← Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Graphic Videos and Disturbing Abortion Messages Revealed in D4vd Hearing | David Anthony Burke
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All new drinks are now at McDonald's with refreshers like the Strawberry Watermelon Refresher and the Mango Pineapple Refresher with popping Boba. To crafted sodas like the Sprite Berry Blast with berry flavors and cold foam. Who knew ice cold drinks could be so fire six? All new drinks are here now at McDonald's. Refreshers contain caffeine. Foreign. Hey, everyone. I'm Ashley Banfield and this is Drop dead serious. I'm just going to say right off the bat, it is hot as balls. It's 85 degrees without a breeze and I don't have AC. So sorry about the hair. We're gonna be good. But if I faint in the middle of this, you know, why be forewarned. I want to talk about something really important. As true crime stories go, you don't usually get all of this st kind of wrapped into one like celebrity and gore and, and, and victims who just shouldn't be victims, young ones, you know, you just don't normally get all that. But you do in this one. If you have seen a fraction of the bombshell evidence that's just been like, barfing out, out of the David story, that's D4VD, aka David Anthony Burke and the preliminary hearing that was held for him, you might be thinking, oh, this guy's done, like, cooked, right? Because what's come out in court is extraordinary. And it is again, as we say in the business, bad facts. Bad for David. Really bad. But it became even more damning when you put the whole timeline together of everything that just spilled out in court and everything day by day, hour by hour. Because now the whole thing's becoming like a movie. And when it comes to juries, the more something looks like a movie, the worse it is for the dude who's sitting at defense table. Because jurors are just average people who are there to hear it from start to finish. And when there's gaps and confusion, it's hard for them. And it's sometimes amounts to reasonable doubt. In this case, though, I'm having a real tough time seeing the reasonable doubt in this one. And I think you might too, when you get through this episode. I would really like to hear what you think. Like, if you think, oh, yeah, finished, done for, or hey, you know, pull back on the reins a little here. I can see where he's got a case now. He's always going to have a case, right? Every defendant has a case. That's why you have a lawyer. You poke holes where you can but sometimes, man, it's an uphill battle, and I think this is one of them. Because the prosecutors have one hell of a case. Maybe that's why it took so long. Right? Because we were all wondering, like, what on earth. You have a dead girl in the trunk of the Tesla and a dude who took off and parked it around the corner from his house. What's not to love on a case? But they took their time and they gathered a lot. As it turns out, they gathered more than we thought. And that's exactly what we're going to lay out for you in this episode, all this stuff. But first, I want to get into some of the new information that came out just in the last week. The prosecutors say some very sexually explicit messages and images have been recovered from David's phone evidence indicating that Celeste Rivas Hernandez, you know, the young girl who may have met him at age 11, Celeste, became pregnant by him at age 13, and that they discussed openly having an abortion and. Oh, sorry, bummer, you know, so. And then it also talked about a breakup, followed by some purchases of chainsaws and body bags and a blue inflatable pool, the pieces of which ended up embedded in the body parts in the frunk. Again, bad facts. I'm just getting started. And now the prosecutors say physical evidence connects that little pool that was found in David's Hollywood Hills garage and his Tesla to remains of Celeste. Right. It's kind of a through piece. The little bits of blue pool in the garage, in the frunk, in the body parts. I want to make sure you're aware, if you're not already, that a lot of this testimony that came out this week is raw and very graphic. It is not for the faint. So forewarned, Please be forewarned in court. Detective Corey Farrell was up on the stand and he testified that the earliest communication that he recovered between David and Celeste was dated August 8, 2022. And if you can do even basic fourth grade math, that will take you to when Celeste was 11. 11. David was 17. Right. So not an adult, but.
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Bumping up against being an adult and age 11. That is really young. Like, that's just barely middle school, you know. According to that, Detective, David's iPhone contained years and years of messages and photographs and videos. Yes, those kinds of videos, the kinds of videos that you usually hear on, like those websites, but not the kinds of videos that you would imagine that involve a little girl, like 11, 12, 13, 14 year old girl. But there were apparently photos and videos documenting what the prosecutors allege Became indeed a robust sex sexual relationship between a little girl and a budding man. Some of the images were too explicit to even be displayed publicly in court. Some of the videos, far too graphic. Right. Cuz you know what was going on. But the photos allegedly show David and Celeste engaged in these sexual acts and included nude photos of both of them. Videos of them full on doing it. Don't forget Celeste's family was seated in the front row. And this detective is having to describe all of these images and videos involving their little girl for years. Well, she was little, little, little and then just little, you know, prosecutor quietly approached them because of all of this and, and it. Nobody could hear, but it kind of looked as though the prosecutor was telling them that, listen, this is going to be rough. This is going to be graphic and if you need to leave, you should do so. And of course, Celeste's mom got up and walked out crying. So Alex said, I don't know how many courtrooms you've sat through, but I've been in a lot of them. And you know, on paper they look like trials, they look like legal wranglings, they look like, you know, criminal code and litigation. And when you're in there, they look like drama. There are real people whose lives have usually been completely upended, destroyed catastrophically at times. And Celeste's family, that's the category they fall into catastrophic disaster in that family tragedy. And I know a lot of people are like, well, they were asleep at the switch as parents. Okay, fine, you don't get a death sentence for that in this country. You just don't. You know, some people are doing their best. Some people, yeah, might be asleep at the switch, but nobody deserves what happened to their child. And I'm not just talking about the dismemberment in the trunk. All the stuff leading up to it, all these photos, these videos. The detective said that the messages continued for years and they included repeated discussions about sex and birth control and plan B. David and Celeste also discussed her running away from home to be with him. Nice. In one conversation, he allegedly offered to give her a business credit card so that she could buy whatever she wanted. In another conversation, allegedly, he expressed concern about having to deal with the posters. Do you know what posters I'm referring to? Missing persons posters. So he's frustrated because there's missing person posters of Celeste and, you know, you're here and what am I supposed to do with that? Like, seriously, this is what we're dealing with. Remember when I said bad facts? I don't think the jury's gonna like that one at all. Among the others. And then the prosecutors displayed the messages from January 1st, 4th of 2024. And I know I, I throw a lot of dates and times and stuff out. Don't worry, because coming up a little bit later, I'm actually going to run through it moment by moment. So the timeline's all going to be together. So if you feel like, okay, what was January 4th? And all of this is a lot of years, I got you. And it's going to make a lot of sense once we go through everything linear, okay, so January 2024, Celeste is TH13. According to the detective, the conversation indicated that Celeste had become pregnant by David and was preparing to have an abortion. And David asked when she was, quote, going to get it done. He also confirmed that that baby was his. And he told Celeste that he was sorry for putting her through it. Wow, what a gentleman. She's 13. She's 13. David at this point, around 19. Okay, so 19 and 13. Celeste answered him, quote, we both weren't able to take care of it. No shit. The two also discussed having a family together in the future. So things were going deep. Whether he meant it, I don't know. Because clearly in the future there would be no family, there would be no Celeste. So who knows what David was really thinking while sending her messages. Sorry I got you pregnant. We'll have a family sometime in the future. By September of That same year, 2024, shortly after Celeste turned 14, David had purchased airplane tickets for both of them to travel overseas to London and then to travel down to Texas where his family lived. Prosecutors say he brought her to Texas for that purpose to meet his family. So family is meeting David's 14 year old girlfriend. No red flags, no. No issues. Look, maybe she lied to them. Maybe she said she was 18. 14 to 18 is a pretty big span, you know, and she's not all makeup and heels. While hanging out with David's family, I have a really tough time believing that. No one had any suspicion that this was a kid. But, okay, to our knowledge, nobody said anything. Relationship continued. Evidence presented in court also indicated that David and Celeste attended parties and nightclubs together and allegedly used fake IDs, both of them because they're both underage. But by the middle of March, 2025, the messages are now suggesting that Celeste is pulling away. She told David that they could be friends, but only online. And then she wrote, quote, all we do is have sex and just hang out, man. I want more than that for myself. Without A label, too, is insane. That's her direct quote. So she's actually like acknowledging, I don't think what's going on is right. And for me, this isn't what I want in my life. I don't know if she really wanted to leave him or if she just wanted him to know I want more. And I'm giving you a bit of an ultimatum, so hopefully you'll draw into me tighter. I don't know. But again, all we do is have sex and just hang out, man. I want more than that for myself. Without a label, too, is insane. Their final known communication was April. And that apparent breakup is very, very central to the prosecution's theory about why Celeste ended up dead, dismembered in the frunk front trunk of David's Tesla. The prosecutors say that Celeste had a boatload of Kompromat. Right. A lot of information that could basically destroy David, ruin his career. And by the way, a really big budding career. Like, we're talking in the tens of millions. So big career, not just, you know, well, you could ruin my career and I'll have to do something else. No, like an empire. She could ruin an empire. David's career. You're going to hear, like, where the numbers were at. And it's surprising for a lot of you who may never have heard of him before. I hadn't heard of him until this case. He had a lot of fans, though. Huge, huge fan base. And it was only growing. And the industry promoters thought, yeah, this, this guy's going to make us a lot of money, so let's give him a lot so that we can get a lot. The idea that the prosecutors say is that the compromat that Celeste had could destroy this empire and that he killed her to stop her from doing that, stop her from exposing the. Their relationship, which would be criminal because she's a kid and would put him in jail and goodbye career. Shortly after those communications came some purchases online. And again, ready for a list of bad facts. April 24, David orders a spade from Home Depot. He does it through Postmates, a delivery service. Again, let's just be clear. If I ordered a spade where I am, I'm in a rural area. Wouldn't make any, you know, it wouldn't. It wouldn't be a red flag because I have a big garden, I do a lot of stuff. But if you live in the Hollywood Hills and you basically have zero lot line, what are you ordering a spade for? And you're not kind of the outdoorsy type, you know, It's a rental. Toyota Spade has it delivered. May 1, he orders chainsaws. Plural, chainsaws. Also May 3, a blue inflatable pool. May 5, body bags. Remember when I said bad facts? I don't know anybody who's ever ordered body bags in my life. Honest to God, I've never heard of anyone ordering body bags in my criminal coverage history. Like people who've gotten rid of their bodies have never ordered a body bag online. But the Prosecutors say on May 5, body bags and heavy duty laundry bags. Detective Joshua Beyer, he got up on the stand, too. LAPD testified that David also ordered items from Amazon, but he used an alias, the detective says he said it was Trayvon Davis. Trayvon Davis. I'm going to be curious as to where that name came from, but that's the one. And the orders included a heat resistant mat capable of withstanding temperatures of up to 3,000 degrees. I don't know what a heat resistant mat is that can resist 3,000 degrees, but I'm wondering if it's the thing that you put under something very hot. So, for instance, the other thing that was ordered and in court it was described as a burn cage. And when the detective said, was asked, well, what do you mean by burn cage? He said a miniature cremation device. So the heat mat that can withstand 3,000 degrees was purchased. And a miniature cremation device maybe to sit on top of it. Those were ordered just in case you're wondering. Don't expect to see that spade being hauled out in court or the heat resistant mat, because they were never recovered in any of the warrants that were executed. But during the search of David's Hollywood Hills home, the investigators did find some of the other things like the chainsaws, the body bags, the laundry bags, and the blue inflatable pool. By the way, as evidence goes, the blue inflatable pool is probably going to be the star of this show, star of the trial, I think probably among the most incriminating evidence. A criminalist testified that blood spatter was found throughout the garage. One can only assume that if you're using a chainsaw on a body in the blue inflatable pool, that there is going to be blood and debris that kind of goes flying. That's my guess, educated guess, because the spatter was on a rowing machine, it was on the Tesla's charging cable, it was on a trash bag, it was on a green tarp. And of course, it was on the pool, on that little inflatable pool with no children who lived in the house, you know, a little. Little blue inflatable pool. Where are the little ones? Where are the kids who use that? There were no kids. So why was that purchased? Here's what's weird. And I'm sure that David's attorneys are going to make hay of this, because if I was his attorney, I'd make hay of it. I don't think it's going to go far, but it is weird. The chainsaws, when they found them, you would think that they would take them and have them tested for DNA. Yeah, because if you've got a dismembered body in a frunk and you see the chainsaws, you might put two and two together and assume, I wonder if the chainsaws were used for that handiwork. And yet the chainsaws were not tested for DNA. I know what you're thinking. I thought the same thing, and so did the lawyers, because Detective Beyer had to answer on the stand. Why? Why were the chainsaws not tested? And Detective Byer said, well, the investigators didn't see any visible blood on the chainsaws, so they did not submit them for testing. Oh, my God. Come on. It's 101. Maybe you can see the blood, but did you ever think that it might actually be embedded in some of the chain that you couldn't see? Maybe they tried to rinse it off but didn't get all of it. Yeah, I'm with you. I am pissed af. Come on. Lapd. You did oj For God's sake. How could you not? I mean, it's not even my business what you do. I don't do what you do. And I would have done that. So the prosecutors then introduced another deeply personal connection between David and Celeste. And the detectives noticed that David had the word tattooed on his right index finger. It was a fad. Like, he wasn't the only person to do that. Years ago, lots of people were doing that. Like, sh. If you're not watching this episode and you're listening on the podcast, I have my index finger up and the tattoo is facing the camera, and I'm pretending to shush people. And Celeste had the same tattoo in the exact same place. Quinky dink. I think not. But like I said, I'm sure that the defense will say, oh, lots of people had that. It wasn't just exclusive to David and Celeste. Lots of people got those stylish shush tattoos. But again, coinky dink. There's more. There's more. Because David also had Celeste's name tattooed on his left ring finger. Now, this is really hard to do. I just gave the bird there on the left ring finger where you would wear your wedding ring. He had Celeste's name tattooed on that finger. And the photographs recovered from his phone show the name David tattooed on Celeste's left ring finger. So I'm sure they thought that was a good idea at the time. Yeah, Turned out to be a good idea for Celeste's family in order to really mount a good prosecution against him. But, yeah. So she had David and he had Celeste. And when Celeste's remains were found, guess what? Wouldn't you know it? Coincidence. Both of these fingers are missing. So it's like an easy cut, right? It's probably hard to cut in and around to get the index finger off. So just like, take both off. So, yeah, the ring finger and the pinky right beside it, both of them were gone. And they were not. With the remains in the frunk, I'm just. I lay awake at night wondering, so what'd you do with them? Where are they? Clearly you don't want those remains found. But why would you decide that the pinky and the ring finger with your name on it would be better somewhere else? Because everything else about her in the trunk kind of points to you, right? Anyway, don't know. No idea where they are. They weren't found. If he knows where they are, I wonder if he'll cough that information up, maybe in a plea deal. The medical examiner in the case was a guy named Dr. Ho. He. He testified about all the amputated fingers. Yeah, I mean, ugh. Because, you know, there's evidence on those fingers when you have your boyfriend's name tattooed and your boyfriend's tattoo tattooed. The prosecutors showed photographs of all these injuries, followed by an image of Celeste's remains spread out on an examination table. Now, I could not imagine being in that courtroom. There are a lot of people who are not used to this stuff. You know, like those families, the galleries. Some of the reporters, they are not used to seeing badly decomposed, dismembered remains spread out on a table. And I have heard from reporters in that room that it was one of the most difficult things they've ever seen. And Dr. Ho was on the stand describing severe decomposition, multiple dismemberment sites, an absent left eye, like it's gone. Where's her left eye? What the fuck did someone keep it for? A souvenir? Medical examiner also testified about the liquefying of Celeste's soft tissue. And he said that the odor was noticeable before he even entered the autopsy room. He also identified two apparent penetrating wounds, one on either side of Celeste's torso. So is that how she died? Because that was the original testimony from the police that it appeared he attacked her as she came in the door. I don't know how they got to that. But stabbed to death by the man that she loved? I don't know that'll be proven in court. But the facts are bad facts. Dr. Ho ruled that Celeste's death was a homicide caused by multiple penetrating injuries. They did the toxicology results. Right, Because a lot of people said, what if the toxicology says that she OD'd? Well, then that's not a murder. Maybe he just freaked out because he had a young girl who OD'd in his presence. No, no. The tox results said there were no drugs or alcohol that caused her death. But the condition of Celeste's remains prevented him from being able to determine exactly. Exactly what ended up killing her. Just that there was all this horror meted upon her. He couldn't identify what weapon was used to kill her or dismember her. She was too far gone. He could not determine whether she struggled or whether the dismemberment occurred before or after her death. I mean, my mind didn't even go there. I just thought it must have been after the fact. But please, Jesus, please, for the love of God, do not. Do not allow us to go there. To think that she was being dismembered while she was alive. I guess anything's possible. If you're going to be this sick and twisted and devoid of human everything, then it's possible, I guess. Dr. Ho said that the wounds may have been caused by a knife, maybe by a gunshot, or maybe by another penetrating object. But he said no bullet was ever recovered. It could have gone right through. Don't know. He acknowledged that the wounds could represent an entry and an exit point, but he made clear that was just only a possibility. He could determine that Celeste had been dead for weeks, but he couldn't determine how many. Definitely weeks. Don't know how many weeks. Dr. Ho also addressed the reports that Celeste weighed only, and you've probably heard this, 71 pounds when her remains were found. But there's a caveat to that. Don't think that she was this, you know, emaciated young girl. The medical examiner explained that the measurement actually reflects the advanced decomposition of her remains. So it's not necessarily what she weighed when she died. That we don't know. It's just that the remains weighed 71 pounds. And if they'd been in the frunk a long time, clearly there was some kind of way for fumes to escape because people could smell it in the neighborhood. So that means that maybe some moisture would escape as well. So perhaps a lot of Celeste's weight disappeared in the evaporation of her body. The prosecutors focused on those tiny little blue plastic fragments that were embedded particularly in Celeste's right knee. They said that the fragments, lo and behold, matched the blue inflatable pool pool that was recovered from David's garage. That same pool that he ordered weeks after his final known communication with Celeste, the pool that was found with the blood spatter on it. So I should tell you that that pool also showed scarring marks as though someone may have been cutting something and then went through to the bottom of the pool and scarred up that pool. So that's probably where those pieces come came from that were embedded in Celeste's knee and possibly other places. And the Tesla contained its own evidence, too. The LAPD criminalist named Chelsea Murillo, she inspected the vehicle after Celeste's body had been removed from the trunk. Ms. Marillo testified that the first thing she noticed, not surprisingly, was the smell. Intense smell of human decomposition. And she said it remained overwhelming even though Celeste's remains were no longer inside that frunk. She also found significant insect activity. And this is weird, multiple air fresheners, as though that would help the matter. And there were blue plastic fragments in the trunk as well. And then on January 7, 2026, a Caltrans worker made another discovery along a highway shoulder in Santa Barbara that's more than 80 miles from Los Angeles. He found Celeste's passport card on the side of the highway. So prosecutors put it up in court. They showed it, and that had an intense effect on Celeste's mom. She began to cry. The photograph showed a little kid, you know, baby faced little kid. It's just hard to imagine that there's all this talk of, like, a sexual relationship and an abortion and all the videos of kink and all the rest. And here she is. She's just a little kid. The location of where that passport card was found was pretty notable because investigators had previously recovered navigation searches for Santa Barbara on David's Tesla. But that whole entertainment system, it's just a wealth. The whole car is a computer. And so the navigation searches to Santa Barbara are on the car, and her passport's on the side of the road up there. The defense is, you know, none of this is good for the defense. And they got to poke holes where they can, right? And ask the California Highway Patrol officer who collected the passport card why the Caltrans worker had been searching along the shoulder. And the officer had a good answer for that and said that the worker had found several interesting objects near freeways before and was just looking around, not weird. There's all sorts of stuff on the side of the road, phones, and everything goes flying. There's no testimony establishing when that passport arrived there or who left it or whether it was deliberately discarded, you know, out the window. But the prosecutors are asking the judge to consider its location along the Santa Barbara searches that were found in David's vehicle. And I'm going to get to this in the timeline because it's going to matter a lot, so just be patient. They also spent hours examining what David stood to lose if his relationship with Celeste became public. You know, like, if she spilled beans. Because guess what? There's been prior information in court documents saying that she was angry at David because he was seeing other girls. She didn't like that. And she even threatened him a little, like, I could. I could go public. I could tell everybody what you've been up to. That didn't sit well. Benjamin Greger handled David's finances through the management company called Mogul Vision. M O G U L Mogul Vision. And that fellow estimated that David generated between 10 and $11.5 million in gross earnings between the years 2023 and 2025. That's a lot of money. Oh, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. His publishing company was valued at approximately 3 million. His homes were worth roughly 950,000, so about a million. One of David's Trusts held between 1.2 million and 1.5 million. And David had received about a million dollars in advances from Interscope records. Enter Luis Poimiru. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right, but Louis, he's a senior vice president of finance at Interscope, and this is where things get good. He testified that David received approximately 950,000 in 2022 and then nearly 3.9 million the next year in 2023. So we're like four times. Like, he goes from one year and quadruples his money in the next year, and then the third year is weird. It's only $187,000. Still a lot. But, you know, 2024 wasn't as lucrative as 2022 or 2023. But then 2025, he's back up to 2.3 million. Again, tip of the iceberg. Wait for it. His contract included additional payments and options for two more albums. Now, those albums were never produced, natch. Yeah, but the defense calculated that David could have earned. You ready? Take a drink. About $19 million a year over the lifetime of the deal if every option had been exercised at its maximum value. Well, damn. Now we're talking big money. Interscope actually terminated the contract in 2025. Again, natch. Given the headlines. Yeah. Mr. Pomeroo, if that's the right way to pronounce his name, testified that the company does not currently owe David a nickel or a penny. The financial testimony became even more pointed when the Prosecutors quickly questioned Mr. Greger, that manager fella, about David's assets after his tour was cancelled and after he was arrested. And Mr. Greger said that he and David's mom, her name is Colleen Burke, began moving money around. And they're asked, why'd you do that? And his answer was, we needed to raise $2 million for David's bail. That makes sense. But he also admitted to advising David's mom, Colleen, to transfer the title of David's house out of David's name and into her name. And so, obviously, the prosecutor is like, well, why'd you do that, Mr. Gregor? And Mr. Greger said it was to protect David's estate from a potential civil lawsuit if Celeste's family came after it. Just think that one through for a little bit. Gotta make sure we protect the assets, because what if that pesky family comes calling in a civil suit? I don't want them getting anything. That's kind of like my common parlance for that maneuver. Tall allegations. Right. He's not convicted of anything, but, oh, my God, the bad facts. Mr. Gregor's credibility also kind of in the toilet because he was challenged again and again when he denied knowing that David and Celeste had traveled together to London. And the prosecutors confronted him with, oh, no, some of your communications showing that you. Mr. Greger had asked another member of David's team about that trip. So, oops. Yeah, Mr. Greger did not do well on the stand. Like, every time he was saying something, the prosecutors came back with, oh, this shows that you're not telling the truth. Mr. Greger also denied knowing that David brought Celeste to Texas to meet his family, that they attended parties and nightclubs together, or that they allegedly used the fake IDs. He said he only knew Celeste's first name and learned about it from another member of David's team. But again, he just kept getting challenged one after the other when he was on the stand, and it just was a bad look. It's the kind of thing that juries say, get rid of them. We're not believing anything. If you lie once, you don't get credibility for everything else you say. That's just kind of the way it works on the stand because, you know, you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. And so one lie drains your credibility tank. Juries just don't like it, and prosecutors are sure to remind them over and over again of it. So this is very devastating evidence. And when you look at it all in a timeline, damn, it is rough. So January 2022, prosecutors say that's when David meets Celeste for the first time, and she is all of 11, and he's 17. Fast forward about a year and a half. November 2023, a little more than a year and a half. The prosecutors say that is when the sexual relationship began between David and Celeste. And Celeste was 13. David was 18. So, yeah, that. That's a crime. Yeah, if they can prove all that, that that's a crime. So keep going. February 2024. It's just a couple months later, Celeste's parents say she's missing. They report to the police, our daughter's missing. February 17, 2024. The detectives, I guess, had some information from Celeste's family because they went to David's house to conduct a welfare check. That house that his manager was renting and he was living at in the Hollywood Hills. And David allegedly claimed to these investigators who were doing the welfare check that, oh, I. I'd only just met her once. I didn't even know her age. And she went home two days later, so she's not here. Also in 2024, prosecutors say that David secretly gave Celeste, the little kid, another phone and then traveled with her to Las Vegas and London, England and Texas. I got questions. I don't know how the hell you get a minor child out of the country unless you're forging notes from parents. Because when I travel with my minor children across the border, I had to have notes from their dad even when we were married. After we split notes again, I do not know how he could have possibly traveled to London unless, of course, there were documents forged. Maybe that'll come out of trial. November 2024. David and Celeste allegedly break up, but they continue to communicate. And more importantly, the prosecutors say, they continue to have sex. March. November 2024. Okay, March. December, January, February.
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March 2025. That's just four months later, Celeste texts David that she wants more from her relationship than just sex and hanging out. The next month, April 2025. April 22, to be specific, the prosecutors say Celeste threatened to expose their relationship during an argument. That's three days before David's debut album release. Oof. Talk about pressure, maybe even motive. Because I have a feeling that the prosecutors are going to talk about that a lot as motive. You don't have to prove motive. You guys know this. You're true crime buffs. You don't have to prove motive. But juries really want it. So if you can put it out there as a prosecutor, it's like primo. So I suspect they're going to talk about that a lot. Let's talk about April 23rd. That's the day after this argument where Celeste says, I'm going to out you. You know, my words, not hers, but basically threatening to out him based on the fact that he's seeing other girls. And Celeste's not happy about it. She's tired of them just having sex with nothing bigger and more important. And again, it's just three days till the album release. So again, the next day, April 23, 8:40 at night, David allegedly sends an Uber to pick up Celeste all the way from Lake Elsinore, where her family lives. That's a drive. Like, that's a big drive. Same date, 10:10pm Celeste arrives at his Hollywood Hills home. And shortly after that, prosecutors alleged that David stabbed Celeste repeatedly and allowed her to bleed out dead. I don't know how they're getting to that because the medical examiner couldn't really say what the exact cause of death was. Just said that there were, you know, penetrating marks injuries and that it was definitely homicide. 10:30pm, same date, he allegedly begins texting Celeste's phone. And they say it's to create the appearance that he didn't know where she was. I sent the Uber to get you, where are you? But the Uber arrived. So now at 11:30pm he, according to prosecutors, drives his Tesla towards an isolated area and near Lake Kachuma. Again, I hope I'm pronouncing that right. Lake Kachuma, it's in the Santa Barbara area. And the prosecutors say, well, that was clearly to destroy evidence or get rid of it or both. So the next day is April 24th. He returns home like really late into the morning, right, and orders a shovel and attends an album related radio interview. So if he killed her, nothing like a good murder. Disposing of the body to get you energized for your morning radio interview. April 26th, prosecutors say David stopped trying to contact Celeste. So 23rd sends the Uber, prosecutors say murders her right then and there into the 24th, disposing of the body, sending texts, where are you? And by the 26th, never wants to talk to her again, doesn't send any more contacts again. Coincidence? I think not. Let's go to May 1st. David, according to the prosecutors, orders two chainsaws. Again, you live in the Hollywood Hills, so it's not like you're Grizzly Adams out there needing to, you know, take down some trees to build your log cabin. You live in the Hollywood Hills and you barely have a lot line. And you're renting. Actually, you're not even renting. You're living in your manager's rental. So what do you need with chainsaws? Gets worse. May 5, prosecutors say he ordered a body bag and heavy duty laundry bags in a blue inflatable pool and uses a fake name to do so. But the address, you know, bring it all to this address where I'm living in the Hollywood Hills. May 8 and May 31, he allegedly returns to the isolated area near Lake Kachuma. Again, sorry if I'm not pronouncing it right. Doing my best. It's in the Santa Barbara area. July 7th, this is where it's starting to really heat up, literally. Because he orders a burn cage under the same fake name, according to prosecutors. Fast forward three weeks later, July 29, and surveillance cameras apparently captured David driving the Tesla for the final time before he leaves on tour to really supercharge his budding career. And the prosecutors say Celeste's dismembered remains were inside that front of the Tesla, decomposing while he's driving. So September 2025, that's when we all started to know about this story. Celeste's remains are discovered inside the Tesla one day after her 15th birthday. But she did not turn 15. She was so far dismembered. She'd been in there, as the medical examiner said, weeks and weeks. I just don't know how many. But definitely not one day. So Celeste was 14 when she was decomposing in that trunk. She did not reach her 15th birthday. September 17th, LAPD search David's home. They get a warrant, they get in there. Celeste's blood was allegedly found in his garage along with the cut up blue inflatable pool prosecutors have connected to her dismemberment and the Tesla. Fast forward to January 2026. Celeste's ID, her passport card is recovered near Lake Kachuma. Again, Santa Barbara. We all wonder, what are you doing in Santa Barbara? Like, if you're going to Santa Barbara to get rid of a body, why is the body still in your trunk? What was going on in Santa Barbara other than passport card tossed and, I don't know, a lot of other missing stuff that they couldn't find. The stuff he ordered April 16, 2026, arrested. That's when the LAPD show up at his Hollywood Hills home and arrest David. It's the kind of story with the kind of fact pattern evidence and, you know, Hollywood cachet. You know, that. That makes a lot of headlines, clearly, a lot of headlines. I mean, it's not like this is R. Kelly, who was super famous. David wasn't very famous. He did have his fan base, but he hadn't hit his stride. He just clearly was going to. So naturally, every newspaper, every cable channel, every podcast, you know, picked up this story and just, I mean, ran with it because it was just so unbelievable. And Dana Kennedy is one of those reporters who covers true crime and a whole lot more for the Daily Mail. I had a conversation with Dana Kennedy about this fact pattern, this budding celebrity, this poor little girl, and this upcoming trial. Here's our conversation. Dana, thank you so much for being on Drop Dead series. It's great to have you on.
- [46:51]
B
Glad to be here.
- [46:52]
A
We have so much history, you and me, a couple of decades. We've covered some things. You and I have covered some things.
- [46:59]
B
Yeah.
- [46:59]
A
This one is one of those. I mean, it's up there.
- [47:03]
B
Yeah, Yeah. I think the ages, I mean, that's what it is. It's the ages of actually both of them. You know, I mean, you think about. He's only 21 as we speak. Right. And they met. We think they were first into contact when she was about 11.
- [47:17]
A
Yeah, 11 and 17. And I. I tend to think, oh, well, 17, you know, still legally a kid, but in a lot of jurisdictions now, you can, you know, people are being prosecuted regularly at sometimes 16 and 17. I just don't think this set of facts is looking good for him at all.
- [47:34]
B
Oh, it's horrible. I mean, I would be very surprised if he's going to be able to have any kind of career or much of a life after this. But we don't know. It's just the preliminary hearing right now, but it looks terrible.
- [47:46]
A
I mean, I don't even think about the career. I was shocked to hear that they were shopping around for a new entertainment attorney for this guy. And I'm like, new entertainment attorney, bro. Put all your energy into a, you know, a murder trial defense, because you're gonna need every ounce of prowess in the courtroom. I just say the set of facts is almost insurmountable.
- [48:08]
B
Oh, absolutely. And I think what's happened since I think Thursday and Friday is stuff came out that people couldn't even believe. They knew it was bad, but, I mean, they really got the goods on him, at least it seems.
- [48:19]
A
So in the grand scheme of true crime headlines. Again, you and I been around the block. This sort of has it all, unfortunately.
- [48:29]
B
Yeah. Unfortunately for Celeste, it has it all. Yeah.
- [48:32]
A
There's the fame and the fortune. By the way, I had never heard of David before this case, but he had a following, and he had a real future. I mean, the potential for his earnings were in the tens of millions of dollars. Did you know much about him before this? No.
- [48:50]
B
Like you, but, I mean, again, you know, he's so young, Ashley, It'd be kind of odd for both of us to be really. I mean, he's really kind of a niche person, and he came out as, you know, out of the gaming world, out of Fortnite. And that's really. For people that are under 20. So it's really unlikely that we would be fans of his or that cognizant of who he was. Even though, you know, many people have talked about his song in the video for Romantic Homicide, which he wrote in his bedroom and perform. And it's, of course, course, unbelievably, eerily prescient about what happened. I mean, if you look at that video and you read what he wrote, it's. You wouldn't. If it was a screenwriter, actually, they'd say this is way too much on the nose.
- [49:27]
A
I mean. Yeah, talk about life potentially imitating art here. I was also, like, all the way through this. I. I remember being pretty apoplectic about how long it was taking for an arrest, because let's be straight, you have a dismembered underage girl in the front trunk of your Tesla parked just around the corner from your house. What's not to love? For probable cause. I could not get over how long it took for the arrest. And I wondered what your thoughts were on that.
- [49:56]
B
Well, I'm glad you brought up the Tesla, because for me, though, I just want to say that is one of the strangest parts of this whole story. We now know, at least according to the prosecution, all the equipment he bought, like chainsaws and pools and things like that. Cleanup materials. But My big question is if he put the remains of that poor girl's body in the Tesla and just parked it. I mean, he did drive it around a bit. Then at one point, at some point, I believe in July, right. He just sort of dumped it and it was getting parking tickets. I almost wonder if he wanted to get caught in some way, because I do see that, Ashley, and I'm sure you have too, in some of the cases we've covered, that you get this sense that people unconsciously or consciously maybe do want to get caught. Who would leave. Who this, this upand, cominging, potentially huge star would leave the remains of his underage girlfriend in his parked car for weeks. I mean, that part makes no sense to me.
- [50:54]
A
No, and I, you know, a lot of people say that in, in cases where, wow, it sure sounded like that person wanted to be caught. And no matter how many times I hear it, I still don't believe it. Because generally speaking, as stressful as it would be trying to outrun the law or trying to obfuscate or trying to hide evidence, whatever it is that guilty people do, I still think in the back of their mind, they don't want the death penalty and they don't want life, no parole. And so I've never been able to wrap my head around someone who just wants to get caught.
- [51:27]
B
Yeah, I don't know. I see your point. But I also do wonder. But then there's another aspect of this, which is if you get fame so young and this, this type of fame that he has and the type of money he has that wasn't available to young stars starting out like 20, 30 years ago, now you can again, literally make a song in your bedroom and blow up. And so you have no life experience and you're immediately in a bubble before you're even of legal age. And I think that makes people not think straight. And it also makes people think, oh, if I'm so big and famous and rich, maybe I can just get away with this. It may not have reality for him. He needed to get rid of a problem. We think allegedly he did so, and then maybe because he was who he was, thought he wouldn't get caught.
- [52:17]
A
I think you make a really good point. I'm often, I think about Billie Eilish, you know, making her songs with her brother in her bedroom, and she seems pretty much okay. I don't know what her mental status is, but she certainly hasn't killed anybody. And then I think of Britney Spears and the immense pressure on her with the fame that she'd received. Now, David was nothing like either of them. David was just getting started. David could walk down any street and would not be recognized. So I'm having a tough time, you know, wrapping my head around his fame, making him think he was invincible. But I think the harder thing to stomach is the age of Celeste from the get go. Her baby face image on her passport card, the pictures they've put up in court show her as a little girl. You know, it's not like she weirdly looked like she was 25. It wasn't like that. She did look very young when she was very young.
- [53:14]
B
Yeah. Yep. And he was young too, but he was not as young as she was. And you have to kind of wonder about a guy like that, why he needs to be with somebody so young. And this whole idea of sending cars for her at her parents home in Lake Elsinore, that sounds very predatory. It sounds like you're getting somebody from middle school to come. And it has very kind of pedo escort. All bad stuff associated with it. It's not what he even needed to do. Clearly, even if he wasn't massively famous, he was on his way. I mean, he made like I think 10 million last year, so he probably had no shortage of women or girls to get. Why was he so fixated on her?
- [53:54]
A
And the potential to make, you know, upwards of 20 million a year too. So I could. And look, it isn't like he didn't have a bunch of other girlfriends. That's, you know, allegedly what the. A lot of the motive was for Celeste to be angry and then the next day after, you know, threatening him, allegedly that she was going to blow open and wreck his career, boom, she's suddenly dead. But, you know, talk to me a little bit about the, the jury in this case because we've been in a lot of courtrooms, you and I, and we've seen a lot of juries. We've seen the Casey Anthony case where a little girl was dead in a trunk for a long time and the smell was overwhelming. Like there. We've seen some patterns and how juries react and typically juries really want to connect the dots, right? They don't want to have to make big chasm leaps because for them that's reasonable doubt. But when you're talking about a little girl, pictures of her as a little girl and a man, I mean, come on, David is a man, it kind of changes the metric of how much grace they're prepared to give. I feel like that really speaks badly for his case.
- [55:01]
B
Oh, it does. But I think that really the bigger issue here is how he killed her. Because, you know, it's one thing if it was just in a, you know, in a fit of passion or rage, she was at his house, they got into some sort of little argument or they're high or anything. But this, that when you bring in things like chainsaw and chopping, you go from crime of passion to really criminally insane, really, really bad evil. That's really. That's really a jump. That's really.
- [55:31]
A
I think it's luring is the problem. I see the luring as the problem. Again, if he did it and he's. He's. He's innocent until proven guilty, but sending the car and saying, come hither. And then, according to prosecutors, waiting at the door, literally to kill her. She walked in the door. That is like, there's no other better definition than lying in wait.
- [55:50]
B
Yeah. Now, there's a really scary, almost lecter, like, vibe to this whole thing. Luring her, killing her, almost like, huh. It was part of his career checklist. She's become a problem. Gotta go.
- [56:05]
A
And I'm going on tour soon. I gotta wrap this up.
- [56:08]
B
Yeah.
- [56:08]
A
The other thing is, like, that a lot of juries, people generally say, like, oh, how awful. You know, the dismembering, that's gotta be a life sentence. Well, it isn't. The weird thing is, is offering an indignity to a human body, while disgusting. Isn't that big a crime? Like, you're not going to serve decades for that. You think about Robert Durst. He killed his neighbor and cut him up into 10 pieces and tossed him into Galveston Bay and somehow was able to convince a jury he didn't murder him. He did cut him up and threw him away. He only got a couple years for that. So that's crazy.
- [56:44]
B
It's.
- [56:45]
A
People think you're going to get a lot of years for the dismembering. It's the. Did you plan that murder? And I feel like with the dismembering of a little girl, they're not willing to give as much, you know, benefit of the doubt on the luring and the lying in weight.
- [57:01]
B
Right. And then again, if everything the prosecution is showing at the preliminary, that can obviously come out the trial, and the idea that they did, we don't know at all when their sexual relationships turn started. But we do know that she was 11 when we think she joined his discord group in his, you know, gaming video world. That's pretty young. And I don't think any jury is going to like a guy older who is essentially. They'll call it grooming, they'll call it whatever they're going to call it, but. And the fact that we think she had more than one pregnancy. Right?
- [57:32]
A
Yeah. And I think they, they're, they're kind of zeroing it down. Again, it's all allegations, but they kind of think that the sexual started at age 13 and 19 and then, you know, she's pregnant at 14 and there's all sorts of admissions. Allegedly, the prosecutors say that, that he was, you know, coughing up that he'd done it, he was sorry and let's get this thing, you know, dealt with in an abortion. So, yeah, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of confusion that there was underage sex going on for a long, long time and a lot of video and photos of it as well.
- [58:03]
B
Well, that's the thing with any kind of crime these days. My God, good luck to the criminals because I mean, never mind DNA, but the digital evidence and all that is just. And you know, this is, this is an old story, but whether or not you think he was that famous, he had fame within his niche and that's really what people care about now. I mean there aren't, there aren't any Michael Jackson's Left, right or Elton John's. It's all people that are fairly niche except for people like Taylor Swift or Drake or somebody. And you know, the story of young, young underage boys or girls hooking up somehow with older successful entertainers is a, Is an old story and it's rarely a. Has a good ending, you know, and people should be paying attention.
- [58:46]
A
Didn't bode well for R. Kelly, that's for sure. So, so look, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna ask you, do you think this is going to be an actual trial or do you think this is gonna. It's so such a bad set of facts. You think it's gonna be a plea bargain?
- [59:02]
B
That's a good question. If I had to guess now, I would probably say yeah, with what came out, you know, as you said to me in the conversation we had earlier, used the word diabolical and that's a good word. That's what it seems like to me. I mean, I would think he would be just so freaked out about this. And I'm sure he's got some of the highest paid lawyers in the land advising him. You know, they're not stupid go to trial with this
- [59:28]
A
now, who knows if it's even something that the prosecutors would agree to. You never know. I mean, look at Idaho. They, they agreed to a deal and I thought that was slam dunk, so who knows? Dana, I'm going to, I'm going to have another conversation with you as we get closer and, and see more evidence spilling out in discovery. Thanks so much for this.
- [59:44]
B
Sounds good.
- [59:46]
A
My great thanks to Dana Kennedy, by the way. I go back, whoa, 20, let's see, 25 years, 26 years with Dana Kennedy. We've worked together in cable news forever and ever. And I can tell you right now, she is one hell of a reporter. So when she covers something, make sure you watch or read or listen. We're going to continue to follow every development in this case. Please make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss any of our coverage. And if you've already subscribed, thank you much. Appreciate it. And if you have information that you think we should know about this case and you, for whatever reason, aren't comfortable reaching out to the police, please feel free to reach out to us at drop deadserious infomail.com Again, drop dead serious. Infomail.com Happy to keep you anonymous. It does help us though. Our community has been amazing at advancing these stories, giving me leads at least to check out and advance the story further. And I am so appreciative. I'm Ashley Banfield, everyone. Thanks so much for listening and watching. Watching. And just remember, truth isn't just serious, it's drop dead serious.