David “D4vd” Burke - Part Two: The Arrest & Trial | #453

Summary

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RedHanded Podcast - Episode #453:

David “D4vd” Burke - Part Two: The Arrest & Trial
Date: June 4, 2026

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Episode Overview

In the second part of their deep dive into the David “D4vd” Burke case, hosts Hannah and Suruthi unravel the disturbing aftermath of Celeste’s murder, the investigation, questions surrounding the adults in both Celeste’s and David’s lives, and how David’s early life and rapid rise to fame tie into the psychological profile of a killer. The hosts challenge the narratives around childhood, family responsibility, and accountability, peeling back the layers of a case both sensational and deeply tragic.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Warning Signs, the Cover-up, and the Investigation

• After Celeste’s body is discovered in David’s car, the owners of the house where David lived hire PI Steve Fisher due to the LAPD’s tight-lipped approach (01:15).
• Steve Fisher uncovers that rumors about Celeste and David’s relationship were already circulating back in February 2024, including a heartfelt but alarming anonymous email sent to David’s management:

  “Please do the right thing and take her home. Her parents are very worried.” — B (03:03)

• Despite awareness from multiple parties—including David’s manager and people in Celeste’s hometown—David persists, going so far as to buy Celeste a new phone through a classmate so they can keep in touch after her parents confiscate her original phone:

  “Classic grooming…one of the number one signs: has a child suddenly got a very expensive phone?” — B (04:13) “Grade A grooming.” — C (04:50)

• The hosts highlight the systemic failures: not just David, but adults on all sides, knew or suspected, yet the abuse continued.

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2. Family Dynamics and Adult Accountability

• The hosts critique the apparent passivity of Celeste’s parents, who did take some steps (like removing her phone, monitoring her), but allowed periods of absence, sometimes weeks-long, with David (06:51).
• The role of adult family members becomes muddier, with PI Fisher claiming to have evidence of their presence at David’s residence (07:09).
• The hosts underscore:

  “Are we really going to say that the family didn’t know who he was?” — B (09:15)

• They theorize parents perhaps reported Celeste as missing primarily to appease CPS, given her ongoing truancy (10:00).
• The conversation is balanced, sensitive to the parents’ loss, but direct in addressing the ways Celeste was failed by adults on all sides:

  “Not denying that they too are victims… but Celeste is the one who has lost her life.” — B (11:13)

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3. David’s Upbringing: “How Did This Happen?”

• David was raised in a highly controlled but loving, upper-middle-class Christian household in Queens, then Houston (13:59).

• Strict homeschooling, no peer interaction, and rigid parental controls—yet, near-total online freedom as a teenager.

  “In what world would this ever be a good idea? It's like some sort of horrible social experiment in how you can fuck up a child.” — B (21:55)

• David’s self-description as an “observer”, creating music and poetry about other people’s emotions due to his lack of personal experience (16:14–18:09).

  “I’ve never experienced true heartbreak…so I write all these songs in preparation for it, so I’m not devastated, you know, so I know what to expect.” — D (17:46)

• Nevertheless, he comes across as intelligent and composed in interviews, defying the archetype of a withdrawn or obviously antisocial youth (18:10).

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4. The Online World and Desensitization

• Cut off from real peers, David immerses in online gaming (Fortnite), posting and then creating his own music due to copyright issues (23:59).
• He leverages stories from movies and online interactions (“I write love songs about characters…I use the rants of people online for my songs” — B, 24:53–25:22).
• Notably, his breakout song “Romantic Homicide” is influenced by these themes; chillingly, interview audio with who may be Celeste is used as audio scenery in his shows even after her murder (26:29–29:14).

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5. A Fractured Mind: Gore Obsession, Itami, and Dissociation

• David claims he deliberately watches graphic gore as “brain training,” aiming to eliminate empathy for the “wrong things” (29:39).
• The hosts discuss his creation of the alter ego "Itami”—a Jekyll-and-Hyde character, detective by day covering up his own dark acts at night:

  “It’s like he was training himself to destroy that part of himself that was still connected to humanity.” — B (31:10)

• His online persona is markedly more sinister and childish than his media presence.

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6. Motivation, Grooming, and the Crime

• The motive is painted as cold, calculated self-preservation after Celeste threatens exposure:

  “Nothing screams passion…It feels cold. It feels calculated, feels clinical almost. It doesn’t seem like the fantasy kill of some sort of burgeoning serial killer.” — B (35:37)

• The possibility David was grooming Celeste for murder all along is considered but, ultimately, seen as unlikely—it seems more opportunistic than premeditated from the outset.
• Evidence from Discord chats shows David’s predilection for younger girls, with posts like:

  “Girls my age are retarded.” — C quoting David, 39:39

• The hosts shift from thinking his attraction to Celeste was about control or arrested development to believing he is a “preferential paedophile” (39:12–40:18).
• The manipulation and tragedy of Celeste’s desperation after the relationship ends are discussed:

  “She desperately wanted to keep him and she was using every tool in her arsenal…the threats, the whatever, to keep him out of naivety because she was a child.” — B (41:04)

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7. Legal Proceedings and the Coming Trial

• Likely defense strategies include challenging cause of death due to decomposition or suggesting overdose/panic disposal. However, digital evidence (texts, emails), forensic evidence (stab wounds, possible DNA), and complex witness testimony weaken these arguments (43:09–45:54).
• The hosts cover dramatic sideshows: bomb threats at the courthouse, swatting of David’s family, and bizarre rumors about ritual cults in the music scene (46:54–49:48).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Adult Complicity:
  “Somebody else's doing that. Guess what you need when you're booking a flight? The person's fucking passport, including their date of birth. Like, it’s such a load of bullshit.” — B (05:25)
• On Family Accountability:
  “If the kids at school knew, the cousins would have known…Are we really going to say that the family didn’t know who he was?” — B (09:15)
• On “Romantic Homicide”:
  “Listen to how together he sounds. And there's more. And this bit... is particularly chilling when you know the context, because the girl's voice… is most likely Celeste's.” — B (26:29)
• On the Nature of the Murder:
  “He was worried he was losing control…But in that moment that he killed her, he took back control. He was like, fuck you. Who are you to threaten me? I will end you.” — B (48:13)
• On Cult Rumors:
  “The accusation that Morgan Roth, his manager, and David and people in David’s sphere were in a Haitian warlock ritual death cult.” — B (49:42)
• Summary Reflection:
  “It just seems so obvious he is this observer and he just copies and he watches and he waits and he thinks he is so much smarter than everybody else—until it comes down to it, and then he panics.” — C (51:05)

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Important Timestamps

• [01:15]: Start of PI Steve Fisher’s involvement and the February 2024 warning email
• [04:13]: Discussion of the “grooming” indicators, notably the expensive phone
• [05:25]: Strong critique of adults booking flights for a minor
• [13:59]: David’s family background and parenting style
• [16:14]: Audio clip: David as observer, poet, and loner
• [19:56]: Shift to total online homeschooling
• [24:53 – 25:22]: On writing love songs about movies and online stories
• [26:29 – 29:14]: “Romantic Homicide” and chilling voice clip
• [29:39]: David on desensitizing himself with gore
• [32:58]: Alter ego “Itami” and its significance
• [35:37]: Analysis of murder’s clinical, non-passionate nature
• [39:39 – 40:18]: Explicit acknowledgment of David’s predilection for young girls
• [41:04]: Celeste’s emotional state and manipulation
• [43:09 – 45:54]: Legal strategies and witness drama
• [46:54]: Media and public spectacle, including bomb threats and swatting
• [49:42]: Ritual cult claims and online conspiracy
• [51:05]: Closing reflections on David’s role as an “observer”

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Tone & Takeaways

The tone remains characteristically sharp, darkly humorous at times, but deeply empathetic toward Celeste’s suffering and the failures of the adults who should have protected her. The hosts challenge the audience to consider accountability—not just in the legal sense, but systemically, among family and industry.

The episode ends with the promise to return for further updates as the hearing (scheduled for June 29, 2026) and—potentially—a high-profile trial unfold.

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

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[C]

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[B]

Okay. Hello, welcome back to Red Handed and our unplanned TO on the deforvid case, which we had to do because there is just so much information. So we just thought it would make more sense to break it in two parts. So please listen to part one if you haven't done that yet, and then listen to the rest of this episode. It's gonna make you sick.

[C]

And we'll still be here.

[B]

So now coming back to when Celeste's remains were found in the Tesla. After she was identified, the people who owned the house that David had been living in hired a missing person's PI named Stephen Fisher to investigate. And they did this because the LAPD was basically telling them nothing, giving away absolutely nothing. They were very, very quiet the whole time. And the people who owned this house, fair enough. Wanted to know what the fuck had happened in this house that they had leased out. They wanted to know if Celeste had actually been killed in their house or not. And PI Steve, he turns up a lot of information that he has been very openly sharing. You can go on his website, he's doing a lot of YouTube interviews. Like he has got a lot of stuff. Now obviously he's a PI, he's not the police. Like he can share all this information and you know, I do think he comes across as very credible, but who knows? So one of the things that Steve Fisher has turned up is the fact that someone from Celeste's hometown, possibly, he says possibly someone connected to her school, had sent an email to David's management in February 2024 saying the following. There's been talk that the artist D4VD D4 bid David has something to do with the disappearance of 13 year old Celeste. If this statement holds any merit, please do the right thing and take her home. Her parents are very worried. Now, this person doesn't want to be Publicly named. But that reads like a teacher wrote that. And I feel like it's a teacher maybe at Celeste School, who's overheard kids talking about where she is, because everybody would have known she's a missing person by this point. Right. And I think they're taking it upon themselves to write this email to David's management to be like, please sort this out. And I don't know why, but that email just, like, breaks my heart. And Steve says that he has proof that this email was forwarded by David's manager to him, which, if you remember, came in February 2024. It came right after the visit from the police, asking if David knew Celeste. And this must have rattled David, because the very next day, Celeste suddenly turned up back at her family's home. So I think he's been like, you need to go.

[C]

So we can see definitively that people knew. His manager knew David knew, people in Celeste's hometown knew, people on Discord knew. Even after all of that, David still continued to pursue Celeste. Her parents apparently took her mobile phone away from her. So David drove all the way to Lake Elsinore and paid a classmate of hers $1,000 to give Celeste a new phone that he had bought her. That's the classic, isn't it?

[B]

I mean, literally, when I used to do child safeguarding events, one of the number one signs of grooming is, has a child suddenly got a very expensive phone that they have no explanation for how they got it? Grooming.

[C]

There is absolutely no doubt that to Celeste, this gesture would have been incredibly romantic.

[B]

Oh, so romantic. Can you think of anything more romantic? Your famous boyfriend drove, like a hundred miles nearly to your school and paid a thousand pounds and gave your classmate a very expensive phone to give you so that you can continue your romantic love affair.

[C]

Ugh.

[B]

It's despicable.

[C]

Grade A grooming.

[B]

There's. And while Celeste's parents did do the right thing here by taking away her phone, I also have to say it really does look like they knew about David. And he's famous. They know who he is. They know how old he is. Celeste and he spent a lot of time together. She would go off for long stretches, like weeks at a time. She would spend so much time staying at his place, and she even traveled all over the US with him when he was on tour. And he apparently even brought her to London because he recorded a huge amount of his album in London and he brought her here with him. She was 13 and 14 at the time, which, again, makes me feel like there's no way. All of the people around him didn't know. Everyone is coming out now being like, we didn't know how old she was. We thought she was 19. I'm sorry, who the fuck is booking her flights to and from London? It's not David. Somebody else doing that. Guess what you need when you're booking a flight? The person's fucking passport, including their date of birth. Like, it's such a load of bullshit. How is that possible? How is it possible? And also, I looked this up. You cannot travel from the US into the uk. You can't travel into the UK from anywhere, full stop, as a minor without parental consent. You cannot.

[C]

So, yeah, I booked a flight for my sister the other day and I had to put her date of birth.

[B]

Yeah, of course you do. Of course you do. Because I have to know if the person traveling is a minor and if they are, they need parental consent to come into this country. How did they do it? Did they fake it? Or did her parents give their consent? Again, I'm not, like, making that accusation of them because absolutely, the managers could have done something dodgy. They absolutely could have lied. They could have faked it. But, like, so many people knew and the parents, like, look, Steve Fisher is quite critical of them. I don't know how critical I want to be of them. I really don't want to be. Because they're grieving. Of course they're grieving. But there are some odd things about this case.

[C]

Steve Fisher, private investigator Steve Fisher says that he has proof that members of Celeste's family visited the house that David was living in that had been rented by his management.

[B]

And again, we don't know who. We don't know who. There's a lot of speculation that maybe it was, like, her cousins and they were just kids as well. But Steve Fisher says adult members of Celeste's family. I have proof they were at the house. Again, he's not the police. We have to take what he's saying with a grain of salt. We haven't seen that evidence, but if that is true, what the fuck?

[C]

And we're not going to slam them. They've lost their daughter. But as Saroo said, quite a few strange details. It does seem like Celeste's family knew who David was and they knew how old he was. And, yeah, they did take her phone away.

[B]

And I also read that her mum used to sleep in the same room as Celeste to stop her climbing out of the window. There are things that they were trying to do, it seems, and I'm not Here to. Certainly not here to fucking slam Celeste. I don't think she was an easy child. I think she was very troubled. She posts a lot on social media about the breakdown of her family, how devastated she was by that. I think she probably was looking for love and attention and affection somewhere else. And bingo, that's like, you know, a fucking beacon call for a groomer like David, allegedly. And there's like video footage of her like screaming at her next door neighbors using very, very like un, 13, 14 year oldly like language, body language, verbal language. Like I think she probably was quite difficult to parent but like she's still a child and she's still your child

[C]

and they did report her missing. That's true. But even that is a bit weird. Apparently Celeste went home multiple times during the periods that she was missing. She attended her cousin's high school graduation, she went to birthdays and there's even a video recording of her having an argument with her family's neighbors, which happens

[B]

during the time that she's missing.

[C]

So if she kept coming and going, why did her parents keep her listed as a missing person? Perhaps she showed up randomly, they didn't know when it was going to happen. Possibly.

[B]

Yeah. But if it was an open secret that Celeste was with David and as Steve Fisher says, family members had even been to his house, why didn't they just report him to the police even if they hadn't been to his house? Her mum just says that she thought Celeste had a boyfriend called David. They say that they don't know who he is. Maybe, but I don't feel like. I feel like if the kids at school knew, the cousins would have known. Like, are we really going to say that the family didn't know who he was? I don't know if I believe that. And if they did know who he was, why didn't they report him to the police anyway? Like big questions. And the police only found David if you remember when the family first report her missing, when they go to talk to him because they found his number as one that Celeste contacted regularly. That's why they even go there. It's not because the family say, go check out this guy. Now, P.I. steve Fisher's theory as to why the family reported Celeste missing. And I'm not saying this is my theory, this is his theory. He says that they probably only reported Celeste missing to keep CPS off their backs because she wasn't going to school. Now look, that may seem like a very uncharitable deduction, but I do have questions as to why it wasn't stopped. She was 13 when they first started meeting up in person. Like, when I was 13, my bedtime was like 9 o'. Clock. Like, it's just like, she just goes. Like, even the day she dies, even the night she dies, it's so horrific. She sits in that car 90 miles. That must have been hours. That must have been hours in traffic. All of that. Lake Elor is so far from la, it's a school night. And, like, she's just gone. She's 14. Like, how has that happened? And I get it. I know I don't have kids. I certainly don't have teenage kids. And I can imagine, like, what can you do short of locking them in their rooms. But, like, I don't know. And there's a lot of people online questioning whether the family knew about it and whether they had been lured in by the fame and the money. Maybe they thought, look, it's awkward now, we should report her missing. Because if they find out and then we haven't reported her missing, we're going to be, like, accused of being negligent. And, like, in a few years she'll be old enough anyway and then maybe they'll get married and everything will be fine and she'll be married to a rich, famous man. I don't know. And before people attack me for victim blaming, I'm not denying that they too are victims, because whatever they did or didn't do, they have also paid the ultimate price in losing their daughter. But Celeste is the victim. She is the one who has lost her life. And she was a child. And it really seems like her parents and the other adults in her life, if it is true that they knew about David, didn't stop it, didn't report him, and they failed her. So, like, I understand, I don't want it to sound like victim blaming, but also, is there to be no accountability? I mean, again, you could say they've been accountable enough because they've lost her, but Celeste is the one who paid the ultimate price.

[C]

But while we're speaking about people who knew that this was going on, one of the weirdest twists in this tale is that even David's parents seem to have been very aware of this relationship.

[B]

This is bonkers.

[C]

David took Celeste to his family home so she could meet them.

[B]

Wallet Feeling light after the holidays, Recovery starts with TikTok slash and free Pick products, share the link and watch the price drop to zero. Download TikTok, search/free and start slashing today. What's happening? Because In a horrible, horrible way where I, you know, think the worst. I could understand the motivation for Celeste's family to have allowed him in a horrible way. What is their motivation? What is David's parents motivations for allowing this to happen?

[C]

There are photos of Celeste sitting with David's family at one of his shows.

[B]

What the fuck? I don't know.

[C]

I just cannot believe for a singular second that they didn't know she was a child.

[B]

They are educated people. Not even that you need to be educated, but they are educated people. And you're telling me that these two sane, rational, educated people didn't have a single conversation with this girl and immediately be like, oh, she's a child. I don't believe her.

[C]

And we're gonna go on to see. David's parents were very, very strict about lots of things. How did their son fucking a child go unchecked?

[B]

I do not know. Publicly.

[C]

Yes, it's on socials, it's everywhere. Everyone knows.

[B]

So let's get into his childhood. David Anthony Burke was born in Queens, New York on 28th March 2005. He's the eldest of three children to Darwood and Colleen Burke. And it looks like David honestly had a very solid, financially comfortable upbringing. There is no like, you know, he's on the poverty line, he's out on the streets, he's being abused. There's none of that. There's absolutely none of that. His dad was a litigator and his mum was a teacher. His parents were also very religious and they raised their children in a strict Christian household. But it seems like David doesn't even really resent them for that. He seems to be very close to his family. And in all the interviews I've seen with him, he jokes, yes, about how strict his parents were, especially his mum, but he repeatedly says, they're the best. They give me stability, they keep me grounded and they're my main support system. And when I say strict, they're not like beating him and locking him in a cupboard. They're just like sheltering him and like stopping him from like just being a teenager. And yes, like there's some more crazy stuff with like the homeschooling and stuff, which is like very extreme what they do, but like, it really doesn't feel that nefarious. I think his parents were just very concerned that their children would fail to like fulfill their full potential or like waste their time or like be influenced in the wrong way by the wrong people. And I think they were also incredibly naive in many ways. And like maybe some people will be like, that's too light of a statement. I'm not talking about his relationship with Celeste. I'm talking about other things with the relationship with Celeste. I really don't know what the fuck

[C]

is going on there, but let's stay in childhood land for now. When David started school in New York, he had a pretty hard time. He went to a private school and he absolutely hated it. In interviews he openly says that he had no friends and that the teachers picked on him even just as much as the kids did. So he was thrilled that when he was 8, his family moved to Houston. Here David was placed in a state school and according to him, things got a lot better. He says he was definitely happier, but he still wasn't the most sociable of kids.

[D]

I mean, I've been writing poetry for years at school, before I was homeschooled, like middle school, elementary at lunch was like my playground, like my brain's playground. Like there's so many different kids and, and they're all doing something different. I would just sit there and I would just, I'm a people watcher. I would just inspect them and like write them, write about them and stuff like that. And I kind of brought these characters to life that were inspired by my classmates. Especially after I got homeschool. Cuz it was just like four years of straight nothing like video games and that's about it. Like I was just at home the entire time. So being able to put my brain in somebody else's and live out a different life through the music was like kind of an escape because I wasn't really doing anything, I didn't go outside or anything like that. So.

[B]

And I think this particular clip is very interesting. This theme of David acting as an observer to experiences of love and joy and pain continue throughout his life. It's like he always talks about himself as someone on the outside looking in, waiting for life to happen to him. He never really talks about things happening to him. He says, I, you know, never had this happen to me. I never had this happen to me. I didn't have heartbreak, I never had this. But he watches these people, he watches his classmates, he observes people, he studies them. And that's where he draws his stories, his imagination and his inspiration. Again, like if there wasn't a chopped up dead girl in his car, you'd be like, okay, he's just a bit quirky. But it all like snowballs into something more and more and more, as we'll see.

[C]

And there is a chopped up Dead girl in his car.

[B]

There is.

[D]

I think it's a mixture of like trying to figure it out myself and then looking at other people's experiences. I mean, because I've never experienced like true heartbreak either. So I write all these songs in preparation for it. So I'm not devastated, you know, so I know what to expect. I look forward to the heartbreak. I don't know about the love, bro. Because it'll make me like soft. I don't know. I don't know, bro.

[C]

It's pretty dark.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Looking back at it now.

[B]

Yeah. Especially because with it comes out after Celeste has been killed. But look, I have to say, I didn't know who Daforvid David D4VD was before all this happened. I literally did not know who he was. But I have since sat and watched hours and hours and hours of interviews with him. And honestly, I have to be honest, he comes across as very intelligent, very articulate, very likable and very socially aware. I honestly thought, oh my God, I'm not going to be able to bear this. He's going to be some sort of eye roll inducing TikTok nothing. But it's not the case. And also how he got to where he got to was genuinely impressive. He recorded his first album almost entirely on his phone. And he talks so passionately. When you listen to him about music, about the way you write a song, about what it means, about finding inspiration, exploring great musicians of the past and their work, he was interesting, I'll be honest.

[C]

He's clearly very capable. But he struggled to find focus as a child. David's parents continuously tried pushing him to do something. They put him in piano lessons, he quit. They put him in a choir, he quit. They put him in flute. Quit that as well. If I was trying to get a boy interested in music, the flute is not the instrument I would enforce.

[B]

Apparently he's the only one that stuck because he says, I can still play the flute quite well.

[C]

It seems like there was just a bit of a disconnect for him when it came to school. And maybe you could argue that school was just too structured for him. But then again, you could also argue that he needed more structure and more discipline.

[B]

Either way, his parents decided that David needed out and they pulled him out of school when he's like 13, 14 and enrolled him into fully online homeschooling.

[C]

Oh dear.

[B]

Oh dear indeed. Now look, I just want to be very, very clear. There are lots of different types of homeschooling, ones that include regular meetups with other Kids. Ones that include, like, you literally do your lessons with other kids that are also being homeschooled just in a home. You know, the ones that prioritize socialization and shared lessons and all of that good stuff. But David's program was 100% online, with no group activities or interaction or mandated meetups with any other children. And at first, he clearly struggled with this people too.

[D]

Like, friends. Especially when I was transitioning from public school to homeschooling and nobody, like, hit me up on Snapchat when I was, like, streaking everybody I had, like, my snap score was like 250,000, bro. Like, nobody. Like, who you not at school? Where'd you go, Dave? Like, nobody. Like, did I really have friends? And start. You start to question things. Oh, totally. About your everyday life. It's like, who. Who's really there for you at the end?

[C]

There's a lot of speculation online about why David's parents did this to him. People are saying that they knew he was a risk to other kids and that's why they pulled him out of school, whilst other people are saying that they were worried that other kids would lead David astray. Personally, it does seem like the latter, coupled with the fact that David's parents probably didn't like what was being taught in schools and they wanted more control over his education, which they did achieve, but does mean that for the next four years, from the age of 13 to 17, David was at home every day on his own with just a computer for company.

[B]

And this is what I mean by them being naive. In what world would this ever be a good idea? It's like some sort of horrible social experiment in how you can fuck up a child. And I am not making excuses for David. I'm not saying this one. Kids get fucking beaten, raped, abused and all sorts and don't turn out to, like, chop up a girl and stuff her in his car. Like, this is not the reason why David did what it did, but it didn't help because this is the thing. What is so bizarre to me about his parents is they are so fixated on controlling certain aspects of David's life. Like in the interview that you listen to, he's talking about, they, like, don't let him listen to certain types of music. They're only allowed to listen to gospel and, like, classical music at home and stuff like that. They're very controlling with that kind of thing. But then now, from the ages of 13 to 17, well, 13 onwards, they allow him total, unfettered, unsupervised access to the Internet. Do they not know what's on there? And this became a substitute in David's life for real, actual connections, which, if there is one thing that human beings need more than literally anything else, is human connection. And David lost it all in a second. He lost the possibility of even that in a second at also a very, very formative point in his life, the age of 13. That just screams fucking disaster to me. But I do have to stress that while this whole situation, this online homeschooling set up, likely played a role in exacerbating his loneliness and his social isolation that he already felt because he was at school and he had no friends. Anyway, as you can hear from the interviews that we have been playing you, he's still very good at communicating with people. It's not like going into 100% homeschooling system turned him into some sort of awkward freak. Like, he is still very articulate, he's very charismatic. He's very like, you want to listen to him. He like holds eye contact, he's very engaging. Like it destroyed some part of him, but it didn't make him like, unable to communicate with other human beings.

[C]

And it was during this time, the time that he was being homeschooled, those four years, that David got into Fortnite in a big way. And he actually decided that he wanted to become a professional online gamer. He started streaming and putting up tutorials and he says that the best way to get hits at the time was to add a trending song. But then the system changed and his videos started getting copy striked. So his mum told him to make his own music to add to his videos. And soon David realized that his music was getting more popular than his gaming videos. He explains in an interview how he didn't really have any experience with big emotions to base music off, so he just used movies to write love songs about the characters.

[B]

Yeah, he says in one of the interviews, for example, like one of his really big songs, I think it's Here with you or Here with Me or something, is based on like the love story in up. Because he literally hasn't had these experiences and he doesn't even have any friends that are having these experiences yet. So he is literally watching movies and then writing songs about the characters. It's all like a desperate bid to find something.

[C]

And he even used the rants of people he played Fortnite with to inspire him.

[B]

Yeah, apparently like when you're playing these, like, you know, multiplayer games, you've got a headset on you can hear them speaking to you. And he would ask questions, and people would share their, like, traumas, their heartbreaks with him, and he would just absorb it all and then use those stories to write songs because he didn't have any of his own. And while his popularity with all these songs and Fortnite tutorials and all of that and the music he was putting up on SoundCloud was growing online. It was in 2024 with his song Romantic Homicide that David got mainstream attention.

[E]

Right after the Fortnite stuff was going on, I moved to TikTok and started doing the covers. Because I started out as the meme thing. And then I made Romantic Homicide. And it was so different than everything else I had made because it was actually sad. It was slow, it was sad, it was emotional. It had weight to it. And I played it for my mom. I played it for her in the

[B]

car, and she was like, david, this

[E]

song is too violent. You're talking about killing people in your music. No, not my son. I was like, wait, I might be onto something.

[D]

So I dropped it right after that, and it went crazy. TikTok viral.

[E]

Million views overnight.

[D]

I was like, oh, yeah, we cook it, boy. We cook it, boy.

[B]

So, and just FYI, that clip you just listened to, that interview was given just weeks before he killed Celeste. Listen to how together he sounds. And there's more. And this bit that you're about to hear is particularly chilling when you know the context, because the girl's voice that he is referring to in this interview clip is most likely Celeste's. I want to say it is Celeste's. I think it is Celeste. I've heard enough of her voice. I think it's Celeste, but I can't say it for fucking short, but it really fucking sounds like Celeste.

[E]

There's also that kind of pause where they kind of take every song in by itself and then have this kind of visual landscape in this interlude to kind of be in my head, in my mindset, and why I wrote the project like this and how everything went, just to, like, keep them even more interested and connected throughout the project, for sure.

[D]

At the end of the interlude, she says, I love you. You don't respond. She says, I love you. Again, it repeats itself, and you don't respond. Was that done purposely?

[E]

Absolutely. Because the next song after that is. Is this really love?

[B]

I don't know. Can we play this song? We can probably play this song. I don't know. We're not on YouTube. We play. Should probably be fine. And this is the Song.

[F]

So I got a question.

[D]

What's the question?

[F]

Why don't you hold my hands anymore?

[D]

Oh, here we go again.

[F]

Bro, I'm so serious. I'm so serious. Like, I haven't held your hand. Like. Like. You're not funny. I swear you're not funny.

[E]

I'm done.

[D]

I'm done. I'm done.

[F]

I. Let me think about.

[D]

About a set of time.

[F]

It could. It could have been yesterday, though.

[D]

Yeah, I'm glad you remember that. I'm glad.

[F]

Thank you.

[E]

I hate when you say period. I got a question for you now.

[F]

Okay.

[E]

Why do you think we met? Why do you think we met?

[F]

Well, I think, personally, have you ever heard of the invisible strength theory?

[E]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[F]

Exactly that. So basically we met because we were supposed to meet.

[D]

Okay.

[F]

And we're connected. Because we're supposed to be connected. It's kind of like that. I loved you before I existed and I love you even when I die. Yes.

[E]

Okay.

[F]

But. But yeah, like, it's like. It's weird, it's strange, it's unpredictable.

[E]

Yeah.

[F]

So don't leave me, please. All right. All right. I love you. I love you.

[B]

And he continued to use this as his opener on tour after he killed Celeste. So you know how we have, like, a bit of a thing before we come out? That thing you just heard, the invisible string theory bit that Celeste is saying to him is what people hear before he comes out on stage. And he was using it on his withered tour after he had killed Celeste while her body was decomposing in his car.

[C]

Allegedly.

[B]

Allegedly.

[C]

Fucking hell. Now let's step back into David's adolescence. It's not just the gaming and music that he was doing. He himself admits in posts he made online that he started watching Gore Content at the age of 14 after coming across a cartel torture video. And in this post, David explains that as he watched more and more, he stopped cringing and soon he found himself laughing. He elaborates by saying, I watch it to disconnect the part of my brain that feels empathy for the wrong things.

[B]

It's odd. There's more than odd. But let's say it's odd because it's like he's actively trying to disassociate with his feelings.

[C]

Yeah, he's like brain training himself.

[B]

Yeah, that's exactly what it's like he's trying to do. It's like, you know, if you're being trained to be a fucking spy or something, why is he doing this to himself?

[C]

Makes me think of the iceman tapes when he is a contract killer for the mob and is a psychopath in the purest sense of the word. And he said that he watches videos of bodies being eaten by rats because it's the only thing that makes him feel something.

[B]

Yeah, I don't know what's going on here with David. Cause on the one hand, like we just heard in the clips we played, he says things like, he can't wait to feel love. He can't wait to feel heartbreak. Well, he doesn't say he can't wait to find feel love. He says he's scared of that, but he can't wait to feel heartbreak. But then he says how scared he is of it. But then he's watching gore videos to desensitize himself from having any feelings like, what's going on here? Like, I don't really get it. It's like he's training himself for something. Now, look, perhaps he was just enjoying the gore, and then he just noticed later on that his feelings of disgust were gone. But the way he tells it, and of course, we have to take that with a pinch of salt, it's like he was doing it intentionally. Like he was training himself to destroy that part of himself that was still connected to humanity. Was it that intentional, or was he just getting off on it and then he noticed that that sensation was gone? I don't know. And also, I do have to say that if we come back to the way in which Celeste's body was chopped up, was his obsession with watching all this gore, how he knew how to cut her up. So in this parentally imposed social isolation that David found himself in, he is very much left to his own devices, quite literally with the Internet offering him an open gateway to anything and everything he could use to feed his darkest inner urges, completely unchecked. Because at least maybe if he'd have been going to school, and he says to somebody at school, like, this is what I'm watching. Other kid might be like, what the fuck? And it might. There's some social shame. There's something that would be there to, like, buffer it. It is unchecked, rampant, just like, plug me into the Internet and all the worst shit I can find out there.

[C]

He was also obsessed with manga and anime, and he created an alter ego named Itami, which is Japanese for pain. Itami is a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde type character. David describes Itami as a detective who comes out in the day to solve the crimes that he himself had committed at night. And he uses this Persona in some of his music videos.

[E]

Itami is the villain of this album. He's the one that is making me wither and feel these emotions like grief and pain and confusion. He's the one that is weaving his way into my relationships and ruining them and inducing trauma and things like that. You see him in the music videos and stuff. So he's basically the agent of chaos in this scenario.

[B]

And I do think that this is particularly interesting because David himself shows this sort of split personality Persona in his real life, this sort of Jekyll and Hyde character. Because in interviews that you watch, like I said, he comes across very often as very immature, very grounded, very humble, introspective, intelligent. Like, there's no denying it. That's the front that he is presenting. But then you read the things that he's posting on discord and the way he behaves online. It's childish and also just fucking downright sinister.

[C]

We're not just going to sit here for hours and hours and hours over analyzing and over intellectualizing all of this, but when we have so much content to choose from straight from the alleged horse's mouth is pretty fascinating to look at and to help us understand why and how this all allegedly happened. So let's start with the question of whether David always planned to kill Celeste. And by that I don't mean was this murder premeditated? If he is guilty, it is very clearly premeditated. Let's say, you know, they have an argument, he feels like he's under threat, he invited Celeste over and he killed her. And sure, people do wonder whether this was actually the case. If that was true, why did he not already have the chainsaw and the body bags and the paddling pool? Why didn't he have all of that ready if he knew what he was going to do? But equally, you have to remember that David only had one day between the argument and the kill. And I just think he knew that he had to act fast because Celeste could go online any minute and bring him down. And he's got a lot to lose.

[B]

He does have a lot to lose. And literally, if you remember, his album is coming out days after she starts making these threats. So, yes, we're not talking about was the murder premeditated, as Hannah just said, very obviously. So the question is, did he always plan on killing Celeste? As in, did he groom her from the start to become his murder victim? That's the question a lot of people are asking online because of the fact that a lot of his songs center around the killing Of a lover? Honestly, I don't think so. I don't think so. And the reason is not because I'm like, oh, no, he doesn't seem the sort. No, I think it's because nothing about this murder screams of passion, of a sick enjoyment in the kill. It feels. Two stab wounds, allegedly. Again, we don't even know. But, you know, let's go with what the medical examiner is saying. Two stab wounds. It feels cold. It feels calculated, feels clinical almost. It doesn't seem like the fantasy kill of some sort of burgeoning serial killer. They think about it for a long time. It would have been more elaborate. It doesn't feel like that. It feels more like the work of a detached psychopath who figured, it's either her or me.

[C]

While David may not have planned to kill Celeste from the very beginning of their relationship, it does seem like he spent a long time since he watched that first Gore video at 14 preparing himself mentally to do something like this.

[B]

And that's why, I guess, people are wondering if he did it, if he was always planning to kill her. Like, was he training himself to get to that point? I don't know.

[C]

I don't know if he was actively working to desensitize himself. It looks like after Celeste's death, David was very easily able to just return to his normal life, like nothing had happened. He went to parties, he did radio interviews. He went on tour using her voice. And there's one video that we've seen of him doing a set after the alleged murder, and he does suddenly start to cry. Was that guilt, or was it the pressure of keeping such a huge secret? Who knows?

[B]

And look, the only thing I will say about it because it's worth mentioning is, yes, there's no passion in the kill itself. I feel like that is irrefutable. But he is somebody who watched a lot of Gore content. He didn't need to chop her body up with a chainsaw.

[C]

No, he didn't.

[B]

He really didn't need to do that. So was he someone that was like, after he does it? Because he has to, because it's to save himself. In his mind, that's how he rationalize it. And then does he have fun when he's chopping her up with a chainsaw? I don't know. We'll never know the answer to that. But it's worth mentioning. Now, another question worth discussing is why Celeste? Was David a preferential paedophile? Was he attracted to Celeste because she was a child? And at first I thought maybe not I have changed my mind since then. Looking at his discord and the conversations he was having on there with people much younger than him. He is clearly drawn to younger people. Why? Was it Arrested Development? Was it the attention and adoration that he got from much younger people? Was it because he could control them more easily? Or was he genuinely attracted to younger girls? Or was it all of the above?

[C]

Probably like why there's such a. Not all priests are paedophiles, but priests are more likely to be paedophiles than the average person because they go to seminary at 14 and that's when it stops and you stay there.

[B]

Yeah. And 13 was the age that David gets pulled out of school. Again, I don't want to over intellectualize all this. I do believe now that he was a preferential pedophile.

[C]

He even wrote on his discord in one conversation, girls my age are retarded.

[B]

Yeah. He says that very, very specifically when people in there are talking about whether he has a girlfriend and stuff like that. He's like, girls my age are retarded. And then he kind of tries to play it off as he likes older girls. But that's definitely not fucking true.

[C]

There's no doubt David would have had girls his own age throwing themselves at him. Probably still are.

[B]

Oh, oh yes. Oh, yes. But we're not going to talk about that. Fuck him.

[C]

It seems as if David was always sort of gravitating towards younger teens.

[B]

And when I first heard about this case and read about that and thought that and read about the discord, I was like, it was probably because he must be harassed her development. He must be sort of intellectually stunted around the age he was pulled out of school. That's not true. When you watch the interviews with him and you listen to him speak, he is very intellectual. It's not because he's like a 13 year old that he. He like gets on better with them. No way. He comes across, if anything, much older than he is.

[C]

And at first it kind of maybe seemed like it was all about control. Celeste, for example, didn't have a great home life. And I think he took advantage of it. He had a lot more to offer her. That's very alluring for anybody.

[B]

Oh, absolutely. My God. And I really think that's the panic she was in when the relationship ended, because David ended it and I think she was like, fuck, this was my way out of like my boring, ordinary, dysfunctional life with nothing. He was going to give me everything. I've been to London with him. I've traveled all over the world. Like, you know, she was posting pictures in some nice places, like she had it all, even though she was obviously in a grim, abusive relationship. And when all that goes away, I think she was desperate to hold on to him and people like, she was making the threats because she was going to do the right thing and call the police. I don't want to undermine Celeste, but that's not what she was doing. Why would she go to his house if that was the case? She was doing it because she desperately wanted to keep him and she was using every tool in her arsenal, the threats, the whatever, to keep him out of naivety because she was a child and she did not know what she was dealing with in him.

[C]

And there is no doubt at all that David could manipulate Celeste very easily.

[B]

Oh, absolutely.

[C]

And if you look at his discord and the conversations that were happening on there, does seem like David targeted Celeste specifically because of her age and her circumstances.

[B]

And honestly, this whole case is so sad and so senseless. And it's hard not to feel that David's alleged actions to cover up his abuse of Celeste has not only stolen her life, but is very likely going to rob him of his as well. Of course he deserves that, but those are the actions he took because sadly, Come on, let's be real. Even if she had exposed him, even if she had come out and been like, he's been sleeping with me since I was 13. I was a child. He was 18. His career probably would have survived. His career probably would have survived that. But now, conviction or not, it's over. It's over. And I do think he'll go down, if I'm honest. But, you know, we'll come to that in a sec.

[C]

That being said, let's take a look at what we may expect from David's defense, should he have one. Their best bet is to challenge the medical examiner's findings. The level of decomposition was so extreme, can the state really be sure about Celeste's cause of death? No, not really. David's defence could argue that it was an overdose and that the worst thing David did was try to dispose of the body in a panic. But that text sent by him to her 20 minutes after she was dropped off at his house does undermine that angle somewhat, I think. And if the medical examiner can show that the murder weapon nicked a bone, the level of decomposition in the soft tissue just won't really matter.

[B]

Yeah, you won't have to prove that he stabbed her in the liver or whatever, because there'll be a Knick mark. But we haven't heard if they found that the defense could also try, of course, the some other guy did it defense and point the finger at other people in David's orbit who also had access to his house and his car and presumably his Amazon account. So like we said, we don't know all of the information that the prosecution has against David right now, but we do know that before they arrested him, they secretly convened three grand juries because a lot of people were like seven months, they haven't done anything. What the fuck's going on? They were quite busy. And look, we don't know exactly what the jury heard, well juries heard at this point, but we know that they heard from witnesses and the state regarding the evidence against David. And this evidence includes DNA evidence, CCTV evidence and even a wiretap which just feels so Mecca now Look, we don't know what's going on. Apparently there are cooperating witnesses, there are non cooperating witnesses, there's all sorts going on. Even David's parents were subpoenaed to testify at one of these grand juries when investigators learned that David had moved three of his properties into his mum's name before the arrest took place. But they actually fought the subpoena and I don't believe they testified in the end. But David's manager, Robert Morgan Roth, was forced to testify and he testified for two days. Jesus. And a friend of David's who is probably the most like well known friend regarding this case, a man named Neo Langston, who literally ran away to avoid testifying. He ran to his mum's house in Montana to avoid testifying, was dragged back to LA by the police and he gave evidence for just 45 minutes, which seems very, very unusual in a homicide case because you'd certainly expect a lot more.

[C]

But we don't know, especially given the fact that afterwards he took to Instagram posting this. Thankfully I'm legally fine in every way and boy spelled with an I do. I got all my receipts for things hahaha.

[B]

Lots of hahahas.

[C]

The worst thing is I told so many people that I trust and I thought knew me as a person, my side of things, all for that to be thrown out the fucking window as soon as I get arrested and they slap that dickhead's name next to mine. And for the record, the thing I was arrested for, I wasn't even charged, they never filed it and my warrant was retracted because there is more to the story than what's on the news. Someone should have Media trained you,

[B]

Naturally. This case is of course, as I said at the start, getting a lot of attention and it will continue to ramp up, especially if there is a trial. Aside from the grisly crime itself, the circus surrounding this case is already also in full swing. Hours before the first hearing, there was actually a bomb threat called into the courthouse and they specifically referenced David's case. And the whole building had to be evacuated.

[C]

I remember that.

[B]

It turned out to be fake, but still, somebody fucking did that. And this is just like even more weird. David's parents home in Houston was the target of swatting, which we did a shorthand on, if you remember. It's when people call the police and basically say, like, I can hear, you know, guns going off and they turn up with a full SWAT team and like barge into your house. And it wasn't the actual police because they didn't even fucking know what was going on yet. It was just somebody doing it as a prank. So, yeah, a lot going on with this case. Like we said at the start, the preliminary hearing has been pushed to 29 June 2026. So I'm sure we'll be back with an update there. And look, before everybody's like, there's so much more to this that you haven't talked about. Guys, we could talk about this for the next fucking year. The only things that I want to mention at the end, before we wrap up very quickly is something I kept hearing online, which I didn't like, is that people being like, he lost control. He lost control when he killed her. He killed her. He lost control. And I get what they're saying, right? I get what they're saying. They're like, he lost control of the situation. No, to me, when somebody does something like what David did, allegedly, how cold and calculated it was, he didn't lose control. He was worried he was losing control of Celeste leading up to it. But in that moment that he killed her, he took back control. He was like, fuck you. Who are you to threaten me? I will end you. And he killed her. And it ties up with things he was saying online to other people. He was talking about Itami cutting people's legs and arms off. He was telling other girls that he was talking to, allegedly. Because again, it's very hard to prove. Like, if that is actually him or somebody else using his login, whatever, you know, like, don't K yourself. That's for me to do. Does he mean kill? I don't know if that means something else in like Gen Z slang There's a lot of weird, very, very troubling things going on that he was posting online that are a complete mismatch to who he presented himself as, as a person in interviews. And look, there is one last thing that is so, so fucking bonkers. I didn't have the energy to research it, but I will mention it. The accusation that Morgan Roth, his manager, and David and people in David's fear were in a Haitian warlock ritual death cult.

[C]

Okay, yes. The same one Diddy was in, apparently dead luck.

[B]

Family members of other people that were managed by the same management group have come forward saying that their siblings, sons, whatever, were also sucked into this weird ritual death cult. Does it exist? Maybe. It does seem like there's something weird going on. Was David a part of this? I don't know. People are going through his discord, like finding little symbols and little phrases and saying, that's what this is about. I know. There's also the other girl, Kira, I believe that's her name, who has come out and said she was David's ex girlfriend before Celeste, who's come out and said, you know, our relationship ended, but he actually treated me pretty well. There were some weird moments where he did XYZ. You can go read like it's all over TikTok. I believe I've. I've seen it on YouTube where she's talking about these things and she even says there's like a song that he wrote where if you look at the first word of every line that's in it, that's like a really horrible song about like, death, it spells out her name like it's just bonkers. There's loads more stuff we could have covered, but there's no proof of all of these things, which is why we haven't gone there. We've stuck to the facts. We've given you guys everything you need to know in the lead up to this preliminary hearing. Let's see what happens. And if there's a trial, obviously we'll be here to cover it. But I'm exhausted. I've been up since five writing this script and I'm fucking done. Thank you.

[C]

Well done.

[B]

Thank you. Thoughts, feelings, concerns?

[C]

It just seems so obvious to me that he is this observer and he just copies and he watches and he waits and he thinks he is so much smarter than everybody else until it actually comes down to it, and then he panics. And I think he kind of. So I'm a Libra. Mm. Libra is the only zodiac sign that is an inanimate Object. Everything else is living was Libra scales.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[C]

Which is why I've always felt like an outsider. And I just feel like he has completely romanticized this idea of just seeing everything from up here and just, like, observing and watching. And I think he. From his perspective, he's like, I know what everyone's gonna do 10 steps before they do. I know what's gonna happen. And I do think he was training himself to desensitize himself because he wanted to achieve this thing.

[B]

And I also wonder if the training maybe wasn't even that nefarious. Maybe the reason he was watching those horrible things was, like, to desensitize himself from feeling pain. Because I'm sure that. Because people like, oh, he's a psychopath. Maybe he is. I don't fucking know. But, like, even psychopaths can feel painful. But what I mean is, like, his social isolation, his lack of friends. When he's talking about how he had no friends at school, you can see in his face the pain of that. And I wonder if, like, watching all these gore videos and things like that, maybe it was like, kind of like how I've said before, when you go through a breakup, I just watch straight horror films. Because you're like, oh, this horrible thing is happening. But at least that's not happening to me. Maybe that's how he was watching it. And it was a desensitization to be like, well, I need to kill this part of me that feels painful because then no one can hurt me anymore. So maybe it wasn't to carry out a murder. Maybe it was just to turn himself a bit to stone.

[C]

I think so.

[B]

I don't know. But, yeah, that's it, guys. That's all we got for now. For now.

[C]

We'll be back.

[B]

Yeah, we will. So we'll see you then. And we'll see you also next week for something else. Goodbye.