← Going West: True Crime
Going West: True Crime
Celeste Rivas and D4vd: Inside the Evidence (Happening Now) // 606
00:52:55
In April of 2026, an arrest was made in the disturbing, unfolding murder case of a 14-year-old girl who had been found in the trunk of a Tesla last September in Los Angeles. And since that arrest was made, countless horrific details have been released by prosecutors as they make their case to prove that she was intentionally killed, and by one particular person. This is the murder of Celeste Rivas Hernandez, and the case against David Burke, also known as D4vd.
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What is going on? True crime fans? I'm your host Teeth.
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And I'm your host Daphne and you're
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listening to Going West.
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Hello everybody. This has been long awaited. Last September of 2025, Heath and I covered the David and Celeste Rivas case right after it broke. You guys know, happening now. Cases are kind of like our bread and butter and a lot has happened in the last month.
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B
Yes, I'm sure a lot of you guys have just been waiting for so long for new information to come out and finally we have all the details for you guys today.
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A
We've been posting a ton on our socials about some of the updates, but honestly as we dove in this week, we realize there is so much we out there.
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B
It gets darker.
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It gets so much darker. Again, a lot has been released from prosecutors actually in various court documents over the last two weeks in particular and we are going to talk about all of it. So if you don't remember, if you listen to our original episode when it first came out, don't worry. You don't have to go back. We're going to kind of like run through the whole story again and update because we have so much more.
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B
Yes. And I just want to say that our hearts really go out to Celeste's family and friends and anybody who knew her personally because this is such a tragic case.
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A
Yeah. We can't even imagine what they are going through right now as they also are learning of the horrific things that truly, truly happened last year. So buckle up.
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B
All right, guys, without further ado, this is episode 606 of Going West. So let's get into it.
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Foreign. UPDATE Right now, moments ago, Eyewitness News obtained the medical Examiner's report for 14 year old Celeste Rivas Hernandez.
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We are learning more about that teenager who was found dead and decomposing in the trunk of a Tesla that belonged to a New York born singer who
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goes by the name David.
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It's spelled with a four. This is a case that has grabbed headlines and we've been covering for several months now. Revis's body was found in the back of a Tesla at this Hollywood tow yard. The car was registered to David the rapper here and the car was ultimately found out front of his Hollywood Hills home.
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The alleged Burke met Celeste Rivas when she was 11 years old. They have text messages between the two arguing on the night before they believe she died. Burke ordered and received from Amazon things like chainsaws, an arrest in the case of Celeste Rivas, teen girl found in the trunk of a rapper's car. So again, the family releasing a statement today saying the details that have been released in recent days are just so gruesome and difficult that they will no longer be making any public statements. They say, though they do agree with the steps that the DA is taking to prosecute this case. Foreign. Last September of 2025, we covered the case of Celeste Rivas. Back then, an arrest had not been made, but we all had a pretty good feeling about who had done it, who had killed her. Now many questions have been answered. So let's go back to the beginning and discuss some of the details you may already know while interjecting what else has come out to paint a fuller picture. So Celeste Rivas Hernandez was born on September 7, 2010 to Mercedes and Jesus, who had immigrated to California from El Salvador, growing up alongside at least two siblings, a half sister named Jennifer and a brother named Matthew in Lake Elsinore, California, which is a city in western Riverside county hosting around 70,000 residents. There, she was known by her peers to be a happy girl and a Good student. She was social, outgoing, and described recently by her family as, quote, a beautiful, strong girl who loved to sing and dance. She was known since she was a tween, though, to run away. So much so that law enforcement knew her to be a runaway, which would actually muddy up her eventual disappearance quite a bit, leading officers to automatically assume that she had run away, which we will get into. And to be fair, she actually did, because sometime after meeting another teenager online named David Burke in January of 2022, that's exactly what she did. Of course, at the insistence and influence of David. Now, before we get into how they met and what transpired afterwards, let's talk about David. David Anthony Burke was born on March 28, 2005, making him about five, almost five and a half years older than Celeste in New York City. But he was primarily raised in Houston, Texas. He was musically inclined from a young age, having played piano and sang in his church choir, as he and his family are Christian. But having been homeschooled since seventh grade, he was a little bit more solitary as a young teen, which led him to, in 2021, at the age of 16, start making music for Fortnite gameplay montages, which actually got people to listen to it. So he. If you guys haven't heard his music, I'm sure a lot of you guys have. He kind of has this, like, dreamy alt pop, indie rock, like lo fi kind of style. And he goes by the name David, but it's spelled D4V D. But he didn't get wider recognition until the release of his 2022 single, Romantic Homicide, and then his other single, Here With Me, which both actually went platinum thanks to them going viral on TikTok. Now, I just want to explain this to show you guys, like, how many streams he got, because, like, back in the day, going platinum meant selling over 1 million units. But now that it's based on streams, going platinum translates to receiving 150 million streams. And those two songs went platinum multiple times. Cause actually, right now on Spotify alone, they each have nearly 2 billion streams, with many of his other singles nearing a billion each or hundreds of millions of streams on their own. So in 2023, he came out with a couple EPs, which both charted, and then SZA actually brought him on for a leg of her tour in 2023, which of course exposed him more and more. In 2025, he dropped his debut album, Withered, right around the time Celeste is believed to have been murdered on April 25, 2025. But let's go Back to when they first came into contact.
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So like Daphne said, because David was homeschooled, he mostly relied on the Internet to make friends. So In January of 2022, when he was 16 years old, before his singles even released, they allegedly met on Discord. Now we have talked about Discord before on this show, most recently in our episode on Hailey Busby. But for those who don't know, it's a social platform and app where people and gamers can voice, video and text chat. It's really just about community groups that are created on specific servers. So for David, he had an official server himself and on it fans can chat with each other. So basically you could kinda compare it to like Reddit where there are subreddits for specific topics. But with Discord, it's basically just a chat and it's all about communicating over a shared interest, whether that be a musician or, or a topic like cooking or politics, etc. So it seems like 11 year old Celeste had found herself on almost 17 year old David's Discord. And somehow, maybe due to his low kinda budding fanbase at the time, they connected. Even back then in 2022, other users tagged her account and referenced her as David's girlfriend. So if they began this long distance California to Texas online relationship that year, he would have been 17 and she would have been 11, turning 12 in September. Now, for reference, his first single, Romantic Homicide, released in July of 2022, and here with me then released in September of 2022. Now of course, many speculate that one or both are about Celeste, with Romantic Homicide being about figuratively killing a girl that he loves. And actually the lyrics read 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 in the back of my mind. I killed you and I didn't even regret it. I can't believe I said it but it's true, I hate you. And then kinda like on the opposite end of that scale is the song Here With Me, which is about having a long relationship with someone that you love and sharing memories. And in that particular music video, many have pointed out how the actress wears her hair very curly and she looks a bit like Celeste. So much so that this actress even made a TikTok video statement about it, explaining how she has no affiliation with David and that she was simply an actress hired for a job. I mean, of course you probably want to distance yourself after that news comes out anyway. Well, shortly after David began finding success in music, he of course moved to Los Angeles, California, coincidentally or perhaps not coincidentally, closer to Celeste, as Lake Elsinore is about an hour and a half from the Hollywood Hills where David would move. Now, In November of 2023, David allegedly began a sexual relationship with Celeste, which it's hard to even describe it as a sexual relationship because actually it is just rape, because she was newly 13 and David was 18. And by the way, this was just after he finished his tour with SZA throughout September and October across the us.
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And we can imagine that David lied to his family about her age, which it seems like he did to his friends as well, because at least as far as they're willing to admit. Friends of David's who have spoken out about his relationship with Celeste claim that they had most recently believed her to be a 19 year old college student, insinuating that David had lied about her age to like avoid suspicion and trouble. But in general, David was pretty private. His friends described him as a, quote, very shy, quiet person. They even added that Celeste seemed to kind of mirror that and that when this whole case unraveled and they found out that she was underage, that they were shocked not only because of course it was very disturbing, but because they knew her to have been at multiple age restricted events with David, which had just lent credence at the time to the idea that she was a young adult woman and not a young teenager. But she apparently wasn't around too often, as some would recount, claiming that they had only seen her at shows mostly. So they didn't know much about her other than the fact that she and David were at least casually dating and had been for a little while. So it's not like she was this open, very serious girlfriend of David's to his circle that everybody knew. Well, it seems more like for them she was an under the radar, consistent romantic partner of David's that they ran into backstage at his shows and stuff, which would make sense considering her age and the nature of their relationship. You know, that he didn't really want to parade her around, maybe even out of fear. Even Celeste's family knew that she was dating someone named David, though whether or not they knew who he was or how old he was isn't yet publicly known. Now, this ties into Celeste running away from home. So as we posited in our original episode on this case, we imagine that David had convinced her to run away to be with him at his LA home during the few instances that she did because at 13, spending extended time at his house would have required her to flee home, obviously, especially since she was so young and couldn't drive herself or afford to pay for her own travels. But the only runaway dates that we have for her that have been publicly reported are months later, the first of which was on February 14, 2024, Valentine's Day. As she was only in seventh grade at this time, her parents were worried when she went missing, and so they reported her as such to the police. Three days later, on February 17, 2024, the Riverside County Sheriff's Office reportedly called David Burke on the phone after seeing his constant communication with Celeste on her phone records, and they asked if he knew where she was. He claimed to have last spoken to her on February 13th or 14th, so saying, yeah, I talked to her. I spoke with her recently, but it's been a few days. And he even said that he didn't know that she was a minor or that she had been reported missing. But because they spoke so frequently and he admitted to last speaking to her at the time she vanished, they informed David that deputies from the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department would be coming to his home to speak with him, which was in the hills above West Hollywood. So that same day, deputies arrived and again asked him if he was aware that Celeste was only 13 to his 18 and that she had run away from home. And he said that he didn't know and that they had only met in person once and that that was back in November of 2023. So a few months earlier, which is when reports claim that they had become sexually involved for the first time.
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B
So obviously, he's lying directly to the police, saying that, oh, yeah, I didn't know she was a minor. We only met one time. We know that this isn't true now, but it's going to become very apparent that David knew the entire time exactly what he was doing.
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A
Well, also, even if he didn't know this whole time that she was a minor and he found out that day, it at least proves to us, as everything we're about to get into, that he knew without a doubt after that day how old she was. And he proceeded to be in contact with her and continue a relationship with her again, if we can call it that.
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B
Exactly.
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A
So then he told them that he didn't know where she was and that he hadn't seen her. And two days later, Celeste returned home to Lake Elsinore.
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B
After she returned, her parents actually took her cell phone away in hopes that she would stop speaking to David and maybe wouldn't run away again. But get this. Prosecutors allege that David paid a junior at her High School $1,000 to give Celeste a cell phone that he bought for her so that they could continue communicating, which is just insane. Now you're going around the parents to be able to speak to Celeste.
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A
And just like we just said, at this point, it goes to show you that he knew. He knew. He must have known how old she was, and he didn't care, because now we know he knows. And he's paying a kid $1,000 and buying her a cell phone because he is that desperate to continue talking to this little girl.
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B
Yep. So throughout the rest of that year, they spent a great deal of time together at his home in the Hollywood Hills, but also out of state, taking trips to visit his family back in Texas together. So, you know, of course, Celeste could meet them and David taking her to Las Vegas as well as London.
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A
But that's so serious, him to take her home to his family so they can meet. Like that's a big deal.
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B
Yeah. It doesn't really seem like just kind of like a fling type of deal. But let's go back to the Valentine's Day runaway. So a few weeks later, she vanished yet again, with her parents reporting her missing to the police, claiming that she had been missing as of April 5, 2024. At this point, she'd be about 13 and a half, and David would have been 19. Some reports state that she returned home again, others report that she didn't, and that she only contacted her parents by phone in May of 2024. But either way, in May of 2024, she was reported missing yet again. Now, due to her phone records, it's believed that she was alive for another 11 months, though the only proof of her physically being alive appear to be basically from surveillance videos. One from September of 2024, after she turned 14, and then finally in January of 2025.
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A
And it does seem. This is kind of like a mud, a muddy part, but it does seem like other people saw her throughout this time. It's not like her family never saw her again after this. She was more so coming in and out a little bit, being gone for extended periods of time. I wonder what was going on with her school, if she was in school.
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Was she even going.
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Yeah, we. We really don't know what was happening there, but yeah, she was. She was going missing a lot during that year.
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B
Absolutely. Well, now there is. I do want to mention that there is a clip, clear gap of information for this part, because prosecutors claim that David Burke broke up with Celeste in November of 2024, which would have been about six months after she ran away from home for the very last time. But one thing that we do know is that they did continue to see each other casually though. And In March of 2025, 14 year old Celeste sent 20 year old David the following. All we do is have sex and just hang out, man. I want more than that for myself. Now it seems at this time David was seeing other girls, which became a problem for Celeste as time went on. Because on April 22nd of 2025, so actually the day before Celeste is believed to have been killed, she and David exchanged very angry text messages back and forth with Celeste confronting David about his other relationships, all while leading Celeste on to believe that she and him would be together long term. So obviously, you know, there's a lot of contention between them at this time as it appears that David kind of wanted to move on. And oh yeah, this is actually three days before the release of his debut album.
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So we can imagine he was feeling the heat of his crimes at this point of grooming and illegally housing and having sexual relations with a minor for years while he was getting more and more popular in the music scene and likely on the verge of even bigger success with the release of this album. And here's Celeste, who is young and impressionable and smitten by this older guy who is suddenly giving her the runaround after he traveled her around the world and let her come backstage to his shows and other artists shows and exposed her to a life that was so much bigger than life in middle school or high school where she should have been instead.
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B
Yeah, I mean, you can imagine that you would feel on top of the world if you were able to do things like this. When you're in seventh grade. It's like, oh, I get to go to these shows, I get to hang out in the Hollywood Hills. This guy's taking me to London.
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A
Yeah, especially if they did meet on his server, as reports suggest, and she was a fan of his or knew who he was before they started speaking again. It was before his singles came out. So that's why I really wonder about that bit of it. But yeah, she's not happy that he's pushing her away, of course. And that creates a very dangerous situation for up and coming artist David, who knows that his freedom is essentially in her hands thanks to his own nefarious deeds.
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B
Not only just his freedom, but of course his music career. I mean, this guy was rising so quickly in the ranks. You know, everybody knew his name at that time and it's like all of that could easily go away in just the blink of an eye.
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Yes, again, because of what he himself chose to do.
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Right.
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For years now, we don't have access to all of these texts that Heath is talking about, but in one of them, Celeste threatened to disclose information about their relationship that would, quote, end his career and destroy his life. And less than 24 hours later, she was never seen again. As routines shift and summer plans begin, it's easy for learning to take a backseat. IXL makes it simple to stay sharp and keep skills fresh in just a few minutes a day.
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On Wednesday, April 23, 2025, two days before the release of David's debut album. According to prosecutors, David sent an Uber to pick Celeste up from her family home in Lake Elsinore at 8:40pm this is why it feels very obvious that she did at some point return home probably while, you know, during that period where they were like officially broken up, but we're still seeing each other casually.
- [32:02]
B
Yeah. Sending each other texts during that period of time that, you know, they weren't really getting along.
- [32:08]
A
Yes. And as I said earlier, they, or I think actually you said it earlier, Heath, they lived about an hour and a half away from each other. So Celeste arrived at his house that evening at 10:10pm before going into what happened next, let's paint the scene a little bit. So this was a rental house that he was paying $20,000 a month for in the Hollywood Hills. Very typical price range for rentals in this area. But for those who know the area more specifically, this is the Bird Streets. So where the Hollywood Hills kind of bleeds into Beverly Hills, just above West Hollywood. Now his street is a very narrow street that looks like it would dead end because it's so narrow. But that's very much the nature of this area. It's hard to park out on the streets.
- [32:56]
B
Oh yeah, definitely. We know those narrow streets.
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A
But there are houses on both sides of the street. Most of them are gated and of course very expensive. Now David's rental house at this time was about $4 million. That's why it's a $20,000 rental. It's a four bed, five bath, 4,300 square foot house with a pool, kind of shitty pool, I'll say. It's really small and views of the hills and the city. And it's actually for rent right now for $24,000 a month, which is, so
- [33:29]
B
he was paying 20 and now it's 24,000.
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A
Yeah, which, what, okay, we, we all know what that house is like. I, I, I can't, I can't believe they're trying to charge more. So anyway, this is where 14 year old Celeste went that April night to see David, someone she likely was hoping to reconcile with and continue a relationship with. But 20 year old David, it seems, had other plans. Twenty minutes after she arrived at 10:30pm, David reportedly texted her asking her where she was. But prosecutors believe that Celeste had already been killed and that he sent this text out as like a future cover up in case he needed it. Like, oh, well, I was actually texting her because I didn't know where she was because I wasn't with her.
- [34:20]
B
Yep, yep. This is definitely, he's already kind of preached planning, putting together a bit of a ruse.
- [34:26]
A
We have seen this before and we'll go into her autopsy in a bit when we discuss the discovery of her body. But it's believed that Shortly after Celeste entered his house that David stabbed her multiple times and waited as she bled out an hour after texting her, asking where she was and, you know, planting that seed. At 11:30pm David left his Hollywood Hills house and drove to Lake Kachuma in Santa Barbara county in his Tesla Heath. Do you remember when we were in that area recently?
- [35:02]
B
Yes.
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A
We kept saying Kachuma, Kachuma. And it's such a beautiful area, but it feels so remote.
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B
It does, yeah.
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A
It is so isolated, rolling hills, absolutely beautiful.
- [35:12]
B
Yeah. Tons of nature up there.
- [35:14]
A
Yes. And so he goes up to this area in his Tesla and visited what is described as a, quote, isolated site off of Highway 154 where Celeste's passport was found nine months later in January of 2026 by a Caltrans maintenance worker, proving that David had gone up there to dispose of evidence, likely including other items that have not been found.
- [35:42]
B
Yeah, there's a lot of nature, a lot of hills, but also some bodies of water up there as well. So this would seem like a good place to dispose of evidence.
- [35:52]
A
Yeah, it's very ranchy. Like there's a lot of horses out here. There's campgrounds.
- [35:57]
B
It's pretty rural.
- [35:58]
A
Yeah. And even like some kind of like canyons and stuff like that. Like we were passing some canyons when we were there last month. So it's, it's would be very. There's a lot of nature. It would be very easy to kind of like chuck things in for them never to be found.
- [36:13]
B
Exactly.
- [36:14]
A
And all the while he drove up there in his Tesla late that night, either alone or with somebody else. This is like a, a two or two and a half hour drive away, by the way. So this is. He's, he's going pretty far late at night on a Wednesday. This is.
- [36:30]
B
Yeah. This feels distance.
- [36:31]
A
Yeah. And it feels like a very random thing to do. You know, obviously it seems he had a very clear purpose to go up there, but that's what I mean. It's like there's no other reason really for him to do this, it seems. And the whole time he's going up there, he continued to call and text Celeste. So his phone records prove his location, as did his Tesla. And that same day, by the way, tickets to David's world tour went on pre sale.
- [37:00]
B
Now, in the early morning hours of the following day, which was Thursday, April 24, 2025, David returned to his house, sending two more texts to Celeste. He would continue to reach out to her for two more days, but then he would never Reach out to her again. Later that day, David did a radio interview where he answered questions about his new album. But here is where shit gets really crazy. So that same day, David, on the Postmate's food and grocery delivery app, ordered a shovel from Home Depot that was delivered to his house. A week later, on May 1, 2025, court documents show that David ordered two chainsaws on Amazon which were delivered to his Hollywood Hills home. But he put a different name on that order. And the name that he put was Victoria Mendez. Now, whether he did this for everything that he ordered to kind of hide his identity as he was, of course, like a rising star in the industry or if it was just for these orders that we're gonna be talking about, but four days later, David then ordered again from Amazon a body bag, heavy duty laundry bags, and a blue inflatable pool using that same fake Victoria Mendez name that he did for those chainsaws.
- [38:29]
A
It is so wild, because a body bag is something I never considered you could just buy. But there are many listings for body bags on Amazon.
- [38:39]
B
That's just crazy to me.
- [38:40]
A
I know, but it's like the top listing says body bag stretcher combo, wet proof bags for outdoor camping, hiking and snack sleeping, polyethylene cadaver disaster pouch. So there were. I read some of the reviews because I'm like, what do people buy this for? And a lot of people were like, oh, great. For storage or for supplies.
- [39:00]
B
Yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure. You Amazon freaks out there.
- [39:05]
A
Somebody else put like that something about a sleeping bag and that this really helped them with camping and that they were like, lol. I can't believe I bought a body bag for camping. But, like, I didn't.
- [39:15]
B
It works, I guess.
- [39:17]
A
So it's like. But they're there, you know, and they're used for other purposes as well. But he bought one.
- [39:23]
B
It's very strange, the things that you can find on Amazon. I will say, yeah, truly. So he actually Amazon primed these suspicious items so they arrived the very same day. And this is the day that police believe David Burke dismembered Celeste's body using one of the chainsaws that he ordered, placing her body in his new inflatable pool inside his garage in order to do so. They also believe that he removed two of her fingers as they were never recovered. One of which her ring finger reportedly, which had a tattoo of David's name on it. Now, we did talk about tattoos in our episode on this case last September, and how it seems that they had matching.
- [40:09]
A
Shh.
- [40:10]
B
Tattoos on their fingers. So it's possible that the other finger was the one that may have had that shh. Tattoo on it, which also, again, also very, very much creeps me out. It makes me think that maybe those tattoos were insinuating, like, hey, we have this secret relationship that nobody's supposed to know about our sh. Tattoos.
- [40:33]
A
I mean, crazy that he had. He would have had, I'll say, the foresight to remove these fingers to try to stop her from being identified and that it did seem like he had a greater plan there.
- [40:47]
B
Well, yeah, I mean, allegedly, it does seem like everything he did was pretty premeditated and there was a purpose for all of it. You know, buying the inflatable pool and the body bag and the chainsaws and all this other things and driving to Santa Barbara.
- [41:04]
A
Right. And the reason, by the way, that it's believed Celeste was dismembered inside his garage. Guys. Which anyone could have heard, of course, happening from the outside, though. Remember, he lived on a narrow, very quiet street where the large homes across from him are kind of set back and they're gated. Still, somebody could have heard it happening. Yeah, absolutely is because materials in the garage tested positive for blood and Celeste's DNA. And that inflatable pool, prosecutors claim, had cuts that are consistent with a saw having been used against it.
- [41:43]
B
So. Yes. During the dismemberment process, you know, it's believed that the chainsaw was kind of nicking the inflatable pool. Right, and that's the reason why. Yeah, of course.
- [41:55]
A
As it would have. It's a frickin chainsaw. It's a crazy piece of machinery. Yeah.
- [42:00]
B
And the pool is probably like, what, plastic or something.
- [42:02]
A
Yes, exactly. So court documents state, quote, defendant took horrifying measures to destroy and discard the victim's body. After placing her body in the blue inflatable pool to prevent her blood from spilling onto his garage floor, defendant used the chainsaw and perhaps other tools to cut off her limbs. Small blue plastic fragments were found embedded in the victim's remains. An expert was able to make a physical match from the blue fragments to the blue inflatable pool purchased by defendant in May 2025. Defendant then placed her head and torso into the cadaver bag he purchased. He placed her limbs into a garbage bag.
- [42:53]
B
It's just. It's so grim.
- [42:55]
A
I mean, unthinkable, truly. So three days later, on May 8, 2025, David returned to the same area near Lake Kachuma in Santa Barbara county late that night. And court documents state that he Returned there once more three weeks later on May 31, likely continuing to dispose of evidence. Now let's fast forward five weeks to July 7th. Court documents state that David ordered a burn cage on Amazon under the same fake name Victoria Mendez that he used previously in what prosecutors claim was in hopes of, quote, incinerating evidence.
- [43:41]
B
So he was gonna try and just completely destroy the evidence by burning it.
- [43:45]
A
Yes, but they also state that it was still in its box and it was unused.
- [43:50]
B
So maybe he bought it and then he was like, I guess I really don't need this now.
- [43:55]
A
Yeah. Or didn't know how he would get rid of it from there. You know, it's anybody's guess. You know, he doesn't live out in the country, so it's certainly not to burn, in my opinion, regular debris or yard waste or what have you.
- [44:08]
B
Yeah, because I know that a lot of people do use like burn barrels and things like that to get rid of stuff that you just mentioned, but it's usually not in the middle of the city.
- [44:17]
A
Yeah. And also, obviously you and I live here and we know that you wouldn't be able to burn something like that. You can't have like a wood burning fire in LA because of fire danger.
- [44:27]
B
Not that anybody's gonna know if he's like doing it in his garage or
- [44:30]
A
something, but even then that's like so dangerous. And I will say we'll post photos of his backyard just to kind of give you guys a visual, but it's like there's a lot of like stone back there. So I'm like, I don't even know where you would do this. You don't have. He's in the middle of the hills. He's not in an area where he has like this big plot of land and he has this field that he could burn something in. It's not like that. His backyard is quite small and contained and it's like against a hillside. There's a house behind it. Like, this is not the place to have a burn cage. So that summer, again, 2025, David prepared for his upcoming world tour, the first that he was ever headlining, starting on August 5th in California, in the San Diego area and playing 29 shows across the US before returning to California to play in Los Angeles on September 20. On October 1, he was expected to head to Norway for a 19 show European tour ending in Poland on November 4. But he would only make it partway on his tour before his alleged horrific deed would be uncovered.
- [45:39]
B
And the only reason why we're saying alleged Right now is because he has been charged, but he is not. He has not been sentenced.
- [45:47]
A
Yeah, we gotta be careful here. On July 29, 2025, David parked his black Tesla Model X about 400ft from his house. So about a block up. Being caught on surveillance footage doing so where it would remain while he was on tour. In our first episode on this case, we were like, oh, it must have been there since early August or at least for a few weeks, because neighbors said that they had seen it there for, quote, some. Some time.
- [46:16]
B
Yeah. And it was kind of dusty.
- [46:18]
A
Yeah. So now we know that it was there since July 29th, and then we're also like, oh, well, what if somebody else put it there and somebody was using his car? Nope. It is on surveillance footage. He put the car there. This is his freaking car. But why he parked it outside other people's houses instead of, you know, in his own garage or in front of his own house is still a mystery. I checked the street view to see if there was any signs for street cleaning or, you know, like, no parking here. Tow away zone. I didn't see any signs like that. So I don't know why he didn't just park it in front of his own house, but this would be his fatal flaw.
- [46:57]
B
Yeah. This would be the biggest mistake of this case that David made. And, you know, you're saying, why didn't he just park it at his house? And I'm assuming maybe he thought that, like, then it could, like, actually be connected to him more specifically than if, you know, it's just a random Tesla down the street. But it's like, okay, they're gonna check the license plate. They're gonna know that it's your car anyway.
- [47:21]
A
Yeah. Maybe there was another thought behind that. Or. I don't know.
- [47:24]
B
It's so hard to say. It just seems stupid to me.
- [47:27]
A
And clearly he's never had his car towed before. I had our car. We brought this up in the last episode, but we had our car towed down on the street that was next to our house because we had another car in our really tight. Because we used to live on a street very similar to this in la, where it's really tight and you can only fit a couple cars up on our hill. So we had to park it a little bit down and we left it there for a couple weeks and it got towed. So it's like. That happens when you leave a car abandoned for a minute in front of a house that is not your own.
- [47:54]
B
Yeah. Because people don't know whose Car this is. And the reason why this was, you know, his biggest mistake was because weeks later, after it had been sitting there collecting dust, looking abandoned, it was towed to Hollywood tow yard on September 5th. So two weeks from the completion of his US leg of his tour, hours before he would hit the stage in Indianapolis. Well, three days later, on Monday, September 8th, the day after Celeste should have turned 15, and four and a half months after she had been murdered, an employee of the Hollywood Tow Yard noticed a foul smell coming from the Tesla's front trunk or the frunk. I know a lot of you guys laughed because we mentioned frunk so many times in the last episode.
- [48:43]
A
That's what it's called.
- [48:44]
B
That's what it's called. Which is approximately 30 inches wide, 20 inches deep, and 15 inches tall. So think just a little bit bigger than a carry on suitcase and smaller than the back trunk.
- [48:57]
A
Trunk.
- [48:58]
B
So the employees opened up that trunk to find a bag of human remains, including a head and torso covered in insects. Badly decomposed. Court documents state the defendant 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, which,
- [49:27]
A
of course, would mean that David had, for whatever reason, been storing her remains in his car for months. It seems like after she was dismembered and put into those cadaver. The cadaver bag in the trash bag, as we mentioned, that he did in early, or he allegedly did in early May, that he would have just put her in his car and kept her there. What?
- [49:50]
B
Yeah, I think the reason for him doing this is because, like, he. He knew he was kind of short on time. He knew that he was going on this world tour. He didn't really know exactly what allegedly know what to do with the remains because it's like there's so many other things he could have done. He could have, you know, buried the remains up near Lake Kachuma or whatever, but for whatever reason, her remains were just left in his car to sit there on his own street, and then his car got towed.
- [50:21]
A
But that just doesn't make sense, because if he had the foresight to send her those text messages to make it look like he didn't know where she was and, like. And use a fake name for these orders, wouldn't he know then that they could come knocking at any time and search his car?
- [50:38]
B
Well, yeah, of course. And, you know, maybe he was thinking, hey, as soon as I get back from Tor, I'll take care of this. But unfortunately, that's just not. Well, I mean, fortunately, actually that's not how it worked out.
- [50:51]
A
But that's what's so weird because, like, if that happened in May, then all of May, all of June, and then all of July, he had three months. He had seemingly disposed of other evidence during that time and he wasn't gonna
- [51:05]
B
be back until again. Wasn't that 11-1- forth back from like his last, like, part of the European tour?
- [51:11]
A
Talk about anxiety. The whole time, just knowing that she's in your car back at home. Like, what is the thought process there?
- [51:17]
B
I don't know. So dumb. Well, after that discovery, the police were called immediately, with the LAPD responding to the scene. And on September 16, after an autopsy was performed based on what was in the trash bag and underneath it in the cadaver bag, which was most of her remains and her two fingers that were missing, they confirmed that the remains were those of 14 year old Celeste Rivas Hernandez. Now, of course, they quickly uncovered that the car belonged to 20 year old David Burke and had those previous reports of her going missing and him being questioned about it both on the phone and in person at his house a year and a half earlier. So they knew exactly who they wanted to talk to. But of course, with him being on tour, he wasn't in Los Angeles or even in California. But word was already quickly spreading online and in every news outlet that a body had been found in his car. So before we even had any answers, on September 19th, he canceled the last two days of his tour as well as his entire European leg of his tour.
- [52:29]
A
Of course, he didn't have a chance or didn't have a choice.
- [52:32]
B
Yeah, which is so crazy because you can only imagine that he's on tour, he's thinking that he got away with it, he's having the best time of his life, and then bam, these reports are coming out that a body was found in his car. And he's like, oh, shit.
- [52:45]
A
So in her September autopsy, Celeste's cause of death was listed as undetermined due to the advanced decomposition and dismemberment, which is part of what severely delayed any arrest in this case. But as we all speculated back then, even before we had the evidence that we do now, we imagine that her remains being dismembered had to have meant that she was murdered and that she was murdered by David. But investigators needed to build the strongest case they could to ensure the charges would stick. As of November 18, 2025, law enforcement released that David Burke was officially considered a suspect and that he was no longer cooperating with police and that they felt confident Celeste had been murdered. And months prior to her body being found a few weeks later, the medical examiner, upon further testing and examination, determined that Celeste had indeed been murdered and that her homicide was caused by two penetrating injuries to her torso. More specifically, a nearly 1 inch wide object was forced 1.5 inches deep into her upper abdomen and it hit her liver. The other being forced 2 inches deep into her left chest or the left side of her chest, I'll say, meaning he stabbed her twice. And then prosecutors allege that he watched her bleed out in his home. One screening reported the presence of MDMA and methamphetamine in her system, but a second report returned back inconclusive results for both substances. Alcohol was reportedly in her system as well. We don't know how much. So whether David had given her any of this to maybe dull her or incapacitate her, we still don't know. Over the course of the next few months, from January To March of 2025, investigators tried to get his parents to testify in front of a grand jury as they gathered their evidence to present and hopefully have David found guilty of murder again in front of a grand jury. So that's why it wasn't until April 16th of 2026 that 21 year old David Anthony Burke was arrested in connection with the murder of Celeste Rivas Hernandez.
- [55:21]
B
Now, back in late September, David broke the lease on his Hollywood Hills rental and moved to a different part of the Hollywood Hills, this time to a beautiful four bedroom, three bathroom house on Marmont Avenue just up the hill behind the Chateau Marmont. It's known that he also owns a house in Texas, but it seems that in mid March he began renting this house for $17,500 a month, at least according to Zillow, meaning that he only lived there for one month before his arrest at 5pm as of 11:12pm, David, who is listed as 5'5,125 pounds, was officially booked at the LAPD's 77th street station and he was held there without bail. Three days later, he was formally charged with first degree murder, continuous sexual acts, lewd and lascivious sexual acts with an individual under 14 years old, and mutilating the human remains of a body. Because reportedly, David's devices contained child sexual abuse. Material cause, of course it does. Well, in court documents presented by prosecutors released on April 29, it states the evidence regarding these findings explaining the description of photographs depicting the victim Naked as well as while she was engaged with defendant in sexual activity when she was 13. Which of course is again proof of their ongoing sexual relationship, AKA rape. It continues numerous text messages between defendant and the victim evidencing their sexual relationship, pregnancy, abortion, and the use of plan B emergency contraception.
- [57:12]
A
And we did speculate in our previous episode whether or not Celeste had been pregnant. We wondered if that was possible motive. It's still unclear if she was pregnant when she was killed. This is actually something that is being discussed by prosecutors. They are saying publicly that they don't know, but it is proof, at least appears to be proof that she was at one point.
- [57:34]
B
Yeah, I mean, just, you know, the plan B and the abortion, that would give us some good insight into motive, possibly.
- [57:42]
A
But also just regarding the child sexual abuse material, we don't know, you know, when you just hear that statement, we don't know if that means there were photos of other girls on his phone or if it was just Celeste, because any picture of Celeste in that way would be.
- [57:56]
B
Would be considered that.
- [57:57]
A
Yeah, exactly. So the same day that he was charged with murder, again, April 20, 2026, David first appeared in court in Los Angeles and pleaded not guilty to the charges, remaining in custody on no bail. This is also when prosecutors first publicly alleged that David Burke had murdered Celeste to protect his career and to stop the public from discovering that he had been, you know, perpetuating a long term sexual relationship with an underage girl while he was an adult and that he had lured Celeste to his home to murder her. Currently, a preliminary hearing is set for May 26. So in three weeks, where the evidence that we discussed in this episode will be presented and witnesses will be called in order to prove that there is enough to move forward with a murder trial. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West.
- [59:10]
B
Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. We will keep you guys updated, you know, on May 26th when more comes out, that preliminary hearing, because, you know, there may actually be enough to do another episode. And again, our hearts really go out to everybody who knew Celeste and loved her because what a horrific story.
- [59:31]
A
We almost waited to cover this until that preliminary hearing. Actually, it was supposed to be on May 1st last week, so we were going to do the episode this Tuesday instead, but then it got pushed to obviously again, May 26th. So it's just going to talk about everything that we talked about today. Like I said as well, there's probably going to be some witnesses testifying, so there may be more. But we know that a lot of you guys have been really curious about all this, and it's so much to sift through. I mean, of course, it took us days to research this episode, so we wanted to kind of compile it for everybody who doesn't have time to do that. Just wanted to get it out there. But we'll either do an update episode in a few weeks, or if there's not enough, go follow us on socials. We always post updates for cases over there. We're on Instagram. Oingwestpodcast. We're on TikTok. We're on Facebook.
- [60:21]
B
Yeah. Get over there and give us a follow. We love you guys. Thank you for being here with us, and we will see you guys on Tuesday. All right, guys, so for everybody out
- [60:31]
A
there in the world, don't be a stranger. Sa. Sam. Sa.