Albany Woman Ordered to Stand Trial for Kensington Murder

Published Aug. 28, 2013, updated Nov. 12.

Following detailed crime-scene evidence presented in a preliminary hearing today, Wednesday, an Albany woman was ordered by a Contra Costa County Superior Court judge to stand trial for the murder of a retired Kensington psychologist a year ago.


Diane Sydenham, 57, has been charged with murdering James Durkin, 81, in his in-law unit in a home in the 600 block of Coventry Road in Kensington. His body was found with a steak knife stuck in his heart on Aug. 13 last year, authorities said. She pleaded not guilty at a Sept. 20 hearing and has been jailed since then on $2 million bail. 

Wearing a green jail jumpsuit, Sydenham sat through most of the hearing with an impassive expression on her face, betraying little emotion as Kensington Police Detective Eric Stegman described the blood-splattered scene where Durkin's body was found lying face down.

After Judge Patricia Scalon ruled that a "strong suspicion" exists of Sydenham's culpability and that she must face trial for murder, the defendant's face showed some alarm as she turned to her two attorneys, the father-daughter team of Robert and Anne Beles.

Among those seated in the Richmond courtroom during the hearing were Durkin's daughter, San Francisco marriage and family therapist Carla Durkin, and relatives of Sydenham among a group of four people who declined comment. Carla Durkin also declined comment on the outcome of the hearing.

In today's testimony, a DNA analyst for the Contra Contra Costa Sheriff's Department, Tuan Nguyen, said he found the victim's DNA in blood stains on Sydenham's shoes after she was arrested by Kensington police.

Nguyen also said a blood stain caused by an apparent drop of blood on a piece of paper found on an ottoman-type foot stool in Durkin's apartment matched Sydenham's DNA.

She was arrested late at night at her Kains Avenue apartment in Albany, hours after Durkin's body was found, Stegman said.

Durkin had slash marks on various parts of his body in addition the knife in his chest, and Sydenham had cuts on fingers of both hands and a bruised arm when she was arrested, Stegman testified.

The caretaker who lives upstairs above the unit where Durkin lived told police that Sydenham was a known visitor to Durkin's apartment and that the caretaker heard the loud sound of Sydenham's voice coming from Durkin's unit on the previous Thursday or Friday, according to Stegman's testimony.

The caretaker, Ingrid Saab, indicated she was not sure what was happening in the unit or whether an argument was taking place, Stegman said. Saab said Sydenham had been "verbally abusive" to Durkin on past occasions and that she may have been on that occasion as well, according to Stegman.

According to Stegman, Saab told police she heard Sydenham exclaim, "You got me. You got me. Ouch. Ouch."

Saab said she also heard a "flesh to flesh" sound and slapped her forearms together to indicate the sound, Stegman said. Saab speculated that some of form "kinky sex" may have been taking place, he said.

Saab, who is an attendant for another woman with dementia who lives upstairs in the house, said she didn't see Durkin after hearing the sounds until the following Monday, Aug. 13, when she went to his unit to give him his mail and found him dead just inside the open entry door, Stegman said.

She dialed 911 to summon police, who arrived to find the apartment in disarray, Stegman said. The detective said he could smell "the odor of slight decomposition of a body."

The defense attorneys grilled Nguyen about the reliability of the DNA tests and questioned whether the blood samples could have been contaminated during the handling of evidence. 

Robert Belles told the judge at the conclusion of testimony that the DNA evidence "falls short of what's necessary."

The prosecutor, Contra Costa County Deputy District Attorney Jill Henderson, asked Nguyen for the statistical odds that the DNA found on Syndenham's shoes could have been from someone other than Durkin. 

"One in 510 quadrillion," he said. Asked how many zeroes in that number, he said it's a "five with 17 zeroes."

The defense also asked Stegman if the caretaker, Saab, ever had any "personal run-ins" with Sydenham, and Stegman said that Sydenham once accused Saab of "having some kind of affair" with Durkin. Saab told police that she did not have an affair with him, according to Stegman.

Durkin's daughter told Patch that her father had lived in the apartment for 15-20 years and that he had known Sydenham for the past couple of years. She declined to characterize their relationship, other than to say her father said he "cared for her."

James Durkin, who held a Ph.D., had lectured at Saybrook University in San Francisco, wrote poetry and advocated for patients with Parkinson's disease, which he suffered from himself.

Sydenham, who is unmarried and does not have children, was unemployed at the time of her arrest. She was familiar to her Albany neighbors for taking walks in the area.

The killing shocked residents of affluent Kensington, where homicide is rare.  

Scanlon set Sept. 20 for the new arraignment for Sydenham at the main Contra Costa County courthouse in Martinez.