Crime Weekly - S3 Ep145: D4vd | Coroner's Report and Electronics Reveal Horrifying Information

Episode Date: April 29, 2026

Singer D4vd, whose legal name is David Burke, has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, a girl who was last seen alive nearly a year ago. Burke pleaded not guilty and faces additional charges, with prosecutors weighing whether to seek the death penalty. New information has also recently been released, including Celeste's autopsy report and what kind of evidence has been found during investigation. Try our coffee! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.comBecome a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeeklyShop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shopYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcastWebsite: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.comInstagram: @CrimeWeeklyPodTwitter: @CrimeWeeklyPodFacebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS:1. https://www.Smalls.com/CrimeWeekly - Get 60% off your first order, FREE shipping, and FREE treats for life!

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Hey everyone. Welcome back to Crime Weekly News. I'm Derek Lavasser. And I'm Stephanie Harlow. And you can see we're covering it again, D4VD, aka David Anthony Burke. We're looking into the murder of Celeste Rivas Hernandez. This is something, I think, since we've started Crime Weekly News, this is the case that we've covered more than any others as far as the repetitive nature of what's going on here.

And there's reason behind it, if you've been following us on social media, which if you're not, You have to. And we've been posting about these updates incrementally as they're coming out. And you would think that we've hit all the highlights and there's no need to really cover it after trial. But unfortunately, as basically by the day, there's like crazy facts coming out that just makes this case even worse. And the charges just keep piling up. So we felt the need to cover it again. Yeah. I mean, we now have. And this is something that we've been kind of in the dark about since we first started covering the case was. Yeah, it's all coming out now, right? How Celeste died. You know, like we didn't know, wasn't an overdose, was it intentional, was it accidental? Well, we have some of those answers now. It's not good.

Not good at all. And we had talked real quickly before you even get into the specifics. We had talked quickly about what could have happened here. And I think maybe on one of the first crime weekly news that we covered, I had mentioned the possibility that maybe something happened inside the house, like an accidental overdose. Yeah, and then they freaked down and had to cover it up. And even that's horrible. But at least it would be better than what we're starting to find out. So yeah, it's like Stephanie said, it's not good. These are the actions of a psychopath, in my opinion. Agreed. Agreed. Absolutely. It's hard for me to really even like grasp at this point what we're dealing with here, knowing that we haven't gone to trial yet, that even, you know, the full extent of what is happening and what has. happened is not known to us because at this point what we are knowing and in hearing now is just

like I said the work of an absolute psychopath and you know that this person was not only walking around out there but somehow managed to get famous which then put him in a position where it was easy for him to find victims because they were flocking to him. There was a 26 page report released Wednesday by the county of Los Angeles Department of Medical Examiner. The report said that Celeste's body had two penetrating wounds of the torso, one to the right abdomen that punctured the liver, one to the left chest, and dismemberment of the upper and lower extremities. The injuries were caused with objects, the report said. So it looks like this wasn't just one weapon, but multiple.

Yeah. Now, examiners also said they found multiple skin defects and that when they examined the body, it had undergone severe post-martim changes. Eventually, the body was identified through dental radiograph comparison. The report listed the date and place of injury is unknown, and the cause and manner of death were determined on December 9th, 2025. Obviously, this doesn't seem to be an accident. No.

No. No, it's a homicide. No doubt about it. This little girl was attacked. In a statement, the lawyer for Celeste's family, his name's Patrick Steinfeld, he said the family members were absolutely devastated by the report and described the death as horrible and gruesome. The findings of the report have caused profound emotional pain for the family. I don't want to talk about the family right now because I have my own feelings about that, but basically, well, why don't

we talk about it? I'm sure that this is causing, you know, a lot of pain for the family. But once again, we're talking about a 14-year-old girl who was even allowed to be in this position to begin with. And I know that a lot of people feel the same as me where it's like, how did this happen? Your daughter was so young. She'd run away before. There was apparently knowledge on behalf of at least the mother and some family members that Celeste was in a relationship with a man named David who probably wasn't of an appropriate age for her. How does this happen?

And why was there so much time between when Celeste went missing and when she was reported missing? and why was there just really in no sense of urgency, it seemed, to make sure she was safe? Now, obviously, what we're dealing with here is Celeste was stabbed. It really doesn't seem evident on when the actual, like, dismemberment happened, but I would assume because the report says that the body underwent significant post-mortemortem changes, I would assume that's what they're speaking about, that this was done post-mortem, I hope, right? Yeah, I would agree with you. There was also something in there that I saw that her body, after it talked about the puncture wounds, it said significant traumatic injury.

I don't know exactly what that means, but I would agree with you, yeah, more than likely post-mortem. I would hope so, right? That's kind of where I'm at, you know, I would hope. I think this is something where it probably happened in stages. Again, it's all speculative. It's all conjecture at this point, although we're starting to get more facts. If I were to guess what transpired, there was a homicide. And at this point, they're reporting allegedly that David committed that murder, right?

There were other people in that home. And I don't know if he did it on his own without anybody else knowing. But I don't think it happened that same day. There was probably a period of time where Celeste was in the home. and then the decision was made that she had to be removed, and in order to do it in a way that may not stand out to people, she was dismembered. I mean, she was so tiny.

She was so tiny at the time of her death. Yeah, I was just going to say that. What's the need for that? Because the model, I think it was the Model Y, we were referring to, or maybe it was the Model S. The frunk on that car is still pretty big, and she was so tiny. Yeah.

But maybe initially they didn't think that she was going to fit or they were going to planning her and putting her in something else. I don't know, but I will say that there was a toxicology analysis done on Celeste liver tissue as well, which has given us some other insights to, I guess, her final hours. They detected a low level of ethanol, according to the L.A. County Medical's examiner. Now, investigators noted that this finding may have resulted from post-mortem changes or ingestion and does not appear to have been contributory to the cause of death. But they also showed that she had alcohol in her system at the time of death and also tested as presumptive positive for benzos, methamphetamines, and MDMA on the initial drug screening. They said further testing is needed to confirm. Now, additionally, methamphetamine and designer opioids were inconclusive due to interfering substances on the second drug screening. But MDMA and benzos are also not detected in the final drug screen confirmation.

I don't know really what that means at this point, but I also feel that based on how much time had passed, how decomposed her body was, maybe they're just not going to get conclusive toxicology sort of results. I don't know. What do you think about that? My understanding is usually the toxicology is done from the eyes, the membranes in the eyes or whatever the scientific terms are for that. and maybe due to decomposition, that's not available now. I do want to talk about this a little bit because there are going to be people that hear this and for some reason say, oh, well, you know, see, she was out there doing things she shouldn't be doing, hanging around with the wrong people.

Let me put that to rest right now. Like, that's not even, there are people out there, including myself as teenagers who make dumb decisions. But you started to talk about this a little bit, and we may get some shit for this. it is what it is. We're always going to be transparent with you guys as parents ourselves. There's more to this story. And although I feel horrible for Celeste's family,

there are some decisions that were being made. And the parental guidance, in my opinion, didn't appear to be there. No. And you mentioned, you know, the time that passed. And, you know, Celeste had been hanging out with David for an extended period of time. And it was bad. If a cousin knew about it, there's like, yeah, exactly.

And I know there's going to be some people in the comments. And you're not wrong. And I've experienced that as a police officer. officer when parents come in and they just say officer lavasse, I've tried everything. I've tried everything. And every time I try to put my foot down, it just makes it worse. And they, they rebel against me. And then I can't even keep them in the house. So we don't know the context yet. We don't know the dynamics. I need to know more. It's horrible, no matter which way you slice it. As a parent, I do sit here and wonder, was there anything else that could have been done to prevent it from

getting to this point. And I'm talking about on behalf of the family, were strong efforts made to try and intervene? Was there any type of intervention steps that were taken to say, this is wrong? Because clearly hanging out with David wasn't the only bad decision that Celeste was making. I mean, we don't know that for sure. But what I do know is if my daughter's hanging out with somebody and I don't want her to be hanging out with them, then that I would have to know something about that person to be able to say, like, I don't think this is a good idea. Now, did they know his identity? We don't know that. Did they know where he lived? We don't know that. Well, then you follow your daughter. You wait until she thinks you're not home and she leaves the house and you follow her and you see where she's going and you see who she's

hanging out with and you get that information. And then if she doesn't want to listen to you, you go to the police and you give the name and address of this person that your daughter's hanging out with. At minimum, there's going to be a crime there. There's a crime. There's a report. There's something on the record. showing that you did do everything that you could. And I know, you know, everybody's got to work and everybody's got their own things going on. And it's hard to pay the bills and, you know, keep all the balls in the air. I get it. But they knew that something was going on.

This wasn't the first time she'd run away. There were issues. And it kind of feels like they just let things happen instead of actively. I hope at some point they talk about it. And, you know, you mentioned about trying to keep all the balls in the air. but I actually think there's going to be more balls to drop in this case. And we also have to talk about some additional charges that give credence to what you said at the top of the show, which is that David's a monster. Yeah, he's a monster.

And what I said at the end of the last time we talked about this when I said, I guarantee you that she wasn't his only victim. No, there's definitely more to this story. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. We're going to talk about it. Okay. I'm going to play a quick game with you, false or fact. Okay.

I'm ready. Let's hear it. All right. So some cat foods contain so many fillers that they're closer to granola bar than actual meat. Okay. Well, I feel like that should be false, but I'm guessing that if you're asking it, it's true. Yes, it's true. And that's kind of the problem. Cats are obligate carnivores. So they need real meat. But a lot of traditional cat food is packed with fillers and buy products. And that's why we were really excited when we started getting into smalls. And that's why we really recommend smalls. Smalls is fresh cat food.

It's not the stuff that Stephanie is describing, which makes it top of the food chain. Yeah, they make protein-packed human-grade cat food, like real ingredients you'd actually recognize. And it's not only great for your cat. It's convenient for you. It's delivered right to your door. Smalls makes their food without preservatives, without fillers. And it's designed to actually support a cat's help instead of just, I guess, feeding them and making them fat. And we've been talking about smalls for a while. I know from the testimonials and even just personal experience that we've had with relatives and family members who have used it, they're definitely seeing a difference in their cats.

Definitely. My mom, well, she was my cat, Rascal. Shout out Rascal. I was give Rascal a shout out. When I was pregnant with Bella, my youngest, I developed terrible cat allergies. And so Rascal had to go and live with my mom. And so I'm always still providing food and stuff. And when Smalls came on our radar, I was like, well, let's try this out. out. And not only does Rascal love it, my mom loves it. So after switching to small's 88% of cat owners reported overall health improvements, things like better digestion, shine your coats, which we can definitely see with Rascal, more energy, which we can definitely see with Rascal. And honestly, it makes sense because cats use protein as their main energy source. So when they're getting more of it, you're going to see the difference. Yeah. And let's be honest, this is a little TMI, but less junk going in means less junk going out. And anybody who's

known to cat, knows how horrific the litter box can smell. So this is an underrated benefit right here. So stop serving your little carnivora bowl of processed shortcuts for a limited time because you are a crime weekly listener and viewer. You can get 60% off your first order plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to smalls.com slash crime weekly. That's a great deal. 60% off your first order plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to smalls.com slash crime weekly. Okay, so we're back and we want to talk about more evidence that was found. So apparently David's preliminary hearing is set for May 1st and that's when evidence and testimony is going to be presented to show a judge that there's enough to move forward in a trial. Apparently that hearing could still be delayed if either side says they're not ready or that enough discovery hasn't been handed over to the defense.

I guarantee you it will be delayed. But this past Thursday, prosecutors revealed that they went through David's iPhone, and it contained what they described as a significant amount of child sexual abuse material. Evidence they say will be reviewed by a forensic expert. Prosecutors have said they have more than 40 terabytes of discovery to turn over, a volume they say could cause the case's progress to slow. 40 terabytes? I don't know how tech savvy people are out there. I can only imagine it's not all child pornography. 40 terabytes.

That includes data from phones, computers, tablets, and an iCloud where David had about three terabytes stored. And so far, only about 30% of all evidence has been turned over. I will tell you this. I don't want to give too much away here because this is still being used. We had a child exploitation, pedophilia division where we went through training with the state police. and I will tell you that when you have massive amounts of data like this,

it's physically impossible to go through each file. Yeah, I don't think mentally or emotionally would it be possible? No, you can do it. Offenders also have techniques that they can use to lock and hide files within files, and they'll also rename those files so that even if you're searching their computer or their phone, you don't find them. However, they have developed specific software, and I'm going to be vague here for a reason that allows you to search

a large amount of data relatively quickly and it has an ability to search for the specific types of material that you're focusing on. What it also allows you to do from a investigatory standpoint is the way they access your computer, you have to note everything, but it allows you to go into someone's computer and go through their files without changing any of the metadata. Why is that so important? When it goes to court, an argument, a defense can be mounted that law enforcement has tampered with the evidence has changed something. So we have an ability to take a screenshot, if you will, of the computer at its resting phase before being analyzed.

And you can go in there and search these documents without actually searching the computer. Basically, it takes like a screenshot of the data. And what you're actually searching through is this copy and not the actual computer itself. Which is great, by the way. That's a great investigative tool. Yeah. I used it 15 years ago, and the advancements in it now, from what I'm hearing, are incredible. So although it sounds like an insurmountable task, 40 terabytes, there is techniques and tools available now that allow you to do so.

And there may be additional charges in the process of doing this. More importantly, there may be something on there, whether it's searching for particular items, looking for geographical locations that are tied directly to what happened to Celeste. So there's a lot they have to do here. I have to ask you something. 40 terabytes. And this is only, you know, I'm sure not all the evidence to be discovered. 40 terabytes seems just ridiculously excessive. I mean, any CSAM, obviously, we don't want to see that.

But 40 terabytes. Does this seem to you like the material that would be fulfilling one person's needs? Or is this a chain of people that this material is being shared with, sent to, received from? This seems like the substance or the mass of CSAM you'd see in like a trafficking ring or something like that, you know. Yeah, he has to be obtaining it from somewhere. If it's not personally obtained data that he's gathering himself, usually there are these rings where there's a sharing of this type of information and you may be in, you know, back end chat rooms and things of that nature. I also want to put out there for context and it's open to interpretation. I don't think that it's 40 terabytes of just criminal material.

I think it's 40 terabytes of just data in general. I don't know how much of it is specific to what we're talking about here. But it sounds like from what they're saying, it was a significant amount. Yes. But just to put it in context for people who watch Crime Weekly or listen to Crime Weekly, the video version of these episodes is approximately 200 gigabytes. and if I'm got this correctly, it's a thousand gigabytes for one terabyte.

Think about a two-hour high-definition video from two different cameras. It basically, I'm getting crazy with the math here, but basically one terabyte would be the equivalent to like five Crime Weekly episodes. So basically five times 40. So you're looking at 200 crime weekly episodes worth of data to go through. I hope my math was right on that. If it's not, I'll wait for the comments. But to summarize,

it's a lot of, a lot of digital data you have to go through. Yeah. So there's no way that's all specific to what we're talking about here. It could be. It could just be a lot of videos. It could be videos. It could be a lot of other things. But still, they have to treat it as if every single file could contain incriminating evidence, not only for this case, but additional charges as well. Like, what are we really talking about here? This is a lot of. This is. is a prominent rapper who was on the fast track to celebrity and doesn't matter. We've talked about it all the time. It could be a teacher. It could be someone who's cut in your lawn. It could be a podcaster. It could be a famous singer. Sickness is everywhere. And it's not specific to a certain

group. This isn't sickness. This is demonic. Yeah. And so this person clearly had some skeletons. I would say that it's more than a sickness. But I want to float something out to you and bring this kind of back to the family because I know people are going to think we're going hard on them and some people might agree with us. If you look at the timeline, this doesn't really make sense to me. So when Celeste was found, they said that at the time of her death, she was 71 pounds, first of all. That's very low weight for a 14 year old. Okay. Do you agree? I do, but how are they, but what was her weight before decomposition? Well, I think they're stating that her weight at the time of her death was 71 pounds.

Okay. Well, that's extremely light. I was under the impression 71 pounds was at the time the body was recovered. Now, if we look at the timeline here, the complaint against David says that when he was 18, in September of 2023, he began sexually abusing Celeste, who was just 13. She had just turned 13. That complaint states that he, quote, resided with her and had recurring access to her, end quote.

Okay. Yeah. Keep that in mind. Okay. So we know that before Celeste's family reported her last missing, which was almost a year later in April, you know, of 2024. She was reported last missing by her family, April 5th, 2024. She'd been, you know, considered a runaway before. She'd run away at times before. And apparently one of those times she ran away was September of 2023 when she was residing with,

David, who had recurring access to her. Yes. Okay? So she was gone long enough and living with somebody else. And don't tell me nobody in her family knew where she was, that she didn't talk to a cousin or somebody her own age in the family that she trusted to say where she was. Not a single person knew where she was or did they know where she was tried to convince her to come back. She said no. And eventually she did come back.

They report her missing for the last time April 5th, 2024. Now, the last time that police are saying Celeste was seen alive was April 23rd, 2025, a year after that. Yeah. Did Celeste go back home after the last time she was reported missing in April of 2024? Where was she between April of 2024 and April of 2025 when she died? Was she with David the entire time? Because according to the reports, maybe not, because he invited her over on April 23rd, 2025. Two days before his album Withered released, by the way. He invited her over and that's when

she was last seen alive and that's when she was killed. So where was she for that year? Yeah. Did she go back home and her parents just never called the police and said, oh, she's home? Did she not go back home? Where was she? Why isn't the family talking about this timeline? And then according to the complaint, it wasn't until May 5th of 2025, about two weeks after, last seen alive and apparently was killed, that David is being accused of mutilating her remains. So now I'm just trying to consider this timeline. She's 71 pounds, if we're reading this correctly at the time of her death. She's been reported missing a year before she's last seen. Who was she with? Why didn't the people that she was with say, hey, you're not really looking

great. You're losing a lot of weight. Are you eating? Are you taking care of yourself? You're 14 years old? Let's give you a drug test. Yeah. So if you went home, if Celeste went home after being reported missing by her family last in April of 2024, if she went home between April of 2024 and April of 2025 when David killed her allegedly, who was taking care of her? And did they not ask, where were you? Where were you when we had to report you missing? Like, we need to figure out where this is. You're not leaving this house. You're not using your computer, you're not talking to anybody until we get answers about who you were with, why you were with them. We need their address. We need to figure this out. And then we need to call the police and let

them know that you're not missing anymore, but now there's another crime they have to investigate. This is what I'm talking about when the family could have done more. Yeah. It's not coming from nowhere. I need to know more about the timeline. There may be documents because it's involving a juvenile that haven't been released, but there's a form called the disobedient wayward complaint form that you can file as a parent if you have children who are not compliant and running away and whatever. They're being argumentative or violent in the home. They're putting themselves in danger and you feel like you can't do anything. Yeah. And so to kind of bring this back just to our general audience, because there's a lot of parents

out there with teenagers who may be experiencing something similar to this, whenever parents would come into the station, the police station, and say, I just don't know what to do anymore. I would always tell them my best advice would be you follow the paperwork. They may be mad at you, but at the end of the day, at least we can keep an eye on them and get them out of that situation because legally they're not allowed to be there. You may have to be the villain in order to be the hero. That's the last thing I'll say about that. I want to go another direction here to kind of wrap up this episode. Everything we're talking about, we're talking about David, and rightfully so.

But to me, that's just probably the biggest person here, the biggest culprit. it, I want everyone because this guy was surrounded by people. There's no shot in hell. And you kind of alluded to this a little bit. There's no shot in hell. People inside his home didn't know her age and didn't know what was transpiring, even before her death and were complicit in this and just basically turned the other cheek.

Bullsh-shund. They need to be charged as well as co-conspirators. And if I'm a betting man, and this is purely just a guess on my part, there's more people that knew what happened to Celeste and maybe even contributed to the disposal of her body. So yeah, you want to get David. If he's the main guy, go after him. But you want to get all his yes men too. Family members, friends, I don't care.

Anybody who assisted or contributed to this, David's the first person to go down, but I want them all. And I hope law enforcement feels the same way. Yeah, I hope so. So we will see. I mean, it feels like we're just basically crime weekly news is becoming the David updates channel, but it's such a significant case because it represents so much more. We've talked about the disobedient wayward child aspect of this as far as the hurdles and complications that everyday parents can deal with.

We've also talked about this quote unquote celebrity who believe they operate by a different set of rules. And then we have their yes men who are out there enabling them by not pushing them. by not pushing back and saying, hey, this is wrong. You shouldn't be doing this. I don't care who you are. So I'm glad to see that law enforcement took the time. It seems like they dotted their eyes, crossed their teas. There were some people who were restless and upset that this was taking so long when it

appeared to be so obvious. But based on the amount of evidence that they've already seized and what they have to go through, it makes a lot more sense why they took so long to actually bring formal charges. And I hope this is one of those cases. is that at the end of it, we're looking back and we're complimenting them on how great of a job they did to make sure they tied up all the loose ends and got David and everybody else who helped them. That's my hope.

Absolutely. That's the only way we get justice for Celeste. There's no way to bring her back. We could talk about all the decisions, all the forks in the road that everyone made that ultimately led to this. But here we are. There are people who did horrible things to her. They need to be held accountable, period.

So the thing that's going to do for us, I mean, there's going to probably be a new story tomorrow with new updates and more horrific information. I hope that's not the case. I hope we got most of it out by now. We'll wait to see how the trial unfolds. I agree with Stephanie. I feel like this will be dragged out and extended because as much time as they need to investigate the evidence, the defense is going to need equally amount of time to go through it all. And try to knock down any. Anything they can as far as how it was seized and searched.

Any argument, the prosecutions. Yeah. say, well, this search was done underneath a full moon at 12.01 p.m. on a winter solstice. So it's not. Yeah. But maybe that leads to people being dined out because the only way David gets out of this is if he puts another fall guy out there. Yeah. And then when he blames someone else, if that person had any involvement, what are they going to say? Wait a second. You were doing this, this, this, this and this. So I would love to sit back and just watch them all turn on each other. That would be amazing. Guys, we want to hear your your thoughts on this. Comments, concerns.

your thoughts about what led up to this as a parent. Do you have any recommendations? How would you approach it differently? What do you make of all of this so far? What do we take out of this as a community to better protect ourselves and the people we care about? We want to hear your thoughts. Until next time, we're going to be back later this week. We're going to have our part two of our Brandy Hall episode.

The first episode, you guys had a lot of comments, a lot of questions about the case. We're going to dive into more details at the end of this week. So until then, everyone stay safe out there. We'll see you soon.