Loading...
Loading...

The D4vd arrest murder case is making headlines after the singer was reportedly arrested in connection with the death of teenager Celeste Rivas Hernandez. In this episode of the STS podcast, we break down everything we know so far about the D4vd arrest murder case, including the timeline, initial reports, and what authorities are saying. The D4vd arrest murder case has quickly become a major topic in true crime news, raising questions about motive, evidence, and what happens next.
We take a closer look at the details surrounding the alleged crime, the victim’s story, and how this case is unfolding in real time. As more information emerges, we connect this to broader real crime stories, ongoing cold cases, and powerful survivor stories that highlight the impact of violent crime.
If you’re following breaking cases, this episode delivers a clear, direct breakdown of the arrest, the investigation, and what could come next in this developing story.
Key Points from the Episode:
Breakdown of the D4vd arrest murder case
Details of the alleged crime involving Celeste Rivas Hernandez
Timeline leading up to the arrest
Early statements from authorities
Public reaction and media coverage
Welcome to Surviving the Survivor, the show that brings you the #BestGuests in all of #truecrime. In this STS episode, STS #BestGuests and Award-Winning Host Joel Waldman dig deeper into the story and the latest news including cadaver dogs who were dispatched to help in the search for Lynnette.
#BestGuest Breakdown:
_______________________________
Support the show & be a part of #STSNation:
Donate to STS' Trial Travel: Https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/GJ...
VENMO: @STSPodcast or Https://www.venmo.com/stspodcast
Check out STS Merch: Https://www.bonfire.com/store/sts-store/
Joel's Book: Https://amzn.to/48GwbLx
Support the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SurvivingTheSurvivor
Email: [email protected]
Hosted by Simplecast, an A...
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
America's privately owned freight railroads keep the nation on track investing $23 billion a year
six times more than the average manufacturer to deliver safe reliable service. That's how railroads
move 59 tons of goods for every American each year and help their customers grow. Railroads do
all this while offering some of the safest best-paying jobs in the country, supporting families
and driving the economy forward. Learn more at a-a-r dot org slash America's engine.
On April 21st, make the time to vote no. Abigail Spanberger and the Richmond Democrats want to
rig our congressional elections. Their monopoly map will elect 10 Democrats and only one Republican.
It's a power grab. So Spanberger and the Democrats can raise our taxes, grab our guns and give
welfare to illegal aliens. Election day is April 21st. Don't let Spanberger and the Liberals win.
Vote on April 21st, paid for by Virginians for Fair Maps RC.
No two businesses run the same, so banking for your business shouldn't be one size fits all.
That's why Atlantic Union Bank offers knowledgeable guidance and tailored solutions designed
around your goals. Whether you're managing cash flow, moving money or protecting your business
from fraud, we make banking for your business both personal and easy. Call, visit us online at
AtlanticUnionBank.com or stop by one of our local branches today. Atlantic Union Bank, anyway you bank.
Breaking now, R&B singer David, whose real name is David Anthony Burke has been arrested
in connection with the murder of 15 year old Celeste Rivas Hernandez. He goes from viral charts to
a murder investigation. So the question is, what changed after all these months and also what took
so long? Welcome to the global phenomenon, surviving the survivor, where we bring you the best
guests in all of true crime. Here's your host, Emmy award winning journalist Joel Walton.
What's up, STS Nation? Welcome to the global phenomenon that is surviving the survivor and courtroom
confidential. The first time I believe that we have dual stream with two hosts, not one, but you get
doubled for your money with Josh Ritter, famed LA criminal defense attorney. He is also a former
LA prosecutor of the year and the host as you just heard of courtroom confidential either channel.
You go to either one, you can subscribe to both. Each one is streaming breaking news about
the R&B singer David, who was literally arrested moments ago. At least the news broke just
moments ago. Obviously this is about Celeste Rivas Hernandez. A 14 year old girl, 15 at the time,
her body was discovered in the front of a Tesla in the Hollywood Hills. Of course, David,
this rising music star who has a song called Romantic Homicide at the center of it all.
And now he is under arrest, charged, being held without bond in the murder, apparently,
of Celeste Rivas Hernandez. Josh Ritter, welcome to your own show. I love the fact that we're
dual streaming here. And your reaction, I guess my question to you, because you know,
a hell of a lot more than me. Why now? Yeah, well, this is the first time we've ever tried this.
So bear with us, everybody. But I will tell you, you know how you get a zillion. At least I do news
alerts on your phone constantly. I'm being told what's happening in the war. I'm being told a bunch
of news I don't really care about sports news, everything else. I get this alert minutes ago
saying David just got arrested. And I about dropped the phone. And literally as I'm texting
my wife Tiffany to tell her and send her this link, I get a text from you saying, hey, join me.
We're going to go live on this thing right away. And so that's how quickly this is all transpired.
But you're absolutely right. This case is not, this was not a quick turnaround as far as
investing from investigation, her disappearance to her discovery to the time now that we're having
a rest. This was a very deliberate. And it actually went through the process of a grand jury.
And just to get to the into the weeds a little bit. So everybody understands what took place.
He was under an investigative grand jury. There are there. You can convene a grand jury both to
indict someone or just simply to put people on the record in a closed door environment secretly
to gather information. And that's what they were doing with this grand jury being headed up by
a DA by the name of Beth Silverman in Los Angeles. She's very, very good, very experienced DA.
They had been putting people on the record. And remember, we were getting this trickling of
information about his family members. We're trying to fight some of these subpoenas. We heard
some people who had been brought in. All of that was just to put these people on the record
essentially to get them under sworn testimony to see what they actually had to put the to
can tell them to speak under subpoena. Now that they've collected all of that, they didn't ask
the grand jury. This is just kind of interesting. They didn't ask the grand jury to indict him.
They then took that information and went around about submitting it to the DA's office. And
apparently they did that on Monday. The DA's office decided that there was probably cause
issued a complaint based upon a warrant. So they filed charges which gave them a warrant power
to now go out and arrest him, which they did earlier today. Yeah. By the way, Josh Reader,
I'm such a seasoned news veteran coming up in my 30th year that I forgot to introduce our one
and only guests that we have right now. My bad. Here is Detective Phil Ramos, three time lost
Vegas officer of the year, 15 year plus career in homicide, undercover narcotics before that. He
is the godfather of true crime. Phil Ramos, let me go to you and Josh and I will probably pepper
with pepper you with some questions here. But the timeline here is incredibly important. Let's
just go back to that to set the stage and then we'll ask why and arrest tonight. What are they
doing with him tonight? All those sorts of questions. But we have to go back to the spring of
2024. And let me just add, by the way, I reached out to Steve Fisher, who's a private investigator
for the mansion owner, David's rented mansion owner and Steve Fisher is on a plane till about
midnight Pacific time. Lauren Conlin may or may not come on. The two of them have really been
at the forefront of this story. So I'm hoping Lauren comes on. But the spring of 2024, so we're
going back two years from where we are today, essentially, 14 year old Celeste Rivas Hernandez is
reported missing. Back in May of 2024, the last known sightings, Phil Ramos of Celeste, the
timeline begins to narrow and go cold. Then she's missing. But on September 8th of 2025,
a Tesla is discovered abandoned in the Hollywood Hills. And that vehicle is registered to none other
than David, the R&B singer David Anthony Burke. The car is towed to an impound lot. No one picks up
any scent. No one knows shortly after the tow on September 8th, they open the frunk after
detecting a strong odor. And sadly, Celeste Rivas Hernandez's remains are found. So Phil Ramos,
that's September of 2025. And we are now in April of 2026. What took so long, do you think?
Well, there could be a number of things. And we won't know for sure until that. The affidavit
has released. If it wasn't, if it's not sealed by the judge, it could be DNA processing. It could
be corroborating witness information. It could be gathering more DNA samples to either include or
eliminate people. It's hard to say on a case like this when everything is literally just happening
right now. So it's a matter of once that paperwork gets filed and Josh can speak to that better
night, how long is it going to take for that information to be released to the public so that
a lot of those questions will be answered. Why what took the cop so long to get to this point?
And is this the point where they've got enough to go to trial? Or are they still going to get more
ducks in a row before they're ready to take it to a jury? Ever dealt with something like this where
they didn't use the grand jury to ask for an indictment, but they just use this simply for
investigation? And why might they do that? Yeah, it's because the grand jury is so compelling.
You can get hostile witnesses in there before, you know, they are,
you know, like in a preliminary hearing, you won't get a lot of cooperation, but in an investigative
grand jury, it speeds everything up. And there's that amount of confidentiality that nothing is
released by the investigative grand jury. So when you hear grand jury involve an investigation,
that means that they are on to something big and they want to get it done as soon as they can,
because they may be under a time crunch, you know, their witnesses may be sick or dying or
they're trying to find them. It's a hurry up. Let's go two-minute offense and let's get ready.
So yeah, and that being of grand juries are very, very helpful, but once your case is and,
you know, you're familiar with a mark of notice, you know, subject of the grand jury is notified.
Hey, we're going to seek an indictment if you want to come down and tell us your side of the story,
but once that happens, once that wheel starts turning, it's coming, baby. It's coming.
Hey, Josh Ritter, let me hop in. Thank you for that. You got a wealth of experience here.
Phil Ramos, I mean, 15 plus years in homicide and 30 plus in law enforcement, and you've got
Ritter. But Josh, apparently to you, he is now being held without bail. And this is from what
the reporting is, a murder charge, you know, or at least in connection with the murder. Just
what, I mean, obviously without, being held without bail is incredibly serious. I mean,
do we believe or think at this point that he is actually being charged with murder or,
you know, it's just, you got to delineate here. Some reporting has said in connection with the
murder, what are we to make of that? Josh, like, as opposed, you know, you're talking to me?
Yeah, no to you. I'm so sorry. I'm talking to you. Yeah.
Hell without bail and their connection with the murder or the murder. Let me clarify too,
because I actually misspoke because the way I had originally read the article, I'm now reading,
this is a tweet via acts from LAPD. They're saying that they arrested him today. This is the,
I'm going to read the exact quote and I'm sure we can find it later. But it says LAPD news,
detectives from Los Angeles police department, robbery homicide division, which is their
most elite division, RHD, have arrested David Burke, a 21 year old resident of Los Angeles for
the murder of Celeste Revis. Burke is being held without bail. So they've done that. He hasn't been
been before a judge. They're allowed to do that in certain circumstances, hold you without bail
at the jail before you ever go before anybody. This case, they go on to say the case will be presented
to the district attorney's office on Monday for filing consideration. So I thought they had submitted
it to the DA, got a warrant from the DA. This is the police have taken it upon themselves to go out
and arrest him. But I will tell you this, they have been working with the prosecutor's office for
the last what two years now that we're talking about or am I overdoing it? It seems like about
that long. Since September of 2025, April, she was last seen. So, you know, going close to a year,
you know, we're getting close to it. They've been working hand in hand with the prosecutor's office.
This isn't like something like the DA's office is going to turn this down on Monday. It's just a
matter of putting him in front of a judge on Monday. We're probably going to see him arrayed
on Monday. Yeah, there is apparently a court date scheduled from Monday today for references.
Thursday, April 16th, that would take us out to April 20th. Obviously, STS will cover that.
There are not typically cameras in the LA courtroom, but we will cover that.
Phil Ramos to you for people who are not Joshua or like myself. I mean, you've got to have
probable calls obviously to make the arrest. But where did detectives have to, where did
the homicide detectives have to get to from September of 2025 to today? Like, what did they have to
come up with in terms of tangible evidence to actually execute this arrest tonight?
Yeah, that's where the key phrase of what Josh just spoke to in the DA's office is working hand
in hand with the investigators. That means that the investigators are telling the DA, all right,
we've got ABC. How much more do we need? The DA is going to say, well, you need DE and F,
and then down the road. So they're bouncing everything off of the DA. In the DA said,
we're going to use a grandeur to get some of this evidence in processed. And it's a hand-in-hand
thing, like Joshua's saying, because they need that guidance. It's not a clear cut case of,
there's the body, there's the gun, and he's admitting to it. So it takes a long time to put a lot
of circumstances together, but you can bet that there's going to be a whole lot of information come
forward once his attorney gets involved in this and starts asking for discovery to see what the
cops have and what the DA has. Yeah, I mean, Josh Ritter to you, let's start with this. I mean,
what do you make of the strength of the case? Obviously, Phil Ramos said that the DA, who is Nathan
Hockman in LA in a very competent DA, Phil just said, you know, you have ABC and he's going to
ask for DE and F. So now that the arrest was made, what does that tell you about the strength of the
case? America's privately owned freight railroads keep the nation on track, investing $23 billion
a year, six times more than the average manufacturer, to deliver safe, reliable service. That's how
railroads move 59 tons of goods for every American each year and help their customers grow.
Railroads do all this while offering some of the safest best paying jobs in the country,
supporting families and driving the economy forward. Learn more at aar.org slash America's engine.
On April 21st, make the time to vote no. Abigail Spanberger and the Richmond Democrats want to
rig our congressional elections. Their monopoly map will elect 10 Democrats and only one Republican.
It's a power grab. So Spanberger and the Democrats can raise our taxes,
grab our guns and give welfare to illegal aliens. Election day is April 21st.
Don't let Spanberger and the liberals win. Vote on April 21st, paid for by Virginians for Fair
Maps RC. We know life is busy. That's why saving money should be effortless. With Atlantic
Union banks round up savings every time you use your debit card, your purchase rounds up to
the nearest dollar and automatically goes into savings. So whether you're grabbing coffee,
filling the tank for picking up groceries, you're saving without even thinking about it.
It's just one of the ways Atlantic Union Bank makes managing your money easy.
Learn more at AtlanticUnionBank.com or stop by a branch today.
Atlantic Union Bank. Any way, you bank.
Gosh, Ritter.
I don't think that they would make this high profile of a move.
In a case that everybody knows they're watching and not feel like it's rock solid.
But I'll be honest with you and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this.
To me, this does not look like a break in a case that came through some sort of forensics,
some piece of evidence that they may have found. They've had a considerable period of time.
If they were going to break this through DNA or forensics or the medical examiner or whatever
have you, they would have had that before now. To me, this seems like somebody said something.
In the course of this grand jury, they put the pressure on someone. Someone realized it was them
or it was going to either be the people of the state of California versus David and a
couple of co-defendants or versus David alone and they decided they knew what side of that
versus they wanted to be on and somebody gave up something during that grand jury and that's
what broke this whole thing. What do you think? Josh, let me just hop in for a quick second,
because there's this other character, Neo. Josh, you probably know more about him than I,
but he was arrested out of state. I forget which state he was in, but he was one of David's closest
friends and confidants. I mean, is the question that you were just posing to fill Ramos? Is it possible
that this guy, Neo, was being pressured by law enforcement and then obviously the prosecution
and the DA and they leaned on him so hard that he basically squealed and gave them information?
I mean, Neo, Neo sounds like he has some valuable information whether or not he was involved
in the cover-up. I don't think this was something David could have done on his own,
the disposing of a body in this type of way and the getting rid of the car and everything else
without anybody else, at least other people at least being aware of it or asking, hey,
where the heck has Celeste been by the way? There's people who definitely have information whether
or not they participated in either her death or the cover-up, we're going to find out. But this guy,
Neo, just to be clear on that, he was arrested because he failed to show up for the subpoena.
He failed to show up to the grand jury subpoena. He just kind of, he was served with the subpoena,
but said, screw it, I'm not showing up. And to Phil's point earlier, that's why these things
are so powerful. You can lock somebody up literally if they don't show up to testify,
whereas you can't do that if you're just cops out saying, hey, can I ask a few questions?
That's why these grand juries are so powerful. But again, Phil, what do you think about the
break in this, just kind of trying to read the tea leaves? Yeah, yeah, you're exactly right. That's
just what happened. A key witness with the sexual information, maybe got himself in trouble.
And now he said, hey, all right, I'll talk to you guys now where the cops came up with something
to put enough pressure on him to say, okay, you can either be a witness or you can be a suspect.
It's up to you. You decide because we could go either way with it.
So, yeah, you're right, the physical evidence has been there. And it's not likely that they were
still waiting to tie up some minor loose ends on the physical circumstantial evidence, but somebody
talked. And whatever the reason it was that they talked, the grand jury was the one who just kept
pushing them, pushed them closer to the edge of the cliff and said, okay, you either turn around and
come back or we'll see you later. Nima Rahmani has entered L.A. attorney to the stars. Actually,
he usually goes up against the stars. He is here at defense attorney from Los Angeles as his
Josh Ritter is a criminal defense attorney, but Nima, this is huge news that's been simmering
for months on end. What was your reaction to the arrest here? Yeah, Joel, thanks for having me
and great to be on Josh Phil. I mean, look, my reaction is better late than ever. You know, I live
and work in L.A. and I think as much as I respect law enforcement, everyone's been saying, what is
taking so long? You have this young girl who's been missing for well over a year. Her body was
found more than six months ago. You know, if it's not David, who is it? Who's responsible for this?
And there's been a lot of criticism of LAPD. And of course, look, you want him to get it right.
But when you have search warrants that are executed, you know, back in September, you got the body
found on the trunk of this Tesla more than six months ago. You have the autopsy reports that,
you know, prosecutors want to keep under wraps. They don't want to have them produce publicly
pursuant to public records act requests. The toxicology, they're apparently waiting on. I mean,
again, I think I've been critical. I think local media here in L.A. have been critical. I think
Josh, I don't know if you agree or not, but I think there's really a sense of relief, especially
for Celeste Rivas' family. Can't imagine what they've been going through waiting so long,
months for answers, and hopefully we'll get them when David is finally around next week.
Yeah. If I could jump in, I think you're absolutely right in part of that and tell me what you
think, Neema, is that there was a dead girl dismembered in the back of a vehicle and no arrests
were being made. And then we find out that vehicle is connected to this singer, and he's walking
around free. In fact, for a short period of time, he was continuing on with his tour. It was like
how much more do we need before we feel the crime has been committed here? But, you know, Neema,
as I'm sure you know, it's a former prosecutor, and Phil, as you know, you've got to get these
things right. And I think that's what they were doing, but it was hard to translate that to the
public when you've got a dead body and a cut-up girl and the car belongs to the guy, and it's like
everything about this seems like it might be an easy enough case to file. Yeah. That's what we were
talking about just a few minutes ago. It was that one last little piece of the puzzle, and who knows
who had that piece, but they finally gave it up because just by looking at it, they were 90%
there. So all they needed was that last little thing. You know, that's why when we go into these
extended cases, we are always asking people just try and remember one thing, or see if it's
something you recognize. The smallest little incident could wrap up a case that they've been
waiting to wrap up for a long time. I mean, we saw that up in Idaho. Possibly we'll see that
with Natalie's. We don't know. We just don't know because of the whole back that you have to
maintain to keep the integrity of that investigation because once we get to this point, once the cats
out of the bag, you've got to get ready, man. You've got to make sure all those
teas are crossed and you're ready to go because you're going to be on the clock now that he's been
taking in the custody. Yeah. Jack's girl said, did he turn himself in or did they go arrest him
from the sounds of the reporting? It's that they went and arrested him. And I usually don't beg
and grovel, but therapists, you know, you just subbed or you're a member of Josh's channel.
Please, I need you in my life. A therapist, you know, I don't need a lawyer, you know,
shout out to lawyer, you know, but I do need the therapist, you know, so please do me a personal
favor and sub to my channel. But Nima, Phil and Josh, who are obviously much smarter legal
minds than myself, they think I were talking about that someone had a spill the beans, someone
either got leaned on, someone said something, someone talked, you agree with that?
Yeah. So I think the only answer as to why this took so long is the fact that we have this
investigative grand jury. And I mean, Josh was at the DA's office in LA and he'll tell you like,
normally they don't use the grand jury system in state court here in California, right? They
proceed by complaint, they proceed by preliminary hearing, right? Grand jury states on the East Coast
federal system, we use it on the time, but the grand jury has two purposes. One is to charge,
which isn't necessarily happening in this case, but the second is to investigate. They got
subpoena power. They can subpoena people, witnesses and documents evidence. And we know that at
least one member of David's inner circle didn't want to cooperate, right? And didn't want to
testify before that grand jury. And he had to be arrested out of state. So again, I think the DA's
office, they were using this grand jury to lean on the other folks that were around David,
get them to flip, get them to cooperate, and a minimum lock them in under penalty
of perjury before that grand jury. So they don't go sideways at trial. And again, I'm not saying
he was part of a criminal organization, but this is typical when you're dealing with the gangs,
drug cartels, the mob, right? You want to get these lesser individuals because they might be on the
hook as co-conspirators, accomplices, accessories before, after the fact, they have criminal exposure.
And what you want to do is lean on them, flip them, get their testimony. So when you go to trial,
and the other issue here in California is, I mean, obviously, we know, Josh, and there's no death
penalty, right? There's been an execution in California 20 years. So this is the type of case that
ends up going all the way to trial because if you're the DA's office, if you're Nathan Hawthman,
you're not offering any type of discount on this case, right? I mean, this is a young girl who's
dead in the front of a vehicle. You can't. This is a life case. It's a first degree special
circumstances. Even if it's a second degree, you're asking for life in this type of case.
And obviously, if you're the defense, you have no reason to take a life, deal. You might as well
just push the case all the way to trial. So if you're a prosecutor, in any case, you got to prepare
it like it's going to go to trial. But this is the type of case that very likely is going to go to
trial, given that there's no deal to be had. Any of a defendant with significant financial means
who's already lawyer it up, and that's pretty good defense counsel. Yeah, she has, he has
lawyered up. I just saw that his lawyer is Blair Burke. I don't know if you're familiar with her,
but she's a very prominent kind of high profile attorney here in Los Angeles. You know,
she's handled Johnny Depp, Marilyn Manson, Harvey Weinstein, Army Hammer. She kind of is in that
mix of that small circle of attorneys that their name is run about with cases like this.
But she had to have been, I mean, Nima, she had to have been retained way before any of this.
This wasn't like a hire this, this afternoon. No, no question. And Burke has given some statements
as well last year related to this case. And look, she's very well-known, very well respected,
and you know, the conventional wisdom in these types of cases, when you have a female victim,
they do like to hire a female defense attorney, not to say that she's not qualified, right?
But there's some thought that's put into this, right? It can be, you know,
swallow, right? Hired a female defense lawyer. Whenever you have a sexual assault case,
you have a female victim, you really want at least one female lawyer on your defense team,
just like Sean did he come. So, may just be her, but maybe a team that's being put together
right now to defend this type of case. And she's very good, her partner, Andrew Brettler,
also on the civil side handles a lot of these types of cases that wouldn't be surprised if we
end up seeing a civil lawsuit by Celeste Rivas's family against David. Of course, that will trail
the criminal case that will be put on hold, but this is just the beginning of David's very
serious legal problems. Yeah, Abby Croshing, who knows a lot about a lot, letting us know that
he hired Burke in October of 2025. Phil Ramos, he lowered, lowered up in the beginning. I don't
think he ever spoke to robbery homicide. My question to you, we see, you know, and hear about
no body cases all the time, but here you have a case without a confirmed cause of death.
What kind of problems does that raise for the prosecution here? Well, it depends on what
evidence they were able to gather from the victims' remains. Were there signs of trauma?
Obviously, a person doesn't cut themselves into little bits and pieces. So
the cause in manner, well, it's not 100% the cause of death is going to be,
could be up in the air, but the manner's going to be homicide anyway. So just going back a little
bit, a key phrase that Neiman just mentioned was witness testimony in the grand jury versus a
preliminary hearing. And this is one of the reasons why the grand jury was used as an investigative
tool because the person could go in there and give their testimony, and you know that their
life is at risk for giving that testimony. If they get whacked, that testimony that they give
to the grand jury is admissible later on down the road. It can be used because that's part of the
investigative process of the grand jury. In some jurisdictions, a person goes in, gives testimony,
a preliminary hearing, walks out, he gets whacked, that's the end of it. Whatever he said,
it kings X. So that's one of the things that are a huge tool for law enforcement.
And like I said, once a grand jury's sick and sick teeth end to it, it's a, you know, the clock's
ticking. It's going to be pretty interesting to see what that last nail in the coffin was
that got him to this point. Phil, can I ask you a question? Do you go back to kind of the
conversation we were having earlier about what they might have been looking for, what might have
broken the case? Remember early on the police made this kind of vague statement where they said
were investigating this for any crimes beyond the disposal of her body. And they almost made it
sound like that might be the only crime they're left with because they have not said certainly that
there was some sort of clear evidence of how she was killed. In other words, we never heard from
a medical examiner that she was shot or that she was stabbed or that her throat was slit or anything
like that. We know that her body was mutilated, but we don't know exactly what they were labeling
as her cause of death. Could it be if you're dealing with something like toxicology comes back
for some sort of drug, but that's a drug that people easily overdose on that you're still dealing
with the difficulties of calling this a murder. Right. Right. That's a great point that you're
making because a lot of times, sometimes it's actually true and accurate, but many times you're at a
party and this girl was having fun and everybody was getting high and getting loaded, she overdosed,
we panic, we didn't know what to do. So we stuffed her under the sofa, that kind of thing. And her
cause of death, while it wasn't a felony or a criminal in nature, it was ex-demo overdose.
The subsequent actions of people involved by concealing her body and you know,
that sort of thing is all going to come into play, but yeah, you're spot on, man. You can bet
that that's going to come up on his part and say, look, yeah, this is what happened. She overdosed,
we panic, we didn't know what to do. And nobody killed herself because she took too much cocaine
or fentanyl or something like that. That's usually what you find in a case like this,
when they're not able to come up with a good solid cause in the map.
On April 21st, make the time to vote no. Abigail Spanberger and the Richmond Democrats want to rig
our congressional elections. Their monopoly map will elect 10 Democrats and only one Republican.
It's a power grab. So Spanberger and the Democrats can raise our taxes, grab our guns and give
welfare to illegal aliens. Election day is April 21st. Don't let Spanberger and the Liberals win.
Vote on April 21st, paid for by Virginians for Fair Maps RC.
The most sustainable way to love fashion isn't to stop shopping. It's to simply change the way
you shop. So change the way you shop with the real real. The real real is the world's largest,
most trusted source for authenticated luxury resale. Every item kept in motion extends the
life cycle of luxury and keeps it out of landfills. So whether you shop second hand on the real
real.com or exclusively purchase pieces you can sell back into rotation later, pass it on when
you're done by selling it with the real real. You'll get money to shop Louis Bay, Celine,
Prada and more new to you fines. Then repeat the cycle, guilt free, sell to shop, shop to sell with
the real real. And only for the month of April earn $100 extra when you sell with the real real.
Go to the real real.com to get started and earn $100 extra at this earth month at the real real.com.
Terms apply.
Confronting high credit card debt can feel scary, but the good news is if you owe $10,000 or more
in credit card debt, financial relief options are now available. National debt relief is currently
offering debt relief designed to reduce what you owe fast tracking your way to being debt free.
If you qualify for debt relief, you may be able to pay back significantly less than what you owe
and save thousands of dollars. Imagine only paying one low monthly program payment you can
afford and saving money as you become debt free. National debt relief has already helped bring
debt relief to over 550,000 U.S. consumers earning thousands of five-star reviews and an
A-plus rating with a better business bureau. You're stronger than your credit card debt.
Take the first step and visit national debt relief.com to see what debt relief you may qualify for.
That's national debt relief.com.
Yeah. Nima, let me go to you. We're talking about maybe someone spoke and leaned on somebody
and someone squealed. What about the Tesla aspect of this case? It's not just any car. It's been
months. You know that they had to be looking at all the digital forensics. Maybe they had a
subpoena stuff related to the Tesla. Is it possible that there's something with the Tesla
that helped break this case wide open? No question, right? I mean, I got a Tesla and every single
thing is recorded. I mean, I've been involved in accidents. My wife is there's four cameras.
It might not be a triggering event, right? So it's constantly recording. If you're involved in
an accident, that footage is going to be there. But at a minimum, every time that funk is open,
if people don't know a Tesla, there's a, because there's the engine is different. There's a space
in the front of the vehicle. That's a trunk. It's called the front. But it's not that big.
You know, obviously Celeste Rivas is small. I think she was less than a hundred pounds. But
it's not easy to fit a body in there. But at a minimum, right? Who was driving the vehicle? Was it
open with the Bluetooth? Was it open with the Tesla keys? One of the big issues is going to be
access, right? I think there were some reports that a lot of people had access to this vehicle.
So who had access? Who unlocked it? Who popped that frunk? That's all going to be relevant.
Now, of course, the smoking gun would be if any video footage was caught on that Tesla.
It was involved in some sort of minor accident, but I'm not sure it's related to Celeste's body
being put in there. It was obviously impounded because it was parked there for quite some time.
So let's see if there's any video footage. And of course, we know that that home, by the way,
also has video footage because the homeowner who rented it to David said that there's videos of
videos at my home. And I gave law enforcement access. So I expect there to be a treasure trove
of evidence in this case, digital evidence, the Tesla, the home. But we know, I remember a little
bit, all of these younger kids, they only communicate using their phones and on social media. So
expect those phones, David's phone, Celeste's phone, the phones of the individuals who are also at
that house to have a lot of evidence that's going to be incriminating. It's going to point the
finger at David and others. Let me ask you a question about the Tesla's because I'm not familiar
with Tesla's very much. I know that many of them have motion sensing cameras if you get too close
to it or if you put your hand on the windshield, it's going to record you doing that. Is that
a standard feature on Tesla's or is that an option? So it's a standard feature called
sentry mode. So you can turn it on, mine's on, you know, and I think the default maybe that it is
on as long as you, you know, check some sort of box. But yeah, anyone gets near my Tesla. It's
almost like a ring camera or any kind of verbal camera, right? You go near it to text motion,
it records and it saves that recording. Now, obviously, I don't know if David was
sophisticated enough to go in and delete the recordings, but absolutely the first thing law enforcement
should have done is issue a subpoena to Tesla because I'm telling you, I've gotten the EDR data
in these accidents. I've handled car accident cases in lonely Tesla and you won't believe
how much video evidence there is. So it could be in that sentry mode filled like you said. And if
it's captured, it will show David, you know, Josh, Joel, you feel anyone coming up to that vehicle,
it will be captured if that mode is turned on. Yeah. And Josh, Josh Ritter, to you, I mean,
there is potentially, and this is difficult and trigger warning for everybody, there is
potentially a sexual component to this crime too. He's been accused of having either forced sex
I think that would be the only option because she was literally a child.
How does that factor into the murder charge here?
Yeah, that's interesting too. If they see, if somebody was able to, like I said,
flip and tell them what took place. And this was something where
her death, and again, I'm warning everyone, I'm not trying to be graphic, but if her death
took place during the course of an assault on her, and like you pointed out, given her age,
any any sexual contact with her would have been considered an assault. There's arguments to be
made about what we call the felony murder rule and that the idea that you immediately bump this
up to a first degree murder type situation, even if the defendant might be able to make claims about
you know, it was an accident, it was an overdose, I didn't mean to, I never meant to, I never
intended to harm her. Well, if you were, you know, flying her with drugs to facilitate an assault,
and in the course of that assault, she ends up losing her life. Now we're looking at first
degree murder and we're not all that concerned about premeditation and malice of forethought.
Along those lines, because we know so little Nima, they've arrested him,
the police did, this has not come before a judge yet. He's on in no bail hold right now,
but one of the first things they're going to want to discuss, his attorneys, Blair Burke,
on Monday is bail. And tell us what we could learn when they have a bail hearing, because that
isn't sometimes a short hearing, that could be rather extensive. Yeah, it can be. So we know,
and at least in LA, these Thursday arrests, because usually it's about 48 hours and
resulting in a Monday initial appearance, actually the worst time to be arrested, if you are a
criminal, at least here in LA. So bail, right, it is appropriate if you're not a risk of flight or
danger to the community. So obviously, the prosecution is going to argue here is someone who's
dangerous, right? And of course, this sexual component, I mean, forget it. I mean, it's just game
over, right? But obviously, being charged with murder is one of the most serious charges. And we'll
see what it is. Is it first degree? Is it special circumstance? Is the second degree? I mean,
that's all going to be made public on Monday, but fully expect the district attorney's office
to argue for no bail. And then the last thing you look here, someone with significant financial
means, I don't know what his ties to the community are. Obviously, that's going to be, I think,
a less persuasive factor, if he's someone who's spent most of his life here in Southern California.
But there's no question on Monday, if there's not that initial bail discussion, it will be set for
a full bail hearing, because criminal defense attorneys, the last thing they want and the last
thing their clients want, or to be in custody, pending trial. It's much more difficult to prepare
your defense. When every time you got to go see your client, you got to go into LA County
to meet with your client. It's certainly not ideal. So expect to see that bail issue litigated
very aggressively. Yeah, here's a law and crime post. I don't think this is four weeks ago,
but it is Neo talking and saying that, you know, he spoke out on social media. His quote is,
thankfully, I am legally fine in every way. And boy, do I got all my receipts for things?
Ha, ha, ha, ha. Josh Ritter, let me go to you on that. Is it becoming more obvious that maybe
this is a guy they leaned on to get information about David. And he had the receipts to back it up.
Yes, all of these guys sound slimy.
You know, the people surrounding him, anybody who's keeping their mouth shut, not cooperating fully
with police, trying to fight subpoenas for the grand jury. When you've got a dead girl,
that to me, you can see what category of individual I'm going to place them in. And so, yeah,
I think a lot of these guys may have thought, you know, they, they, we've all seen this.
Phil is seen it, Neema seen it. They all convinced themselves that somehow they're going to get
get away with this if they all keep their mouth shut. It's this idea of like, oh, let's all just
keep quiet. Don't say nothing. And the cops won't have nothing on us. And then they begin to
realize that no, that's not in fact true. And in fact, we are going to charge you with something.
And you're going to go to prison. And guess what? You might go to prison. And your buddy who
actually did it might not because you're not willing to cooperate in this whole thing. And that
starts to make all these tough guys crumble really quickly. And all of a sudden, they start saying,
okay, I'd like to, I'd like to talk. I'd like to speak to an attorney. I'd like to get immunity.
I'd like to get a deal. That's, that's to me how this whole thing sniffs out. Joe, can I read?
I just saw that people magazine gave a statement from the LA district attorney's office.
They're saying the case is expected to be presented to the major crimes division at which point
prosecutors will review the facts and evidence to determine whether there is evidence sufficient
evidence to file a charge. At this time, additional information is not available. We will share
an update on Monday once a filing decision has been made. I'm just going to say right now,
Beth Silverman, we all know her from the Monica Semintelli case. Most recently,
she's in the major crimes division. She's the person who ran the grand jury on this whole thing.
The major grams division is well aware of this. Like this is all a little bit of PR here from
the DA's office. But this thing is absolutely getting filed on Monday without a doubt.
There you heard it from Josh Ritter. Phil Ramos, let me go to you here. As per usual,
people are very impatient and there was a lot of heat on LA robbery homicide. First,
just take us inside. I mean, on a night like this and you've been there where there's an
arrest made in a very high profile case, what is the atmosphere like inside the police department
in that division? You're still lacing up your shoes and getting ready for the kickoff.
You know, it's too soon to be packed in yourself on the back. There still could be some
loose ends that need to be tied up, but there's going to be a couple of high fives here and there
maybe an extra box of donuts, but you know, you know, but it's a very, very positive feel
and you're going to be cautiously optimistic because you know that road ahead is going to be very
bumpy, man. You know that some skilled defense attorneys get involved in this and they can make
you look like a fool if you're not ready to rock and roll and have everything neatly packaged so
that there isn't very many places for them to go. See how we can you Uber eat some Boston creams
right now from Duncan immediately? Please. And then Phil, let me just follow that up and then
I'll hand it back off to Ritter here and we are a dual streaming tonight, which I love on a night
of big breaking news. If you're just joining us, R&B singer David wasn't was arrested in connection
with they're saying the murder of Celeste Rivas Hernandez. So this was a long time coming,
our body first discovered back in September of 2025, but Phil, tell us it appears that he did not
turn himself in. It could be wrong about that because the reporting is early still, but if they
went out to arrest them, do they go out there with a SWAT type unit because it's a homicide arrest
and once they bring them back to booking, just tell us about his night tonight. What is a head for him?
The jail's going to be rocking and rolling, man. Everybody's going to be pounding on the doors
and windows and screaming and stuff like that, but it all depends on the intel information that they
have where he's at or is he with a bunch of friends? Is there a tendency for any violent activity
from his past or the friends that are with him? If it's a high risk dynamic situation,
then yeah, SWAT would have taken care of the entry and the arrest. That being said, once he gets
to the jail, my guess is the jail's a little city in and of itself. So they're going to put him in
PC and protective custody so that nobody can get to him because there's guys in there that
will never going to see the light of day again. They just want some fame before they go out and
if they have a chance to go smack a well-known artist that would give them some more street cred
as if they don't need it anymore. But we use the term the Pucker Factor and his Pucker Factor
is going to be pretty high. Josh Ritter, not because you've been in custody, but you've definitely
been inside that jail. Do you agree with Phil Ramos? They're going to be banging on those
bars tonight, but I mean, what about that protective custody issue? This guy is so high profile
that nothing can happen to him and they've got to make sure of that. So do they stick them in
the equivalent of the shoe thing? On April 21st, make the time to vote no. Abigail Spanberger and
the Richmond Democrats want to rig our congressional elections. Their monopoly map will elect 10
Democrats and only one Republican. It's a power grab. So Spanberger and the Democrats can raise
our taxes, grab our guns and give welfare to illegal aliens. Election day is April 21st.
Don't let Spanberger and the Liberals win. Vote on April 21st, paid for by Virginians for Fair
Maps RC. The most sustainable way to love fashion isn't to stop shopping. It's to simply change
the way you shop. So change the way you shop with the real real. The real real is the world's largest
most trusted source for authenticated luxury resale. Every item kept in motion extends the
life cycle of luxury and keeps it out of landfills. So whether you shop second hand on the
real real.com or exclusively purchase pieces you can sell back into rotation later, pass it on
when you're done by selling it with the real real. You'll get money to shop Louis Bay, Selene,
Prada, and more new to you fines. Then repeat the cycle, guilt free, sell to shop, shop to sell
with the real real. And only for the month of April, earn $100 extra when you sell with the real real.
Go to the real real.com to get started and earn $100 extra at this earth month at the real real.com
Terms apply.
Confronting high credit card debt can feel scary, but the good news is if you owe $10,000 or more
in credit card debt, financial relief options are now available. National debt relief is currently
offering debt relief designed to reduce what you owe fast tracking your way to being debt free.
If you qualify for debt relief, you may be able to pay back significantly less than what you owe
and save thousands of dollars. Imagine only paying one low monthly program payment you can afford
and saving money as you become debt free. National debt relief has already helped bring
debt relief to over 550,000 U.S. consumers, earning thousands of five-star reviews and an
eight plus rating with a better business bureau. You're stronger than your credit card debt.
Take the first step and visit nationaldebtrelief.com to see what debt relief you may qualify for.
That's nationaldebtrelief.com.
Yeah, absolutely. One thing inmates don't like is a guy who's getting a lot of attention.
They've been sitting there kind of, they feel that they're wallowing away and everybody's
forgotten about them and then all of a sudden this guy comes in and he's getting all this attention.
But what they hate even more than that is people who commit crimes against women and children.
And that is just that it doesn't matter who you are. If they find out, if they are able to pull
your jacket and figure out what you're arrested for and that involves a child or a female,
you are definitely the best feel set. The picker, the poker factor is very high at that point.
If I could, I wanted to talk to Nima because you brought up such a great point about the
phones and how much they can, we can learn from phones and how much people of David's age group
are communicating on phones. Do you think that may have caused some of all of this delays
securing those warrants because those warrants, if you could help us understand,
you are not the easiest to get. You have to kind of go an extra step in California to secure
those types of warrants. Yeah, it's not easy. Obviously, anytime you're trying to get
content or data, right, I'm talking not like things like subscriber information, things that
you know, if you want to get a warrant in California, it's not easy. No question.
Big tech too, they really do everything they can to protect their customers and there's
whole law enforcement divisions that deal with this. So it can take some time.
But obviously, if you got cooperators, certainly things that we've talked about in so many
other cases, right, the cell side evidence. Obviously, you want to get information from the phone
itself, text messages, DMs, you know, you're going to send the warrants to basically all the big
social media companies, right? It's going to be the carrier itself, you're going to want Google,
you're going to want Apple, you're going to want Snap, especially this kids all communicate on Snap.
But anything else, right, TikTok, Meta. So it can take some time and you can't get pushback from
these companies. But again, I just, the only thing that really makes sense, and you talked about
Silverman, you know, running this grand jury. And I think one really important point you made is,
I don't think I respect Nathan Hawkeman, the DA's office. I don't believe for a second that a
charging decision has not already been made. And it's not, it's not LAPD that's directing this now.
This is the LA County DA's office. They're calling the shots, right? They're saying we got the
probable cause. We got enough to push this across the finish line. We can prove our case beyond
a reasonable amount. Go pick, David up. This is not a reactive case. You know, Josh, you probably
have thousands of them. A file ends up on your desk. Could be good case. Could be a bad case. You're
basically playing with the hand that you're dealt. This case has been directed by the district
attorney's office. They are making the decisions. They decided to arrest David today. They told LAPD
to pick him up. That's what happened. It's not the other way around, which is more typical,
whether reacting to a crime that's been committed. Yeah. Josh, let me ask you a question.
And Nima can rip off of it. But I mean, the fact that this body, and again, we're talking about a
14 year old girl is found in the front. Does that, you know, does that anti up the sort of the stream,
the consciousness of guilt argument here that they there was an intent to hide the body.
They didn't want anyone to find out. And they somehow get it into the front of this Tesla.
100% and that's that's for the most part incredibly powerful evidence, right? I think I think
consciousness of guilt evidence is sometimes your most powerful evidence to a jury because
they all say, I wouldn't behave this way if I were an innocent person. But again, I go back to in
this case, there's this kind of built in defense that I can just see it looming on the horizon
that they're going to say, listen, oh, dude, we panicked. We didn't know what to do. We're guilty
of a lot of horrible stuff, but what we're not guilty of is taking that girl's life,
which very specifically he has been arrested for today.
We are like the Brady bunch. We have multiplied Lauren Conlin. I told her we need the street cred
for her coming on. She only can spare about 5, 10 minutes. For those who do not know,
Lauren is an intrepid investigative reporter. She's been writing about this nonstop for LA
Mag. Lauren Conlin, it always happens on a night when, you know, you've got the kids at home and
you're not expecting it. And that's what happened tonight. But thank you for being here. Your reaction
to this arrest. Of course. Well, I actually just got off the phone with the LA county jail. I was,
you know, trying to search here because initially I got worded the arrest from from my bosses.
And then I went to the TMZ article, which actually said that he was arrested on Tuesday,
which didn't make any sense to me. I think they might be incorrect. I'm not sure here,
but I'm guessing because the jail told me that he was literally just arrested on suspicion of
murder and that he should be booked in the next five hours or so. So I will await that information.
I have reached out to his attorney Blair Burke for a comment, his reported attorney. I confirmed
this month ago. I'm assuming he still has the same attorney, but you never know. And look,
I think this is a long time coming. I am curious as to what changed here because there are reports
that this arrest was based on probable cause and not because of a grand jury. I don't know if you
guys cover that yet. But yeah, I'm just, I'm trying to dig. I mean, I'm happy. I'm thrilled.
This has been seven months in the making. Yeah, I mean, Logan Clark, if you don't mind,
just jump in there. You just heard Lauren say that it is likely the arrest was made because of
probable cause and not because of something that came out of the grand jury. Your thoughts on
that aspect to this. Well, you're muted. We got to unmute you there. Stand by.
Hey, about that. Go ahead, Logan. You got it. Yep. Um, this, uh, this again is the
about the body and the car and the trunk. Correct. Right. Um, and if you have that much evidence,
you have to arrest somebody. I mean, you've got to even if you really, a lot of times they'll
arrest them and they'll release them with no charges. And that's because they just haven't built
up enough information or fact to back up. One thing is a body in your car. The other thing is to
back it all up with investigation and that being, you know, probable cause. I mean, having more than
just, okay, there was a body that gives you probable cause to say, all right, we're going to take
it to jail for a while. We're going to try to figure out what's going on. Um, Lauren, let me go back
to you and Josh, I don't want to hog the mics. So please jump in if you have questions. But, uh,
this day, you know, we're talking about David nonstop, but we really should be talking about
Celeste. She's 14 years old. I mean, what do we know, uh, Lauren about her parents? I mean,
apparently the father is not an English speaker and he went back to whichever country he is from.
I'm not sure which one, but what do we know about the family if anything at this point? Yeah, I mean,
I, I agree with you. I, her, her mother does not speak English very well. I think her brother
is, uh, he was sort of like the, the, the family spokesperson at the beginning and, and he, I think
he spoke to ABC and that was pretty much it. But he confirmed that Celeste had told her mother
that she had a boyfriend named David and he also confirmed they went to the movies together.
But her family has been pretty silent throughout this whole process. Um, I know a lot of people
have, have really spoken out about that and, and criticize that. I don't, I don't know that
that's necessary because again, I do feel like it's, it, it could be the whole, um, language barrier.
But yeah, I don't know. Um, again, I, I am very interested in, and what they have to say,
I also came across a couple YouTube videos very early on in this investigation with someone claiming
that they were Celeste's half brother and they shared the same father. So I feel like I want to dig
back into that as well. I mean, I, there's so much. I, I feel like I've, I put so much on the, on the
back burner because this case wasn't really, um, moving it all and now I have to just dig it all
back up. On April 21st, make the time to vote no. Abigail Spanberger and the Richmond Democrats
want to rig our congressional elections. Their monopoly map will elect 10 Democrats and only one
Republican. It's a power grab. So Spanberger and the Democrats can raise our taxes, grab our guns
and give welfare to illegal aliens. Election day is April 21st. Don't let Spanberger and the
liberals win. Vote on April 21st, paid for by Virginians for Fairmaps RC. Do you have $10,000
or more in credit card debt? Maybe you're even barely getting by making minimum payments.
With credit card debt hitting record highs, national debt relief offers real debt relief solutions
for people struggling to keep up. These options may reduce a large portion of credit card debt for
those who qualify. You don't need a declared bankruptcy and you may be able to pay back less than
you owe regardless of your credit. National debt relief has already reduced the credit card debt
for more than 550,000 consumers. So don't wait. If you owe 10, 20 or even hundreds of thousands of
dollars in credit card debt, you can now take advantage of this financial debt relief as the cost
of living increases. To find out how much you could save, visit national debt relief.com. That's
NationalDatRelief.com. Spring Weekends are all about family, sunshine, and enjoying this
season together. Before everyone arrives, I stop by my local total wine and more to grab a
great bottle. Maybe a favorite we already know and love. Or something new to try with meal.
With so many bottles to choose from, it's easy to discover something amazing. And the lowest
prices make it easy to grab an extra bottle for everyone. If you're not sure what to pick,
their friendly guides can help point you in the right direction. Find what you love and
love what you find. Only at total wine and more. Curbside pickup and delivery available in most
areas. Visit total wine.com to learn more. Spirits not sold in Virginia, North Carolina. Drink
responsibly. Be 21. Yeah. Neema, do you, um, what is the defense already doing or putting
into motion? I mean, one of the issues here that could go either way is there's an issue of
obviously murder versus abuse of a corpse or concealment of a corpse. Maybe this defense
attorney is going to say, Hey, it was an accident. They just tried to conceal this body. The
prosecution is obviously going to say something other than that. But how do you square that argument?
Yeah. So there's basically really only four possible defenses here. Josh and you talk about one,
right? I mean, the most likely is this acts as an overdose. And we're talking about, you know,
some sort of obstruction, some sort of offense related to the body, right? So that's going to
be the most likely. Then you have the defense that it wasn't me, right? Typically you see those
in murder cases or that there was some issue with intense, not premeditated. It's not second
degree, some sort of heat of passion, legal insanity, sort of the stuff you're seeing potentially
work out in the Nick Reiner case, right? And the fourth is self defense. And obviously no one's
going to argue self defense. This was a small girl. But really, that's the universe of defenses
that you see in murder cases. There's not really a whole lot more than that. And I expect the
Malene strongly on the accident. Potentially, it wasn't me. I don't necessarily think they're going
to start to negate the intent, but you never know. But yeah, if you're the DA's office, and this is
a chess match, right? You're trying to plan ahead knowing that this is a well-funded defense team.
Someone is not going to take a deal. So you got to prepare for this defense right now. We know
one of the last things that we're waiting on was that toxicology. So if it comes back positive,
and of course, I don't think any of us have seen it because they really, they went to court to lock
it down to make sure members of the public and the media don't see it. I think if the toxicology
is positive for Celeste Rivers, that's something that the DA's office is going to have to deal with
pretty soon, not a freedom, certainly a trial. I mean, Nima, do you think that that is in
their hands already to talk about the question that they have? No question. There's no question in my
mind that they have it. They're not going to move forward without it. And again, but there's also
it's a law enforcement agency. Some of them, so for instance, you're not in Arizona, right? They're
doing regular press conferences, right? About Guthrie. LAPD, I mean, they lock it down. Nigen, I wasn't
just DOJ. I worked for the city of LA. I ran the enforcement division, the ethics commission. So
we oversaw all these employees of the city of LA. Let me tell you, they do not provide information
unless they absolutely have to do so. You got to file to get these documents. And again,
in California, I said it's the Public Records Act, the federal side, it's FOIA. So yeah, they're not
easy to get information and documents from. And I can tell you I can guarantee that they have
that toxicology, even though they haven't made it public. Lauren, go ahead, Josh. Yeah, could I
jump in? Lauren, we mentioned a little bit what we know about Celeste and her background and her
family. Do what do we know about David Anthony Burke? I mean, the most I feel like that's been
reported about his families that they were the ones fighting the subpoenas to come out to the
grand jury here in Los Angeles. Do we know anything more about them? How involved they are? Are they
out here in Los Angeles now? Yeah, I'm not sure they're location. I mean, there, there have been
reports that David was actually arrested wherever he was staying in Los Angeles. We know that's a
different home than where he was previously staying. But as far as his family goes, his father was a
pastor of of some sort. I don't know exactly the religion. And now he works in I don't want to say
it's like tech and legal, I believe, but I actually came across one of David's TikTok accounts,
which was crazy. It was all of David doing these Bible verses. These, these, you know, he's just
reciting a biblical verses. He's talking about spirituality. And I dove into that a little more
and I found out that his, yeah, his father was involved with the church. Now his mother is actually
very involved with his music career. So I think, and again, if you recall, he transferred his
Texas homes to his mother in September, a few days after Celeste's body was actually identified.
And I think his mom knows a lot. I think that their testimony in front of the grand jury was very,
very important. There was clearly a reason they didn't want to travel as witnesses for this. And
they were, you know, they, they were pushing this off. Anyway, they could. And so yeah, I do, I think
that his family, they're, they're all very, very close, including his sibling. His sibling was
reportedly photographed was the last. His brother, I believe. So yeah. And David, by the way,
for anyone that that's not aware, he, he was a gamer. He was a fortnight guy. And he actually,
he had a lot of potential. It's very, very sad. I mean, what he did was, was pretty incredible
on, on SoundCloud and making this music and just becoming what he is, you know, just going viral
himself. So it's, it's so tragic. I, I, I, I explain that because I don't know if people,
I can't quite wrap my head around it, but he did not, it's not like he got discovered
traditionally by some a, you know, our RNA, RNA and our agent somewhere at some record company. He
basically put his own music, self-produced out there until he blew up himself, right?
That's, that's correct. I watched this video where he was trying to explain it. And, and again,
it was like he created this, this song through SoundCloud. It went viral. He blew up. He became
TikTok famous. And then he got discovered. And, you know, inner scope, his record label, it's huge.
I mean, I think Rihanna is fine to enter scope, or she was at one point. And so, you know,
I go back to sort of the, the research I was doing previously about him visiting the schools.
And I had called a bunch of the schools to see if they were, you know, on board with him kind of
handing out concert tickets and holding these little, uh, lotteries for his shows. And the schools
were like, we had no idea. We only knew about this through social media. And I was shocked
because I'm like, this is inner scope. What are you doing? One of the schools, it was like six through
12th grade. It was really weird. I mean, and it's funny because I put this out there in a very
just simple way. Like, this is what happened. And, um, I actually got a lot of heat for that saying
that's not creepy at all. He was, you know, 18 or 19 at the time. And I'm like, it's a little creepy.
If I have a 14 year old daughter who's a freshman, and I don't know, this famous singer is
loitering outside the school, trying to give concert tickets out. Yeah. I'm kind of, I'm going to
be bothered by that. If that's my kid, I want to know about that, especially because you can see
what he's doing. He's connecting with these kids, you know, they're probably exchanging handles on
whatever platform they're on. And yeah, I mean, it's, it is what it is, but we are getting justice
right now. I feel it, guys. I just, yeah, I was in Los Angeles. My god.
No, I think far away. Not to mention one of his songs is titled romantic homicide. But let
me get the investigators in here. Logan, we discussed this a little bit before you came on. But
and for those who do not know, Logan Clark is a private investigator who's handled cases literally
all around the world. But, um, 40 years, yeah, 40 years. As far as we know, there's no known
manner of death here. And I asked Phil Ramosus, we have no body cases. But I'll tough us out for
the prosecution if we don't know how this person died. Well, because the body was literally in
pieces in different bags. Is there, has there been any investigation? I mean, I haven't dug deep
into this thing. Has there been any investigation into Celeste? Which did she want to be a singing star?
Was there a, you know, I can make you a star, um, you know, like sliced alone had girls, you know,
were just around him that he was going to, you know, make famous and stuff. Does anybody know that?
Lauren? No. No. She had no aspirations. Yeah. Yeah. It was more like he was, uh,
swooning around underage girls, uh, influencing him with his, you know, rising celebrity. But
had a career. Yeah. Uh, yeah. You said that not me, Logan. But Phil Ramos to you, to you, um,
charging documents. And then obviously, uh, Nima, you can weigh in on this. But what,
what could we learn from charging documents, uh, when they're released to us?
Probably just the minimum information at this point. Um, because you're going to give
the judge just enough information to solidify why you had enough probable cause to make
the arrests more the grand jury issued, uh, the true bill. If, if it was a true bill from the
grand jury or if it was a warrant issued by the DA, either way, um, but the one thing that, that
doesn't seem to be getting a lot of attention and I want to give a little bit of a trigger warning
here because this is going to be a little, uh, intense. Here you have a little 14-year-old girl whose
body's been dismembered. Um, and Josh and Nima can speak to the, uh, aggravating circumstances
versus the mitigating circumstances. It doesn't get more aggravating than dismembering the body
of a young, young child. So, uh, it takes a lot to dismember a body. It's not like you see on
Dexter, you know, you don't wrap them up and surround, wrap and just start chopping away.
It takes a long time. If anybody's ever been to an autopsy and we've been to hundreds of them,
you have to know what you're doing literally to start dismembering pieces of a body and the
level of dismemberment is going to come into play. I mean, it could be something as minor as
her arms were removed at the elbows or it could be something like her arms were removed at the
knees and then at the hips and then, I mean, it just goes on and on and on. Um, that's one of the
things that is just going to be really, really, you can bet that defense is going to fight hard
to keep that out of the eyes and ears of the jury if it comes into play. The level of dismemberment
that this poor thing suffered. Um, uh, Nima to you and then Josh feel free to hop on in since we
are co-hosting this courtroom confidential answer vibing the survivor. We're doing a dual stream here,
but, um, and don't don't don't beat me up for this, but it seems like, uh, from the
outset here and that obviously we don't know what we don't know, but it seems like a skilled
defense attorney can come up with a lot of reasonable doubt at this point about who did this,
why did they do it? How did it happen? You know, unless there is really specific forensic, uh,
evidence, um, is there a lot more that we just don't know about at this point?
On April 21st, make the time to vote no. Abigail Spanberger and the Richmond Democrats
want to rig our congressional elections. Their monopoly map will elect 10 Democrats and only one
Republican. It's a power grab. So Spanberger and the Democrats can raise our taxes, grab our guns
and give welfare to illegal aliens. Election day is April 21st. Don't let Spanberger and the
Liberals win. Vote on April 21st, paid for by Virginians for Fair Maps RC. Do you have $10,000
or more in credit card debt? Maybe you're even barely getting by making minimum payments.
With credit card debt hitting record highs, national debt relief offers real debt relief
solutions for people struggling to keep up. These options may reduce a large portion of credit card
debt for those who qualify. You don't need a declared bankruptcy and you may be able to pay back
less than you owe regardless of your credit. National debt relief has already reduced the credit
card debt for more than 550,000 consumers. So don't wait. If you owe $10,20 or even hundreds of
thousands of dollars in credit card debt, you can now take advantage of this financial debt relief
as the cost of living increases. To find out how much you could save, visit nationaldebtrelief.com.
That's nationaldebtrelief.com. There is a lot more but we're going to know a lot more on Monday
and we're going to know a lot more for really three reasons. First is obviously the charges
themselves. What type of murder is charged? But again, we're asking what everyone else is asking.
Are they going to make any sex crimes charged? Anything related to the delinquency of a minor
or anything related to kidnapping? How does she end up with David? The charges themselves
are going to tell us a lot. But also you've got to know this district attorney. He has in
Minsha about holding press conferences. Expect to see a press conference on Monday where they're
talking about the case. But also Burke and the defense team. Look, when you are defending these
types of cases, right? And we saw, for instance, short period of time, Alan Jackson was on the
Reiner case, right? There's not just the courtroom, not just courtroom confidential. The court
of public opinion, this is LA. You want to start talking to potential jurors now. So a lot of
information is going to come out next week. That's sort of par for the courts when you're talking
about these celebrity case. You really want to shape the narrative. It is very important.
These law firms, they have in-house publicists, they have crisis management, they got PR teams.
It's all going to next week. There's going to be people going to be talking to Laurence.
She's going to be getting her quotes. Josh, everyone who's in this space because they want to
make sure they tell their story. And it's going to be some tragic accident or it was a rush to judgment
or law enforcement. They focused on the wrong guy. The same things we hear all the time,
expect to hear that. What story they tell Monday is really going to be a preview for what's going
to happen at trial. Yeah, I just want you to quickly piggyback off of that. What we do know about
Hawkman, too, is that he's not shy about bringing very serious charges. He's contemplating whether
or not to bring the death penalty in the Nick Reiner case. He hasn't made a decision on that yet,
but he could potentially do that. This case, and I know we're putting the cart before the
horse. We're all doing our best to try to understand what the charges could be, but for a moment,
go with me on the idea that this may have involved some sort of sexual assault.
Is that something that he could potentially be considering, special circumstances,
murder in that case as well? Yeah, absolutely. That's important to talk about. Look,
we're in the middle of an election here. If there is a Republican elected to governor in
California, all bets are off. That moratorium is gone. The death penalty is still on the books
in California. It is possible that a DA can file a special circumstances murder notice of intent
to seek the death penalty. On November, we have a new governor. It's a pretty wide open race.
In which case, we know this case isn't going to go to trial this year. It's going to be a 20-27 trial,
in which case, it could potentially be a death penalty case. The politics do matter as well
here in California. Josh, what about this comment from Jan Baker? Can his lyrics be used against him
in a court of law? That was so invoked in the 90s with the DA's office. They loved getting
anybody who was involved in the wrapped community. If everybody seemed to be, if they were a gangster,
they were also a wannabe rapper. Of course, they had a notebook full of lyrics. They actually
pulled back on that for a while because the court started to view this as, we're really drifting
into an area here where it's like, this is somebody's perhaps creative expression and now you're
trying to be using it against them, but I'll tell you what, it does seem as the pendulum has swung
a little bit too. I don't think in David's case, you're going to see something like that unless he's
got some very specific stuff and some unreleased song that we don't know about, but I don't see
the DA's office trying to push the bounds of what evidence they get in in this case here. They
want to do this properly. I agree, we were talking about it earlier. This is one of those cases
that the public is very interested to see a conclusion to this and they certainly don't want to
get it to this point and then drop the ball. I'm Lauren, how big is this case in the pop culture
community? I mean, people watching this are generally involved in true crime, but from a kind of
pop culture perspective, how big is this? I would say this is the biggest case of 2025
going into 2026. I mean, there obviously have been other cases that have popped up that are big,
like you mentioned, obviously, the Reiner is so tragic, but I think this one being ongoing,
people have been following it. Like Josh said, they're very, very invested and for me, I have
so many questions going back to the dismemberment when we first found out about this body and
David's trunk, we were told that she was wearing a yellow tube top and black pants. How do we,
how do we, you dismember with clothes on? I just, I have a lot of questions about that. I have
questions about, you know, how are you able to tell if they had a sexual relationship when her
body is so badly decomposed that, you know, they can't, I think her, it was reported that her,
her cause of death was most likely going to be undetermined because of the state of her body.
I mean, again, I know that we'll find out, but I just, I'm, I'm confused right now. I am and
it just goes back to what will he be charged with in addition to suspicion of murder or whatever
it might be. Yeah, a cat perfect, by the way, pointing out that David himself, I think, is only
21 years old. So I mean, I know you're an adult at that age, but you're still a kid at that age
at the same time for the investigators and detective Phil Ramos and then Logan Clark and then we'll,
I think, go around and probably get some final thoughts here. Um, but to you, Phil Ramos,
you know, you talked about getting some donuts and maybe a couple of high fives, but you're still
lacing up the shoes. From your perspective, what are you most worried about at this juncture
of the case at this high pro, that's this high profile? Well, kind of mistakes can be made by law
enforcement. Well, hopefully from this point on, not you, where you want to review everything that's
been done to this point. And if you see something that is going to raise some questions,
are you able to correct it? Or is it something that wasn't done in properly? You want to review
from day one until you hand it over to the DA. So you're checking and double checking and
making sure that you didn't miss something that could come up to bite you later when the trial
starts. So you're continuing to keep your ducks in your own and just keep them going as far as you
can. And and hopefully, you know, Josh mentioned earlier and immediately to the LA
specials robbery homicide, those are some pretty skilled guys and they know what they're doing.
They're not, you're not going to see a whole lot of mistakes coming out of that detail. So
that's usually what, what you spend your time, okay, do we got everything covered, man? If we
missed anything, should we have done this instead of what was done and how's that going to affect
the case? So you're just you're just double checking yourself, double triple checking yourself.
Logan, do you, if the family, you know, Celeste Rivas Hernandez hired you to investigate
at this point? Number one, how would you advise them? Number two, what would you do on your end
gearing up for a trial? With somebody dismembers in my 40 years and when somebody dismembers the body,
I've been to several cases. Case were a very famous one. We're a handwashed up on Santa Monica
Beach and then a handwashed up on Venice Beach. And I at the same time was working on a case to
find out hired by a guy to find out who killed his mom. There's three reasons why people just
member a body or or mutilate a body. One, the first one we always think of is it's overkill.
So it's someone related, someone that's in love with them, someone that's close to them,
and they got a stab in 32 times, you know, 42 times. That's one reason. The other reason is to
disguise who the dead body is. So it'll take longer for somebody to solve it. The other one is
the Mexican mafia, the Russian mafia, human trafficking when girls are no longer useful for them,
they dismember them, put their pieces in a 50 gallon drum of acid, and they literally
partner in the desert, little bones all over the place because they couldn't tell a whole bunch
of bodies out there. So there's three reasons to dismember a body as far as I'm concerned.
And that's where I would start. And then I would start to connect the people connected to them,
and you start that circle, you know, you start that circle of throw everything in that circle
and start taking it out piece by piece. This doesn't fit. But the dismembering the body tells you
a lot. I mean, to me, there's three, three things that you do. I guess unless you're a psychotic
wacko, and you've got a history of serial killing, and you have medical credentials,
they dismember bodies, and they do it for all kinds of really sick reasons. But basically,
the three are, you know, like what I said. And I'd start right there.
One question to fill on that point, because that is interesting. There is this effort to cover
up the crime, but then it also seems incredibly clumsy that you would put the body in a car
register to you, right? In terms of street, not all that far away. Like, what does that say psychologically
about the people involved in this? Well, you get rid of that. You get rid of that. Number one,
of the three ways, you go, okay, well, you know, they didn't do it to disguise the identity of the
person, because they cut them all up, and they put them in the trunk of their car. That's ridiculous.
Like the hands washing up on Santa Monica, and one hand, and it was the son who killed his mother,
and he cut her hands off to sort of fingerprints and everything. And it took the teeth to do it,
but it was before that, and we had solved it before that. And he all had to do with a forgery and
lost Vegas with the Nordary public. And it was all because of trying to, he hired me to find out
can somebody else find out I did this? That basically was what it is. And he figured if he paid me,
he owned me. Unfortunately, he was wrong. You know, and when I figured out that he had done it,
and it was a phony, um, Nordary public in Vegas and traced it all back to him, I got the cops,
and all we all went to a restaurant and we all met. I got my, and I got my money first.
For those who do not know, now, you know, Logan Clark, a private investigator for over 40 years.
I know the panel is going to find the shocking, but I'm afraid to use a gun. So Logan had a
stun gun on the last show, and I ordered him Logan. So, uh, all right, he came. I'd have to
charge him any road rage in Miami. You better watch out. I'm coming after you.
I'm going. No runners, especially when it's at night time. Yeah, I'm that thing sizzles.
Lauren Conlon, thank you for hopping on. Lauren's like, you sure you want me? And I said,
just give us five minutes. It will, it will. So hot, Joel. It's so hot in New York City,
I've been running around all day. I'm disgusting. Let me go. Um, no, justice for Celeste. Thank you so
much for having me on. Um, you guys are all amazing. And I'm honored to be here. And I look forward
to tracking this case, though. What are you, what are, what are you most curious about?
And then I'll pop you out. Everything I just, I just said, I want to know, I want, I want the
facts here. I want to like, you know, I was going to say in those unsealed grand jury docs,
we were told she was in two cadaver bags. And she was in fact, this member, but I just have
questions if she had clothes on. And again, while they're going to figure all this out when
her body was so badly decomposed. And also, I want to know if they're possibly could be a
co-conspirator indicted down the road, because like you said, this, it seems weird that you'd be
stupid enough to like go through all this trouble to this member. And then like Josh said,
put it in your own damn car. Like, it just doesn't, it doesn't make sense. And also, I want to thank
Neema for answering all my stupid questions over text. And literally, I texted him two days
ago about this case, about a grand jury. And he's just so patient and, and so amazing with me. I
just, I feel lucky to know you all. So, yeah. It's my pleasure. Always great to hear from you,
Lauren. Yeah, thank you. Lauren, I will do you a special favor. If you want, I'll pop you out
now so you can go get, get back to the kiddos. And thank you so much for being here. All right,
take care. Thank you. Neema Rothmani, he is a celebrity in and of himself, but he deals in
celebrity hood out there in Los Angeles, defense attorney, West Coast trial lawyers. Neema,
it seems like, I mean, from what we know right now tonight, this does not seem like maybe the
easiest prosecution of all time, your thoughts and your final thoughts. Yeah, it's not going to be
an easy prosecution, but I think that they're going to have enough. I mean, I'm a strong believer in
our criminal justice system and our DA's office. And obviously, look, this is a show about
survivors. I'm lucky to be on with you, Joel. I was lucky to be on with Josh yesterday and
courtroom confidential, not both of you guys today. But really, I am just blessed today because
I'm busy. Neema, it's going to stop returning our calls. No, every time I get a call from you,
guys, I'm so excited because I just love being on with you and all the guests as well. And
everyone behind the scenes that makes the show work. But look, I mean, I'm sitting here in downtown
LA, you know, a mile away from LAPD headquarters. Josh has been to my office. And really, this case
has been sort of a dark cloud hanging over the city. And I've been thinking about this young girl,
Celeste Rivas, for so long and her family. And you know, why hasn't anything been done? So
it was actually some reporters at the LA Times. They texted me and they were telling me about this
case. And I'm like, wow, you know, finally, after all these months and arrest has been made. So
look, it's important to get it right. You know, Phil Logan, I agree with you completely, but I'm
glad that law enforcement finally, hopefully got it right. We're going to see David in court
on Monday. And look, it's not an easy case, but it's a righteous case. And if you're talking
about victims and you're talking about survivors, who more important than a young girl was missing
from her family for so long. So I hope and pray that they got the right guy and they get it
across the finish line and David and whoever helped him do this, they can't harm anyone like
Celeste Rivas ever again. Very well said. Phil Ramos spent his life getting justice for victims,
like Celeste Rivas Hernandez. Phil, your final thoughts tonight, I mean, especially about
the long arm of the law. Relatively, people feel like this took a long time. It probably really
didn't when you, you know, you look at the whole scope of things, but what does it say about
law enforcement? They're going to find you and they're going to come after you. Yeah, man. I mean,
that's the dedication of homicide detectives. You never give up. You just keep going and going and
going. You know, there's some details. No, don't require the effort, but we spoke about this on
previous shows is there's no more dedicated investigators on your police department than homicide
and SWAT. They are going to give you everything they have for as long as they have until there's
absolutely nothing left to give and kudos to every single detective and investigator who worked
on this case. Yeah, 100 percent shout out to robbery homicide at LAPD tonight. By the way,
I reached out to Jeff Weninger who retired as a lieutenant at LAPD and he was hopping on a flight
at LAPD, but he'll probably come on on on Monday to talk to us about this. Josh Ritter was
awesome to co-host with you. Polities, if I had the mic a little bit, you know, it's not intentional.
And I mean, you're sort of, I mean, you're an expert. I'm just a dummy. So, you know, I just
asked the questions, but what are your thoughts, Josh? Is this your former prosecutor of the year?
Is this going to be a case that's going to be challenging for the prosecution? Well, first,
let me say thank you to you, Joel and STS and everybody behind the scenes for putting this together
so quickly and finding all these guests because this is so important and I'm glad that we were able
to do it. And thank you to everybody watching from courtroom confidential. I'm so glad that we were
able to do this as a dual stream. We kept talking about it and we finally made it happen. We just
took a matter of minutes to put it together. I usually spend a lot of time thinking everybody.
I want to thank Cody and Tennessee, E. Roy, Therapist, you know, Afton, Best Nancy,
Court Dog Daniel, just to name a few. I'll get to thinking everybody when I get a chance, but
as and to all of our guests as well. But I will say that this case, yes, it took long. Yes,
we were all wondering what was going on. I'm sure we all had moments where we thought to ourselves.
Are they really dropping the ball on this? Are they not going to make an arrest of somebody?
And I will say this. I have complete trust that they took the time because they needed to take
the time to do it right and that what we're going to find out on Monday is probably going to be
shocking the amount of evidence that they put together and how rock solid this thing is because I
do not think after all this time with robbery homicide involved with major crimes division out of
the LADA's office involved with the people that we already know attached to this case that they
were going to rush to do this just because they felt like there was pressure on them to do
something. This, this in my view, I've not seen one shred of evidence. I'm going to say I believe
it's probably a very strong case and I think that will be confirmed on Monday and thank God for it
because she, she deserves it and her family deserves it. Very articulate guest really well said,
we're going to learn a lot more. I think both of us will be covering the news conference and
maybe we'll do it again together. I'll talk to Josh after the show. So join courtroom confidential
and surviving the survivor on Monday for continued coverage of David, the R&B singer. If you're
just joining us, he was arrested tonight in connection with the murder of this young girl,
Celeste Rivas Hernandez, who was murdered at just the age of 14 or body discovered
once she would have been 15 years old, but they all on tents and purposes. People believe she was
killed and or died at the age of just 14 years old. So a tragic case and finally what appears
to be a modicum of justice. So on that note, again, huge thanks to Lauren Conlon from LA Mag,
Neema Rock, Monty West Coast trial lawyers, Logan Clark, private investigator for 40 years,
Phil Ramos, too long a resume, but retired homicide detective from Las Vegas and of course,
Josh Ritter, host of courtroom confidential and a former prosecutor of the year in a criminal
defense attorney. Love you all. We'll see you tomorrow. I'm with Carm. I don't know. Josh,
you have anything tomorrow? Not tomorrow, Saturday, but we'll be back and I'm sure we're going to be
talking about this on Saturday. Carm called me three times during this podcast. I guess
she's not watching me anymore, but we are going to be live at one o'clock tomorrow on that
social media influencer goes to Tanzania and Zanzibar, winds up dead. The fiancee says she hanged
herself. The family says no way. So Carm will give you her magical insights tomorrow. Love you all.

Surviving the Survivor: #BestGuests in True Crime

Surviving the Survivor: #BestGuests in True Crime

Surviving the Survivor: #BestGuests in True Crime
