← Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
D4vd BOLTS From Hollywood Hills Mansion & Spends Weekend Gaming on Roblox and Fortnite
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- [00:02]
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Ashley Banfield
Foreign hey everybody, I'm Ashley Banfield and this is drop dead Serious. I'm telling you, every day something else happens. Another shoe drops. And if I were David, the up and coming R B singer, I'd be shaking in my boots right now and I'd be hiring a phalanx of lawyers. Things keep developing in this mystery, even though we're not finding out anything official from the lapd. And hey, I get it. Detectives from the Robbery and Homicide Unit are supposed to stay quiet. They are. That's their job. Shut up. Investigate. Give good stuff to the prosecutor to mount a case and don't screw up the prosecution. Right? So? So I get it. They don't talk. They shouldn't. But that doesn't mean that the Internet and a worldwide phalanx of sleuths isn't working out a lot of details on their own. And maybe even maybe helping those detectives find connections. Right? You got millions of eyes going over all sorts of Reddit posts, et cetera. It can only help detectives with a couple of leads. Maybe they're even calling in leads. But let me tell you what happened to today, because today was yet another sort of vomiting of developments in the whole David story. Like we now know a lot more about where he is and where he isn't. That's all coming in a second, but when David spelled D4VD went on tour in early August, that dude could not have imagined that he would have so much time on his hands in September. Look, he did Plan to end his US Tour in his home base of Los Angeles right about now, before setting out for Europe next month to continue the international part of the tour. But David flew home early, and he scrapped all of his future dates after Los Angeles, both in the US and overseas. All of that happened after the Los Angeles Police spent 12 hours tossing his rented mansion in the Hollywood Hills, reportedly looking for, quote, unquote, blood evidence that would tie him to the body found in the trunk of his impounded Tesla on September 8th. By the way, that event, finding a decomposing body in the front of the Tesla and scooping those decomposed remains out of the frunk of the Tesla, that was not enough to prompt David to come home early. That in itself, not enough. And neither was the identification of that body, which happened several days later. That identification being a missing underage girl with whom the singer appears to have had a close relationship. Close and from many indications, possibly an illegal relationship. That also was not enough to end the tour and come home early. No, no, no. It was the tossing of the damn house. Tossing your mansion can have quite a profound effect on you, especially when your electronics are marched out the door in the hands of detectives. The victim in the trunk, I should say frunk. It is the front trunk on a Tesla. But the victim in that frunk, Celeste Rivas Hernandez, would have turned 15 the day before her remains were discovered. But she clearly died long before that. And she clearly spent that 15th birthday advancing in decomposition in that frunk. In fact, she may have died as far back as early August, maybe even before the owner of that Tesla left town on a music tour. We don't know. Medical examiner hasn't even determined how Celeste died, let alone when she died. She was that decomposed that this was not an easy case. We do have an idea, though, of how David is and isn't spending some of his free time right now. While the topic of his dismembered girl in his trunk there has the Internet on fire, David is still not making any public statements, that's for sure. His team did say last week that he was cooperating with authorities, but David himself has said nothing. Nothing about the girl, nothing about the car, nothing about the raid on his home. And now the LA Times is reporting that he has lawyered up. So whether he is still cooperating this week, not entirely clear. He does, however, appear to be moving. As in packing up and moving out, because according to the landlord of that raided house, David and his manager abruptly broke the lease that the manager signed back in February of last year. I want you to remember that date, February 2024, because that data is going to come up again in a hot minute and then it'll come up again. The landlord says, and I quote, they meaning the singer and the manager didn't want to be there anymore because of the ongoing circumstances. There's no word on whether the detectives found what they came for, the blood and or DNA evidence that they were reportedly coming to seek. But they did leave with several items, including a laptop. And about this house, I don't know if you know about the Hollywood Hills. There are some man shuns in the Hollywood Hills and they're some of them really, really private, extraordinary. Some of them are kind of run down. But man, that is just a hodgepodge of awesome and party and noise and family. It's a big mix. But this particular house where David was renting, $20,000 a month, right? It was Halle Berry's house. It's pretty crazy. It once belonged to Halle Berry. It's said to be worth just north of $4 million. So this was some house. And again, he was paying 20 grand a month in rent beginning in February of 2024, which coincidentally is when Celeste Rivas Hernandez went missing, ran away from her home, her family home in Lake Elsinore, 70 miles away, for the first time. That's when she bolted from her home the first time. Celeste reportedly ran away several times and was reported missing for the very last time in April of last year, 2024, when she was just 13. So Celeste is 13, she goes on the run. David would have been 19. Today. He's 20. And if you're wondering where this 20 year old up and coming singer has been all this time. While this story grows from bad to worse around him, we may have found the answer. He's reportedly been weathering the maelstrom by spending his time playing video games online. And we know that because fans of David say that they've seen a username associated with the singer popping up in the games Fortnite and Roblox. And they say this happened as recently as Saturday. That would be the 20th of September. There's also been a heck of a lot of action on the David subreddit. Jesus, that thing is alive. Online sleuths noticed that the singer himself was apparently the only moderator on that that thread and was deleting posts that criticized him. Hours after that was pointed out, David left the subreddit, leaving it locked to any new posts. Most of the recent posts centered on his apparent relationship with Celeste. And theories about her death, along with photos and videos that appear to show Celeste and David together and numerous comments indicating that they were dating. TMZ has led the reporting on this mystery from day one. And earlier on my News Nation show, Banfield, I caught up with TMZ's executive producer Charles Ledaboutier to ask him why it took Celeste's death to bring all these other allegations to light.
- [09:29]
Charles Ledaboutier
It's not like it was unknown where this missing runaway was. How did it go unchecked? How did no one knock on the David's door that she went to the movie with and say she's, she's 13, just turned, her parents want her back and you need to come in for questioning.
- [09:47]
Unidentified Interviewer/Reporter
Yeah. And especially because we know that she had gone missing runaway earlier in 2024 and the police did go and find her that time and bring her back to her family in Lake Elsinore. So when it happened the second time, why didn't the police go? Why didn't family members go?
- [10:07]
Charles Ledaboutier
So it was the police who brought.
- [10:09]
Ashley Banfield
Her back the first time.
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Unidentified Interviewer/Reporter
That is now, that is according to the teacher who was telling the whole class about this, what he had heard.
- [10:16]
Ashley Banfield
Yeah, yeah.
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Charles Ledaboutier
We're not sure exactly whether the police actually. Because if they did, my God, Charles, if they'd been involved once, why on earth would they not be involved the second time?
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Unidentified Interviewer/Reporter
Why wouldn't they? And even, you know, that comment that we were just talking about that was made in February of this year. You know, we're trying to find out. And again, police are being very tight lipped and not responding. But we want to find out, did someone report, make a report in February? Was that person saying it just sort of like in general, I know this isn't someone who's 13 and that you're messing with or are they saying that because they actually called police and reported this and said, look, there's this singer who's 18 and hanging out with my friend or relative who's 13. It just seems odd that the police weren't involved or that family members didn't. It's possible they didn't know where David was living at that point.
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Ashley Banfield
Dad, please.
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Ashley Banfield
Sorry, Ms. Color.
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Matt Murphy
What about a home office shop?
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- [12:11]
Charles Ledaboutier
It's just astounding to think that, you know, in 2022, when chat group suggested. Is Celeste in here? Yeah, you bet, David. Like, she'd have been just 12. She'd have been fresh out of being 11 years old when the contact may have first been made. If you do the math, he might have been 17 at that point. At the point where they're meeting up. She's 13, he's 18. There's no Romeo and Juliet law that would protect you there.
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Unidentified Interviewer/Reporter
No.
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Charles Ledaboutier
And then at 19 and she's 14, it's still not good. And then he's now 20, so she. They may have. I'm not sure when his birthday is, but they may have been 20 and 14 years old if they were together romantically. And again, ain't no law nowhere no how unless your parents are signing off on it. That says that's legal.
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Lowes Announcer
Yeah.
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Unidentified Interviewer/Reporter
And it's very clear that her mother was not signing off on this just from our conversations with her. There are so many questions here about what this relation, the nature of this relationship was and clearly how long it was going on.
- [13:10]
Ashley Banfield
I also spoke with former senior deputy DA in Orange County, California, Matt Murphy. He has successfully prosecuted dozens of murder cases there in California. He's also the author of the book called the Book of Murder, A Prosecutor's Journey Through Love and Death. Here's my conversation with Matt about the David case.
- [13:32]
Charles Ledaboutier
I am surprised there hasn't been an arrest yet, and I wanted to know if you are.
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Matt Murphy
Well, they're taking their time, Ashley, which is exactly what they should be doing. And there's a lot to untangle here. And it's important to remember he's presumed innocent. Right. And we know based on past history there are juries in LA that will entertain absolutely insane defense theories. And so they're crossing their T's and dotting their I's, and they're being methodical, which is exactly what they should be doing. And I anticipate it's going to be a little while. Okay, so there are a multitude of potential crimes as you, as you just hit on. Number one, a 13 year old is there's a line under California law for any sexual contact. And again, it's speculative at this point. We don't know. The information hasn't come out. But there's a big line between 13 and 14. 13 is 288 A of the California penal code, which is essentially any lewd contact, contact with a minor, 13 or under. So that's a big deal. 14 also it's 288C. So depending on just the nature of the relationship itself before we even get to the homicide, he's being investigated right now. And apparently they went in there. Some of the things that were seen coming out of that house were things like computers and tablets. And that's exactly what they should be looking. And right now, probably as we speak, there is some overworked, underpaid forensic technologist who's going through cell phones and computers and looking for any evidence of that relationship. Another thing that's interesting here is, you know, we've talked about this before, Ashley. There's. We have the information that's come out from the LAPD which has been minimal, right? It's been and it should be minimal right now they have to be very careful about the information they release. But this is a murder and in the, or potentially a murder in the modern era. And the reason I say potentially we don't have a cause of death yet. And I've had cases where we thought somebody was murdered and it turned out later it was an od. We had one once where the person committed suicide, it turned out. So we don't know yet. Now she was dismembered, certainly didn't do that to herself. But we don't know from the coroner's office yet exactly if they have a cause of death. What it was, we don't know. And I'm going to suspect dismembered, heavily decomposed body like that, it's going to be tough to tell. There are certain telltale signs depending on what was in there, what they actually recovered. But at this point we don't know. But the, the really interesting part about this to me is the online sleuthing. And there can be a lot of bad that goes along with that. But you know, some of this is really interesting here. You wrote a song called A Romantic Homicide. Now that was long before she, she was killed or died. But it's. This is. The online part is really interesting. All these videos that keep popping up where it shows it's a young woman that looks like her.
- [16:29]
Charles Ledaboutier
It is. And I gotta be honest with you.
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Ashley Banfield
I have so many questions for you, like millions, literally.
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Charles Ledaboutier
I wanted to ask you a second ago about the lewd behavior or the lewd connection to a teenager who's 13 or 14. And I just want to get this on the record real quickly. Does that mean online behavior or does that mean physical behavior?
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Matt Murphy
That's a really good question. There are circumstances where online behavior alone between a 13 or under child and an adult can constitute a completed child molest. In other words, if they're, if they're sexting or somebody is directing a child to perform certain acts online. I've prosecuted those before where that counts as a completed child molest, even if they haven't met, even if there's no physical contact.
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Charles Ledaboutier
Interesting, because, you know, those tablets and those electronics and the forensic person you said is woefully underpaid, hopefully will be able to determine if that is an issue in this particular case because there's a lot of speculation about it. And to that speculation, Matt, it is like you've seen the documentary Don't F with Cats where literally the online community solves a serial killer's crime. And in this particular case, there are so many theories that people are positing about what might have happened to Celeste. Maybe she was pregnant and it didn't, was. It wasn't news that was well accepted. Maybe she OD'd. Maybe it's someone in the entourage. All these different theories. My question to you, as someone who's in the business of solving these crimes and prosecuting them, are the police doing the same thing that the online community is doing, running down all of these different theories?
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Matt Murphy
Yes, yes. And this is, these are, these are good cops at lapd. They were woefully underserved by the previous District Attorney of LA County. And also, keep in mind, the LAPD is operating under woeful budget cuts by the city of Los Angeles. But I think in this one, given the high profile nature, they're devoting the resources and they're doing it right. And the detectives, I've worked with this unit before, and these are hard hitting, no nonsense women and men at the LAPD who know what they're doing. So they're doing all of that stuff. They're going through the computers. They have forensically worked up that house, probably Top to bottom, they're looking for her DNA. They're looking on any instruments that may have been used to dismember her. I've already seen some of the conspiracy theories come out, and one of the questions I saw is, who would be stupid enough to put the dead body in the trunk of their own car? And the answer to that is most murderers, most people, especially when they kill for the first time, make a million mist. And this would be a really bad one. Another thing that's interesting is we. That I'm personally curious about if the car was parked and it was apparently one minute away from the home there that we're seeing, it was not taken far away. We heard about all these vandalism cases against Teslas in the recent news. With all the cameras that are on Teslas, I'm very curious to see if there's an actual video on the data recorder of that car that shows who the driver was. That's something that's going to be interesting. But I think that what's happening in addition to the forensic stuff right now is they're doing gumshoe police work and they are interviewing every single person they can find that was in his orbit, that knew about their relationship, what the circumstances were, if any. And it certainly sounds. I mean, there's a lot of circumstantial evidence right now indicating that there had been some sort of close relationship between them, perhaps romantic. It certainly looks that way. But right now, again, the LAPD is putting it together, and we're going to see a lot of these pieces probably fit together here pretty soon.
- [20:16]
Charles Ledaboutier
I have 20 seconds, but I've got to get you on the record here. If they can't come up with a cause of death, is that brutal for this case?
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Matt Murphy
No, you can still prosecute. You can certainly prosecute. I mean, I did five no body cases where we had no exact cause of death either. So you can certainly do it. And it. But it does. It does throw a wrinkle in there. If you've. If you've just got a decomposed, you know, torso, or depending on what's available, what I would be asking if I was them is the hyoid bone. That's a bone in the neck. That's consistent with strangulation. That's something that doesn't go away with decomposition. I'm sure they're looking at that. If, if it's true that her head was recovered, they can find what's called petechial hemorrhaging in our eyes, indicating strangulation bones will leave marks concerning stabbing. So the forensic pathology here is going to be very interesting. And again, the coroners in LA county are the real deal. They know what they're doing. So we'll have to see.
- [21:14]
Charles Ledaboutier
And let's hope, you know, let's hope that they do all the toxicology tests that might indicate whether it's a drug overdose as well, because like you said before, that is entirely possible.
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Ashley Banfield
So the big question now is what exactly is happening in David's world? And is there a defense team guiding his every move? Because while no charges of any kind have been filed against anybody, I would for one, love to be a fly on the wall. When David did or does sit down with his attorneys, was it their idea to cancel the rest of his world tour? Did they advise him to stay completely silent about the predicament that he's in when it comes to the public? To help me break this all down, I turned to one of the sharpest legal minds I know. Sarah Azari joined me on my News Nation show. Banfield. She's a criminal defense attorney, a News Nation legal analyst, and she's the host of News Nation's YouTube show, Serving Justice. Here's our conversation.
- [22:07]
Charles Ledaboutier
What are his lawyers telling him, Sarah? Right now?
- [22:10]
Sarah Azari
Ashley, I think at this point it's more about gathering information from the client. I know that his devices, some of his devices were taken. You just had a conversation with Matt Murphy, and I would want to know what's on there. What could possibly the LAPD be investigating? Because, as you know, at this early stage, there's no discovery. The LAPD is. Doesn't give us much information. And I think Matt gave LAPD in the coroner's office way too much credit than is due. I've worked with the LAPD for 25 years, and I can tell you there's a lot of flaws in some of these investigations, for good or bad. And even the coroner's office, you know, I've had them do autopsies on the wrong body, give me reports for the wrong body, you know, so hopefully this is being done properly. But I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't bank on it.
- [22:58]
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- [23:51]
Charles Ledaboutier
Let me ask you to put on your defense hat and you're retained as one of David's attorney. Are you advising him to cooperate with the police? Are you advising him to stop all meetings and communications altogether? What do you say?
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Sarah Azari
Well, you know, it's interesting because we've heard that he's cooperating with lapd. I don't exactly know what that means. Cooperating through his lawyers, that's one thing. But I certainly would not have him sit there with case detectives and answer questions. He certainly, I mean, even though we don't know the evidence or the extent of the evidence, he certainly carries some exposure here. He's not a suspect, but he's being looked at. He's a person of interest. So my concern would be, you know, there's no good that's going to come out of putting my client, you know, in front of the LAPD to answer their questions, fill in the blanks. So I don't know what cooperation means. Is it that the lawyers are speaking to detectives? I certainly would keep it minimal. And you brought up another good point, Ashley, about not saying anything in media. You know, when you have a celebrity client, you are defending them in the court of public opinion because the minute their name comes up in a situation like this, their career is pretty much over, whether or not they're eventually charged. You're also defending the charges, obviously, legally. But, you know, here my concern is the defendant should not be saying anything. The potential defendant should not be saying a word. So as much as we want to hear from a higher profile person at least denying having anything to do with this, there's also the concern of, you know, what they might say that could be used against them. I think if there's a statement made, it should come from his lawyers and it should be very generic.
- [25:30]
Charles Ledaboutier
Yeah. Because honestly, what else is playing all over the news and all over the Internet, what we're talking about and it isn't good. It sounds terrible. All of the speculation. Everybody who's trying to solve the crime, theorize what happened to Celeste. Was she pregnant, was it an overdose, was it a murder, was it an accident? All these things are just being batted about like pong in the 80s. So if you're also advising him at this point, and there is the real concern that there is a wrongful death, maybe even a murder, certainly a dismemberment and an indignation offered to human corpse, there's all sorts of wording for those charges. Are you focusing on that right away or are you simultaneously and equally as aggressively focused on focusing on. You got some problems because this girl was maybe 11 when you met. How are you preparing this client for.
- [26:24]
Ashley Banfield
The reality that that is what could.
- [26:27]
Charles Ledaboutier
Be the worst thing he's facing?
- [26:28]
Sarah Azari
You know, I mean, preparing the client as client management. And we do that from the get go. But the idea of trying to formulate a defense or trying to figure out what charges might be if and when they come is very difficult at this stage. Hopefully the client's being honest, you know, and telling his lawyers what part he's had, what kind of relationship he's had. But ultimately, how we defend the case depends on what the evidence is, obviously what the charges are. But, you know, do they have digital evidence? Do they have a bunch of snitches flipping? Do they have, you know, videos, like Matt said, showing a sexual relationship or something that shows more than just, you know, odd connection between an older teen and a younger teen? You know, it really depends on what the evidence is. So I think it's very early. And as much as it's so challenging with a high profile client, because you're going to have to do damage control and brand damage control and all of that, the main problem here, the main concern should be his liberty, which is the criminal exposure that he carries.
- [27:38]
Charles Ledaboutier
Yeah, that's big, right? Because who cares about your brand if you're stuck in. If you're stuck in prison? You can just ask Diddy about that, right?
- [27:45]
Ashley Banfield
So clearly David's got some work cut out for him. And, you know, that's the legal side he has, the PR side that he's got to deal with too. And that is a whole other kettle of fish, right? Because let's just say this guy's innocent, he's never charged. What the hell does he do now with his reputation and with his career that seems like it's in the toilet with a label that wants nothing to do with Him? What does he do? You need a team for that. What if he is under suspicion for a very long time? Then what? How long can he withstand the drubbing that he's getting online and elsewhere? I mean, it is on fire. This story is on fire. The Internet is on fire. The Reddits are on fire, the chat groups are on fire. Fire. Cable news is on fire. It's because there's so much unknown. And so that just leads to a hurricane of speculation, right? It's actually a tornado. So then what? What does he do? What does he do in that time where everything is unknown and his brand is bleeding out? What does he do? You need a team for that. What does he do if he's actually charged, right? Then he's got a couple of years, likely before trial. All the while, the wording that is used is charged with xxx, sex crimes, murder, you name it. If these are the charges, right? I'm not saying he is. He's innocent. Right now he is not guilty of anything. But if he is, if he is charged, oh my God, the team goes into overdrive because how do you withstand that? And if you're guilty, you probably don't withstand it, because what's the point of having the brand if you're locked up behind bars for life? And let me tell you this, we may forget and think, oh, we're going to get the answer soon. Maybe there'll be an arrest soon. I really, truly did think there'd be an arrest over the weekend. But there is no statute of limitations on murder. None. So if you think you get away with murder, you always look over your shoulder. You can never escape it. There's never a time when you think skated off that one. So if he's guilty of something like this, he will never sleep a moment of peace, right? He will never, ever experience the ease of conscience because there will always be this elephant on his back and there will always be detectives chasing him. If he didn't do it, he may still suffer the wrath of people chasing him. The Internet may chase him, the trolls may chase him, and he's gonna need some kind of help to figure out what comes next. Will he ever have a career again? Regardless of what happens? Ask Diddy. Hey, listen, thank you so much for being here. Gosh, I love having you guys together with me in this community. It's a real treat, honestly. Otherwise I'd just be sitting here talking to myself. So I appreciate you all so much. Thank you. If you're listening, thank you. If you're watching. And if you remember one thing, it's that the truth isn't just serious, it's drop dead serious.