Police: No link between Durst, missing NCSU student

Kristen Modafferi had finished her freshman year at N.C. State, where she was studying industrial design, and spent the summer in the San Francisco Bay area to take summer courses at the University of California-Berkeley. The Charlotte native took a job at a coffeehouse in San Francisco's financial district, and she disappeared after leaving the coffeehouse on June 23, 1997, the day before her summer classes started.

Durst, 71, an eccentric heir to a New York real estate fortune, lived in northern California at the time. He was arrested this week in connection with the execution-style slaying of a California woman in 2000 and also is a suspect in the 1982 death of his first wife.

“The Oakland Police Department conducted an investigation with the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding the 1997 disappearance of Kristen Modafferi. The investigation was open and active for several years. At this time, we do not have any evidence that indicates Robert Durst was involved in her disappearance," Oakland Police Department spokesman Frank Bonifacio said in a statement.

Police initially looked at Durst as a suspect in Modafferi's disappearance in 2003. At the time, he was on trial in Texas for the murder and dismemberment of a neighbor. Durst claimed the killing was self-defense and was acquitted at of all charges.