← Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
D4VD Case EXPLODES: Chainsaws, Body Bags, Kiddie Pool & Disturbing Timeline with Matt Murphy
01:35:05
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- [00:00]
Ashley Banfield
neighbor game oo and doug there's nowhere i wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with liberty mutual even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show hey everyone
- [00:12]
Matt Murphy
check out this guy and his bird
- [00:14]
Ashley Banfield
what is this your first date oh no we help people customize and save on car insurance with liberty mutual together we're married me to a human him to a bird yeah the bird looks
- [00:23]
Matt Murphy
out of your league anyways get a
- [00:24]
Ashley Banfield
quote at libertymutual dot com or with your local agent liberty liberty liberty liberty with the new milos pro rewards american express card earn three points per dollar spent on lowe's qualifying purchases for the first six months after card account opening plus save five percent every day on eligible purchases at lowe's and earn points on eligible purchases everywhere else amex is accepted card members get more at lowe's subject to credit approval five percent can't be combined with any other offer exclusions and restrictions apply points subject to loyalty terms at lowe's dot com terms and credit reward terms at synchrony dot com mlpra dot visit lowe's dot com businesscredit
- [01:06]
Matt Murphy
hey everyone i'm ashley banfield and this is drop dead serious and i wanted to do an episode to bring you up to speed if you're not already on what the prosecutors in california believe david the singer who spells his name d four v d what they allege he did to his underage girlfriend celeste rivas hernandez because if you get your hands on this people's briefing and i have to call it a people's briefing it's not an affidavit it's not a charging document it's none of those things it is a briefing paper that the da in california has put together for the judge in advance of a preliminary hearing for david and you know you already know he's david anthony burke but he goes by david d four vd so for purposes of this podcast that's what i'm calling him anyway finally finally we know the narrative finally we know what the police have and what they allege this guy did to this poor young girl this child who was only fourteen when she met her death and had her fifteenth birthday rotting in the front trunk of his tesla we've known all along that the body of a girlfriend of his an underage girlfriend was rotting in his tesla and he's running off and doing a sort of a tour or at least starting and then canceling it real quick but we couldn't quite figure out back in september of twenty twenty five why they weren't arresting him it seemed kind of obvious to us tesla's four hundred feet away from your front door of your house and there's a dead girlfriend cut up inside that tesla how is this a hard case well in some ways it isn't it's just unbelievably obvious and in some ways it might be so what i wanted to do for you today is actually go through this specifics what do they have and then talk to somebody who knows a lot more about the business of prosecuting criminals than i do especially in california and that's matt murphy he's been a regular guest of mine and he's one of my favorites as well so matt former homicide prosecutor and he was in orange county and he's literally written the book on murder it's called the book of murder so yeah matt knows a thing or two about why there may have been this long seven month delay between finding celeste's body in that tow yard right where the car had been towed to putting david anthony burke in handcuffs and he's got some really good information on that and i wanted to share that with you he's got a couple of new podcasts too he's doing a podcast with my friend mark garagos and guess what i'm going to talk to mark garagos about this case as well to see the other side of where david anthony burke david the singer may actually be able to fight this and why this big long pause in between finding celeste's body and putting david in cuffs might actually mean trouble for the prosecution i know it's hard to believe once i tell you what i'm about to tell you but anyway so stay tuned because when you hear what matt murphy has to say i mean he's thrilled about this he is he's loving every minute of all the legal machinations all the behind the scenes the strategy the spider web weaving it's really really cool some of it's kind of dry and sort of you know legal procedure but it makes sense when he explained explains it as to what their process really was in trying to snare david into their web and get an indictment that might actually stick get a charge get a conviction that might actually stick so let me start here it's laid out kind of as a storybook i mean i hate to say it that way but it really is they effectively say that celeste was fourteen because we know that when she was found it was the day after her fifteenth birthday and so yeah she'd been in that trunk much longer than one day so she spent her birthday rotting in that trunk it's very very sad and they basically basically say it was towed three days before they discovered her body because it had been towed from a location four hundred feet from david's home in the hollywood hills and surveillance video this memo says and other evidence which i can't wait to find out about confirmed that the defendant david was the last person to drive that vehicle on july twenty ninth twenty twenty five that's pretty impressive that they have that much information leading to david actually being the person behind the wheel okay so we all know that the tesla had been impounded that there was a lot of smell coming from the vehicle but when they opened it a few more details about what they actually found in the impound lot they found a black cadaver bag covered in insects that breaks my heart inside the bag was a severely decomposed head and torso right first of all my god a cadaver bag who has cadaver bags other than the medical examiner as it turns out the alleged is as it turns out the allegation is david you're going to find out why he actually would be in possession allegedly of a body bag so they find this body bag and it's got a head and a torso in it but then a plastic garbage bag is beneath it right it's beneath the black body bag and inside the garbage bags right plastic garbage bag is the dismembered arms and legs belonging to that torso and head that was in the cadaver bag don't ask me why i don't know why there's a body bag and plastic garbage bag but that's how the allegation is that he did it but there's more listed in this this description is that the victim's ring and pinky fingers left hand so your wedding finger and your pinky finger next to it they're amputated they're gone these two fingers okay i get it remember we were told that celeste had david tattooed on her ring finger and so i guess you're just going to take both of them off because maybe it's easier than just getting one of those fingers off so that's pretty compelling evidence you wanted to get rid of the word david who are you then might you be david that's the allegation okay so then the positive identification is made on september sixteenth so eight days later they id this poor young girl as celeste rivas hernandez so the allegations that they lay out are that and this is fascinating david and celeste met when celeste was eleven eleven january twenty twenty two if you do the math david at that time would have been about sixteen and already starting his you know internet music career so sixteen and he's meeting a girl who's eleven nonetheless this goes on to say the sexual relationship began in november of twenty twenty three so at this point she's a year and a half older she's actually just turned thirteen because she had her birthday in september so yeah she's a freshly turned thirteen year old middle schooler the defendant at this point is eighteen so now we're getting into the territory that's breaking the law so the sexual relationship they say she's thirteen he's eighteen she just just turned and three months later her family reports her missing because apparently they say she's spending so much time up in the hollywood hills with this guy they're pissed off about it right understandably then not long after that this is all actually in the same timeline right so february twenty fourth she runs away and it's three months after the sexual relationship allegedly begins february twenty fourth as well parents are angry they get her back home and they take away her telephone they confiscate her phone february twenty fourth same month uh law enforcement says that david surreptitiously got a burner phone for her and paid somebody a thousand dollars to give her that phone wow that's a lot that's pretty indicting paid somebody in her hometown where she lives with her parents or should be living with her parents to give her that burner phone so that they could continue to communicate all throughout twenty twenty four also in feb of twenty twenty four the parents obviously are getting pissed and they say we i'm assuming it's the parents we need you to do a welfare check we need you to find our daughter we think she's up there in the hollywood hills with that singer named david and he's an adult she's a child apparently according to the document the police actually find david's phone number in celeste's phone so they call him and they don't just call him because when they call him he says i haven't spoken to her since february thirteenth or fourteen in twenty twenty four right so that's days ago i haven't spoken to her in days so they go to his house they've made the phone call but now they decide i think we need to go they're going to do an actual welfare check and when they get to his home in the hollywood hills he says to them you know i didn't know she was thirteen did not know that and not only that i have not seen her much because i only met her one time in person i've only met that girl one time in person in november of twenty twenty three this is what this allegation says against david when they're at the welfare check at his home in the hollywood hills because you know they're looking for a runaway he says yeah i didn't know she was thirteen and frankly i didn't know she was a minor i i had only met her once in person november of twenty twenty three coincidentally i think you remember me saying twenty twenty three was when the allegations are that they began their sexual relationship so that may not be true and if that is the case if these allegations are true maybe there'll be more charges of lying to the police and obstructing justice because that's what that is when you tell the police a lie so weirdly even though david is telling this welfare check police officer i don't know what you're talking about really don't know much about her only met her once in person you know back in november twenty twenty three two days later celeste is home who told her to go home two days after that coincidence maybe then it's after that that the allegations here say he drove to lake elsinore david drove to lake elsinore and paid a junior high school student in celeste's class one thousand dollars to give her a cell phone that he himself had purchased so that they could stay in contact and apparently that happens all throughout the year twenty twenty four and they say that celeste spent significant a significant amount of time visiting with the defendant including summer weekends at his home in the hollywood hills and travel to las vegas and london and even texas to meet his family she's thirteen bro it's it is hard to believe there are text messages in this memorandum that allege there are references between david and celeste of sex and pregnancy and abortion and the use of plan b emergency contraceptive as well as explicit photographs documenting and corroborating what's alleged to be a sexual relationship between the two of them so that's important right because if you're trying to allege sex if you weren't there to witness it how else do you prove it well with text messages and pregnancy abortion plan b all these things that doesn't that discussion doesn't come up if you're not actually doing it right if you're not actually having sex it doesn't come up necessarily then in november of twenty twenty four the defendant and the victim broke up celeste and david broke up according to this but continued to communicate and the text messages suggest the sexual relationship continued as well then we get to april twenty third which we've wondered when it was celeste actually died and the investigators say they pinned it to april twenty third and there's a good reason for that all of her cellular activity ceased on that day that's a good indication i don't think she was going to a monastery to contemplate life at age thirteen fourteen right fourteen years old everything stops no more communications from her phone but the night before something very telling happened and let me just get you up to speed the prior night april twenty second twenty twenty five the defendant and the victim engaged in a lengthy argument described in detail in their text messages the messages revealed the victim's jealousy over defendant david's relationship with other women as defendant led her to believe that they had a future together this memorandum continues she became extremely upset and threatened to disclose damaging information about her relationship with the defendant to end his career and destroy his his life coincidentally defendants first studio album was due to be released april twenty fifth in just three days he had an emerging multi million dollar career already in progress he had multiple product endorsements which were highly profitable so you can see where this you know where this briefing is going basically she's angry he's apparently having relationships with other girls they've broken up but they still continue on all their business and communications and she's now saying i'm mad i don't like that so i'm going to tell on you because i'm underage you're not it could ruin you completely so that again is on april twenty second
- [15:40]
Ashley Banfield
and doug there's nowhere i wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with liberty mutual even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show hey everyone check
- [15:51]
Matt Murphy
out this guy and his bird what
- [15:53]
Ashley Banfield
is this your first date oh no we help people customize and save on car insurance with liberty mutual together we're married me to a human him to
- [16:00]
Matt Murphy
a bird yeah the bird looks out of your league anyways get a quote
- [16:03]
Ashley Banfield
at libertymutual dot com or with your local agent liberty liberty liberty liberty mom
- [16:09]
Matt Murphy
can you tell me a story sure once upon a time a mom needed a new car was she brave she was tired mostly but she went to carvana dot com and found a great car at a great price no secret treasure map required did you have to fight a dragon nope she bought it one hundred percent online from her bed actually was it scary honey it was as unscary as car buying could be did the car have a sunroof it did actually okay good story car buying you'll want to tell stories about buy your car today on carvana delivery fees may apply i sold my car on
- [16:40]
Ashley Banfield
carvana last night well that's cool no you don't understand it went perfectly real offer down to the penny they're picking it up tomorrow nothing went wrong so
- [16:48]
Matt Murphy
what's the problem that is the problem
- [16:50]
Ashley Banfield
nothing in my life goes as smoothly
- [16:52]
Matt Murphy
i'm waiting for the catch maybe there's
- [16:53]
Ashley Banfield
no catch that's exactly what a catch would want me to think wow you
- [16:57]
Matt Murphy
need to relax i need to knock
- [16:59]
Ashley Banfield
on wood do we have what is
- [17:00]
Matt Murphy
this table wood i think it's laminate
- [17:02]
Ashley Banfield
okay yeah that's good that's close enough
- [17:03]
Matt Murphy
car selling without a catch sell your car today on carvana pick up these may apply and you know what i want to tell you about something you may have forgotten from seven months ago we have seen video of twitch live streams with david and celeste and there is a freakout when messages start coming in suggesting you're done bro i got you on four k you're like the epstein files i'm paraphrasing some of them but suddenly david freaks out yo yo yo and then there's a conversation between david and celeste where he says i media trained you and he she says no you didn't and what am i against having sex with minors or something like that i'm gonna let you see this but it starts to show you the panic and fear about knowing about the severity of what it means for someone who is of the age of majority and behaving like that with someone who might be thirteen or fourteen take a look at this pray for his
- [18:04]
Ashley Banfield
career chat are we done are we
- [18:07]
Matt Murphy
are we we need to delete this
- [18:09]
Ashley Banfield
are we maz can we delete all vods and then as soon as the stream ends delete the stream too can we delete anything you done for bro y' all are not done now you gonna epstein yo yo yo yo wait wait wait wait oh look it answer
- [18:31]
Matt Murphy
that one that's so mean if you
- [18:32]
Ashley Banfield
don't answer which one which one which one was good they have a big family oh thank you mitch mitchell khondrio i personally don't yo i media trained you no you didn't that's controversial it's
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Matt Murphy
controversial of raping kids
- [18:56]
Ashley Banfield
really good it's been it's been a good one bye
- [18:58]
Matt Murphy
bye guys wow that's interesting certainly in retrospect of all these charges and knowledge of the law and how old she actually is why would you freak out like that why would you freak out and then hit your mute button okay let's keep going shall we because this is extraordinarily informative this episode is brought to you by wild grain if you love really good fresh bread but you don't have time to hunt down a bakery this is honestly one of the easiest food subscriptions i've tried wild grain sends baked from frozen sourdough breads pastries and even fresh pasta straight to your door everything is made with simple ingredients that you can actually pronounce so it tastes incredible and it's easier on your tummy and best part is you just pop it in the oven no thawing no prep and in about twenty five minutes your kitchen smells like a bakery and don't just take my word for it they have over forty thousand five star reviews and have been voted the best food subscription box by usa today for three years in a row for a limited time wild grain is offering my listeners thirty dollars off your first box plus free croissants for life when you go to wildgrain dot com banfield to start your subscription today that's thirty dollars off your first and free croissants for life at wildgrain dot com banfield or just use the promo code banfield at checkout so again there's this big argument on the twenty second of april and the next night on the twenty third of april the police say at eight forty pm april twenty third defendant sent an uber to transport the victim from her lake elsinore home to his residence i'm assuming that's where her parents are maybe she's home at this point with her parents at this time and the allegation is he's basically bringing her to the hollywood hills the night after their big argument and her threat that she's going to ruin his career just you know three days before he's got his first big studio album dropping the allegation says they communicated before and during her uber ride which dropped her off at defendants hollywood hills home at about ten ten pm important time at approximately ten thirty pm defendant sent text messages to the victim inquiring where she was well she's already arrived twenty minutes prior at your home why are you sending text messages to her twenty minutes after she's gotten to your home you're about to find out what they allege happened in those twenty minutes and it is jaw dropping the allegation here is that the people meaning the government the da the police believe that he's sending these messages because he's already killed her he killed her when she walked in the door at ten ten when she was dropped off by the uber the allegation is that he's covering his tracks and pretending that he's reaching out to her where are you hey what's up let's talk whatever the messages are they're saying that this is a big old cover up you killed her and now you want to make it look like yeah no idea where she was you're calling her to find out where she is you're texting her what's up girl right that's what the allegation is but they say by the time these texts go out at ten thirty she's already dead knowing he had to silence the victim before she ruined his music career as she had threatened very soon after his her arrival at his home defendant stabbed the victim to death multiple times and stood by while she bled out so this is quick uber drops her off at ten ten front door's right there takes about eight seconds maybe five seconds to get from the door of the uber to the front door the allegation is he's lying in wait and he's ready to kill her the moment she walks in the door and by ten thirty she's dead and he's texting to make it look like he didn't know anything about where she is so the allegation goes so this continues on to say the defendant drove to santa barbara county immediately after the victim died attempting to dispose of her property and destroy evidence at approximately eleven thirty pm on april twenty third so this is one hour after presumably she's already dead and he's pretending to send her messages right it's an hour and twenty minutes after she's shown up at his door in that uber at eleven thirty pm he drove away from his home as he texted and called the victim's phone asking where she was calling texting where are you girl all the while she's dead i don't know where she is i don't know if she's back at the house at this point allegedly or if she's in the tesla with him allegedly as he's driving to santa barbara the weird thing is he ends up in santa barbara and spends quite a lot of time there and doesn't come home until early the following morning of april twenty fourth so what was he doing all night long from eleven thirty at night when he departs his home to early the next morning when he comes home don't know don't know but he's got a radio interview that day wow i'd have canceled that one if that were me he's got a radio interview apparently scheduled to promote the release of his big new album because that's supposed to drop the next day after that on april twenty fifth we found a podcast interview we don't know if a radio interview or a podcast interview is just language we're not sure if this is the actual interview but we found an interview that was posted on april twenty eighth just four days later and i don't know if this is the interview but let me play a piece of it for you because it talks about his music and his famous song and if you know his famous song romantic homicide let me let me remind you of a couple of the lyrics of his famous song before i play this radio interview in the back of my mind you died and i didn't even cry no not a single tear and i'm sick of waiting patiently for someone that won't even arrive oh oh oh oh in the back of my mind i killed you and i didn't even regret it i can't believe i said it because it's true but it's true i hate you so that's romantic homicide the lyrics here's the interview we found that posted four days after the morning he returned from this trip allegedly out to santa barbara having just allegedly stabbed his underage girlfriend to death and
- [25:43]
Ashley Banfield
i played it for my mom and whenever my mom hates something i know it's cool like when i used to get up and get dressed for school in the morning i put on this cool fit she was like take that off put on a suit or something like that you know i knew it was cool if she hated it i played it for her in the car and she was like david this song is too violent you talking about killing people in your music no not my son and i was like wait i might be on to something so i dropped it right after that and it went crazy tiktok viral million views overnight i was like oh yeah we cook it boy we cook it boy so
- [26:13]
Matt Murphy
well your mom was right david that stuff is violent and that does surprise most people pretty much all people except for a very sick few so okay in the name of art i'll give you that but given the allegations against you that is some batshit next level crazy stuff that you're saying holy shit and that you're singing about and that you allegedly perpetrated wow all right so let's carry on because this allegation continues to say that he sent two more texts to celeste's phone on april twenty fourth radio day radio interview day right which obviously went unanswered because she's dead and then after after april twenty sixth which is the day after the album drop right all within two days of this defendant never attempted to contact her again now why is that why david would you never want to contact her again because there's no point because you've already covered up your tracks allegedly wow that's the kind of thing where you say this is someone who thinks they're really smart i'll just cover my tracks by sending texts and then you just stop on the twenty sixth which makes you look so incredibly guilty so here's what happens after that because this gets even more macabre and disgusting remember he's allegedly killed her on april twenty third and then driven out all that night into april twenty fourth and done something in santa barbara and come back that next morning and done a radio interview where he's talking about the grizzly stuff and then april twenty fifth the next day album drops april twenty sixth couple more texts to make it look like i'm still looking for you where are you girl and then that's it never talk to her again but other things happened after that date he purchased a whole bunch of things i'm actually going to talk about things he purchased on may first right because that's like another week later but before i do that i do want to tell you that he did do something allegedly on the day that he was ordering the uber and having celeste come over he ordered something from home depot and had it delivered by postmates and if you've ever used postmates you know it's kind of like you can call and have it delivered right away you don't have to wait for amazon a couple of days whatever you can call them and like uber eats it's coming to your your door and wouldn't you know what it was that he ordered from home depot on the day that he's sending the uber to pick up celeste a shovel again allegedly it's david that's what the that's what the the memorandum says right that is what this incredible briefing says so he's getting a shovel delivered like uber eats he's having a shovel delivered to his house that exact time that he's having celeste come over and then maybe that's the business in santa barbara but the shovel was just like bro this is a pain this is hard i don't want to do this i don't know why'd you get the shovel what'd you do with the shovel why'd you come back and you still apparently have celeste's body in your tesla maybe the shovel wasn't going to do the trick who knows but then on april or excuse me on may first david ordered allegedly from amazon two chainsaws to be delivered to his home four days later on may fifth he ordered an amazon delivered a body bag holy shit who orders a body bag on amazon and has it delivered to your actual home according to this incredible briefing david does not just a body bag y' all heavy duty laundry bags and a blue inflatable pool he does this under a fake name victoria mendez and on may eighth this is just three days later he returns to the same area in santa barbara county that he went on the twenty third twenty fourth hmm leaves his home around eleven thirty at night and does another trip again on may thirty first so may eighth all the way to may thirty first he makes another trip there apparently this is an isolated site off of sr route one hundred fifty four and guess what was found there eventually took a while to find it took until january twenty twenty six you know but they found celeste's id they found her id there they say in this briefing and then as if all that wasn't enough because we still know celeste's body was not buried out in santa barbara county what was going on out there what was happening out there don't don't guess yet because there's still more to come but we know her body was not left or buried or anything out in santa barbara county any of the trips that he allegedly went out there because her body was found in his tesla rotting september of twenty twenty five so we know that the body was never taken out to santa barbara and left there why was the id there like what was going on in this rural location again don't guess yet because there's more coming because i know you're thinking well maybe that's where the dismemberment happened and all the rest nope not not according to this so on july seventh right so we've gone from may thirty first he's gone back out to to santa barbara maybe he left the body out there maybe because he's trying to figure out what to do but in any case on july seventh this document suggests the defendant ordered and amazon delivered a burn cage to his home and you know that steve fisher the private investigator was in that home and saw the burn cage we put it on the air we put it on this podcast like jesus who has a burn cage in their home when they live in the middle of the hollywood hills you're not out burning brush you know it's not like a rural property that burn cage was in that home so he's ordered and amazon delivers a burn cage and uses the same fake name victoria mendez and then this is where it gets really grisly this is where the allegation says the defendant took horrifying measures to destroy and discard the victim's body let me read directly from this briefing after placing her body into the blue inflatable pool because that's one of the things he purchased on amazon allegedly to prevent her blood from spilling onto his garage floor defendant used a chainsaw and perhaps other tools to to cut off her limbs small blue plastic fragments were found embedded in the victim's remains which were collected by the los angeles county medical examiner's department they were examined by the lapd's forensic science division and they were a physical match from the blue fragments from the blue inflatable pool in order to distance himself this goes on to say from the victim he amputated her left ring and pinky fingers because her ring finger contained a tattoo of his name her fingers have never been recovered defendant then placed her head and torso into the cadaver bag that he purchased he placed her limbs into a garbage bag which he deposited in his front trunk laying the cadaver bag on top for several weeks or possibly months defendant left the victim's body to decompose inside his tesla he lied to friends business associates and others who noticed a strong smell of decay in and around his home and his vehicle okay can i just stop for a second you have a body rotting inside your tesla inside your garage at your home people are noticing the smell and you're just going about business allegedly holy shit who are you and again if all this is true how fucking dumb are you okay let's go on before leaving on his concert tour at the end of july he parked his tesla on the street around the corner from his home this is like four hundred feet away like this is gonna help you gotta you got business to do you got your concert tour and all the rest to deal with so like i gotta i just gotta put this thing on the back burner for a bit but i don't want to do it in my garage because what if someone opens the frunk and sees it so i better just park it on the street where maybe the wind will carry the smell away and no one will ever notice the car parked on the street with the smell of decomposing human remains inside again dolt and sick i'm going to add that to it too if this is true the lapd of course we all know served a search warrant on the defendant's home in the hollywood hills we saw that happening we saw them coming out with boxes of stuff inside the garage detectives discovered evidence consistent with the dismemberment of the victim's body an inflatable pool which contained multiple linear cuts because yeah if you're using a chainsaw and you're cutting through someone it's going to hit the bottom of the pool and that's going to get cut up and maybe get embedded into the body parts which was what they allege happened is exactly what happened wow several biological samples which tested positive for blood were collected within the garage dna analysis determined the various samples matched the victims on december ninth twenty twenty five the medical examiner ruled the victim's death a homicide caused by two penetrating injuries to the torso so there's your murder right it wasn't that oh no what if she id od'd and i just needed to you know i freaked out i didn't kill her but you i freaked out and i covered up the crime nope no because the me says it was two penetrating injuries to her torso that caused the the death homicide means man kills man not suicide which is oh no i od'd okay so let's be clear because i know originally the lapd said we're not even sure if a crime is committed okay i got so much to say about that i'm gonna say that in subsequent interviews but they they knew they knew they just needed to get the pieces together right so the evidence they list it all out here it's really compelling description of photographs depicting the victim naked as well as while she was engaged with the defendant in sexual activity when she was only thirteen oh that's a crime allegedly in this this is an interesting little piece that follows that it says while all possible charges that could be proven were not filed that alone that i just read is proof of an ongoing naughty relationship when she was just thirteen and fourteen that i seized on because those charges could still come lots of them right depending on how many episodes and dates they can actually prove with photos and digital evidence there could be dozens hundreds of these charges so i love that they've actually said while all possible charges that could be proven were not filed hey wait for it because they don't have to charge everything at once and oftentimes they don't they they they amend their charging documents and indictments and they can charge more happened to diddy there was amended indictments there numerous text messages between the defendant and the victim evidencing their naughty relationship i'm trying to keep the the language about sex down because youtube doesn't like it i'll just say naughty when i mean you know what so numerous text messages between defendant and the victim evidencing their naughty relationship pregnancy abortion and use of plan b emergency contraception messages through march twenty twenty five prove defendant continued to manipulate the victim as she messaged the following ready this is celeste saying quote all we do is have sex and just hang out man i want more than that for myself end quote they got that out of her icloud data according to this this document a little further on in this briefing doc they say surveillance video that's never good surveillance video of defendant driving his tesla on july twenty ninth twenty twenty five for the last time before parking the vehicle and leaving on tour at the end of july oh boy parking that car now i'm assuming that means parking that car in the place where it stayed right and it stayed there for a very long time because the neighbors said it had been there for a very very long time and they smelled the evidence of stench they actually thought one of the neighbors thought they buried their dog out near that area and they actually thought according to steve fisher that they were going to have to unearth that dog because apparently the smell was so bad they couldn't understand it why would we have to unearth that dog and do something else they thought the smell might have been coming from the dog because it was just over the hedges from that tesla this is more evidence listed out proof of defendants amazon purchases and deliveries two chainsaws a body bag an inflatable pool heavy duty laundry bags and a burn cage proof of a postmate's delivery of a shovel on april twenty fourth uber records obviously right proof of defendants lucrative career text messages where the victim threatened to expose the defendant and destroy his career and wouldn't you know it tmz unearthed the twitch stream of all twitch streams it's it's david and a couple of his pals i guess associates colleagues whatever and they are live streaming about two months after this alleged murder takes place so if you're to believe everything in this unbelievable brief the house stinks and people have been saying the house stinks what's going on the garage smells the tesla smells the house smells and he's telling anybody who will listen who comes over who comes within a smelling distance of the car nothing to see here and guess what he actually brings up this topic in this twitch stream again this is from tmz
- [41:45]
Ashley Banfield
you don't mind i can you
- [41:46]
Matt Murphy
put oh his nails gray in the back
- [41:52]
Ashley Banfield
you bro i'm lucky you're packing it bro go i don't even get paid guys i'm not even getting paid for this bro this bro all y' all dead ass oh now do we
- [42:05]
Matt Murphy
need makeup yeah baby see oh yeah
- [42:11]
Ashley Banfield
that's the way my bathroom smelled i took a two hours away i don't care i just took a another one
- [42:27]
Matt Murphy
wow wow you just offered that up that sorry about the way my bathroom smells i just took a in there and and they're all joking about it but the guy i'm not sure if that's neo i thought i heard the girl say neo but we know that he's got a friend named neo who got into some trouble with the grand jury and not showing up i don't know if this is him or not but he gave that look at the end of this whole thing about hey sorry about how it smells in there just took a i don't know if that's wow that language is inappropriate i doubt it because of the way he himself is talking or whoa dude i know what that is and i can't believe you're saying it's typical bathroom smells take a look again so yeah i mean you be the judge but wow tmz good unearthing great stuff i have a feeling that may make its way into the case so you probably already know this if you're a true crime fan or if you follow court tv or podcasts like mine or law and crime or anything or nancy grace or any of that you probably know that there is a term that we use frequently for stuff that is like the stuff in here and bad facts bad facts i'm gonna go a little further and say these are horrendous facts for david david burke has everest to climb to get out of this shithole this is bad but it's it's not totally insurmountable and i know you're saying what are you kidding me that sounds like everything all tied up with a little christmas bow on it maybe not and a lot of people are making a lot of hay about the fact that it took seven months to charge him when this stuff is all readily available like you had all this stuff what the what on earth i know because i've covered a lot of cases with way less than this that get charged in a week right so that's interesting there may be some there there and also the way he eventually got arrested the d a didn't charge him and then the police went and arrested him it was the other way around like the the police arrested him first and that's kind of unusual and everybody was trying to figure out what's going on here but there is somebody who knows a lot about the machinations of all of this and why all those little dates and times of when they arrested and when they didn't and why such a long period of all this evidence and the eventual arrest and why the police arrest before the the da actually had a chance to charge well there are reasons and they're good reasons like they make a lot of sense when you hear from matt murphy because matt murphy was in the business of prosecuting homicide in california so i had a very very long conversation with him not just about the oh my god factor and we go through the oh my god factor but also the technical and why it was like and i'll just describe it this way why it was like matt murphy saying they were playing chess and david was playing tiddlywinks like that's kind of the description of the conversation you're about to hear so here without further ado is matt murphy not only former homicide prosecutor in california but also the author of the book of murder matt it's good to have you man oh man i think of people like you when i read details like this what was your first impression when you saw this briefing document
- [46:03]
Ashley Banfield
well okay so i've got a little little bit of an inside angle on this one and and also it's kind of funny this is the first time i've ever been on tmz and harvey levin had me on and this was right after the lapd arrested him and he was actually really nice when i was on the show and i'm doing a podcast now with mark garagos who also has a podcast with harvey levin so we were talking a little bit about that and their take on it was hey there must be some big fracture here between lapd and the lada's office right because they did this arrest and for people that don't know how it works there's two different functions for a grand jury in the state of california one is your traditional like what you see on tv grand jury you go in you present evidence and you ask for an indictment but in california you can also convene what's known as an investigative grand jury and they convened three of them over the course remember right when this happened how there were all those people that were screaming how come he's not under arrest yet how come he's not under arrest yet what the lada's office did and this is this is advanced level stuff they convened an investigative grand jury and the importance of that is when you have a if you have people that are almost certainly in the know that are that don't want to talk the police show up at your door and they knock and knock and say hey we want to interview you about this murder that we think your associate or your friend or your family member was involved in will you talk to us the law says you don't have to do it so in investigations like this it's very common ashley as you as you know for people to say pound sand i'm going to get a lawyer i'm not going to cooperate and given what we know now just jumping ahead for a second anybody who do that on this case sucks as a human being okay but let me go back so what you do with an investigative grand jury is you can actually force them to talk and i've done this before where you bring them in and you bring down the presiding judge and it's usually the presiding judge of the county and you force upon them what's known as use immunity and that means that their normal right against cross or against self incrimination under the fifth amendment you say hey judge i am granting him use immunity this witness will not be prosecuted for anything that they say in this proceeding we reserve the right to still prosecute them for other evidence that we get elsewhere on them but for the purpose of this they have no right to self incrimination because we agree under this law we're not we can't use anything or any derivative of what they say against
- [48:38]
Matt Murphy
them but they can by the way just let me break in for a second there use immunity is only for this issue anything else though their words can be used against them some other
- [48:46]
Ashley Banfield
time okay and not to get too deep in the weeds here but i think your audience is up for this so there's two kinds of immunity there's use immunity like that which is hey it's in federal court they call it queen for a day you tell us everything you know we will not prosecute you based on what you tell us today or what we learn as a result of what you say the derivatives of what you say the other kind of immunity is immunity immunity and if anybody for the audience anybody ever offers you immunity like flat out it's called transactional immunity take it confess to toilet papering the gym when you're in high school because you will get legal carte blanche on everything you say and but it's very rare in in my career i offered that two times so you
- [49:27]
Matt Murphy
think they did this in this case is that these grand juries that were convened to investigate offered use immunity to all the people who had you know zippers over their mouths and then they
- [49:35]
Ashley Banfield
finally said squawked no they didn't offer it and that's what's so for lack of a better term just so awesome about about what the lads office did here they forced it on them so you have a reluctant witness and you put them in there and they sit down and it's that is an intimidating room you sit down especially in la because it's orange county was like a it was like a basement under the courthouse in la it is a it is a really it's an intense place and they're staring at i think twenty four grand jurors who who want to know what happened and you you issue a grand jury subpoena you bring them in the presiding judge comes in and says i'm ordering you to answer these questions and they talk and there's and but this is really advanced level stuff and the attorney is beth silverman i don't know her personally but this is actually how i would have done it and i could not be more impressed and what they did is they took their time they didn't let anybody make them rush and on tmz i told harvey levin i'm like and his take was there's a problem there's a problem and i'm like nope i really don't think so and i'm glad i was right but nathan hockman is the new da of l a and that guy is the real deal and i can tell you this would not have happened under george gascon this is a professional prosecutor giving the support for his professional prosecutors to to do stuff like this and they took their time they did not bow public pressure and they have revealed this and another thing i want to talk about real quick that the moment when david's attorney got up there in court remember that last week and it's like we cannot he didn't do this we cannot wait until the evidence sees the light of day remember that that whole conversation that we all saw and we're not waiving time for a preliminary hearing and for those that have been in the business that like they were waving time no matter what and everybody was going oh that's so brilliant that's so great as sure as the sun was going to rise they were going to wave time okay but that whole that dramatic moment you know and she's i've never tried a case against her but she's you know she's got a good reputation but that was pure friggin theater and then the da did something else that you never ever see so when the defense is up criticizing the da's office and going you know we can't wait for the truth to come out they filed a brief which is where all the information you just covered came from you never see that for a preliminary hearing and procedurally all they have to do is establish probable cause for this stuff yeah this was detailed yeah in california you can do what's called a prop one hundred fifteen prelim where you just put your main investigator on and they can testify to hearsay and all you got to do is get the ball over the net probable cause established game set match you never see this kind of brief filed and that was i think masterfully handled by nathan hockman in the leda's office and i got no dog in the fight here and i don't know this prosecutor that was that's what people voted for when they elected that guy and they released all this information and now we know and i'll let me i'll say another thing not not to cut you off let me let me just for a second i have over and over again you'll have these murder cases actually where you've got somebody and they will when people don't know how much work went into it remember grand jury secret so we don't have those transcripts yet when people don't know oftentimes you'll have their church group will come up their book club will show up like this is not the person i know you can't know and sometimes as a prosecutor this might be a case that you've worked on for two or three years where you know every single detail but they have no idea what's going on behind the scenes and so you'll have this cheering section and then when stuff you know as evidence starts to come out that cheering section gets smaller and smaller there's nothing that repels supporters more there's nothing that makes the church group or in this case a fan base run for the friggin exits faster than child pornography and that is and i don't know if we can even say that on whatever whatever you're broadcasting on child corn or whatever that is you lose all support and this case the way they mapped that out this is exactly the way i would file it this is i mean this was this is masterfully done david is cooked and it's because of the professionalism of the prosecution working hand in hand with the lapd this is how you do it and he's done let me ask
- [53:57]
Matt Murphy
you this because just looking at the evidence the physical evidence and the digital evidence and the you know the usual suspects of of evidence and investigative product i personally couldn't really understand why there was this need for seven months of three grand juries and delay delay and an unusual charging process it just felt like to me i've seen murder cases with not even an eighth of this much evidence so why all the need for everything else why all the need for the extra extra in the you know the seven months seemed like to me that there's just incredible digital exhaust and there's incredible physical evidence and there's incredible video and there's incredible pictures and
- [54:40]
Ashley Banfield
you know and the answer to that is you you've got to remember this is potentially a death penalty case they received the highest level of appellate scrutiny that's an interesting call for nathan hockman on this my my guess is they're not going to seek it i sat on our committee our death penalty committee for fifteen years and reviewed every special circ murder case in in orange county and i we'd make a formal recommendation to the elected da under jack ulace there's a guy named joey esposito who i'm a huge fan of he was the former shot caller in the lada's office and ultimately it's the elected official that makes that call we saw it in less than four percent of the cases that technically qualified for the death penalty in la it was closer to two i don't think they do it on this because that that changes the complexion of it we have a moratorium i don't think it's probably worth it and then you go from did he do it which is the guilt phase to well what kind of childhood did he have and what you know what did the victim do my guess is they don't seek it but that said this case will still receive the highest level of appellate scrutiny and we're talking about downtown la and you're talking about a very famous you know young man that you got to be you have to make sure that you have an exhaustive amount of evidence and the reason the reason they took their time on it and the reason that this is it was professionally done the way it was at the at the end of the day this family and this this girl and that's what she was she was a girl she she was fourteen when she was kid but he started sexually abusing her at least when she was thirteen if not younger and p i've heard i've heard people say you started dating her you don't date a thirteen year old not in the state of california that's section two hundred eighty eight of the california penal code that's child molestation that's sexual abuse of a child and that's one of the things that they filed in there but that's why you do it this way this is you don't you you don't rush to it he he wasn't a flight risk he had no place to go he's doing his tour or whatever you keep an eye on him and this was a it wasn't a random child that he murdered this he had a relationship with her so i think they made the calculus that long long so
- [56:53]
Matt Murphy
let me ask you that about about that because and again these are all allegations not proven yet in in a court of law but of course the length wonder if they're you know making him feel comfortable tickling wires getting him to do what you know young men of that age will often do and that is eventually brag or confide in someone and maybe there's a wiretap that will catch that is that possible that that's what this long lag in event to arrest might have been no doubt
- [57:26]
Ashley Banfield
that that's a component to it but also remember this the stuff the the three investigative grand juries means people the the term is holding their mud they were at the beginning i guarantee there were people that had critical information this investigation that were not giving it up i also wouldn't be surprised if in the three investigative grand juries if some of these witnesses were called back based on additional things in the investigation so that and use the term tickling the wire so let me just make sure everybody understands what that means and that and that's exactly the right term it's called tickling the wire when what you do is you set up a wiretap which by the way you talk about advanced game it's we've all seen the wire on hbo and there's this this idea out there that that wires are done all the time in state court they are not getting going up on a wire is a huge deal it has a whole that it's so invasive and it has such a there's such privacy concerns with people that aren't subjects of the investigation that you have to be really there's you have to go through an entirely different part of the procedure there's all there's so many hoops
- [58:32]
Matt Murphy
to get it super judicious super judicious
- [58:35]
Ashley Banfield
yeah yeah a ton of stuff and you're very limited and you can only listen for a certain period of time it's it's incredibly complex however tickling the wire is when you get you go through that exhaustive process i hated doing wires on my cases hate it because it was so exhaustive and you almost never got anything out of them but what you do is once it's finally set up then you go and you knock on the door of the person that you want to listen to you knock on the door of the sycophant that's hanging on to the guy that you think might know something you knock on the door of somebody in his professional circle that you think might know something you knock and say hey we've got some information we really want to interview you and then you that's called tickling the wire and then you sit back and you see who they call and or you know or you see who he calls after getting that information you send a text message there's a million different things that police do to get people talking and then you and then you listen to what they have
- [59:29]
Matt Murphy
to say you kind of like for lack of a better way to describe it you kind of freak them out a little and then see who they call for help and see who you see who they call and explain their their problem suddenly to that's exactly right
- [59:40]
Ashley Banfield
and the thing is when you've got a guy like this that he knows he's under the spotlight of suspicion he's he had a relationship with this one girl so it's not he didn't snatch her off a you know a bus bench someplace so he's not likely to reoffend and so they've got they've got to put all this stuff together and they've got to make sure they they get every piece of evidence that they can before they hook him for the exact reason that we saw he's going to hire he's got money he's going to hire a you know a hotshot defense lawyer who's going to do what we saw we're not waiving time and i love that because beth silverman goes cool we're ready to go today you
- [60:21]
Matt Murphy
know and we call your explain that to folks because we have a right to a speedy trial in this country so explain the strategy that you're talking about so that it makes sense for
- [60:31]
Ashley Banfield
this conversation sure so we're talking about process and due process rights so anybody that's arrested for a felony anywhere in america but especially in the state of california you arrest for felony you have a statutory period of time before your arraignment they arrested him on a friday if you recall which led to a lot of the speculation they arrested him on a friday which means depending on the hour that they arrest him he either gets arraigned either on monday or tuesday you have a set statute for time before you have to be arraigned okay and that means they bring you to court the arraignment is simply a formal process where a criminal defendant is advised of the charges against them the defense lawyer will all will either continue the arraignment or they will enter a plea they'll you know they'll deny all claims they will request discovery pursuant to the law blah blah blah there's a whole like little little script that you do as a as a defense lawyer in that and then you set it for either continued proceedings or you set what's known as a preliminary hearing hearing a preliminary hearing is only to establish probable cause and that's another thing that i really i i am so impressed with beth silverman on this because you i sound like a cheerleader i don't know any of these people i know nathan hockman but i don't know i don't know beth but you you have you as a prosecutor if you get an indictment and it's really tempting to do that like hey grand jury you've heard we've got you've gone through this three times with me i am now requesting an indictment they issue what's called a true bill but if you do that you have to notify the defense oftentimes you got to give them an opportunity because you have an obligation in front of a grand jury to present exculpatory evidence in the state of california it's known as a johnson right but but then you're limited to whatever they indict on you're limited to the charges in the true bill the way they have done it and i love this if you go if you go via a preliminary hearing it means you can adjust the filing you can adjust your charges based on the evidence as it comes out this is the way i used to do all of my cases so this is the way to do it and so the next right he's got procedurally is he has a right to a preliminary hearing to establish probable cause and you have you have a right you have a preliminary hearing right for any felony and you've got a right to have that done statutorily within a very short period of time and that's when the attorney came out and said we're not waiving time we want to we want the facts to come out as soon as possible i love that because it's such a wa wa
- [63:14]
Matt Murphy
wa moment we're so we're getting so deep in the weeds and i haven't even gotten to the to the meat of the matter and i definitely want
- [63:21]
Ashley Banfield
to the procedure on this because this
- [63:22]
Matt Murphy
is you do nerd out i love it though it's great so i want to talk about the meat on the bone here because it is sort of earth shattering to see this level of alleged planning and lying in wait covering your tracks protecting your financial success and future and then just sort of the grisly matter of carrying out a murder like this and then hiding it all and i just like i said i've covered cases with a fraction of this evidence and i feel like they could have arrested him right away given the amount they had i get it that they wanted more but did they really
- [64:04]
Ashley Banfield
need more i you know i mean that's that's more art than it is science you know look this is this is the same jury pool that acquitted oj simpson we're talking about downtown la ccb so yeah i think you want to you want a complete investigation and you do that for the revis family you do that to make sure that you you you have to be patient on these things and you really want to know every every aspect of it and it's to go up on wiretaps like i said it takes time but yeah look when you're talking about the way they filed this that you've got a a man and this is alleged he's presumed innocent you know but we're not in court right now either he he's got this relationship with a thirteen year old now he was eighteen when he first started seeing her i think he i think he met her online
- [64:56]
Matt Murphy
no he was about sixteen and she was eleven when they met but the alleged sexual relationship didn't start till she was thirteen and he was eighteen now he's a grown up and she's still
- [65:09]
Ashley Banfield
a middle schooler that's right okay so and what's interesting to me about that is that you have those cases i did we call them in orange county srvps statutory rape vertical prosecution and i was assigned to that for a little while when i was in sex you have there's a quality of those where you've got and i mean look every high school senior who has a high school senior girlfriend that's a little bit older who turns eighteen like we all know that's that's a thing right like
- [65:41]
Matt Murphy
there are kids that are you know close in age they're in high school one's eighteen one's you know sixteen and that shouldn't be considered a crime for
- [65:47]
Ashley Banfield
her right and it's and those are those are different okay so when we look at this case and you you say okay he met her when he was sixteen he's a kid right he's a he's a minor did he fall in love with a thirteen year old that's not a big age difference or she's eleven whatever and you have to entertain that and you wonder about that right up until right up until you find out about child pornography and then you realize if that's true if they really did recover child pornography from his phone f that guy he's into little kids and that's what that means and that and i spent four years in sexual assault ashley whenever you have an allegation of sexual abuse and you really can't prosecute those cases unless you have some form of corroboration case after case after case if you got into the phone of that of that high school senior that we talked about or his computer you're not going to find any kiddie porn in that well i want
- [66:41]
Matt Murphy
to be really clear we don't know what kind of allegation there is of child porn what we know is that he's charged with lewd lascivious acts with a minor under fourteen and that there are photographs allegedly of celeste naked on his phone and there are images and videos of them engaging in sex so by definition that's you know that would be the child i'll say corn just to make sure i don't get knocked off youtube but but yeah so i'm not sure that there's anybody else we've heard allegations of others of other minors who've complained that they were with them
- [67:12]
Ashley Banfield
in that way there might not be but when nathan hockman came out and announced that in response i think to what the defense did when they came in and said we can't wait for all this to come out and they said cool well here you go that i i i interpreted that and you're right it hasn't been made public and this is these are images we will never see and we never should see whatever they are but look i've worked a bunch of sex cases the modern the modern corroboration you want is is is that material if there's an accusation against an adult and it's an accusation of sexual abuse of a child when you get into their devices and you see that kind of pornography you you know that it's true jurors know it's true that's not a normal thing for people to have i mean can i
- [67:57]
Matt Murphy
ask you something that just makes me think did the grand jurors did they see these alleged images of celeste having sex as a minor with david we
- [68:09]
Ashley Banfield
well we don't know okay it's it's it's it's it's secret the grand jurors
- [68:14]
Matt Murphy
would they like what i'm saying is generally speaking would grand jurors see those
- [68:18]
Ashley Banfield
kinds of images it depends on when when they got his devices and that's something i don't know was this was this material taken off the phone that he had on him during his arrest i know they got into all of
- [68:31]
Matt Murphy
his stuff they got icloud photos they got a lot of things but i guess my question is we're never going to see them and that's clear and that's obvious but let's just say in a potential murder trial will jurors see those images and those videos they will they will have to see all of
- [68:47]
Ashley Banfield
it they will absolutely see those and another thing that's interesting is and you raise a really good point here we don't know what they are we don't know if it involves other minors it might just be her which satisfies all the statutes even if somehow he were able to pull off a hail mary here and get the world's worst jury which ain't gonna happen i can tell you right now but even if they did the possession of that material alone federally you could do federal i think i i think the federal statutory minimum is like fifteen years so he's he is he's done however you skin this cat but but that's not going to happen there and they can introduce that the continuous sexual abuse of a minor is two hundred eighty eight point five of the california penal code and i've done those cases too and that is that is no joke and that type of material will come in to prove that especially if it if it if it's images that show her can you
- [69:41]
Matt Murphy
can you see can you charge somebody with that crime at a state level and then go ahead and charge them again with that same crime in a state that's not a double jeopardy if
- [69:51]
Ashley Banfield
you're going to federal you number one yes you can it's called the petite rule yes you can you can prosecute somebody twice once in state once in federal if the if they're depending on the on the charge but if you notice they didn't charge him and again and if i'm right here it's brilliant the way they did they didn't charge him with possession of child pornography they charged him with continuous sexual abuse of a minor for which that will be admitted as evidence right but they but what that does is that removes that issue so now it's the feds can served up for the feds to take it as a as a they're walking with a net now and the feds can still do it and probably will in this case interesting this was professionally done i mean this is the way this is the way it's supposed to
- [70:38]
Matt Murphy
be done even if he skates on the first degree murder with special circumstances which would be life no parole or death penalty he could be looking at a lengthy state set of charges for the lewd lascivious acts with a minor under fourteen and then potentially life yeah and i don't even know how many right exactly because i don't even know how many instances they found on the
- [71:00]
Ashley Banfield
phone there could be right we don't
- [71:01]
Matt Murphy
know dozens this is a years long relationship allegedly so so he could be put away for life even if he
- [71:07]
Ashley Banfield
skates on murder yeah and i don't i i haven't i was i wasn't a federal prosecutor so i don't i haven't prosecuted one of these federally i'm sure there's a way that they could soup it up to yeah gets get a life sentence out of this considering considering so you know what is it charged with doing but another really interesting thing about this ashley is when you i mean you look at when you investigate murder cases like this or you prosecute murder cases like this you've got this he he does this there's a saying in the law never commit a felony to cover up for a misdemeanor right so as the allegation goes and what they what it appears they found on the cloud right is that he she's going to rat him out for this inappropriate sexual relationship and he's about to release this album right so he kills her to shut her up which is where the witness charge comes in but you go through this he you know gets online which is incredibly stupid to do on and his uses like an alias but it goes to his house how do they connect to the dots with the burn cage and the and the chainsaws two chainsaws and the kiddie pool which is there's a really dark humor connection there kitty pool you know and it's i don't know my twisted brain like i just think it's he cut her up in a kiddie pool for anybody that's ever been to a scene by the way where a body has been dismembered the idea that he thinks he's going to not have viscera everywhere you know i mean and i could tell you a really super dark story about a scene like that with the with the feds if you want me to but but anyway he goes through all this he knows how much trouble he's in he kills her to avoid you know being ratted out and then he gets ninety percent of the way there and he leaves her in his fricking trunk it's like i can't you know it's the stupidest thing ever and that's a tesla and i get and they have a thing called an edr in a texas in tesla that's an electronic data recorder and when all the crazies were burning the tesla dealerships and keying the teslas that was going on for a while maybe they're
- [73:11]
Matt Murphy
all getting caught on tesla there's cameras
- [73:14]
Ashley Banfield
all over tesla's i guarantee ashley the person who parked that car that's in the edr that's already been downloaded and i'll bet you it's david well it's
- [73:22]
Matt Murphy
not interesting interesting you have to like you have to turn that on it's not just automatic you have to enable that as the owner of the tesla i don't know that that's where the images are saying we have him on surveillance being the last person to drive that car and park it but i do know that steve fisher the investigation expert the pi i believe he got surveillance video from a home nearby that actually showed that so i mean it it does defy logic other than i think there's a freakout potentially happening he needs to get his business done and he needs to get that stinking car out of the garage because the allegations in in this description are that friends and business associates and people who are visiting are complaining about the smell of the car in the garage and so i think he's just he's still trying to maybe perhaps use the burn unit or the burn cage he's still trying to figure out how do i get rid of the body but i'm busy i still have to get my music tour kicked off so i'll just i'll park that over there for a while and hopefully the wind will keep everything
- [74:24]
Ashley Banfield
masked yeah i mean but that's that's allegedly like it's yeah it's it's ninety percent taking care of what he needs to take care of in his mind and then and then you blow it in the ninth inning like she'd run away from home multiple times and i don't want to coach anybody on how to get rid of a body but you could dump somebody in the chaparral in california i can't tell you how many of those cases i've had ashley where the coyotes and the animals get to them it's called being scavenged and there'd be nothing left of her three or four days she would be a skeleton you could do that in hollywood i had cases where bodies were dumped in hollywood where you know there's nothing left after a couple of days you know literally skulls and bones i still
- [75:12]
Matt Murphy
can't figure out the santa barbara county trips like the allegation is that april twenty second they have a fight april twenty third he lures her over to you know with the uber sends the uber that's when they say she's dead because her messages all stop all phone calls and messaging stop april twenty third then that night and she's supposed to arrive at ten o' clock at night in the uber but i think at eleven thirty or almost midnight he's allegedly on his way in the tesla to santa barbara county spending almost all night there and coming back on now the twenty fourth to do his radio interview comes back home in the morning of the twenty fourth and then goes out and does his radio interview and the album drops the next day on the twenty fifth what is happening in santa barbara that you've come home and you still have the body and if the dismemberment and everything happened in the garage what was happening in santa barbara because that's where they found her id so i i'm mixed up about that there's
- [76:08]
Ashley Banfield
two there's two parts that number one he's trying to number well i guess number one part a he is he's not smart this guy's a freaking idiot okay so that's that's number one i guess the answer it's like there's this great line from the the show band of brothers they ain't as smart as me and you i mean that's that's the first part but what he's trying to do is he's trying to establish some sort of an alibi because while he's in santa barbara he starts calling her phone saying where are you how come you're not picking up that's the purpose of that which is also it's like fifty smart fifty idiot because he's thinking about cell phones and he's thinking he wants to be able to say hey the night she disappeared i was in santa barbara guys like he's thinking about that without thinking all of my text messages with her are downloading to
- [76:54]
Matt Murphy
the cloud so everything's from an hour
- [76:56]
Ashley Banfield
into fifty percent complete full but also the amount of areas i went to ucsb so the the amount of rural canyons and dirt roads and places that he could have like i mean a shallow grave in one of those places her body would never have been recovered and they'd have to be looking at this whole thing as a missing body case which complicated it you know you can still prosecute those cases i did a bunch but it complicates it but all you really need to do is dump her in a canyon someplace and so that's what he's trying to do he's trying to establish an alibi the second part about that that is really interesting to me is he's he's about to drop this album and there's a he's got a bunch of hangers on he's a very successful singer he's up and coming he's got fans he's got other people in the music business and remember anybody and i'm not suggesting for one second here that anybody did but anybody who's aware of what happened to las rivas who helps him that's a crime in the state of california in almost every state besides california you can be sentenced to fifty percent of whatever they did as an accessory after the fact california is different you can only do it's a thirty six month maximum it's it's called a pc thirty two accessory after the fact you can do eighteen months in state prison for something
- [78:13]
Matt Murphy
like that well matt now that you
- [78:15]
Ashley Banfield
say that in his world and i think we're gonna see a bunch of immunity offers when we when this thing
- [78:20]
Matt Murphy
comes around from the people maybe this is maybe this is the santa barbara thing so because this is what i'm wondering none of the chopping up has happened yet because you haven't even ordered the you know that the chainsaws in the baby pool yet that that comes a few days later in may so at that night celeste is a body i don't know if she's in the tesla going to santa barbara i don't know if he's only going to santa barbara to do what you say meaning i don't even know what you're talking about i was in santa barbara calling her she wasn't answering or if he's meeting with someone there to say oh my god what do i do i need a cleaner because he returns to santa barbara a couple times right and that's where they ultimately find her her id but the allegation is is that the dismemberment et cetera happened in the garage and then the body bags and the garbage bags are just in the tesla for potentially weeks or months in his garage while friends and associates and folks in the house are complaining about the smell it just doesn't make any
- [79:15]
Ashley Banfield
sense yeah he's this is one of the many reasons why this guy is done because he's he's he is stupid my old investigator larry montgomery who was born on the planet earth actually to solve murder cases he used to say that killers are dice throwers they're not chess players and this is a really good example of that or there's another old adage that you hear we don't catch the smart ones you know and i i don't want to i don't want to be glib and i don't want to take away from the investigative work that we've seen this is this is professional and this i mean for for four years in la county we didn't see anything like this because of the administration and you know a parallel to this ashley this is where we are seeing the opposite of this is in the savannah guthrie case okay leadership matters in criminal prosecution and investigations it is incredibly important experience and leadership really really counts it's important for morale but when you're talking about assembling a case like this nathan hockman gave his deputy beth silverman the support support and the ability to go out and do this and to take her time despite getting heat in the media and i cannot tell you how impressed i am by that because this is not the way it happens savannah guthrie's mom nancy guthrie is missing today because chris nanos is terrible but more importantly than that we're seeing it in this case the top law enforcement official of pima county is a woman named laura conover she's the da she was a lifetime criminal defense lawyer was elected in twenty twenty she's never prosecuted a murder she's never worked a task force with the fbi she has no idea how any of that stuff works and that's why savannah guthrie's mom is still missing today because because we have no professionals working that case fbi wonderful them aside it's a pima county case this is the opposite of that this is when you get the da the elected da giving his prosecutor the resources that she needs and a collaborative working relationship with the investigating agency the lapd this is how cases are
- [81:30]
Matt Murphy
done professionally this is also a target rich environment i mean like literally this was almost like shooting fish in a barrel when you look at everything they got the cell phone records the text messages the photographs and again all allegations however they've gathered things from her cloud from his cloud they've got photos they say of her naked and them engaging in that illegal you know sexual behavior they've got the kiddie pool that's got the blue fragments in embedded in her remains they've got the chainsaws the burn cage all being ordered under a fake name to his home they've got the tesla information they've got the the phone calls that are made right after she's already arrived at his house he's calling her and suggesting why aren't you calling me back i i don't know where you are and i'm trying to establish the fact that i'm not with you i mean and then suddenly on the twenty sixth which is just two days later he never makes another phone call to her again he never tries to reach her again there's no contact between them again so again i look at this just like that just the digital trail alone was just so simple but i will say this when you have a digital trail sometimes you don't know whose hands are on the devices is that the trouble with this case if you're thinking as your adversary which would be the defense attorney for him well
- [82:48]
Ashley Banfield
i've done cases like that as you know like my daniel wozniak case the killer actually took his victim's cell phone and used it to lure somebody else julie kibuishi a second victim to his first victim's home murdered her to make it look like the first guy did it so you're absolutely right that's the thing in this case i don't think so because he's the one that stands to lose here he's about to drop the album and she's threatening to to expose them and and i think remember every one of these cases is a collage they're all collages of evidence and it's it's the whole it's the big picture it's it's the tiny little details you put them all together you take a step back and you look at every piece of evidence in light of every other piece of evidence so like the drives to santa barbara where's her id found okay we call that a clue it's the you know the fact that from his device i guarantee he got rid of whatever phone was downloading to the to the cloud right thinking that then he would get rid of that those communications that's known as consciousness of guilt then she's found in his car this is all things are in his control his ip address ordered a burn cage two different chainsaws and that kiddie pool from amazon like that the idea that that he wasn't didn't have a direct hand on it and remember he doesn't there's the only allegation in this entire case that he personally did it adds one year he can be legally responsible for all of this stuff if it's somebody in his inner circle that did it for him or there's somebody else that committed the murder the personal use of a knife is the only thing that's a one year add on to what should be a life without possibility of parole at very least so it's a nothing thing if somebody else is involved doing this to help him all he has to do is have knowledge and he's done he is then he's a co conspirator he faces all the same criminal liability that he would well if he was the actual killer less one year let me put
- [84:48]
Matt Murphy
this to you because i feel like this is where the prosecution will go he is about to become a multi million dollar recording artist and he is already surrounded more than likely i just assume but i kind of know by sycophants and hangers on and the you know the cadre of people that always show up with the star because they're getting something from him and their careers depend on him so i can see a defense attorney saying suddenly they're seeing this young girl who's going to blow it for all of them and they're going to take care of business so that the golden goose can keep laying eggs i guess the only argument to that would be well then why would you pin it on the golden goose by using his devices by using his ip by using his car by leaving the body in his car i guess that would be the the argument against the defense's argument i think that you're
- [85:37]
Ashley Banfield
almost you're almost certainly right we're going to see some version of that in trial and nobody's going to believe it and that's all and that's not a hack on the defense it's it's it's they can probably only do something like that but but there's another problem with that is that you can't point your finger at somebody in the state of california you're not allowed to accuse people unless you have actual evidence to back it up so it can't just be a mystery theory because there's going to be all the people in his inner circle are going to be identified especially now because they took their time in putting this together and for for anybody that's that like the smell or that that and we can all picture the orbiters like we just watched all that in the diddy case all these fools that are surrounding diddy trying to advance their own careers you know like they're all just gross right we're gonna we're about to see a whole brand new cast of the same kind of people but the thing about those people is everybody is loyal until they start looking at consequences for themselves and then suddenly i've seen it a million times their lips start moving real fast and yeah that's what that's what we've seen here and look again if you have an amateur who goes and knocks on the door and says tell us the truth some amateur prosecutor or somebody that's not that experienced maybe a defense lawyer says they don't have the they don't have the firepower to do this when beth silverman comes in and she's got three investigative grand juries and you don't know what they got yet and that is a as a as a defense lawyer representing either somebody one of the one of the also rants or one of his orbiters you have your come to jesus conversation with them and you say buddy you are the first person on that witness bus and if you frickin lie once you're going to prison and i'm going to fire you that's the conversation that you have and like the real professional defense lawyers there's a guy named john barnett in orange county who is he is like one of the most effective gunslingers i've i've ever seen i used to go and i probably shouldn't say this but when i was prosecuting big murder cases john is we used to call it visiting the oracle he's got this house overlooking laguna beach and i would go and pick his brain on strategy like especially when i was up against a really good defense lawyer like john what are they going to do here what and he would and he was awesome and he would help me on cases that he had nothing to do with this is like this was so professionally done you know john's thing with his clients was i want you to imagine for people that are reluctant on ratting out their friend their homeboy whoever it was i want to picture you visualize yourself in state prison i want you to visualize yourself in state prison the first night because you decided to be loyal the people you're defending right now are laughing at you and they're at a party surrounded by women and three big guys come in your cell that's that's what you're looking at right now that's the decision they're gonna be laughing at how stupid you you were for lying to them and you're the one doing time for what they did that's the conversation that he would give his clients and i guarantee you there are versions of that all over southern california with these people that were reluctant to help the police
- [88:45]
Matt Murphy
so let me ask you this given what we know so far based on this incredible memorandum you know this briefing do you see this case actually going to trial do you see that there will be a robust argument that dave david or do you see that his only chance for avoiding death penalty would
- [89:03]
Ashley Banfield
be a plea okay so that's a great question the death penalty is is it's interesting in southern california there's this idea and some it happens in other states where they will allege the death penalty with the idea of doing what's called extracting a plea where they'll allege death and then they come in and they leverage it's leverage right i am of the view that it's it's not appropriate to do that and orange county was very very solid my old boss was a guy named rick king who is also like he was like a prosecutorial philosopher and it was you you never do that you plead what you prove and then you go into court and you prove what you pled that was hammered into my head from the outset and you don't in orange county we never did that you never if you have a second degree murder you you file it as a you pursue it as a second degree murder you never pursue it as a first or alleged special circumstance to extract a second degree murder plea if it's a second degree murder you you file it as a secondary murder you pursue it as a second degree murder and you argue to the jury that it's a second degree murder and one of the things it's critically important everybody needs to understand prosecutors have to believe to the to the bottom of their soul in the efficacy and the truth of everything that they're doing they're different than other kinds of lawyers you don't you you don't do that it's not and i do some civil cases now ashley where you do these mediations and you come in and you see these lawyers i want one hundred million dollars and that's stupid on a case that's worth a million bucks you don't like and you see it all the time it is anathema to everything that i learned as a prosecutor i have never once in my career stood up in front of a judge or jury and said a single word that i did not firmly believe to be true so you if you think it's a voluntary manslaughter you you go in and you say it's a voluntary manslaughter and i'm not giving you a deal i think and i don't know what nathan hockman is going to do in his decision but my dealings with him that is an ethical guy and that used to be the philosophy under jackie lacey again this guy joey esposito used to make the call for jackie lacy i've talked to him about this we the his philosophy on that was exactly the same as ours it's improper to to extract a plea like
- [91:21]
Matt Murphy
that but let's just say i don't
- [91:22]
Ashley Banfield
see it happening i don't see it
- [91:23]
Matt Murphy
happening if we have a death penalty for the worst of the worst these are the details that i think would qualify for the worst of the worst and so if you're not charging it as a death penalty i don't really know what would you charge for death penalty so do you see this one being charged and being prosecuted as a death penalty case it's a close one
- [91:45]
Ashley Banfield
my guess having no inside scoop on how this decision's going down my guess is no if i'm on the committee on this one and for the penalty phase it's divided into two parts you have the guilt phase and then you have the penalty phase the penalty phase you have a thing called k factor in the state of california you have the seriousness of the circumstances which here are it's twelves on a ten scale right it's as bad as it gets you have other crimes of violence he's got zero you have other felony convictions again you got zero the age of the defendant he's he's a young guy you have an emotional situation where she is according to the cloud information she's going to rat him out she's going to you know so all of those factors go into what does a jury do in wang the aggravating circumstances which are really really bad but there's a bunch of missing parts you know that you see in serial killer cases or certain other kinds of cases versus you know the mitigating factors and that's what a jury's job is on this one young a young man starting his career you know who is emotional and then he's also really dumb honestly this is one i probably go against it not because of the whole horror of what he did because there's no fate bad enough for him in my mind but you don't want to go into a penalty phase and lose it because the families really emotionally link themselves to the outcome for the reavis family i would not want them to go through that entire process just have a jury come in and give them melwop i i i i would want to make this quick or nothing about this is going to be quick this is going to go on for years i would want to make it clean i wouldn't want to put them through that if i wasn't sure the outcome this one's close enough that i probably wouldn't pursue it and remember we have a moratorium on the death penalty in the state of california he'll never be executed there's over seven hundred people on death row already and he's never going to get executed so the symbolic value of that you would deliver it for the family but on this one i could see them i could see somebody taking pity on him because he's so young and he was desperate and he looked his whole career blown up and these are not excuses i'm making up there's this guy the way juries are hell for me f this guy i'm going to sit there with my bag of popcorn as they roast them but but so i'm thinking no death and i i and they're not coming off elwp on this so i think this is going to go to trial and if they do plead to something it'll be he's he'll plead to elwop he'll plead to the special circuit and then hope that they change the law in the state of
- [94:23]
Matt Murphy
california let them out being life without the possibility of parole for anybody who doesn't know that acronym it's one of my favorites i also call it toe tag parole which means you're not coming out without a tag on your toe
- [94:33]
Ashley Banfield
yeah but yeah in california there's all these movements to undo that which will be a horrible day for justice if they ever do but anyway those are my thoughts on this one actually so i hope you have me on again to to keep talking about it so
- [94:48]
Matt Murphy
appreciate this and i will be calling you again and i know i'm like thirty two seconds until you're you know you gotta go so i appreciate it
- [94:55]
Ashley Banfield
thanks matt okay thank you talk soon
- [94:58]
Matt Murphy
my great thanks to matt murphy boy i always love my conversations with him and i think you do too because i read your comments and you guys really like him because he's smart and he knows what he's talking about but i will be fascinated to follow along with this case and have matt jump in every so often as we learn more in the discussion discovery process i hope it's not gagged let's all do like a collective woosa on that but super appreciative of his insight coming up in the following episodes i do want to tell you that i am going to be doing a deep dive into some of the evidence that a private investigator named steve fisher was able to see with his own eyes and actually unearth with his own smarts that he was not able to really talk about up until this all dropped in our laps all this ugly awfulness this incredible briefing so he's going to join me to talk about stuff he laid eyes on that burn cage i remember he got inside that house in the hollywood hills and lo and behold he's looking at the actual burn cage that's sitting there in david's you know rental home so he's going to talk about all the things that he wasn't able to talk about before and i cannot wait because he's been a really good guest up until now and i think it's going to get even better because now he's a little bit more free to speak also i encourage you to like thank you if you do and subscribe because i don't want you to miss these episodes and i'm also continuing my investigation in the bahamas on the disappearance of lynette hooker where she is where they might find her i hope one day soon and what is going to happen with brian hooker because i am unearthing a lot of stuff there as well it's just that lots of stuff is coming in at once and i didn't want you to miss these details about the case against david burke for now though thank you so much for listening thank you so much for watching don't forget like subscribe and join our little club as well members get exclusive content they get to ask me personal questions and questions about these cases and we do have a lot of fun during those those ask me anything episodes and meetings so i encourage you to do so also send me a tip i have a tip line drop dead serious infomail dot com easy drop dead serious info gmail dot com send me your tips about the david case send me your tips about bahamas or any other case that's on your mind if you got photos if you got video if you got something you think is important by all means send it my way thanks so much everyone again and remember truth isn't just serious it's drop dead serious