D4vd Investigator Slams Authorities Post Murder Arrest

0:00David's arrest for the alleged murder of 14 year old Celeste Rivas Hernandez is a major development in this case and we are bringing on the man who has been investigating this story from the very beginning, who has been very vocal about his frustrations and now has a theory as to what this arrest may mean. Private investigator Steve Fisher is coming on. I want to do a full breakdown of what just happened in the last 24 hours, a timeline of how this now fits into the overall story and what we can expect next. Because at this time, David has only been arrested, not charged. Why? Welcome to Sidebar. Presented by law and crime, I'm Jesse Webber. Okay, real quick, before we jump into all of this, we have this app, this partner that I think you're going to love. It's called Upside. Upside gets you cashback extra cashback on everyday purchases like gas, groceries, takeout. So here's what you do. You download upside for free. You claim and offer one of the 100,000 plus locations. You pay like normal with your card. You verify

1:01the purchase and just like that, money back. So say I need to get gas or I want to take out one night. I'll search for upside offers first and after I spend, money appears in my app that I can transfer right into my bank account. And Upside's frequent users earn an average of $254 back a year. So start getting your cash back. Click the link in the description or scan the QR code, but make sure to use promo code Sidebar because you get an extra 25 cents bonus on every gallon on your first tank of gas. I can't talk about the arrest of 21-year-old David, David Anthony Burke, the singer, for the alleged murder of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez without bringing it on Steve Fisher. We've had him on for so long. We've had him on for months, the private investigator who has been on the ground following this case from the very beginning who has been quite vocal about his frustrations with this investigation and with an apparent lack of action, lack of transparency. Remember, Steve represents the owner of the property that David was reportedly staying at in the Hollywood Hills, apparently near where that Tesla was found with Celeste's body inside before

2:06it was towed to an LA tow yard. And remember, when I say Celeste's body was reportedly found in that car, decomposed, dismembered. And to give you a timeline here as we do this kind of case breakdown, as we try to analyze what is happening right now with this arrest and to be clear, David hasn't been charged yet. I want to get into this. August 27, 2025. This Tesla again reportedly registered to David is ticketed. It's marked as possibly abandoned and this leads to it eventually getting towed. September 8th at that tow yard in LA is where authorities discover Celeste's body after reports of a foul odor coming from the car, decomposed, dismembered, her body parts in bags. September 18th, detectives execute a search warrant at the residents that David was reportedly staying at. Reportedly, they collected electronics and computers. David also canceled his withered tour at this point. So we no longer publicly hear from him or see

3:07him up until his arrest yesterday. November 21st, the county of Los Angeles Department of Medical Examiner receives a court order reportedly initiated by the LAPD to place a security hold on the medical examiner's finding. So essentially the court sealed the records, meaning cause of death, those other details not to be publicly released. By the way, November was interesting because the LAPD indicated that it was standing by its prior September 29th statement, quote, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner has not yet determined the cause or manner of Miss Rivas Hernandez's death. As such, it remains unclear whether there is any criminal culpability beyond the concealment of her body. And now remember, he's just been arrested for her murder. So I would imagine something has changed there. December 2025, we start hearing reports that evidence is being presented in front of a grand jury. We even hear reports that a record executive was grilled by the prosecutor allegedly being asked, why didn't you call police?

4:09Now a grand jury, this is what's confusing. So usually the way we know it, they are presented evidence and they come back and determine whether there's enough probable cause for an indictment, right, an official charge against somebody. There's also investigative grand juries that hear evidence, they can issue subpoenas, they can lock in testimony, and maybe they don't, they're not tasked with returning back an indictment. February 12th, we learned that David's purported friend Neil Langston was arrested out in Montana, reportedly on a warrant for failure to appear as a witness is subsequently brought back to LA to testify. We presume in front of the grand jury later that month we learn more details from court filings. This is actually a connection with attempts to subpoena David's family members to testify and we learn that David is reportedly the target of a murder investigation and we learn how Celeste was reportedly dismembered. April 16th, David is arrested. Now this came in from the LA County District Attorney's office,

5:10quote, our office is aware of the arrest of David Anthony Burke by the Los Angeles Police Department. 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 sufficient evidence to file charges. At this time, additional information is not available. We will share an update on Monday once a filing decision has been made. And then this came in really late last night, early morning, good evening. The individual mentioned is still in LAPD custody. You may reach out to the District Attorney's office once the case has been presented to them. Then on Thursday night, the public information officer for LAPD put this out on X. Detective some Los Angeles Police Department robbery homicide division have arrested David Burke, a 21-year-old resident of Los Angeles for the murder of Celeste Revis. Burke is being held without bail. The case will be presented to the District Attorney's office on Monday for a filing consideration. Now the attorneys for David released a statement. So this is from Blair Burke, Marilyn Bednarsky and Regina Peter.

6:14They say let us be clear. The actual evidence in this case will show that David Burke did not murder Celeste Revis Hernandez and he was not the cause of her death. There has been no indictment returned by any grand jury in this case and no criminal complaint filed. David has only been detained under suspicion. We will vigorously defend David's innocence. And before I bring on Steve Fisher to break down more of our questions on this case and his perspective and his reaction and what we can expect next, here's what Steve had to say on X last night. Quote, David was arrested by complaint, not indictment. And this case will be submitted to the DA's office by Monday for charging consideration. Again, he said this, I think, before the attorney statement. This likely means either the grand jury did not return an indictment or the DA chose not to seek one. And the rest by complaint means that there will be a preliminary hearing to determine probable cause. This is a public hearing where evidence is presented and witnesses are questioned under oath, something that is bypassed with a grand jury indictment. It will be important to see whether

7:16this reflects a difference in strategy or a difference of opinion regarding the strength of the case between LAPD and the DA, or if there is another reason for proceeding this way. Immunity agreements, whether formal or informal proper remain in effect, even though there was no indictment, Celeste hashtags, Celeste, Rivas Hernandez. Okay, I want to bring in Steve Fisher right now. Steve, you have been all on top of this. I mentioned before all about your role in this, your feelings on this. I'm curious just from a human point of view how you feel about this moment since you've been waiting for there to be an arrest and to be clear, again, David hasn't been officially charged. He's innocent until proven guilty. But this is not exactly what you were looking for, right? I think we all imagine that when there would be an arrest, there would be a charge, right? That this was going to be a grand jury indictment. So I'm curious from a human point of view, how do you feel after seven months that he has been arrested, but not charged?

8:19You know, well, it's tough one. I feel a little bit better, obviously, that it looks like the process is starting, but this is not how I imagined it starting. You know, from what we see in the paperwork, appears to be with the grand jury route and to find out that there's not an indictment here is worrying. It appears that there's maybe maybe a difference of opinion between the LAPD and the DA's office, so whether what the charges should be or if there should be charges and you know, we don't know. If it went if it went for a vote and it came back with no true bill, there's no indictment, that's very concerning. And even if they didn't, if the DA hasn't sent it for vote, they're asked for a vote yet or for an indictment, why? And so there's to listen, Monday's going to be a big day today. You know, that's the day they have to decide whether there'll be charges right now or not or whether he's released. What is the biggest,

9:22what's the biggest hole in this case? Is it is it the idea of the cause of death? Is it the idea of understanding what David's alleged role is? Is it the idea that he's the only one currently arrested? I mean, what would be the thing that might be missing? I interviewed Bradford Cohen who agrees there might be some disagreement of thought in terms of the LAPD and the DA's office. You know this case better than anybody. What might be lacking in a potential prosecution here? Well, I think that the prosecutor's name that we've seen attached to a lot of the grand jury filings that have come public is known for being very, very, very thorough. And if this case had that smoking gun evidence that had that crime scene, if it had the blood, what not, then I think we would have seen charges very quickly. But we didn't. So that means this is a circumstantial case. This is probably going to rely on testimony by people like Neil Langston

10:28or Bob Morgan-Rath, the manager. And I don't know if that particular district attorney really wanted that type of case. So a couple of things that I think we'll be telling one day are one if he's charged. And if he is, whose prosecuting attorney is on it? And so I think maybe, and this is pure speculation, I don't have any insight information on that, this part of it. This is just my, you know, thought processes that there probably is a difference of opinion. And it probably is more circumstantial case than than they want. Before I go into what could happen one day, your client has your client reacted to this arrest at all? He has, he has reservations. This is not, this is not, listen, we're glad it happened. No doubt. And I'm not, not in LAPD for going forward and making the arrest. It's just, there's a big question mark is what's going to happen Monday? Because if the DA didn't,

11:31wasn't comfortable either sending it to a grand jury for vote, are they comfortable actually being under the gun having to, to file charges on Monday? What's the process? Do they announce charges after a few hours on Monday? And then it goes to a preliminary hearing in front of a judge determined to determine there's enough problem because do they bring it back to a grand jury for an indictment? Because one of the things we were wondering is this grand jury, this reported grand jury that's been hearing evidence where they just an investigative grand jury that didn't have the power to indict. They were just here to hear evidence, get subpoenas, lock and testimony. So what actually will happen by the end of the day on Monday, ended the day on Tuesday? Well, I imagine I would not be surprised. There's going to be a couple different angles here, because the DA is obviously going to come under a lot of pressure right now. But that doesn't mean that they're going to make a decision on a pressure. So they'll probably use, I imagine, most of the day on Monday, they can only hold a person so long without being charged or cutting them loose. And as far as then what the process is, it's hard to say. I think there's

12:36going to be some games in the chip here going on. I think that ultimately David would probably wave his right to speedy trial, just possibly to give us attorneys more time. But if not, you know, preliminary hearing comes up. Or like I said, back to the grand jury, we don't even know if there's a grand jury seated right now, because in L.A. County, the only old jury's criminal grand jury is for 30 days. So if this grand jury process has been going on for months and months, these have been different grand jurors. And so maybe now it is the grand jury that has charging power, if it was just investigated before. It's really hard to say what it looks like right now, because there hasn't been a movement. Right. Let me ask you this. He was in the Hollywood Hills, possibly this whole time. And we saw authorities in tactical gear making the arrest. We weren't sure where he was. Did you have any idea that he was at this house in the Hollywood in the Hollywood Hills? Yeah. So I learned about two and a half months ago that he was in my Hollywood and it really surprised me if he answered the very beginning I knew he was still in L.A. But I thought he had

13:38probably gone home to Texas. And especially with what was going on with his parents fighting their spinos, their grand jury's spinos, I thought he had probably gone back even though like two and a half months ago, I had learned that he was in my Hollywood. But I figured he'd left by then because I hadn't heard anything in the last few weeks. But so I was surprised he was still there. And you know, is it, you kept seeing it really well. I probably, I don't think he moved around much. I know he was receiving things that are, you know, another false name. But yeah, I think he shows that he thinks his career is going to take off again one day. But there was no indication like he was about to leave the country and like we have to immediately make a arrest before something happens. Like I, you saw the photos from the arrest. I've seen the reporting from it. It hasn't, I haven't seen anything that there was a level of violence that he was, you know, fighting it that he, they chased him. It's, I don't know if his author, if his attorney got advanced. Notice that this was happening. But, you know, I didn't see

14:40anything to indicate you tell me that, you know, he was a flight risk or anything. No, I mean, I did see is that there were some US marshals there as well. They had tactical s on. So I think that they probably had, they probably knew where he was the whole time. I think they were keeping an eye on him for preventative reasons. He was free to come ago. We could even leave the country if you wanted to. But I think they were keeping an eye on him. It probably gives him a little bit a sense of a power knowing that, you know, something's not happened with the grand jury. I probably, you know, isn't feeling too bad about it. What, what did you make of his lawyer statement? I think that I think it probably did catch that. I don't think they, I don't know if they got advanced notice because it seemed like it was, you know, to say that it was even charged by complaint. I think there is a, I think they say there's a complaint there. They said that they send a complaint up by Monday. So I don't know, you know, listen, this is where high dollar

15:41attorneys really can excel, right? When there's a circumstantial type case, you know, and they can get the high dollar expert witnesses and pick them apart. They said there was no, he's not the cause of death. How do they know that? Well, exactly. Well, that's, that's the other thing. Like, there's certain things like this evidence will show what is the, do they know what that evidence is? Like, what communication if they had with the DA's officer with LAPD? Because from what we understand, he's even had a saffron interview with LAPD. So he doesn't even know exactly what those questions will be. Other people that have appeared in front of the grand jury that they've been able to debrief hard to say, you know, it seems like they do have some a handle on what the evidence is though. Do you, do you, were you surprised there were no other charges against him? Were you surprised that nobody else was arrested? Yeah, I was because there are other crimes here. Listen, we know that the medilation of a corpse alone is, now that's a felony because it's not simply the, you know, concealment, like we've heard in the LAPD press release originally. This

16:42was a medilation. So the whole different thing. There is sex crimes. So I'm very, very confident. This is just my opinion from what I've seen, but I've talked to victims that there are sex crimes here. And in a lot, in these cases, a lot of times you'll see kind of a bunch of charges thrown at the wall. And then, then they'll take them off as they get further down, you know, after pre-lame and whatnot. But that's not the case here. It sounds like it's a single charge type of complaint. And it's also what we saw. It matches up with what we saw in the paperwork filed in Texas, where they talked about a single charge of murder 187, which is murder of fourth on, just strong charge. It was a strong charge, but why not throw them all out there in case something like this happens? And you, right before his arrest, you went on X, you expressed your frustration with the lack of action, with the lack of movement here. And you believe that authorities haven't been consistent with the crimes that were allegedly committed here, right? Their discussion of what happened here, right? Yeah, listen, it's been a very frustrating process. I still only recently that myself and

17:47my client are still involved in this because we want to make sure that there's justice for this young teen who he was taking advantage of and ultimately murdered. And it's been a very slow process, understand the investigation and stake time. However, it seemed like it was stalling out. Maybe this is proof that it was because it does seem to me, I didn't seem the interview with their progress, but it seems to me that there is a disconnect between LAPD and the DA's office. Well, even at the very least, you took issue with the fact about, well, there's only concealment of a body that might be charged here, not murder. And you're like, well, if she was dismembered, you were talking about something else here. Well, what my issue was is that in my opinion, that, you know, we got limited press releases in this case, we got two, I believe, from LAPD, no press conferences. And they were not telling the truth in the press release where they came out

18:52and said, the only, you know, there might not be any criminal culpability beyond concealment of a body, which is in California, it's a misdemeanor. But when somebody is mutilated, that is not concealment of a body any longer. That's medilation of a corpse, which is a felony. And they knew at the time they put that press release out that she had been dismembered. So that is not true. And then the next press release, the only other press release they came out with was them saying that they had the medical examiner's record sealed just to make sure that the detectives received that information first. And, you know, that's been months, then why not is that going to be released now? I think it has to be because, you know, listen, I think that if Blairburg or his attorney, David's attorneys have reason to believe that they can show that he wasn't the cause of her death. And they're going to, obviously, they'll get that information anyways. But I do think that once this discovery process starts, they're going to unseal them. Now, and there might have even been a contingency in the ceiling documents or

19:55that the judge signed saying that upon charging or upon a indictment or whatever that these are unsealed within seven days or something like that, just kind of like a grand jury transcripts would be. And now they won't be because it wasn't an indictment, however, same type of process. So I do think within the next couple of weeks, if these charges, that those will be unsealed. Where does Neil Langston fit into all of this? Because he's been quite vocal about him, right? His purported friend who was allegedly arrested for failing to appear as a witness, reportedly brought in front of a criminal proceeding. We assume the grand jury to testify. He takes the Instagram the short time ago. I mean, this is like about, I don't know, maybe last month or so, had a series of posts where he talked about his silence, how he said the case is in about me. It's about getting justice for the victim. Really took some shots at seemingly David, called him, I mean, it looked like he was calling him a drontory name. And he said he has like all the receipts. And, you know, he said, thankfully, I'm legally fine in every way. And boy,

21:00do I got all of my receipts for things. Ha, ha, ha, ha. He hasn't been charged. He hasn't been arrested. Where do you think he fits into all this? Well, I think he knows a lot. And in there, he was saying, he was very vocal. Like you said, he came out and said that he had all of his receipts. And, and he was legally fine. But then he seemed, they seemed to leak to TMZ that they didn't even have anything to tell the grand jury. He says only in there for 40 minutes. So it can't be both, right? I think he knows a lot. For my, what I've investigated personally, I think him and a couple others know a lot. And I think that they probably got some sort of immunity. And, you know, unfortunately, we'll probably probably had, I'm not saying that they're directly tied to the murder itself. But after the fact, I think they knew certain things that they should have come forward with. And, um, and I don't think he's the only one. I think we've got three of them personally, at least three of them. And I think that they're going to walk away just for the testimony because I think this is a circumstantial case. It was interesting.

22:01I was talking to Bradford Cohen in another episode of Sidebar and he was like, look, if someone's involved in the actual murder, there's only so much leeway that the DA would look past. If they're involved in a murder, it'd be kind of unlikely that they'd be granted some sort of protection or immunity. I mean, it depends on how much they would want the, the alleged ringleader of the person who's, uh, you know, instrumental in this. But it does make you wonder what everybody's alleged role or not role is in all this. And again, to be clear, David's the only one who's been arrested. Um, and then I was thinking about, okay, so he's arrested. And I was thinking about his parents and his brother. You mentioned it. They were fighting these subpoenas to testify. I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of their testimony would have been. Um, but it was through those filings that we learned more details about what seemingly happened to Celeste. What, what do you think that's all about with his family now that he's been arrested? You know, I don't know. And I do think that, but I do think they could be, uh, kind of the catalyst for why LAPD went ahead

23:04and arrested him on complaint because shortly after we threw that out there about the filings in, in Texas and what was going on and which had all the information about her being dismembered, the, they filed a motion to seal those records in Texas and they were successful. So now on the docket, you don't, you don't see anything. So we don't even know if that's made its way, is it, it was like an on third appeal, it's made its way through the court. And LAPD might just said, listen, this thing could be hung out for months and months and months. Uh, in this field court, why do we even need the parents to some money? Because we're probably not going to get a thing out of them. So maybe they just said, you know, we're going to go ahead and, uh, you know, there's public pressure and people want to test theirs about this 14 year old that lost her life. And we're going to go ahead and, um, say we've done our investigation. We think we've gathered everything is out there to be gathered right now. And here it is. And it's up to the day, whether it's charging or not. And the Santa Barbara trip, the Santa Barbara trip that police say he allegedly took, um, in the spring of 2025. Do you have any more clarity about that

24:09if we're thinking about this arrest or how it fits into it? So I don't have any information on the Santa Barbara trip. I, I'll tell you that we do have some evidence about a trip to a part of the national forest that it's not Santa Barbara County. It's, I guess, I don't even know if you could confuse it, but it's, it's, it's not in, um, it's not close to the LA. There was a trip. I'll say made to the, uh, the, uh, the mountains and, um, area, which just looks a lot like photography of Santa Barbara, but it's not Santa Barbara. So I don't know if there's another trip we don't know if these two might be getting confused a little bit, but he did make a, uh, a trip to, in fact, I've put a photo out on, um, a Twitter a few months ago of the photo he took by himself, uh, in a forest location, really remote area. Whether it's, um, that has anything to do with her murder or dismemberment. I don't know, but it's, um, it's, it's an interesting, you know,

25:09photo, but I don't see any evidence of Santa Barbara myself. Do you know how Celeste family is doing? I don't, I've never had any contact with anybody in the family. I, I tried to, uh, respect their, um, greeting process, their boundaries, but at the same time, did have some questions. If, if they were willing to talk, we've reached out to a couple of people in the family. They have not gotten, um, back to us. I, I do think, uh, through people have talked to trying to, to get some further clarity on, uh, people that knew of David. I do think if he's charged on Monday, I think some more people are going to come forward and be willing to talk. Not, not that, um, there's more victims or anything, but people that may know some things about, um, how long has been going on with Celeste or even other, um, you know, people that, um, had communication with David, but they're underage. I think there might be a few of these people that come forward. Now there'll be more comfortable that if he's charged, that's if he's charged.

26:13Do you, I mean, so, so before we wrap things up, based on your investigation, based on your opinion, your perspective, do you think there is sufficient probable cause to support a murder charge against David for the death of Celeste? That's a tough question. Um, I'll say without knowing exactly what a neo and possibly Rob, who we know, um, appeared the, the manager, um, what they know as hard to say. I do know that there's, I believe there's probable cause for sex crimes and, you know, the charges related to, to holding, you know, Celeste harboring and whatnot. The murder, I, um, it's hard to say. I think it's circumstantial. That's fair. That's fair. I think it's a circumstantial case and I have not talked to neo or, or, or those other two people directly and without knowing what they're going to say, it's hard to say. We don't have clarity on any of this. We don't have clarity on what anyone's alleged role in this is. Again, David is innocent until proven

27:15guilty. He has not been officially charged. We will see if that happens. Obviously, this is a big development, but we're still trying to understand exactly where this fits into the overall story. Steve Fisher, thanks for taking the time. As always, appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. And that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. You can also check us out on NBC's peacock. If you want to follow me, X Instagram, my news nation show, Jesse Weber live Monday through Friday, 11 p.m. Eastern. I'll see you next time, everybody.