Why Hasn't D4vd Been Charged? FBI Agent & Prosecutor Unpack Celeste's Case Tesla, Timeline, and a Celebrity’s Silence — FBI & Legal Experts on D4vd Case

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Downfall Of Diddy - "Why Hasn't D4vd Been Charged? FBI Agent & Prosecutor Unpack Celeste's Case, Tesla, Timeline, and a Celebrity’s Silence"

Overview

This explosive episode of "The Downfall Of Diddy" pivots away from Sean 'P Diddy' Combs momentarily to focus on the mysterious and grisly case of Celeste Rivas Hernandez. The discussion dives deep into the investigation surrounding her death, the high-profile suspicion cast on rising music artist D4vd (David Burke), and the legal and forensic complications keeping charges—and justice—at bay. Hosted by Tony Brueski, the show features expert analysis from retired FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer and criminal defense attorney/former prosecutor Eric Faddis.

The panel systematically unpacks the forensics of Celeste's body, the technological trail within a Tesla “frunk,” theories regarding cause and manner of death, the peculiar silence of a celebrity suspect, and why authorities may be slow to charge anyone in the high-pressure crucible of public opinion.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Forensic Facts, Tesla Technology, and the Crime Scene

• Perspective from an FBI Veteran (Jennifer Coffindaffer)

  • The Tesla’s Sentry Mode could have collected crucial evidence, but it can be easily disabled. If it was off, vital footage may not exist ([03:38]).
  • Car's telematics (when doors or the frunk were opened, GPS data) likely remain intact, and may yield a partial timeline ([06:52]).
  • Coffindaffer conducted a real-life experiment fitting herself (of similar build to Celeste) into a Tesla Model Y frunk and concluded it would be nearly impossible to get an intact body in there, making it likely Celeste was dismembered ([15:13–20:45]).

• On the Nature and Implications of Dismemberment

  • Most body dismemberments are out of practicality rather than rage ([11:09]).
  • Dismemberment leaves more forensic evidence: tool marks, blood, and DNA, making it harder for perpetrators to get away with the crime ([11:58]).
  • Cleaning up body fluids, even with chemicals, is difficult; evidence often remains in drains ([13:51]).

• Logistics and the Gravity of Moving a Body

  • The physical challenge posed by a body’s dead weight is underestimated by many, including perpetrators ([61:12]).

2. State of the Investigation & Timeline Confusion

• Investigative Challenges

  • Discovery of Celeste’s remains complicated by severe decomposition due to her being in a car trunk for several days/weeks in hot sun ([27:53]).
  • Forensic entomology and anthropology are essential for establishing time of death—bugs, body decomposition, and state of remains could narrow the timeline ([27:53]).
  • The official cause of death is still undetermined; the Medical Examiner publicly stated they may never know the precise mechanism ([41:11], [69:32]).
  • Despite the body being found, police only have tangible evidence of "hiding a corpse," not homicide or murder ([43:13]).
  • The LAPD is leading, not the FBI – jurisdiction remains local unless federal violations emerge ([39:41]).

• A Disjointed Timeline of Celeste's Disappearance

  • Surveillance captured Celeste at home months after she was allegedly reported missing, introducing confusion and suggesting she may not have been “missing” in the traditional sense ([31:50], [81:36]).
  • Eleven separate police reports link to her household, but the timeline is described as a “hot mess” by Coffindaffer ([32:05]).
  • Discussion about community indifference: “Did anybody really care?”—Celeste’s case highlights failures of both familial and friend support systems ([33:37], [35:49]).

3. Psychological and Social Layers

• Mindset of Offenders

  • Panel questions whether D4vd’s artistic temperament matches the brutality of the crime, noting he "doesn't strike me that he'd be there chopping up a body" ([24:56], Tony Brueski).
  • Speculation about whether killers act out of panic, inexperience, or possible attempts to frame others ([29:41], [75:02], [77:29]).
  • Whether the dismemberment signals a cover-up after an accident/overdose or a planned murder remains open ([22:07]).

• Celebrity, Silence, and Public Perception

  • D4vd’s silence so far is interpreted as prudent under legal advice; any admitted association with Celeste could be dangerous for his defense ([82:21]).
  • Even without speaking, his fame grows: “His Spotify ratings and listenership has exploded...in some perverse way could serve his professional interests” ([87:28], Eric Faddis).
  • The pressure and pitfalls of public opinion: silence may shield legally, but risks making D4vd "Jeffrey Dahmer in a week or two" in the court of public opinion ([85:38]).

4. Legal Barriers to Charges

• What’s Preventing an Arrest?

  • To charge for statutory rape or sexual misconduct with a minor, authorities need evidence: “Unless I have a video, unless I have a photo, unless I have their bodily fluids mixed up together in a bed sheet or I have communications...I don't have anything” ([46:16], Jennifer Coffindaffer).
  • Cause of death cannot be established (no evidence of bullet wounds, strangulation, or conclusive toxicology results), which precludes murder charges for now ([43:34], [69:32], [70:34]).

• Why Not Lesser Charges?

  • Prosecutor Eric Faddis explains: “They could charge abuse or concealment of a corpse...but then they lose access to [the suspect] in further questioning, and if stronger evidence emerges later, double jeopardy concerns could arise” ([64:30]).
  • The risks of charging with “weak” evidence are high—authorities want the case airtight, especially under national scrutiny ([54:47], Coffindaffer).

5. Unanswered Questions & Speculation

• Did D4vd Do It? Or Was He Framed?

  • Panel leans toward the scenario that the body being found in D4vd’s car is “too obvious”—perhaps signposting an attempt to frame him ([75:02], [77:29], [78:49]).
  • Multiple possibilities: “...whoever did it screaming catch me...or just utter stupidity...or someone trying to frame D4vd” ([74:01], [74:53]).

• Group Involvement or Solo Act?

  • Given the difficulty and brutality of dismemberment, panelists question if D4vd could have acted alone or had help ([57:38], Coffindaffer).
  • Suggestion that the crime scene (actual location of dismemberment) may not have been the Tesla or the rented mansion, due to expected scale of forensic evidence ([59:19]).

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On Sentry Mode and Evidence

  • Jennifer Coffindaffer (03:38): "What's interesting with the Tesla is it's really a computer on wheels...if that was disabled on this car, nobody's going to see anything because there's not going to be any cameras."
  • Tony Brueski (06:00): "What I wonder about is...when they get into the vehicle. Log data like we've seen in so many cases...Maybe not as advanced as we'd like it to be, but enough where it's going to tell us the last time that trunk was opened..."

• On Dismemberment

  • Jennifer Coffindaffer (11:09): "In most cases, it's a huge percentage that it's for practical reason...Not out of rage or anger."
  • Tony Brueski (19:00): “It looks like he’s trying to lift the bag. It's very difficult with you as a whole in it...dead weight.”
  • Jennifer Coffindaffer (20:27): “It’s really small...no matter what with the rigor and everything, I think it’s just pretty important.”

• On Community Failure

  • Tony Brueski (33:37): “But out there in the public and not a lot of people asking questions...Is this just a lack of people that cared about her in her personal life?”

• On Legal Hurdles

  • Eric Faddis (63:21): "The law sees a lot of holes so far in this case...There hasn't been a cause of death determined...otherwise, we're potentially looking at charges for actions taken after her demise, which would be much less serious."
  • Jennifer Coffindaffer (54:47): "The answer to that is...they fall well short without video or writing proof. So that's where that stands...until they have causation, there's no way for them to make the case."
  • Eric Faddis (64:30): “If they did charge this soon...David would either hire his own attorney or be appointed one. And from there, you can't talk to him directly, you can't interview him.”

• On the Celebrity Effect

  • Tony Brueski (85:38): “Is he missing a window here?...if he did not have anything to do with her death, to get to his fans, to get to the public and play that part of the game. Because just letting it go to the public, he'll be Jeffrey Dahmer in a week or two.”

• On the Emotional Undercurrent

  • Jennifer Coffindaffer (38:10): "We mourned, we talked about, we cried over for years...and this wasn't a murder and dismemberment, for heaven's sakes."

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Important Timestamps

• [03:38] – Tesla forensic features and Sentry Mode explained.
• [11:09] – Motives behind dismemberment: practical, not rage.
• [15:13–20:45] – Coffindaffer's hands-on experiment with Tesla frunk.
• [27:53] – Forensic entomology and the difficulty of establishing time of death.
• [31:50] – Timeline confusion, evidence of Celeste’s return after being reported missing.
• [38:10] – Panel describes missing empathy in youth community.
• [39:41] – Why the FBI isn’t involved: local jurisdiction.
• [41:11], [69:32] – Medical examiner can’t determine precise cause of death.
• [54:47] – Legal analysis: why no charges yet.
• [82:21] – Should D4vd stay silent or speak up?
• [85:38] – PR risk of letting the public fill in the narrative vacuum.

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Episode Tone and Energy

The discussion is frank, often graphic, but balanced with dark humor and empathy in moments of emotional gravity. The panel is committed to separating fact from speculation, and to emphasizing unresolved questions—especially the tragic failures of the system to protect vulnerable youth like Celeste. The legal and forensics experts speak with authority but keep the discourse approachable, inviting the audience to question assumptions made by both media and law enforcement.

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Conclusion

This episode offers a sobering, honest look at the legal gridlock and heartbreak surrounding the death of Celeste Rivas Hernandez. Despite a mounting pile of circumstantial evidence and public outrage, the hallmarks of prosecutable murder—cause of death, clear digital trails, unambiguous relationships—remain elusive. As the hosts and their expert guests repeatedly state, “They’ve got a lot to unpack,” and the case stands as a grim testament to the limits of technology, the complexities of human relationships, and the insidious ways that fame can shield, distort, or destroy the pursuit of justice.

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For continued coverage, subscribe and tune in to The Downfall of Diddy and Hidden Killers Podcast.

Transcript

[Stacy Cole]

What do you think makes the perfect snack?

[Tony Bruski]

Hmm, it's gotta be when I'm really craving it and it's convenient.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Could you be more specific?

[Tony Bruski]

When it's cravinient. Okay. Like a freshly baked cookie made with real butter, available right down the street at AM pm. Or a savory breakfast sandwich I can grab in just a second at a.m. pM. I'm seeing a pattern here. Well, yeah, we're talking about what I.

[Stacy Cole]

Crave, which is anything from AM pm.

[Tony Bruski]

What more could you want? Stop by AM PM where the snacks and drinks are perfectly craveable and convenient. That's cravenience. AM PM Too much. Good stuff.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Hey, this is Sarah.

[Stacy Cole]

Look, I'm standing out front of a.m. p.m. Right now and, well, you're sweet and all, but I found something more fulfilling.

[Eric Faddis]

Even kind of cheesy, but I like it.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Sure, you met some of my dietary needs, but they've just got it all.

[Stacy Cole]

So farewell, oatmeal.

[Eric Faddis]

So long, you strange soggy.

[Tony Bruski]

Break up with bland breakfast and taste AM PM's bacon, egg and cheese biscuit made with K tree egg, smoked bacon and melty cheese on a buttery biscuit. Too much good stuff. This is Hidden Killers live with Tony Brusky, Stacy Cole, and Todd Michaels. A missing teenager body in the front trunk of a Tesla. The frunk, if you will. It's a new term I learned this week as well. A rising music star at the Center, David, or D4VD that you're seeing. And over a year of red flag. But somehow it all went unchecked. But beyond the outrage, beyond the speculation, there are real questions. What should have been done and what still can be done? And what makes sense in this case? They found her body in the frunk of the Tesla. Did the whole body fit in there? Was she dismembered? Why was she dismembered? What does all of that say about the crime that took place? We're gonna get into all of that today. We are joined by retired FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffendaffer, someone who's worked these cases in the real world when the leads are cold, Jennifer, the timeline is broken and the public wants justice before the evidence is even in. What does a case like this look like through federal eyes? And what's the risk when the clock keeps ticking and still no one's been charged yet?

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Well, the clock's ticking, Tony, because they don't have the answers. I think that possibly that Tesla information, the century mode that you can put a Tesla in maybe was disabled. It seems to me if they had absolute evidence of who put her in that trunk, that that would be at least one charge that could be charged, but they haven't charged anything. So were the cameras disabled or. Or were the people who did that or person who did that covered in black like a Bryan Kohberger? And they can't make them out and they don't have big eyebrows.

[Tony Bruski]

Educate us a little bit. You have a Tesla, and we're gonna. You even did an experiment. We'll talk about that in a few minutes here. But for those of us who don't, which is a good chunk of the population, century mode on the car. And what does that mean? And what sort of features are on this vehicle that as we're looking at it, and we know it's the car of the future and it has a gazillion safety features beyond most vehicles. What other pieces can this car give us, and what might it not give us if the user itself decided, I don't want to be caught?

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Well, what's interesting with the Tesla is it's really a computer on wheels. And I mean that very seriously, not figuratively. There's a large computer screen, and in fact, that is where your owner's manual even is. And you're able to engage certain items on that you want or don't want. Everything is controlled by your phone. So if you want to open the door, if you want to open the trunk, if you want to do anything with the vehicle, you do it by your phone and it alerts you if you have it set to that. Now, there's up to nine cameras on this car. And if you have it set to century mode, meaning the mode that keeps that car safe, people who touch it, go around it, you're going to get photos of all of that. But it takes literally your fingertip to disable that. And if that was disabled on this car, nobody's going to see anything because there's not going to be any cameras in.

[Tony Bruski]

And I guess one of the questions I would have right now would be, okay, it's not necessarily sending notification. We don't know the answer to this question, but if they disabled it, is that. And I don't know if you know the answers or not, is that disabling just the notifications to a phone, or is that disabling the infrastructure of the vehicle to actually collect that data? Because I'm wondering if, you know, deep within the confines of the car, within its computer systems, if some of that data exists but is just not out there as it would be if you had selected, yes, please send me those notifications.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

So there's actually two parts to that. So there's a notification that you can enable or disabled. As an example, I have mine disabled, but you can enable the sentry mode, which I have mine enabled. The camera is working. Everything is monitored in terms of anybody touching that vehicle or being around that vehicle. So they're actually two separate commands. But to your question of if you have your cameras enabled and the sentry mode turned off, is any of that, you know, taken? I don't think so. It wouldn't make sense to me that if you enable it, it's still working.

[Tony Bruski]

What I wonder about is maybe the cameras are off, but I do wonder about just basic function of the car when they get into the vehicle. Log data like we've seen in so many cases where. Okay, well, it accelerated this way. I mean, look at the Karen Reed case where it took two trial to discover, oh, there's this whole other set of data over here we didn't know existed. Something like this. I would think there might be records of, okay, the trunk or the frunk was opened, things like that. Maybe not as advanced as we'd like it to be, but enough where it's going to tell us the last time that trunk was originally open, which would tell us when a body was put in the trunk, you know, maybe. And just other little things here, doors opening, the GPS of the vehicle, things like that that you typically can't completely dis unless you, I guess, really, really know what you're doing or maybe just you can't do, period.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

No, I agree with you. I think that the GPS system, I think whether the doors are opened or closed, but that the trunk is open or closed, the speed at which the vehicle goes, when it stops, I think they're going to be able to track all of that. I don't know that you can disable that at least. I've never tried to disable it. I don't know that you can. I'll look into that, Tony, but I don't think so. I think it's going to record that.

[Tony Bruski]

So we have the body that is. Is found in the trunk, and it's been reported that the body was. Was dismembered. And I'm not trying to be gruesome here. I've heard various reports on this. I know you have, too. What do we know factually at this moment about the state of Celeste's body as found in that vehicle?

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

So I'm going to go back to the Genesis Right. The very genesis of the reporting. And that was from the local Los Angeles station. And in that it's specific. It's very specific. It says the torso and the head. And then there's also a photograph of the bag where the body, the remaining 71 pounds was. And you can see from that bag it's not completely full. You can, you can tell there is not a full body in there. That's my interpretation of the photo. Secondarily from that though, we know that the shush. Right. Sh h And then there's three dots afterwards on the index finger. We know that that is how she was identified. So for me there's a lot of questions in terms of with was that also in the bag but not discussed? Was that in another part of the vehicle? That seems confusing, but that was our first reporting on the body being dismembered.

[Tony Bruski]

So I guess we can say unconfirmed kind of speculation at this moment in time. But her whole body is likely not intact. Like there may be another piece of her body elsewhere.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

I don't know about elsewhere. I think it's possible from the photograph that we can all see of this bag, you could dismember the body as was reported, fit it all in that bag nicely compared to an elongated five foot inch body. That would of course also likely been in rigor, some stage of rigor.

[Tony Bruski]

Sami, what does that tell us about this case if the body is cut up? When you think of that, we often think, oh, this is, you know, this is rageful, this is horrible. Or is it more of a crime of convenience of let's try to fit this thing into this trunk because by itself might it not fit?

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

That's my belief, Tony. The latter. In other words, this was a situation like most situations of dismemberment, where it's done and it sounds terrible, but it's for practicality. Yeah, they're used. Slice up different body parts and you can strewn them all over. Try to, you know, it takes longer to identify. Of course in this day in DNA it wouldn't matter as much. But back in the day. And then also for people fitting a body into particular containers, that is often the reason for dismemberment.

[Stacy Cole]

So is that typically. I mean, is that. I guess I honestly, I've never really thought that much about dismemberment. Like why you would do that.

[Tony Bruski]

Lies. She thinks about it all the time.

[Stacy Cole]

No, I don't, honest. I think of other things, but now I lost my train of thought.

[Tony Bruski]

Tony, you're talking about dismemberment yes.

[Stacy Cole]

Thank you. But I mean, is that typically why somebody would dismember a body is. Is for convenience or like Tony referenced. Is it rage that I'm gonna cut you up? I mean, I don't want to be completely gruesome here, but a lot of.

[Tony Bruski]

Rage though, to like.

[Stacy Cole]

I think so.

[Tony Bruski]

I think when I think rage, I think, you know, stabbing. I think, I don't know, maybe shooting more than you need to chop. Like that's like you get into butchery at that point.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Yeah, it really is. In most cases, it's a huge percentage that it's for practical reason.

[Stacy Cole]

Wow.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Not out of rage or anger. People sort of think that for some reason because it is so gruesome and terrible. And you think, how could you do that to somebody you loved or somebody you knew? How could you do that? But it becomes a matter of how am I going to get them in this front if I don't do this?

[Eric Faddis]

Interesting.

[Tony Bruski]

What's your thoughts on and maybe I don't know if we've stats, but just from experience here, when you run into a case like this where the body is dismembered, does that tend to increase or decrease the odds of whoever did the dismembering of getting caught? I'm just wondering that because you do kind of. You create more of a mess, for lack of a better term.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

It absolutely is detrimental, actually, because now you have tool marks. You can work with that. You can go back to what actually caused that and then work on making that tool. Not making it, but working on seeing if that person purchased that tool or had that tool. So now they've got to hide all the tools. Now they've made a huge bloody mess. So now all their garments, wherever this was done, all of that crime scene is going to be just riddled with blood and DNA. So quite frankly, they should find a place to hide the body that would comport to the configuration of the body.

[Tony Bruski]

I mean, they were checking the drains of the house that he was renting for 20,000amonth. And I mean, at least that's what some of the reporting was earlier on of, you know, getting into that system and seeing, you know what, you never know what you're going to find in the drain. As anyone who's ever gone and gotten a drain snake and stuck it down, you're like, oh, I had no idea all this was living in my drain. And then you throw up into a garbage can and then throw the drain snake away. At least that's what my experience. It's such a gross. I hate. I hate having to do that. Like, they need stronger draino because that stuff is gross. But they got in there. I mean, they're looking. So they would have. And I'm wondering about that, too. People when they're trying to clean up the crime scene, trying to wash things away, they're gonna go to a drain, they're gonna go to a shower, they're gonna go to a sink, wherever they can find a drain that makes sense. I'm sorry this is getting so gross today, but it's just kind of the nature of what we're talking about. Does bodily remains, fluids, things like that, do they tend to stick around in drains after someone does this? Do trace mater stand no matter what, no matter how much you try to flush that drain clean with chemicals or whatnot?

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Absolutely. Because of the configuration of that drain that goes down and loops up often. And that's why things get trapped in there. As you so. Well put. I would love to do a drain experiment. Right. We could take any drain apart, and we're going to find hair. We're going to find all sorts of gunk and junk there. And, you know, Celeste had a huge head of hair.

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

And that hair may become very important in terms of if that was trapped, if anything else was trapped on it. In other words, blood on the hair that would have been trapped in the dream.

[Tony Bruski]

And we'll talk more about the investigation in just a little bit. But I wanted to keep talking about logistics here for a little bit. You. You decided to do an experiment of your own and try to see could you fit this body as a whole into the trunk. I saw your tweet about it the other day. I kind of chuckled a little bit, but it's a good idea. And I know you said sometimes just going back to reality and seeing things in real time, in real space, really opens up your mind. It makes you see things off of paper in ways that you otherwise may not. Tell me about the experiment. What came to your mind? How did you think about doing this?

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Well, there was this whole, you know, argument going on sort of online whether she was dismembered or not. And everybody, I think, forgetting about the original reporting that was at least referenced, that it was from law enforcement sources. Right. So. And when you go back and look at that, people were just sort of disregarding that, and then they were making all these leaps and saying, oh, well, she might have been dismembered, but it probably happened naturally through the process of her degrading her body. Degrading. But then having a Tesla and knowing the size of these frunks, they are nothing like a trunk. They're small, they have plastic or polymer. So they're very hard, they don't give and they're not deep at all.

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

And I thought I'm five one, five, one and a half maybe almost the exact dimensions of her. Could I fit in a frunk? And this is something that I've done throughout my career. As an example, there was a little six year old missing. And the hypothesis that a lot of people in law enforcement were going with was that he crawled out of the window. Well, the window was raised so high and of course there was no stool. This was a horrible situation. But there was no way I could even hoist myself and crawl through this particular window. It was also sort of boarded. There was no way to fit through there. And then on the other side of it was a fire ant pile which was undisturbed. So sometimes you just have to go to the crime scene and you have to look at the particular circumstances and see if it's even plausible. And that's what I wanted to do here. I wanted to see if I could even fit in an oversized gigantic leaf blonde bag. And so I got one.

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

And tried to, you know, ask my, my husband. And again, I'm fully pliable as a live human. A dead human would be in a state of rigor mortis or some stage. At about two hours it sets in where you're stiff, you start stiffening. But nevertheless, he tried to compact me in there. Again, I'm only 5 1,110ish maybe. There was no way. He kind of finally, you know, we got my head compacted.

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

And then he's 5 foot 10 or so, works out every day. And David is only 5, 3, 5, 4 maybe on the roster. And big guy. And even with trying to lift, the slipperiness of that bag.

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Makes it so difficult to manipulate and put somebody dead weight, if you will, in a trunk. So I thought that lended itself to believe that sure enough, she was likely dismembered.

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah. Let's. We got the video of. Of you doing this. This is on Jennifer's Twitter if you want to check it out. But this is you on the ground. There he is wrapping. Getting your legs into the bag. Do you sign a waiver or anything before this with your husband just to be sure, like, you know, there's a record of this.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

It's kind of funny because of course, neighbors, right?

[Stacy Cole]

Yeah. But are they surprised by any of this.

[Eric Faddis]

Of course.

[Tony Bruski]

Neighbors.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

No, they're not. I mean, but I was looking around.

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

I was waiting for, you know, the call. I didn't get the call.

[Tony Bruski]

Well, that's good. That's.

[Stacy Cole]

No, that's disturbing, actually. They should have called.

[Tony Bruski]

So it looks like he's trying to lift the bag. It's very difficult with you as a whole in it to try and get this thing lifted up. And, you know, he struggles and then dead weight. Yep. And then you.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Yeah, okay, you can stop now because I can tell there was no way he was going to get me up. Sure moving and, you know, it was so slippery. I was falling out from. Meaning falling forward. Yeah, he was just going to drop me.

[Eric Faddis]

Yeah.

[Tony Bruski]

I mean, if. Again, not trying to be morbid here, but it is what it is. If you were in pieces, if there was like, you know, if you were in thirds or whatever, you know, you could kind of hoist that bag, you know, a little, maybe heavy, but it'd be a different way of lifting than this. Let's look at the other one where you do. You do get into the trunk. Let's see how that. So is there. I mean, so you're kind of up there, but again, you're in hole. It's not like you're just in pieces where you could kind of be pushed down and jammed into that trunk. Obviously, the body was jammed into the trunk, so it was shut. But this really does kind of show. If it was a body as a whole, it really wouldn't have likely fit.

[Stacy Cole]

It is really small.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

It's really small. And no matter how I did it, whether I went in the fetal position, left to right was the best. And there was more footage of this. I only did this one, but he tried really hard to get me down into there. And I was like, okay, uncle, can.

[Stacy Cole]

You hear me tap out? Yep.

[Tony Bruski]

Did he hear the uncle or did the. Did they. Did the frunk ever close on you?

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

No, he could never get it closed. But I'm telling you, he tried hard. And I was pretty squashed in there again, you know, no matter what with the rigor and everything, I think it's just pretty important.

[Tony Bruski]

Is there a release on the inside of the frunks? If someone were to put you in there alive, could someone release it from the inside?

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

You know, that's interesting. I did not see one. And in fact, I told them have their phones on the ready because their phones is how it's disabled.

[Tony Bruski]

Okay.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

So if they would get me in there, I said, make sure you know, you've got it pulled up on your phone. So I'm not in here too long.

[Tony Bruski]

And there's not a nationwide Tesla outage at that moment in time. And all of a sudden the phones don't connect to the car.

[Eric Faddis]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Or you have to go in and get on the computer and go through a few steps to get it open. But yeah, it's. It's very small. There is an X model that he actually had. This is the Y. X model is slightly larger. You can fit golf clubs in there, but believe me, golf clubs. It was a little under, I believe, two more cubic feet. Still very, very small.

[Tony Bruski]

Let's talk about the actual. The method here of the dismemberment. How often do we see cases where dismemberment is playing a role, where it is an intentional murder, like this is, you know, she was murdered for a reason, or there's an accident and oh my God, we gotta cover up this body. Considering dismembering typically is more of a crime of convenience than it is a rage. I'm wondering if, you know, I don't want to get caught for this. This was a horrible, horrible accident of some sort. I'm going to dismember the body. Do we see that typically more in murders or do we in homicides? Or do we see that more in someone trying to cover up something that went horribly wrong?

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Well, I can think of two examples right off the bat. There was a situation in Oklahoma. An individual, these guys came in to rob them and the guy ended up killing the individuals that were going to do the robbery and cut them all up into pieces and threw them in the river. So you might say there. Well, that was a situation of. Of convenience as. And then another case that's hugely in the news right now is Brian Walsh. Yeah, very similar, I believe. I believe, because they have the indissa of this is cut Anna up so that he could put her in a bag so that he could incinerate her. I believe she's incinerated and gone.

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

And that's both a situation that I think was more planned as opposed to one that was not as planned.

[Tony Bruski]

Let's talk about just the mindset that one would have to be in to do this. I don't know. I think it takes a special individual to be able to butcher a body, basically another human being. I don't know that this is an ability that everyone necessarily has that they could follow through on this even if they wanted to. That says something interesting about the character that could do this, we're talking about if again, David's never been charged with anything, he's maintaining his innocence. All pure speculation, you know, a 20, some 20 year old music artist, you know, and everything. I've researched on David and I've watched several of his interviews and yeah, he's a fairly macabre artist, but he seems like a fairly sensitive kind of dude. Kind of, you know, very. On the surface, yeah. Well on the surface, yeah. But you know, there does seems to be a lot of emotion there that he's somewhat in touch with. I mean look at his writings, look at his music. It is, it's very, it's dark, it's macabre, but it's very emotional. It's, it, I don't know. It, David doesn't strike me that he'd be there chopping up a body, but it doesn't mean that there couldn't be somebody else trying to help this, this situation along. What are your thoughts on that? Just the nature of what this, of this portion of the crime is.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Well, well, first of all, talking about David again, he hasn't been charged with anything, but you know, I go back to the scene where he's got blood, handprints all over his white shirt and he's dragging a body and putting it in the trunk. So let's just say that not a lot of artists and maybe not a lot of people even really imagine doing something like that.

[Tony Bruski]

Sure.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

So it just, yeah, but we, Jennifer.

[Stacy Cole]

We, you know, and I don't ever want to put Lady Gaga in this situation.

[Tony Bruski]

But you're going to.

[Stacy Cole]

But I'm going to. The woman wore a meat dress at an award ceremony. So I mean artists will go to extreme lengths to get attention. So I, I'm wondering is this life imitating art or is this his expression? I don't know. I know a lot of artistic people and they will take it to extremes. So I guess I'm, I leave that a little bit, you know, I leave a little space for that, that maybe this is his art form. It, we may not agree with it, but that's just what he does. I don't know, what are your thoughts on that?

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Well, I think you bring up a great point. If Celeste wouldn't have been found dead in his trunk.

[Eric Faddis]

Yes.

[Stacy Cole]

Okay.

[Tony Bruski]

All right.

[Stacy Cole]

Yeah, okay, there's that, there's that.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

So for me that's where we sort of step over the line, I guess, where it's just sort of coincidental. But again, he hasn't been charged with, with anything.

[Eric Faddis]

Right.

[Tony Bruski]

When a body is found in a car like this. I wanna talk about the investigative end of this. And we're talking about David, D4VD, in case you're like, who's David? I've been reading this and I just see D4VD. That's him. That's the guy we're talking about. Jennifer Coffendaff, a retired FBI special agent with us discussing all of this from an investigative angle here. When you got a body found in a car that's been sitting for days, maybe weeks in the hot California sun, I mean, it becomes an oven as well. So let's add that aspect to it. I think a lot of people are thinking about that part. It's cooking. You're literally. You can cook things probably in there, if you really tried. What sort of evidence is gonna be most time sensitive here? When they're looking at the body itself, the remains of the body, what sort of things can be found? What sort of things might have been degraded or lost in the time at least several days that it was sitting in that vehicle?

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Well, the number one thing I would do as an investigator in this case is get a anthropologist, a forensic anthropologist on this case, as well as a forensic bug expert. And the reason is that immediately upon death, or close to immediately, when. When you're talking about the space of time being, you know, weeks, bugs begin to form in the body and they start eating the body. That's why a body decomposes. And so that information is going to be critical for a timeline. It's going to be critical for trying to understand the cause of death, I believe, as well. In other words, how long was she in that trunk? They can start to narrow this down. And then what was the causation? And oftentimes a forensic anthropologist can make headway with a body that's dismembered and severely decomposed like she was.

[Tony Bruski]

What do you make of the. Just the fact that whoever did this put a body in a trunk on a busy road, that this car is going to get attention at some point in time, obviously. And it did. Just the line of thinking of putting this body in this trunk to conceal it. Was this midway through a plan of somebody who didn't have a very good plan of, well, I'm gonna park the car here until I figure out the next thing to do and are too inexperienced in life to realize that cars get towed eventually if they aren't moved. Or was this. I don't know. That part also kind of gets me of like, this is very Poor planning. Whoever did this, unless it was intentional, and I'm not figuring that part out quite yet.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

No, I think these are absolute rookie mistakes. This isn't somebody that's a career, you know, mass murderer or anything like that. This, I believe this is somebody who was. It's a crime of passion or it's a cover up or something less sinister like a drug overdose. And it's absolute panic that set in. What are we going to do with the body? This was a situation of convenience and they thought, we'll just put this right over here, no one will notice for a while. I also believe they probably planned to move that body, move her, move Celeste or move that vehicle. And for whatever reason, they never got to it before it was towed.

[Tony Bruski]

And that's, that's another weird part that's like, what are you, what are you waiting for? I guess like you got the body in the trunk, you need to stop at the house. For what? For how many days? Why?

[Eric Faddis]

What?

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah, again, rookie mistake. Ignorance. Young, dumb. I don't know. There, there's, there's just, it just seems stupid. Celeste and the timeline, as we were talking about, Celeste was reported missing in April of 2020. And the timeline as far as we knew up until like yesterday as of this recording, was she was missing, completely missing for all of that time, up until the time that they found her. But now there is security camera footage that is, is from I believe the neighbors or it on their own house. I don't know which camera it is, but it is showing Celeste at her residence, her parents residence, where she allegedly where, you know, she was reported missing from about five months later at home, yelling at the neighbors who were outside doing karaoke or something. How does that deal with this timeline here? Is this just, is it simple enough of, well, she returned home and nobody reported that she returned home. Is that the answer to that question?

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Well, I think that's the answer, but it begs the question, how many other times did she return home?

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Didn't catch on video. I mean this whole missing thing now really seems bastardized to me.

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah. Was she missing, I guess is the question.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Right. We know she went missing in January and then came back and then was reported missing in April and then. And that was after being seen on footage by that pawn shop in March. Yeah, reported in April. And again the police, there's 11 police reports regarding responses to her house. One on the day she was reported missing, but unrelated to the missing report. So it seems a hot mess for law enforcement. I think all of us can see the timeline is a mess because she didn't want to be found. She didn't want people to know where she was at. And if people knew where she was at, they didn't say anything.

[Tony Bruski]

And that's a real disturbing part of this whole thing. I mean, she went missing, and I say that in air quotes, but she was in plain sight. She's showing up on live streams with David. It's not exactly like it's just them and their high school friends. He's a celebrity and so she's showing up publicly there, there's a lot of places where she's showing up and missing or just not wanting to be at home in her home environment. And there's, I'm gonna guess, probably reason for that to some extent. But out there in the public and not a lot of people asking questions about that term of this person is missing. Why do you think that is that there wasn't more question? Is this just a lack of people that cared about her in her personal life? I'm wondering.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Well, I think that's the really sad part about this whole story is, you know, did anybody really care? When you look at the timeline of David and his tour schedule, which was jam packed in August, at what point did he wonder, geez, where's, where's my girlfriend? Where's my girl? Tesla? Yeah, the whole thing is, is really sad. It seems that the parents, they made that missing report, but why didn't they go back and tell law enforcement, hey, listen, we found her because she's at home this September. So it seems to be a real disconnect with who, if anybody really cared about Celeste.

[Tony Bruski]

I mean, I mean, how common?

[Stacy Cole]

Yeah, it's a sad statement that there is a young woman who has so few people in her life that are coming forward to vouch for her. It's just, it's tragedy really.

[Tony Bruski]

How, I mean, how common is it when, I mean, someone gave a crap enough to report her missing, so at least there's that. But how often is it when someone is reported missing that the authorities aren't notified when they show back up? And again, at that moment in time, not a high profile thing. She wasn't dead at that moment in time. So it was just kind of a domestic matter to a certain extent. No celebrity, no microscope on this. She has a history of running away and coming back. How often is it that the return is just kind of brushed off or never reported or never on record in cases like that?

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Well, when you look at cities like Los Angeles and New York, Detroit, Chicago, these huge cities where they have so many runaways, they have so many people just go missing. They typically don't do the best job Once the first 24, 48 hours goes by after the report and they start looking into it, especially if it's what they designate a runaway. Oftentimes that case just kind of gets put to the side because they have thousands of them.

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah, that's the sad reality of it. There was the. The interview that we saw with. With her boyfriend. And again, I say in air quotes, I mean, there. It's as much as a boyfriend is at 12, 13 years old and. And he's. He's kind of like your typical. Unfortunately, as I say, that boy of that age, you know, I don't have the tape in front of us, but at the end, he makes a comment of some of the effect of. I just don't think anybody really cared that much. That's like one of her peers saying that. And he. He seemed rather unfazed by the fact that she went missing. I mean, this is the boyfriend, quote, unquote, of that age. That there seems to be a missing element. I'm not trying to insult him. I'm just kind of saying of that group of that age. Group of lacking empathy or care. I don't know. I mean, I remember people dying at that age. I remember having a classmate that died by suicide. I remember having. I remember there was a kid that went missing too, and we gave a shit. It was like a big deal. It was like, oh, my God. I mean, these guys are like. They're about as excited about it as if, like the McRib was back at McDonald's. Hear the McRib's back. Yeah, it's gone now. Okay. I mean, it's about that level of care, I guess that kind of just speaks to the world that maybe she was living in and why she maybe felt that the only place to get attention or the place that she did get attention was with a rapper or an R B artist that she didn't really know. No.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Initially, I think part of that, with this young man was the former boyfriend. Meaning.

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Just think how young that would have been.

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

11, 12 year old. They were boyfriend and girlfriend.

[Tony Bruski]

Sure.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

It was a very young age and probably a very immature, of course, relationship, but nevertheless, to your point. Absolutely. I remember there was a kid that was a catcher where I went to school, and he literally was 14. His name was Jay Elliot. He fell over backwards and died right there on the baseball field.

[Tony Bruski]

Oh, God.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Yeah, it was. We couldn't believe it. It was something we mourned, we talked about, we cried over for years. Baseball fields named after him. Like, this was huge. And this wasn't a murder and dismemberment, for heaven's sakes. Yeah, so I totally agree with your point that the sort of lack of. Of just caring and really, I think understanding loss just is. Is shocking.

[Tony Bruski]

It is.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

And that was. That was sad to see. And his last statement was certainly sad.

[Tony Bruski]

It was. I'm not trying to judge him. He's a product of his environment, but it's. I don't know. I was just kind of disturbed by just the lack of. Lack of emotion.

[Stacy Cole]

Well, immaturity too. I mean, look at his age.

[Tony Bruski]

Well, there's immaturity, but there's this lack of emotion. I mean, you know, it might be.

[Stacy Cole]

A product of today's world too. You know, just this disconnect that. And I. I'm not blanketing a statement that all millennials are like this. They're not.

[Tony Bruski]

He's not a millennial.

[Stacy Cole]

You're right. What is. He's Jen.

[Tony Bruski]

That. Why?

[Stacy Cole]

What, Z. Why.

[Tony Bruski]

What are you when you're 12 or 13?

[Stacy Cole]

I don't know anymore.

[Tony Bruski]

I don't know. Sher's not a millennial.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Yeah, you're right.

[Stacy Cole]

Yeah. But, you know, there's. I think there is a lot of disconnect in some of the generations, and I think that's what we're seeing.

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah, I mean, it's another conversation in terms of the investigation right now that's. That's going on. Obviously, you have local authorities and are these. Is the FBI involved in this case yet?

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

I don't believe the FBI is involved. It's funny, I saw a report where people were saying the FBI. The FBI.

[Tony Bruski]

Ye.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

They were just confused because this is squarely in the venue of lapd and they have one of the most well versed and well trained homicide departments in the country. They do not need really the FBI's help other than in areas of resources. In other words, I wouldn't doubt that if they came to the Bureau and asked for particular, whatever it might be, manpower, ert, something like that, that's the Evidence Response Team that they would lend a hand, but they, quite frankly don't need it. They have their own Evidence Response Team. They respond to many more murders than the FBI does or will. So I don't believe the FBI is involved other than maybe a communication to say, hey, this is going on in case something happens, like, we determined this was done. Across state lines or something like that.

[Tony Bruski]

Well, we don't have any arrests yet. We don't have any suspects public yet that we're aware of. Not to say that, you know, behind the curtains, you know, they're, they're getting their ducks in a row. But I guess that would be the question. We still don't have an arrest yet. Why not call in the FBI? Why not have a few more resources if we are not at a place of having someone charged in this as of yet?

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

You know, the biggest problem is there's no venue for the FBI. The FBI has no jurisdictional authority, period, full stop. The only way they can get involved in local cases is that invitation like what happened in the Idaho four case. They invited the FBI to come assist because they desperately needed it and they got 60 agents assigned to that case. But in this case I don't think you'll see that. And I truly believe because they probably had to involve a forensic anthropologist. I think that's going to take time there. There were two statements that came out on Monday that really concerned me, Tony. One was from the ME that said we may never know the cause. Like maybe it's a statement cause. It's if you look, I believe it was people that reported reported it or abc. ABC Local has been on this case from the from the minute there was a body found before everybody got when it became the Celeste case, it seemed like all of a sudden everybody was paying attention prior to that. Certainly that ABC and many of us, I was looking at this well before we knew who it was. But nevertheless, my, my point is that's really concerning to me that they don't have a cause yet. And then the other statement was just about we know we have a homicide, but whether this was murder or not. And I thought with the dismemberment, in fact the quote is and this is law enforcement saying all we know we really have is basically the hiding of a corpse. That's what they said. And I would add to it they also have mistreatment of a corpse. But nevertheless they said the hiding of a corpse. And I thought how is that all they're going to be able to get down to? He. I was surprised.

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah. I mean, is that all we know as of right now? Because I know there was talk earlier on that this, this, I mean is this because it's, it's being labeled as deferred right now, the cause of death. But does that mean that it's not a homicide or do we know if this is a homicide? How I mean, how, how, where are we at with that, I guess?

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Well, the manner they said was homicide.

[Tony Bruski]

Okay.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

To accident suicide. So they had come out and said, I think it was last Thursday, there's a report and, and they've said homicide. But a homicide isn't necessarily a murder. You can accidentally kill somebody. You can provide, you know, drugs that end up killing that person. But intent is a big part that separates a murder from a homicide.

[Stacy Cole]

I think a lot of people forget that or maybe don't know that. They interchange the two and, and lose sight of the definition. So thank you for adding that.

[Tony Bruski]

But what about, let me just throw this in there, okay? Homicide. How do we know it's not a suicide? How do we not? I mean, because we don't have the toxicology public by any means yet. So if we do get that, and let's just theoretically say it shows an overdose of drugs, there's amount of drugs in this person's system that was, it would have killed you. That doesn't necessarily mean that that was administered nefariously by someone else. She could have taken that amount of drugs. They could have found her dead, knew that, oh my God, this is a 15 year old that's in this person's home, this minor, and she's dead. What do we do? I mean, you could end up going down that road of a suicide and now we're trying to cover it up because we're frantic and we don't know what the hell we're doing. Or that could be an alibi that I just gave somebody to run with.

[Stacy Cole]

Right, right.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

The dismemberment I think is that's a crime.

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah, but, but was that a, was that a panic? Was that part of the. That I think could be looked at differently if of some sort of a panic. But again, why would you do that? But again, people do stupid things when they don't know what they're doing.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Yeah, I think as a suicide, I can't particularly think of a case of a suicide where then somebody decided to dismember the person. Suicide, I think that would be extremely rare.

[Tony Bruski]

Well, so my thought on that though is not because you would almost have two possible things going on here and we should establish one thing before we even get to that. What is the relationship that we know of between these two? We know that, I mean, we have video of them together. I know the speculation is that they're, they were a couple. There's, you know, people that are saying, well, we thought she was 19 and that he was that was his girlfriend. What do we definitively know about that as of right now?

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Well, we know that friends saw them and associates saw them as a couple they seen partying together that was believed that they were together in that way. This is the rub for law enforcement. Unless I have a video, unless I have a photo, unless I have their bodily fluids mixed up together in a bed sheet or I have communications between them where they're discussing their sexual relationship in that way, I don't have anything. I have a friendship. I can't prove it. And that's going to be a problem for law enforcement.

[Tony Bruski]

And that seems to be where it's at right now. I mean, a lot of people want to jump to the conclusion here that this is, you know, R. Kelly Ish. And I can't. I don't know if it is. I don't know if it's not, but that seems to be the conclusion that a lot of people are jumping to. I haven't seen any video of them in any. Anything that. That makes me necessarily think they're a couple, other than people insinuating they're a couple. When you saw them on camera during the little thing, they seemed like, you know, two young dumb folks chatting online and, and, and saying stupid things and, and we can talk about that too. But because it looked like, you know, that one chat that has been streaming around, I know you've seen it. I don't know if you've reposted it or not. I've seen it so many different places where someone brings up her age. They make some taunts about Epstein, about someone who's older with someone who is illegally younger. And then he wants to shut down the chat. He wants to delete all of the logs of the chat. I don't know why he thinks that this is a doable thing when you're doing this live, considering he's young and more versed in technology than I think older folks. But whatever. Somebody thought to put a body in a trunk too. I don't know if it was him, but that is the one area that points to concern about the judgment of the outside world and the law of being onto the fact that she is not of age and he is. Is older. I guess that would make someone panic the way he did. But it could also be, I don't want people to think that if we're friends, and you wouldn't want anybody to think that in any way, shape or form, especially if there's nothing going on. It doesn't completely definitively say to Anyone? These two were a couple.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Right?

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah, again, but that still doesn't say anything. Also, Rihanna has that same tattoo. There's a lot of people that do.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Have that and so does Lindsay Lohan. And I agree with that. But they don't have it exactly with the dot, dot, dot, the three dots after on their index fingers. And I just think that when you start adding a lot of it up, to me, the hello Kitty stuff is.

[Tony Bruski]

That's weird.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

I think that was a grooming tool. You know, they meant purportedly online through Minecraft, I believe, when she was about 12ish per records. And so. And he's still carrying on with all this. Hello Kitty. We know she loved hello Kitty. Yeah, the picture of her when she was very young with hello Kitty. And her parents have said she loved hello kitty. And he's 20 years old and he's all over hello Kitty on the floor, so.

[Tony Bruski]

Or he's. Or, or he's her gay friend. Honestly guys, that's been on my mind on this whole thing. Honestly, it really has. Yeah. And the family, her family. I'm freaked out by that family a little bit and I. Jennifer, excuse me for cutting in here, but. And I'm a big Columbo watcher. So this is what, this is where the, this is where the question comes from.

[Stacy Cole]

Todd's geeking out.

[Tony Bruski]

What if, what if somebody wanted to make it look like he did it? What if something happened at home, there was an accident, an overdose, something. And they're like, who can we pin this on? Well, here's a guy that did a. Of a body being thrown in a trunk. Again, Columbo ish, over the top. But I'm starting to wonder about how this is all adding up because so far nobody's been charged and it seems like we don't know what's going on.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Yeah, I mean my, my only response to that would be is David's response. Again, I keep asking, how do you not report the girl that, that you are supposedly least have somewhat of a relationship with? You've got tattoos together with that. Hey, she's not been around for, for a month or so. And then, by the way, where's my hundred thousand plus dollar Tesla? Where's that at? There's just a lot of things that don't add up in my view with his reaction to all of this.

[Tony Bruski]

I think you got to look at it from the perspective though too. This is a 20 some year. This is a 20 year old. This is someone who was just a teenager who fell into a bunch of money very early on in life and very formative years. He's basically not having anyone tell him no for, this is my speculation, for the last several years of his life, he's just kind of living out there expressing his art with no real guardrails. And I think in that world of the music world at that age, you got a ton of groupies that are going on. And let's just. I don't know, for lack of a better term, I don't know that she's anything more than a groupie. You know, obviously underage. But there's, you know, is she anything more than one of many that are coming and going out of his house? Whether it be anything sexual or not, just companionship, friends, you know, groupies don't always mean that they're having, you know, sex with the artist. Is it more of that where he really wouldn't notice and where is your 100,000? Sure. For us, we'd be like, where's my $100,000 Tesla? But I don't know. In that world, in that insulated land that he's been conditioned to believe is reality, I don't know that those sort of same things would stand out to him as they would to us. And look, young people, as we've seen in other cases, they don't do a lot of the common sense things that we would think to do. I look at. Look at the Co Burger case, the 911 call that took how long to make, that they decided to choose this other path of how they're going to handle it rather than reach out to authorities. It's not because they had anything to do with the crime. It's how they're thinking, how their process worked. It's different. I mean, look at the boyfriend. Look at that interview. I mean, there's a different way of thinking here. And we're applying our filter and how we would do it, I don't know. That's. That's how they do it.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

I want to say this, though. I don't think she was just a groupie. And it's not because of the, like, tattoos, but if you have a video of them, it looks like they're almost at a kitchen table talking. There is a certain, I think, familiarity and closeness that they have just for him to be streaming with her. And beyond the shush tattoo, let's talk about the song he wrote called Celeste.

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah. What do we know about that?

[Stacy Cole]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

I mean, it.

[Eric Faddis]

He.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

He didn't end up making it, if you will, but he certainly Wrote it. It's unpublished, if you will, but there's a very close and tender lyric throughout that song. And no, I don't think she was a groupie. I think they had a relationship. I think it was a sexual relationship. But I don't think that that can be proven at this point at least. Certainly we can see.

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah, there's just. There's so many questions into this case as to what exactly. Where exactly it was standing and what happened and when. Why do we not have an arrest of David as of yet? Does it mean that there is? That they just don't have the evidence to do it? That they are sitting there just as befuddled as all of us on the outside? And I'm not saying he did anything, but that's the question everybody is asking. Why hasn't he been arrested yet? What would the answer to that be?

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

The answer to that is in regard to having a relationship with a minor. As I mentioned, they fall well short without video or writing proof. So that's where that stands. And until they go through everything and remember, I don't know if you saw this interview, but David says my world was the Internet. My world, my people, my life was the Internet and social media. That's what he considers his life. Remember, he was homeschooled. He talks about that. That's where I did my homework. That's my people. I even think he says, my world, my people. So this is not somebody who was out and about going to beach parties, hanging out, you know, surfing. This was a guy that. His whole world was what we have in front of us. And that was a computer. So I think that that's very important. In other words, they've got a lot to pour through. To get some of these questions answered a lot in digital forensics takes time, and it takes a lot of accomplishment. And that's where I think, where the bureau could really come in if help in that area. As far as the murder, we know now, as of Monday, that they have an issue with causation. They're not able to determine cause. In other words, cause means bludgeoned, strangled, shot, poisoned. They don't have that right now. They seem to be concerned whether they're going to get that. That until they have causation, there's no way really for them to make the case. So that's the murder case. Now let's move on to. Wait a minute. We've got hiding of a corpse. All right, why can't they prove that? There's cameras all over this Tesla Put her in there. Well, that's when I was talking about was that Century Mode disabled and you have anything other than when the lid went up and when it went down.

[Tony Bruski]

And obviously you don't want to charge somebody early on weak charges and then they're able to get out and flee. I don't know if that's a concern or not, but obviously since no one has been arrested here, I'm going to guess are they still sound like they're trying to build a federal case here against someone like a Diddy, which obviously that didn't work out well either, but it needs to be to a certain level before you want to bring the charges. So they're not going to get out. Do you think that's what's going on here? They're just stacking it up, going, okay, when we do go in, if we do go in, there's this guy's not coming out because we have so much and we already got our eyes on him. We're not worried that he's going to go somewhere. I mean, pure speculation of what could be going on behind the scenes.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Sure. When you have a high priority or a high. Not, not priority. A high visibility case like this, no, everyone is going to be armchair quarterbacking. Eyes are going to be on it. And because of that, you got to get it right the first time. There's no second chances once you charge and the statute of limitation starts ticking. Remember that kind of happened with, with Diddy. Right. They were to the fire early and they had to get everything together. So they don't want that clock to start ticking until they have it added up. The other thing is, I'm not convinced that there wasn't more than one person involved in this. Yeah, you have a dismemberment and a guy whose life was his computer and the Internet. I just don't see him going down to Ace Hardware and ordering up a saw and, you know, Hatchet. I just. And the brutality that you talked about earlier, what kind of mentality do you have to have? Was he smart enough to realize, listen, two people can't keep a secret, or did he pick somebody that was willing to keep a secret and they did it together? I'm shocked that somebody wouldn't be talking by now, but, man, this is gruesome what they did and where did they do it? I don't think they did it in that mansion. Can you imagine the amount of blood? I'm a farm girl. We slaughtered pigs. We slaughtered cows. We slaughtered our rabbits. We slaughtered our chicken. I can tell you it's a very bloody mess and it's God awful.

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

To try. I've never, and I won't be trying to, you know, reenact that kind of scenario, but I can tell you it's horribly bloody and gross. And I don't think they did that in that house. They would never be able to cover all that up. And doubtfully in the car, just because of the configuration. Where did this all happen at and who all was involved? They've got a lot to unpack.

[Tony Bruski]

They do, they do. I was really hoping next week that we would come on and you would have like, you know, you'd be like slaughtering a pig or something and try to put it into your trunk on your nice white Tesla with the neighbors hanging out watching the whole thing.

[Stacy Cole]

Well, that's where I'm a little concerned. How are you able to do this in your driveway? And the neighbors are like, huh, what are your coffin daffers up to today?

[Tony Bruski]

I'm old short quick story to end this segment. When I was playing farmer for that couple years on that farm, we had pigs. I remember this story. And they died.

[Stacy Cole]

I need to go do something different now.

[Tony Bruski]

No, this is good. And they died and they were, I mean, they were heavy. It made me understood, made me go, why the hell do, why are serial killers enjoying this shit? Because, I mean, the smell's horrible. But number two, a dead body, dead weight is so difficult to move around. And I don't have any experience with bodies other than these pigs. And I had to like, I had to take the four wheeler strap, put straps around the pig to move it because I couldn't lift the damn thing into anything or even like physically get it going off the ground. And I was like, Jesus Christ. I have a new respect for serial killers and people who've moved bodies because this shit is not easy. And I can't imagine anybody going, let's keep doing that, but you know, gotta.

[Stacy Cole]

Work out and be in shape to.

[Tony Bruski]

Do that, you know, I was more at that point in time too. And it was still, it was a lot. It was difficult. But there's still a week, gents. If you change your mind, let me know.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

I can't do it. Oh my God, she is so reach.

[Tony Bruski]

Out to a farmer and, you know, we'll have a, we'll have a barbecue after it. After you get it in the, the Tesla, we'll have a little cookout.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

My whole family is farmers. We still have all of our farms. Yeah, I could easily make it Happen. And, no, I am not going to.

[Stacy Cole]

Thank you for that.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Somewhere somebody actually wrote that they're going to have nightmares over my reenactment of going into the. I'm like, really? This is a crime? Okay.

[Tony Bruski]

You should do like a Jack in the Box. You just pop out of the trunk.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Surprise.

[Tony Bruski]

Coffin Daffer in a car. Yeah. Jennifer Coffendaffer, retired FBI special Agent. As always, thank you so much for coming on and giving us your insight into this case. It's. It's crazy. Let's move on and continue the conversation. But now for more of a legal perspective, we have a missing girl, a body in the trunk of a Tesla, and a rising music star at the center of it. All right, now, no one has been charged. The cause of death, it's still pending, but questions are stacking up about timeline, silence, and whether justice is coming at all. As you heard Jennifer Coffendaffer recently say. Yeah, this thing, we may not know exactly what was the cause of death. That's the medical examiner. I'm kind of paraphrasing that today. Now we'll be joined by criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor Eric Faddis to unpack the legal fault lines in this case involving Celeste Rivas Hernandez and the artist known as David. So let's start here. I know you've been watching this thing. What does the law see here? And more importantly, what are we still waiting for in terms of charges legally against somebody?

[Eric Faddis]

Yeah, Tony, I think the law sees a lot of holes so far in this case based largely on how things went down and the possible timeline. Like you said, that there's. There hasn't been a cause of death determined. There hasn't been a manner of death determined in terms of, you know, the prosecution, that they need probably to have something along those lines from a coroner, a medical examiner saying how this person perished. Otherwise, we're potentially looking at charges for actions taken after her demise, which would be much less serious.

[Tony Bruski]

Much less serious, but, I mean, it's serious nonetheless. You got a body in the trunk of the car that you own, but if you were to go in and press charges, you certainly would want those. Want those to stick. What are the risks of. If they were to go in and just theoretically charge David for having a body dismembered in the trunk of his car, and that's, you know, whatever charge that technically would be. What are the risks of jumping in with that right now without anything beyond that?

[Eric Faddis]

You know, it's problematic in part because the charges would probably be something like abuse of A corpse or concealment or obstruction of an investigation, Something along those lines. And while those, like you said, are serious, probably in the. In the felony neighborhood, they're not homicide. Now, if they did charge this soon, one concern is that they would have much less access to David. David would either hire his own attorney or be appointed one. And from there, you can't talk to him directly, you can't interview him. And so a number of hurdles would pop up if there was a charge at this sort of preemptive stage.

[Tony Bruski]

But aren't those hurdles already there? He has started hiring some high power attorneys to represent him at this point.

[Eric Faddis]

Sure, yeah. I mean, there are a number of hurdles in this case that could make things more difficult, but they're already extremely difficult for the prosecution. It's a huge uphill battle. How in the world did this poor young girl's body get into this vehicle and in the condition that it was in when it was found? All of these are really important questions for which I haven't seen any reports showing answers.

[Tony Bruski]

Is there a level of concern about liability for the LAPD if they were to go in too quick, really, with anything because of the nature of the case, because of the nature of how high profile it is. If this were David without a four in the middle of where the A is supposed to be, and it was just, you know, David Jones down the road that really, you know, works out at the defunct family video, would he be arrested by now, or are they being more cautious because of the nature of this, do you think?

[Eric Faddis]

I think that's a good insight, Tony. I think they are being more cautious now. Oftentimes the prosecution has significant immunity when it comes to charging decisions. And if they got something wrong, they got it wrong. And oftentimes, a layperson, a regular David, might not have the resources to pursue the government for their errors. Here we have this superstar who purportedly has significant resources, and. Yeah, so any misstep on behalf of the police would be scrutinized by his legal team, and they would look for exceptions to that immunity. And there are exceptions to potentially go after the police if the police do charge him and get it wrong.

[Stacy Cole]

I wonder if I'm about to ask a really obscure question, but how many. And you may not know the answer to this, but how many times does law enforcement come across a body in a trunk, do you think? I mean, because this is. Seems unusual, but maybe this is a fairly common occurrence.

[Eric Faddis]

Bodies come up in the most unexpected of places sometimes. You know, when I was a prosecutor, we would Go out on death calls where there was a body that was in an apartment and it appeared to have been there for weeks or even potentially more than a month. Oftentimes bodies surface in bodies of water, things like that. You know, sometimes they are found in places where unhoused people congregate and that kind of thing. So, yeah, coming across a body is not unusual, even in circumstances where it's in a car or some other locale. Not uncommon at all.

[Tony Bruski]

I mean, right now we have a body in a trunk. We have dismemberment of a body. Whoever did this, there are certainly charges to be made for something here. I mean, what sort of charges would we be looking at right now before they can even get to the area of possibly murder? And might we never even get to murder if there's not enough evidence that points to murder?

[Eric Faddis]

You know, some of those charges could include. We look at the Robert Durst case, which is a very publicized case. There was an HBO documentary on it. He was charged with murder and with dismemberment of a body, or I'm not even sure if he was charged with the dismemberment itself, but. But really the only thing that they could prove was his actions after the individual died. And so here, some of those charges that could come up for actions post death death are abuse of corpse or the California equivalent, obstruction of investigation. Because you're essentially trying to hide evidence, potentially destruction of evidence. Those things can come up. But yeah, sometimes the investigation doesn't elucidate how the victim died. And when you don't have that information, sometimes you only can go on what happened after the fact that you can prove. And so we may not even see some kind of murder investigation, and we don't even know for sure that it was a murder at this point.

[Tony Bruski]

No. I mean, what does it tell you when the medical examiner comes out just as the other day and says, we may never know the actual cause of death?

[Eric Faddis]

I think that's kind of telegraphing for the public, like, hey, all eyes are on this case. The public wants justice. They want to know what happened to this poor girl. And I think the medical examiner is sort of priming them for a possible future revelation that, hey, not only do we not know the cause of death, but without that critical predicate fact, which is almost necessary in most homicide investigations, we might not even get to the homicide phase or a homicide charge. And I think they're sort of softening the blow of that preemptively by this statement.

[Tony Bruski]

I mean, does that tell us that there is nothing in the toxology. Does that tell us that there's no visible wounds to what is left of the corpse that could be attributed directly to death? Like there's not a bullet in the head or things of that nature that would be conclusively tied to a homicide or an intentional homicide of some sort, or even a suicide maybe, you know.

[Eric Faddis]

The medical examiner has an incentive to come forward with. With any inculpatory evidence, incriminating evidence that it might have about how that this person died. And so when they come forward and say, hey, we don't really have anything to give you, that tells me they didn't find any significant evidence of strangulation. They didn't find evidence of a gunshot wound. They didn't find conclusive evidence of a stabbing or something like that. They probably didn't find evidence of a poisoning or of a drug overdose. Otherwise the toxicology report may have revealed that and they may have reported that. So them being this tight lipped about it kind of tells me that unfortunately they might have nothing at this point.

[Stacy Cole]

Boy, that's disturbing. But again, you know, I go back to the Ellen Greenberg case, you know, so, yes, I want to believe the medical examiner, I really do. But are they trying to hide something? And I'm not saying that they are, but I just. There's always this now element of now I question things and I never questioned before. So I don't know.

[Eric Faddis]

Stacey, I think you're right to do that. We've had several cases come forward where the medical examiner either doesn't have an answer or the answer they initially give is it appears to be wrong, like in the Allen Greenberg case. And so I think there's more scrutiny upon medical examiners to look at what they're doing, look at what their findings are, how they conducted their analysis, what their conclusions might be, and how valid those conclusions are. And I think it's important to kind of pick that apart and, you know, does. Is it at least possible that they got it wrong, that they missed something? Could there be a second autopsy even from defense? There could. So this might not be the last word on the medical examination of Celeste.

[Tony Bruski]

Bob, how difficult is it to determine if there was some sort of physical altercation or some sort of physical trauma to a body that would have caused death? When the body is literally in pieces.

[Eric Faddis]

You know, it's incredibly hard because not only is the body itself disjointed, but on top of that, it is eroded, it is decomposed. There might have been biological signs that may not exist anymore. For example, there could have been DNA transfer from the culprit, but some of that could have eroded such that it is no longer testable. You know, they need to, of course, look under the fingernails of Celeste, if they can, that they need to look at any sort of bruising that appears unnatural. But that's going to be really hard because of the, the state the body was in when they found.

[Tony Bruski]

When you see that this body was literally in the trunk, the front of his car on a busy road, obviously it's going to get towed at some point, and it did. What does that tell you about whoever did this? I mean, is that screaming catch me. And I'm not saying it's David who did it, but whoever did it screaming catch me. Or is this just utter, just stupidity of not thinking, you know, one step ahead, that you put a body in a frunk of a car and you leave it on the road for a handful of days, the car's gonna get towed at some point, you'd think legally.

[Eric Faddis]

I think there are multiple possible interpretations. One possible interpretation is that David was, you know, a young guy, he was 20 or so, and he was dumb and he wasn't thinking about the consequences. He was going on tour, he's obsessed with his other life and he just sort of made a really stupid mistake by putting this serious evidence in his vehicle. That's one. A second possible interpretation is that someone was trying to frame data and say that, hey, look how obvious it is. There's a dead body in the star's car, must be him, go after him and leave me alone. A third potential interpretation is that, that there was just, yeah, some sort of incompetence on behalf of whoever was involved in this. And they, you know, maybe they're in Ecuador now, who knows? So there's a number of ways that this can be read, none of which are very clear, none of which are very helpful for the prosecution.

[Tony Bruski]

I mean, it just, it seems, it seems highly unlikely to me that it was David that put the body in the trunk or in the front of the car.

[Stacy Cole]

It just doesn't obvious.

[Tony Bruski]

It's too obvious. So what my mind goes to is a fixer of, you know, he's got the money, he's got his posse, he's got his group, and, you know, and they all seem to be, for the most part, fairly young and inexperienced in life. I'm wondering if, like he had his fixer, you know, that has never had to fix anything like this before, but, you know, also young and Dumb and Uncle and understanding that they do chalk the tires of cars on streets and do tow them. But being young and dumb may be completely unaware of this little factoid, considering they've only been driving for about four years of their lives. So it makes me wonder if, just if there were other people involved in this, how many people were involved in this in terms of trying to cover this up? Does this. Does this scream to you like this is some sort of evil, maniacal, we gotta kill her and hide the body? Or is it like, shit, something happened. Now we gotta, you know, cover this? Although Weekend at Bernie's, but in a really bad way.

[Eric Faddis]

Yeah, my read on it, and this is just speculation at this point, just my opinion is that it looks to me like there was some. Something horrible that happened. I don't know if this was an accident, a drug overdose, a domestic violence issue that got worse. Something horrible happened, and then folks sort of scrambled to say, God, what can we do about this? Well, if we dismember her, maybe it'll be more difficult for the police to conduct an analysis. And I don't know where else to put her in this busy, congested LA city. Perhaps we just hide her in the front of this car for the moment and cross our fingers and try to come up with a different plan. No other plan arose, and here we are. That's kind of my take, but again, that's. That's just my opinion.

[Stacy Cole]

Let's say maybe. Oh, sorry, Tony. I'm just. I wonder if I watched a little too much Scooby Doo here, but I just feel like this is so freaking obvious that to me, it feels like somebody is trying to frame him for this, that maybe he was getting too popular and becoming too much of a threat. So I'm trying to create, like, some musical competition here. I just, I. I feel like this is so freaking obvious. Why would you hide a body in your own car?

[Eric Faddis]

What?

[Stacy Cole]

I mean, go rent a car, go steal a car, go dump in the.

[Tony Bruski]

Don't put a body in a car.

[Stacy Cole]

Well, there. Yeah, go put it in the woods or something. Go dump it in a river. There's so many options. Why put it in that car that's registered to him? So to me, it just seems like Shaggy and Scooby need to come up with a different version of this. It doesn't feel right. Something just seems too obvious.

[Eric Faddis]

Oh, totally. And no, I hear you, Stacey. And, you know, thinking about, hey, if there was something else going on, you know, my understanding is Celeste was unfortunately kind of a wayward teen for whatever reason. And sometimes you come in contact with some unsavory folks and perhaps, perhaps something happened and those unsavory folks knew she had a connection with David. Well, hey, what's a really good way to get the heat off of us? Let's put it on somebody else. You know, breaking into a car is not terribly hard. There are ways that this could have been done in a frame job and someone else is the culprit and David is getting the heat. Now, that's a possibility, let's say.

[Stacy Cole]

That's where I'm leaning. That's, that's just, I'm looking at everything that everybody is saying, and I just, just feel like this is somebody who has a vendetta against him somehow for some reason that we don't know. And it just. Let's get the pressure off of us. Just like you said, Eric. Let's, let's put it on someone else. It's going to take the attention away from us.

[Tony Bruski]

Let's say it's all young and dumb. Let's say it was panic, it was frantic. We don't know what to do. And they're all, you know, and it was, it was an accident or it was an overdose or something of that nature, and they're trying to cover it up for whatever reason there may be. And there does seem to be plenty of reason to not put this young girl in the presence of David in any sort of legal standpoint, considering the age difference. Let's say it is all that. There wasn't a murder. Is that sellable? Is that something that, how would that be looked at from a legal standpoint?

[Eric Faddis]

Yeah, you know, it reminds me again of the Bob Durst case where he allegedly had an altercation with like, a roommate or someone who was living in his apartment complex. He's, Robert Durst says it was self defense. And then Robert Durst kills him and dismembers his body. And then, you know, argued to the jury that, hey, Robert Durst, there was this horrible thing that happened. It was self defense. Robert Durst didn't know what to do. He may have done exercise bad judgment, but that's not the same as being guilty of killing this person. So there are arguments that can be made even if there was some involvement after the fact with her body. And so, yeah, even though it's not a warm and fuzzy type of argument to be made, it's something that defense sometimes has to do, and jurors have been receptive to it in the past.

[Tony Bruski]

How missing do you think she actually was, because now the timeline kind of got a bomb thrown into it. Just the other of she's been missing for a year. I mean, and again, we gotta run this through the prism of what's been reported, what's officially been said, and what reality may be that just has not come out into the public sphere yet. But she was reported missing on April 5, and then five months later, she's caught on her security camera at the house where she was reported missing from arguing with the neighborhood. Now, Coffendaffer kind of explained that a bit, too, of like, yeah, when they're reported missing and they're found or they show back up, you don't necessarily have a found report that gets filed. But I guess I'd be really curious to know what the hell's going on with her family or not going on with her family for this to be out there that she's been missing. But was she really missing, or was it. It just, you know, she kind of did whatever the hell she wanted to do. And there really were no guardrails for this. This young woman. Or maybe there were guard. I don't know. Maybe it was just a really bad home. I have no idea. Because obviously, she was a runaway many a time, so there's many reasons for that.

[Eric Faddis]

Totally. You know, I think missing might be kind of a misnomer in this case, because, you know, she was there. There's evidence that she's not, you know, not missing. Her whereabouts are not completely unknown. They were known by some at least five months after the date that she was reported missing. You know, it seemed like she was kind of a runaway minor at the time. And unfortunately, that happens all the time in every significant city in America. So, you know, the fact that she was a runaway usually means she's looking for a place to stay. She's looking for resources. She's looking for support. And unfortunately, those poor young folks can fall into some pretty ominous hands under those circumstances. I fear that may have happened to Celeste.

[Tony Bruski]

Right now, David has said nothing. As a defense attorney, would you advise him just to say silent right now, or does silence start to hurt your case at some point?

[Eric Faddis]

You know, if I was his counsel, I would absolutely recommend that he continue to not make any sort of statement to the government, not subject himself, himself to some kind of interview. He's already in a decent legal position as it is because he has at least an alibi in terms of when her body was found. He was out on tour. What I might do, though, is defense can always issue A statement. They can issue a statement to the government. They can issue a statement publicly. It can be very brief. It can say, hey, David is devastated by the loss of Celeste here, but had nothing to do with her demise. It was out of the country when her body was found. It could be as easy as that. But even if you do that, you're admitting some association with Celeste while she was a minor. So there are pitfalls there, too. It might be best to just kind of clam up and say, hey, government, it's your job to prove this. Have at it. And it seems like they can't so far.

[Tony Bruski]

The reality is, though, we know there was a relationship there of some sort. We don't know the nature of it, but we have video of them, you know, on live streams together. There's video of her, you know, in different places. And. And I mean, so, I mean, it's established there's a relationship there. We don't know if it was sexual. I think that is still very much up in the air. I think that's very much up for question. I think a lot of people want to jump to conclusions, but until we actually have something definitive, we have no idea. We don't. Everybody hears a case like this and they want to jump to it. It's another R. Kelly, maybe or maybe not at all. We have no, no idea as of right now. All that being said, and we don't know those answers when they're trying to figure out what's going on here and what sort of charges can be brought, what are they gonna be looking for in terms of defining some of this to go forward, to do whatever they're gonna do, eventually somebody's, I would think, would need to be charged.

[Eric Faddis]

Well, certainly the medical examiner is going to try and analyze whether there was any evidence of sexual activity. Now, perhaps the body was in such a state that that analysis is futile. On top of that, they're going to look at the digital footprint, Tony, like you said, that there are, you know, discord chats and. And certain videos that appear to some to show Celeste and David together. They're going to look at text messages. They're. They're probably doing a search warrant for David's phone, if they haven't already. In fact, I think they have. But they're going to look at all of that digital evidence. They're probably going to look at any prior location of Celeste's devices, if they can try to triangulate those with cell phone towers, determine where she was on specific days throughout this duration during which she was allegedly missing. So there's a lot they can still try to put together to recreate this history between David and Celeste. We know there is something there, we just don't know what it is.

[Tony Bruski]

Is he missing a window here? I mean, just again, because, you know, we don't want to or he wouldn't. Legally, it's not in his best interest to be connected with a minor for obvious reasons. But if there is nothing going on here, is he missing his window here? PR wise, public wise, if he did not have anything to do with her death, to get to his fans, to get to the public and play that part of the game. Because just letting it go to the public, he'll be Jeffrey Dahmer in a week or two. The way the public goes with rumors and such. And at some point I think you want to get ahead of that, to try and steer the narrative in some direction. Hopefully you're doing it honestly. But obviously people do steer it in other ways. But is this a missing opportunity at this moment in time to speak to the public in some sort of way?

[Eric Faddis]

Tony, there's surely a concern that the social narrative about what happened or what possibly happened could work to the detriment of David in terms of his professional interests. So yeah, it would make sense. Sense if he wanted to get ahead of it and say, hey, we had, if this is true, a platonic relationship. Keep in mind, David wasn't some 40 year old guy. He was like 20. It wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for him to be platonic friends with someone younger. Whether that's appropriate or not, it's a different question. But on the flip side, his Spotify ratings and listenership has exploded. That there have been. He's received a lot of attention and arguably some professional benefits from this entire situation, as grotesque as that might be to look at it that way.

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah.

[Eric Faddis]

So perhaps keeping the mystery going and having this sort of intrigue in some perverse way could serve his professional interests.

[Tony Bruski]

Could.

[Stacy Cole]

Could.

[Tony Bruski]

All you gotta do is put a body in your trunk and boom, you get the listen.

[Stacy Cole]

Well, I was just gonna say, is this a new marketing channel?

[Tony Bruski]

Oh, gosh, I think, yeah.

[Stacy Cole]

Do I need to leave now? Should I show myself out?

[Tony Bruski]

I mean, R. Kelly, I think his music, like Spike Michael Jackson's, you see this in cases like, I mean, then it drops, usually dramatically. It's like a whoo and then a oh. And I think some of that just comes too from obviously, R. Kelly and Michael Jackson are very different caliber artists than David Was. But I would imagine in some cases like this, it's more or so folks over the age of 30 going, who the hell's David?

[Stacy Cole]

Yeah.

[Tony Bruski]

And like, what is this?

[Stacy Cole]

We're just doing that with bad bunny too. So I don't know what a bad bunny is, is what I was hearing. So, yeah, that happens.

[Tony Bruski]

So you mean. I don't know. You may have some of that. One more question on this one before we move on to a conversation about Diddy. If Celeste had been your client, if her family were your client right now or your daughter, what would you be demanding right now of this investigation?

[Eric Faddis]

Good question. I would be demanding that all search warrants that can lawfully be issued be issued for the premises where David was staying for his digital devices, for Celeste, digital devices. On top of that, my understanding is a lot of Teslas maintain digital data that can show when a vehicle was unlocked, when a vehicle was moving, when it was parked, that kind of thing. On top of that, investigation into all of Celeste's friends. Certainly they need to investigate David and his, his team. But, but Celeste friends, that's, that's who people, 17 year olds or whatever that. Or maybe 15. Excuse me. Yeah, a young people confide in their friends like that. I would make sure that all that investigation was happening and if it wasn't, I would have my own team with their private investigators uncovering everything they could possibly uncover and to make sure this is a diligent and comprehensive investigation and see if any answers can be gleaned.

[Tony Bruski]

Hopefully they'll. We'll find out some information soon and hopefully for those who did care about her, they will get that. That information as well. Let us know your thoughts in the comment section on YouTube if that's where you are watching us. And put be sure to press subscribe wherever you're downloading podcasts so you don't miss any of our continuing coverage on this case. Let's go on to Diddy. It's a case. It's no longer about guilt. That part's done. What happens next is where the real weight comes in. Federal prosecutors won over a decade behind bars. The defense just over a year. And the judge, well, he's about to decide how much of Diddy's past gets to show up in the future. Eric Faddis, criminal defense attorney, former prosecutor, with us to break down what that sentence sentencing really means as we're on the eve of it. You may be listening or watching this after the sentencing has been done, so keep that in mind. But we're gonna talk about the possibilities here of what could be going on with our judicial system when you have power, fame, and federal law all colliding. Let's start there. The government wants over 11 years for Diddy. Diddy's team wants about 14 months. Months. How does a federal judge begin to split the difference in a case like this? Eric?

[Eric Faddis]

Yeah, Tony. I mean, clearly there is really a chasm between what the prosecutors want and sends and what the defense wants. That's not uncommon. The judge is going to look at a number of factors. They're just going to look at the seriousness of the convictions, not necessarily the charges, especially the charges on which he wasn't convicted. They're going to look. The judge is going to look at that. The relative lack of criminal history. You know, defense is arguing, hey, Diddy has made serious contributions to the community. That's something the judge can look at. And very significantly, the judge is going to consider the victim's position. My understanding is Cassie has submitted a letter talking about how this traumatized her and how she's afraid of things in the future. Judges give great weight to what victims say and what their position is at sentencing. So he's gonna have to balance all of those considerations and come to a number.

[Tony Bruski]

Is he gonna be considering people beyond the individuals in this case? I mean, I know may not be supposed to be doing that, but I'm wondering, you know, he's a human being. Will they be doing that? Because you have a lot of other people who have made accusations, who have civil suits. There's, you know, there's. There's a plethora. I mean, just look at all the people who came out against Diddy in this process, in all of these documentaries, all these people who have said pretty horrible things about Diddy. And if he's a free man and he has ungodly amounts of money still, there's a lot of things he could do to those people if he were to be vindictive. Of course you don't. That would certainly. I would think there'll be a tight eye on that. You can't just have carte blanche to go and go after your enemy. But people have done it, and there's passive ways of doing it that could be somewhat legal. There's a lot of fear that is out there for anyone who's interacted with Diddy and has spoken out against Diddy and their interactions or exposed Diddy for what he has done or has allegedly done in the past. How much weight is the judge gonna be giving all of that as A collective, including Cassie Ventura's victim impact statement, which she went on. And that was a very powerful letter talking about her fear and the trauma that she still endures to this day after having been with Diddy. And a warning to the court as well, saying, he's going to keep offending.

[Eric Faddis]

You know, certainly the judge can consider the level of dangerousness that the defendant poses to the public in deciding what the sentence should be. Like you said, we have that letter from Cassie where she said, hey, I'm afraid something's going to happen, like he could hurt me or somebody else. You know, I bet Diddy behind bars was fuming when, when these hundred plus accusers came forward and he's in a little box just sort of twiddling his thumbs with not much efficacy. So is there a concern that if he were released, he would wreak vengeance upon these folks? Surely that is a concern. That being said, the judge should not consider sort of unproven civil allegations, especially when lawsuits are ongoing. The judge would be wrong, I think, to say, hey, hey, there's 100 people plus who came forward accusing him of stuff, so he must be a super bad dude. I'm gonna lock him up for a long time. I think that that would be unjust. But other jurists might disagree.

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah, I mean, the prosecution wants the court to apply a cross reference for sex abuse, but he wasn't convicted for sex abuse. I mean, how is that even on the table?

[Eric Faddis]

Right. I think that's a really important question because, you know, the judge, judge can take a holistic view in fashioning a sentence for a defendant, can take into consideration of the defense history, that kind of thing. But the judge typically shouldn't give weight to unproven accusations that a jury rejected in this exact same trial. Certainly there were some inflammatory claims by a lot of folks and it rubbed folks the wrong way. And it's unpleasant to talk about. But to hold that against Diddy, when the jury said, hey, there's just not enough evidence to convict victim, I think would be wrong. That might be an unsatisfying opinion for some folks to stomach. But. But I think that that is that it would be improper for the judge to consider, you know, sex trafficking in the sign of the sentence when Diddy was acquitted.

[Stacy Cole]

He just has so many people in a circle. And so all of these people who came out and spoke out against him, hoping for a different outcome for this trial, they must just be living in fear. I. Because it's not just Diddy, it's everybody around him that he has paid to be part of his entourage and still.

[Tony Bruski]

Could keep paying if, you know, like, new entourage, new folks that could jump in here, you know.

[Eric Faddis]

Yeah, oh, sure. I mean, you look at, you know, Kid Cudi, the rapper claims that that Diddy and or his accomplices threw a Molotov cocktail into Kid Cudi's vehicle. And this was years ago, and this was simply for, you know, Kid Cudi being with Cassie Ventura at the time. So, my gosh, if someone, you know, we're talking about cheating on the one hand, or maybe not even cheating, and then on the other hand, we're talking about these people who have put him in a box for over a year. That is a pretty unpleasant circumstance. He would be 10 times as mad, potentially. He has the resources to do something. But, you know, this defense is going to argue, hey, he's been through the wringer. He's just going to try to move on with his life, and he's not interested in that retribution. And the judge is going to have to see which side he believes is.

[Stacy Cole]

Would there be any protection for any of the people who spoke out against him? I mean, could they request some sort of protection from him, even though, you know, he's kind of innocent on some charges?

[Eric Faddis]

You know, so there is likely going to be at least some prison sentence, and from there, there's going to be a parole tail after that. Parole as like probation, a person is supervised. That is almost certainly going to happen. And. And as a condition of parole or probation, it's not uncommon to have protection orders and to have no contact orders with not only victims, but also witnesses who kind of, you know, stuck there, put their neck on the line for this prosecution, which ultimately failed in large part. So those folks would be understandably fearful, and the judge could fashion some conditions preventing contact between Diddy and those folks.

[Stacy Cole]

Yeah, but, you know, people break through those all the time, too. So.

[Tony Bruski]

I mean, and I think what the public needs to remember here, he wasn't convicted of anything to do with the Cassie video. That was just pieces of evidence. That was not the crime that was being charged. There's never been. He's never been. Been charged with anything for that crime.

[Stacy Cole]

And that.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

That.

[Stacy Cole]

That was so hard for the public to see. That was hard for.

[Tony Bruski]

But that's what he remembers. That's. Everybody thinks of. I mean, and it's real. I mean, it's not like that didn't happen. So there's a lot of legal gymnastics going on. There's a phrase that the feds are using a Lot here. Conduct that establishes the offense of conviction. Can you translate that for people who feel like this sounds like legal. Jim, die gymnastics. And, you know, we're kind of hiding things under the shelves and, oh, where is it now? I mean, what is. What does that mean and what is going on?

[Eric Faddis]

That, to me, seems like a phrase that they're trying to use to broadly encompass any sort of negative evidence against Diddy that they want the judge to consider. I mean, look, looking at that video, it's not a. It doesn't meet an element of interstate transportation for prostitution. It's not a constituent part of the conviction that was sustained. But I think the prosecution is saying, hey, this is part of the larger saga here. This is part of who did he is and his dangerousness. Judge, you need to consider this. Of course, defense is saying, hey, there wasn't even a charge based on this. And this is sort of inflammatory stuff and not related to what his punishment should be for transporting someone across state lines to have sex with his girlfriend.

[Tony Bruski]

Well, obviously they didn't throw out the conviction. They wanted that the other day. The judge said, nope, you are you. We're not throwing this out. If you're the defense attorney in this case, how do you argue for mercy when the court and the public has already heard the stories, seen the stories, watch the video of the abuse that this man doled out to Cassie on camera and all the accusations that we have heard over the years?

[Eric Faddis]

I think, first off, you own some of that. You say, hey, look, Diddy is a flawed person. He has made some terrible choices. He has had a negative impact on a lot of people he came across with, including people that loved him. And that's a problem. But that is not something for which you should be putting him in a box for 11 years. You know, these complicated relationships and that kind of thing, that's one thing. But what we're talking about is what should his punishment be for transporting a male escort across state lines to have sex with his girlfriend? And I would argue if I was his counsel, that, hey, this is tantamount to like a state level prostitution charge. And had we been in that forum, he would have got maybe probation, maybe nothing at all. And so, Judge, you know, we need to kind of keep the focus on that for which he's been convicted and not just everything under the sun that people say is bad about Diddy.

[Tony Bruski]

Is there going to be appeals immediately on this? Like, let's say he does, no matter what he gets. Let's say he gets five years. Let's Cut the difference that. I mean, as to what you just said, and playing devil's advocate, I'm not in any way sticking up for Diddy, but let's say he gets the five years or something of that nature. If we're playing by the rules of the game, you're exactly right. If this weren't Diddy, if this were, you know, Chuck, you know, I don't know, whatever, you know, from Brooklyn, who was doing this with no fanfare, no fame, nothing. Yeah, it could very easily be nothing, but it's Diddy. And then there's these other things out here in the ether that point to him being a bad dude. But again, they had nothing to do with the charges of what he had been convicted on. So you have all of that playing here in the ether. Is it the fame? Is that playing against him in this, in terms of what his sentencing may end up being?

[Eric Faddis]

It could be. You know, I think with a lot of defendants, these prior interactions, these prior alleged bad acts, are not necessarily unearthed to the court. They're not unearthed to the entire world the way that they were for Diddy. And I think, you know, for the prosecution, you're arguing that, hey, his fame, his prestige, if you want to call it that, his influence only makes him more culpable. You know, should have. If anyone should have avoided this, it should have been him. And then on the defense side, I think you say, hey, look, he's been turned into a pariah. And there was this sensationalist, inflammatory indictment. We thought we were going to see these, you know, Caligula esque orgies and people in sexual servitude and chains. None of that happened, Judge. And he cannot be punished for those accusations that were never proven. So I think the fame part can cut both ways.

[Tony Bruski]

Go ahead, Stacy.

[Stacy Cole]

Does his. I. I guess what I'm. I'm trying to ask, does his past and. And things like the video that we saw with Cassie, do those play a role in the sentencing, or do we have to keep them separate? I mean, do you think the judge is thinking in his head, there are these other things that we've seen that actually exist as facts, even though they didn't really pan out during the trial. Do those things get taken into account during the sentencing phase?

[Eric Faddis]

It's a really important question because look at the allegations that he or an associate of his bombed Kid Cudi's car. Well, there was no conviction based on that. That's an extremely dangerous act. Somebody bombed the car. There's videos of it, pictures, rather, and so, but can we hold that against Diddy in this trial? I think the judge. Judge should be cautious about doing that. You know, on the other hand, the judge does get to consider the dangerousness of the defendant if he is let out and that was an act of alleged retaliation. Could there be more retaliation down the line? So there's not a bright line rule as to how the judge can look at that. It's going to come down to a human being sitting on that bench and having to make a really tough decision while the entire world watches. Watches.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

Yeah.

[Tony Bruski]

Diddy's team is arguing, and they're going to argue that he's already served some harsh time at MDC in Brooklyn. Feds are obviously saying, no, not enough. Does that time serve there at that crumbling federal jail? Is that going to buy some goodwill at sentencing? Is there. Is there going to be some time served added or not added on, but taken into consideration and basically shaved off whatever sentence he may get?

[Eric Faddis]

Oh, yes. In all likelihood, he will receive credit for the time he has served. So, you know, for example, if there was a one year prison sentence, he's already served, I think more than a year now.

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah.

[Eric Faddis]

In. In custody, he's going to get credit for that. If there's a three year sentence, people might say, oh, gosh, well, you know, it's going to be three years. Well, no, it's going to be two years and it's probably going to be less than two years because some of that time. Time, he's not going to have to do the full duration of the time. Even in the federal system, there are accommodations for good time and reasons for folks to be let out, that kind of thing. So, yeah, that's going to work to his advantage. His attorneys are going to say, hey, look, he has been in a box for the past year based on asking somebody to come across the state lines and have sex with his girlfriend. Enough is enough. Judge is the way defense goes down.

[Stacy Cole]

Well, and that's fair that if he's already, I mean, he's serving the time. So to me, that seemed. That feels fair on the outside as a layperson. But I don't know, just when you.

[Tony Bruski]

Consider the overall monster that a character that, you know, he appears to be based on hundreds of accounts, it doesn't. But that's where the reality is. It strikes us very harsh. There has been some talk that Diddy might speak at his sentencing. In your experience, when you got to defend it like this, get up and talk, does that ever help in terms of sentencing or pr it can really.

[Eric Faddis]

Help, and it can really hurt. It's such a gamble because especially somebody like Diddy who. Who's been able to kind of pop off and say whatever he wants. He had all this money, all this fame. He could. He's sent controversial stuff in the past, and he feels empowered to do that. You know, could he go off the rails and say something that really damages his. His chances and sentencing? He could. On the other hand, if I was his counsel, I would encourage him to own some of the things that. That are not disputable and take accountability and show remorse for those things. You know, he should come out and say, hey, look, I abused Cassie in that video. That was wrong. I laid my hands on a woman in a very violent fashion. I horribly regret that. And that that had an impact on Cassie without question. And I've had negative impacts on other people, too, and I'm not proud of that, and I'm really sorry for that judge. And then you go into sort of the more favorable mitigation that they can talk about, like a lack of criminal history, contributions to the community, philanthropic and otherwise, and you balance out that accountability with some favorable information. That's one way to play it, but a gamble nonetheless.

[Tony Bruski]

There are still countless civil suits against Diddy. His legal nightmares are not over yet. How do you think the future plays out in terms of that world of these civil suits that are going to exist? Are some of those going to fall away because he was found not guilty on some of the more serious charges in this case? Or is this litigation just gonna continue to go on and on and on? And I guess, you know, with the fact that there are a lot of those things that are out there, and it seems that some of the civil suits led to these initial charges, I mean, could we end up seeing a repeat of this on a federal level again or on a state level or something? In.

[Eric Faddis]

In the criminal world, you know, those civil systems, there are cases that can look really good on paper. And I think the federal prosecutors thought, hey, this case looks really good on paper. But then when you get in that gauntlet of trial, things are different. You know, things might not go how you expect. You might have one of your main witnesses not even show up like the federal government had. I think it gives the civil claimants pause laws, because they might say, hey, look, I thought this was super solid. But we saw how something believed to be super solid played out in federal court in Diddy's favor that might have some of these claimants second guessing, hey, can I prove These charges at trial, especially the ones that are from years or more than a decade ago, where there's probably scant evidence that they can compile at this point, perhaps it leads to more settlements of those claims. I think the advantage goes to Diddy in terms of how this gets case can potentially affect those civil cases.

[Tony Bruski]

When the. When the sentence drops, what are you going to be listening for in the judge's language?

[Eric Faddis]

You know, I'm sure the judge is going to speak to the impact that. That these. That this case has had on the victims, on Cassie Ventura and the other woman, her name escapes. Escapes it, but he's going to talk about that. And I think he's probably might even lead off with that by saying, hey, this is a process where you came in here and Cassie was pregnant when she did this. That would be terribly uncomfortable for her, talking about embarrassing private matters. I think the judge is going to speak to that. And then I think the judge is likely going to also balance that by saying, hey, look, I've got a sentence based on what this conviction is not based on him blowing up a car, not based on 100 civil suits. I've got a sentence based on, you know, he brought two prostitutes, sex workers, across state lines, and they had sex with his girlfriends at the time. That is just. They're just. They just aren't the crimes of the century.

[Tony Bruski]

Okay, one more question, and we'll go around the circle for this one. When Diddy's free, whenever that may be, what does the future of Diddy look like in the public eye? Eric?

[Eric Faddis]

Oh, that's. That's a. That's a big question. You know, of course, it could be that his reputation is so impaired that he will never return to the former status that he enjoyed. Alternatively, you know, America loves the story of redemption, and I'm not saying Diddy is necessarily deserving of that, but. But that could be a direction these things go. You know, we look at Louis ck We look at Kevin Spacey, they're starting to come back. Back in to sort of mainstream work, rightly or wrongly. And so folks who have been debased before because of their own actions, that's not always the final chapter here. And I'm not sure it's gonna be the final chapter for Diddy.

[Stacy Cole]

Stacy, I have two words for you. Chris Brown.

[Tony Bruski]

Still going. Yep, still going.

[Stacy Cole]

As a woman, I'm repulsed by it.

[Jennifer Coffendaffer]

It.

[Stacy Cole]

Especially because we saw that video. I can't get that video out of my head. It's my worst nightmare. It really is. And I can't forgive him for that. I just can't. So I'm not one of his fans and I will never be one of his fans, to quote Mommy Dearest Movie. But no, I will never be one of his fans.

[Tony Bruski]

Todd, I don't think I have to even say anything after that statement because Chris Brown is a perfect example of somebody who did some horrible stuff who is bigger now than he was then.

[Stacy Cole]

Yeah, what the hell.

[Tony Bruski]

Yeah, I'm going to hope. I think I'm wrong. I think you guys are probably right. Ike Turner.

[Stacy Cole]

There you go.

[Tony Bruski]

Different, different time and place. Different, different time. I think that's the difference. Different time. People didn't, weren't, weren't up for forgiving or I don't know forgiving is even the word or just being blissfully ignorant as to what they're concern. And I think we have too much of that and not a lot of understanding of what supporting monsters looks like and what it does because it makes me feel good right now. So.

[Stacy Cole]

Oh well, yeah, can, can we throw in? We've had a lot of great people in our chat today, a few that needed a flick on the nose. But I think we should end with this. Rose City just made me giggle out loud. Diddy's music was mediocre and his clothing line not fit for Walmart.

[Tony Bruski]

I 1000% agree. You win, you win. And we'll, we'll wrap on that. Let us know your thoughts in the comment section on YouTube if that's where you're watching us. If not, join us there to search Hidden Killers with Tony Bruski to find us. And be sure to press subscribe while you are there as well so you don't miss any of the cases that we cover for you right here at the Hidden Killers Podcast and True Crime today. Until next time for Eric Stacy Todd, I'm Tony Bruski. We'll talk again real soon. Want more on this case and others? Then press subscribe now and don't miss a moment of true crime coverage from Tony Bruski and the Hidden Killers Podcast.