumped off the roof of the Scarsdale family mansion.