Law&Crime Sidebar - D4vd Faces Off Against 'Sniper' LA Prosecutor

Episode Date: May 14, 2026

In this deep dive, Law&Crime's Jesse Weber explores the career of Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman, the tenacious "sniper" prosecutor leading the murder and dismemberment case against David Anthony Burke (d4vd) in Los Angeles. Sidebar examines how Silverman's aggressive courtroom style and experience with complex DNA evidence may shape the upcoming trial for the young artist.HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea, Alex Ciccarone, & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrimeTwitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's a case about greed. It's a case about lust. This defendant, who was the mastermind, behind her own adoring husband's gruesome murder. That is the prosecutor leading the murder case against David. I'm talking about Deputy L.A. Beth Silverman. We wanted to better understand who she is, what cases she's handled, and what we can expect from her in her prosecution of the 21-year-old singer for the alleged and dismemberment of a 14-year-old girl. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber.

Okay, we talked about the defense yesterday in the David case. Now we want to do a deep dive into the prosecutor in the David case. Now, not necessarily all of the evidence, all the prosecution evidence. We already did an episode about that regarding the charges facing 21-year-old singer David Anthony Burke. We're talking first-degree murder, continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14, and on lawful. mutilation of human remains all in connection with the death of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, whose decomposed, dismembered body was found in a Tesla out in L.A. on September 8th of last year, a Tesla reportedly registered to David.

He's innocent and so proven guilty. Okay, these are just allegations. We already did episodes, as I said, all about all the evidence in this case or the supposed evidence. But what I want to do right now is focus on the lead prosecutor in this case. Beth Silverman, Deputy District Attorney for L.A. County, a career homicide prosecutor. According to the L.A. Times that cited L.A. Mag back in 2022, at one point, she was nicknamed Sniper for not having lost a murder case. She's the recipient of the Centurion Award for Excellence

in Cold Case Investigations with Technical Support. I mean, did you know that she successfully prosecuted Samuel Little, widely regarded by the FBI. as the most prolific serial killer in United States history, the guy who admitted to killing over 90 women over a 35-year period. That was a trial, by the way, that was filled with surviving victims and pathologists and scientists and criminal investigators and others, and she was able to secure convictions on three counts of first-degree murder against him. So this is just a sample of the cases that she's handled what we're going to get into,

and you're going to get a sense of her style, you're going to get a sense of what evidence she has presented in the past, what cases she's handled in the past, and you'll see correlations between the current charges, the current allegations facing David, and what she's done in the past. But I'll tell you what, even before we go into her past cases, her history, we actually saw her in court in the David case. So after defense attorney Blair Burke, who's representing David, and we did a whole episode about her and the defense strategy, we did that yesterday.

You can check it out on Long Crimes YouTube channel. After she made the argument that, look, we haven't been given any discovery in this case, so far. The prosecution hasn't turned things over to us. There's no evidentiary materials. We don't have the autopsy report. This was a hearing right after his arrest, by the way. I want you to listen to Beth Silverman. Again, the prosecutor, listen to her respond. Your Honor, as I did the case, there's approximately 40 terabytes of discovery in this case. Moreover, in order to obtain the transcripts from a grand jury investigation, counsel must have filed a motion. She knows the way the system works.

I'm not able to gather those. They have to be provided after the court orders them at least because it was an investigation. Second of all, the council plans on going to a preliminary hearing within the 10 days. It is unlikely that there will be very much discovery provided within that period, given the voluminous nature and how long it's going to take to copy on the drives.

In addition to that, the coroner's report was sealed in this case in order to prevent it from hampering truthful testimony from witnesses that testified it to grand jury, so an order will also have to be obtained, in order to get the coroner's department, which is now the medical examiner's department, to release those materials. Your Honor, it's surprising news given the district attorney's office held a press conference this morning where they discussed the cause of death, apparently under seal and not released by the coroner's office, as did the robbery homicide unit to the press. So we would again reiterate, we believe that Mr. Burke is entitled to discovery.

We have served the people with notice. They have 15 days to produce discovery in this case. We would ask that they do that in conscientious earnestness. and as quickly as possible. I'd ask the court to make an order today. We'll take a copy of the minute order or ordering the department of medical examiner to release their coroner's report in this case.

So that's her actually speaking in connection with this case, but there's also what she represents in the court filings, right? Because in any of the episodes that we've been doing on this case in the past by like two weeks, we talked so much about this pretrial prosecution brief that was filed. And we cite so much to it. And this is a pretrial brief that was filed by Beth Silverman. And by the way, you can check out the full brief on our case files in the Long Crime Plus app. It's all up there. We're starting a David whole page on that. When you read this, it lays out the potential evidence against David. And you get a sense of what this case is like, how it's structured, maybe get a sense of how she's going to argue it. So surveillance footage, cellular data, text messages, DNA analysis, online purchase history, witness testimony. law enforcement reports. So this is going to be a very expansive case stemming from Celeste's

life in Lake Elsinore all the way until the discovery of her body in that Tesla in September of 2025. By the way, talking about Beth Silverman, this was a little caveat before we go into more footage of her. Did you know that she was involved in one of the strangest wildest stories out in Los Angeles? So there was this murder of a 16-year-old Martha Puebla, and authorities ended up arresting 24-year-old Juan Catalan. And he claimed he didn't do it. And his alibi was, I was at a Dodgers game with my young daughter. That was the alibi.

Now, how did he prove it? Well, apparently, curb your enthusiasm was filming that day at the stadium. You know, the HBO comedy show from Larry David? So his lawyer calls up HBO, gets the footage, and Juan is right there. The timestamps showed 9, 10 p.m. an hour before the shooting. The cell phone record showed that Juan was near the stadium at the stadium. the time of the shooting. So after spending months in jail on a false charge, he was released. I will tell you, where does Beth Silverman come into this? She was prosecuting this case. And she wasn't initially

convinced at first by the tickets. And according to Snopes, not even the footage convinced her. So this was, by the way, all featured in a Netflix documentary called Longshot. But you kind of get a sense of how tenacious she reportedly can be. But I want to go now back to some cases. And I have footage of Beth Silverman in action. So we'll revisit some of her past cases, task work, and this will give you hopefully a sense of what we can expect with David. I want to start with her work on a very famous trial. Did all prime crime on it. Monica Semantelli.

So this was the woman convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the 2017 killing of her hairstylist husband, Fabio. Oh, and similar to David, she was found guilty of first-degree murder with special circumstance allegations of financial gain and lying in weight. Those are the two same special circumstances allegations in the David case that he allegedly lured Celeste out, that it was premeditated, that he allegedly killed her to prevent her from exposing him about their purported illegal sexual relationship, she being a minor. So in other words, Silverman has experienced not only murder cases, but has experience with those particular sets of special circumstances allegations. And the

reason. Those are important because you can get a higher penalty, life in prison without the possibility of parole or even the death penalty. Monica was sentenced last year to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Oh, and by the way, she wasn't alone. Her lover, Robert Baker, pleaded no contest to murder and conspiracy to commit murder charges. It has kind of the same effect as pleading guilty, and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. So the prosecutioners were talking about Beth Silverman in this case argued that on January 23rd, 2017, Baker fatally stabbed Fabio as he sat on his backyard patio in Woodland Hills and then fled the scene in Simintili's Porsche, which was later found abandoned. You go back to Silverman,

and we have footage of her during Monica's trial. When the prosecution began its opening statement, again, Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman warned the jury that her comments wouldn't be brief. And she was right. Her opening statement ended up taking days. Now, I'm not saying, saying that's what we're going to see in the David case, but two complex cases. And she basically eviscerated Monica during her presentation. So this leads us to the issue of motive. And as you heard during jury selection, motive is not an element we have to prove, but it's a big issue in this case. Financial gain as a special circumstance is one of the motives in this case. So she and Baker decided that Fabio was getting in the way of their future plans to be.

together for her to become Mrs. Baker. If she divorced Fabio she was going to lose her social standing and many if not all of her friends, her family would never forgive her, and they would never accept somebody like Robert Baker, who as I said, was nothing like Fabio. But if her beloved husband was murdered, people would feel sorry for her. She would be a victim. and therefore they might forgive and accept what they would think were just poor decisions by somebody who was a sad grieving widow. And the defendant realized that the only way to maintain a reputation is Fabio's devoted wife and a mother to their children without the risk of turning everyone against her was to become a victim.

The only way to get rid of Fabio and shed her old life without losing. the lifestyle to which she was accustomed was to kill her husband. So instead of being seen as this self-centered, ungrateful, liar and cheat, everyone would feel sorry for her because she would become Fabio's devastated widow who lost the love of her life. That gives you a sense of the storytelling, right, building that narrative, which is what we expect to see here from the complex investigation into Celeste's death, celebrity, minor, alleged cruel murder, cover up dismemberment, a lot of components there. Now, I also just want you to take a quick listen to the closing arguments that are made by Silverman at the end of the trial, and then I'm going to show you

how she cross-examines a witness. But first, closing argument. It's a case about greed. It's a case about lust. And during the trial, I looked up the definition of the between, the truth. The definition of And the judge is going to instruct you that you can't do that. You can't look things up when you go back into your deliberation. So I did it for you. And I wanted to see what the dictionaries defined betrayal as. And this is some of the adjectives, the synonyms that I came up with. with deception disloyalty treachery duplicity deplety deplety

devious cheat trickery fraud cunning breach of trust false-hearted underhanded underhanded unfaithful. Each of those words perfectly describe this defendant. This defendant, who was the mastermind behind her own adoring husband's gruesome murder. This was an obsessive, all-consuming love affair where these individuals, these two depraved people, the defendant and Robert Baker

believed they had found their soulmates in each other. And you know what? I think they did. They wanted to be together. They planned a future together. And that included traveling, as you heard, and living together.

The problem was that in order to get that future, to live that life that they so desperately wanted, they had to get rid of Fabio. And I don't care what the defense gets up and says.

Divorce wasn't going to get them what they wanted. And that's why you were provided with that evidence, because it does provide motive. It provides motive for what happened in this case to Fabio,

and Tilly. And that is one critical piece of evidence, no matter how you want to downplay it, or cover it up, or try to conceal it, the fact that she lured him into thinking that their marriage was solid and then had him murdered in his favorite place, shows that he was. how evil this crime was. It really was a burglary, could have robbed the house, could have burglarized the home, taken property and left. They never had to see Fabio out on the back patio. They could have taken things from that bedroom and then fled out that sliding door that was left slightly ajar or unlocked to sort of stage that as an entry. point. Remember that? The only reason you would go out onto the patio, and again, all common sense, is if you wanted to target this victim. And as I said, this was clearly a targeted hit. It was very personal. They went out onto that patio to kill him. He had no enemies. So again, who do you start looking at?

So a few things there, right? Going after the defense's arguments, countering other possible explanations, other narratives, trying to fight back against any scent of reasonable doubt, telling a story for the jury to follow. But I also want you to see how she cross-examines key witnesses. And to give you a sense of that, got to say, who better to show you than when she questioned Robert Baker himself. And by the way, the context here is she was questioning him and he seemed to struggle to explain why he had provided multiple versions of this story of the murder, including statements in a seven-page letter that he gave to Monica after he agreed to plead no contest to the

murder. Take a look. You have repeatedly changed your story in this case to fit the evidence, correct? Officially, no. There's only, I don't know what you, when you say officially, I don't know what that means. I'm just asking you, you have repeatedly changed your story to fit the evidence in this case, correct? Are you asking me or are you telling me what to say? Your Honor? I will.

On an official statement, I've been honest with you. On everything else is nothing. What in your mind is official versus... When I swear, when I swore in. So if you were to have a conversation with defense counsel where they are asking you to tell the truth and you lie to them, you would consider that to be unofficial? True. So it's okay that they asked you to tell the truth and that you repeatedly lied to them. I did lie to them.

Over and over and over and over again, right? Some ports here, some ports no. Did you think at all about the trauma that you would inflict for a lifetime on these two young girls and losing their father in their home in such a horrific manner? Did that ever cross your mind? No, to make this easy for you, no. Because you didn't really care about them, right? I cared about them.

You cared a lot about them. I cared about them. You cared about them so much that you, again, took their father away from them. in their home where they lived, the place that's supposed to be your sanctuary, right? Can I answer now? I'm trying to answer it. You keep going and going. I do care. Objection moved to strike? Non-responsive. Stricken. Answer the question. Ask again. Ask again one more time.

You cared so much about them that you destroyed their feeling of safety. in their own home? Well, I don't know how they felt, but I did care about them. Didn't you tell your friends, like we saw in messages last week, that once the girls graduated school, the two of you were going to leave the country? I never saw no text like that. How about traveling once the girls finished school?

I never saw any text like that either. You didn't? You didn't see that last week when I showed you, Michael? Spence and your message to Run Ray? I didn't see anything. I didn't see anything. I didn't see anything. It's hard to keep life straight when you tell so many of them, right?

Yes, you're finding it difficult to keep your stories straight? You're asking four questions at a time when I try to answer you. Cut me off. Objection, non-responsive move to strike. Sure again. Again. One more time. You're finding it hard to keep all of your stories straight.

It's a statement. It's this thing. How many different stories would you venture you've told since your first interview with Monica's lawyers? How many? Give us an estimate? Two? Maybe.

Maybe? Maybe. Yeah, maybe two, without thinking too hard. One being the letter, right? One being the letter. How long would you say it took you to write? that letter. I think it's seven pages front and back handwritten. A day. A full day? A day. So did you spend a lot of time thinking about what you were

going to say in that letter? I did. And during the time that you spent that entire day writing this letter, did you think about all of the lies that you were telling Monica's lawyers? I was thinking about what I'm writing in the letter. The lies, right? Whatever I was writing the letter. Well, you agreed last week that everything you wrote in the letter was a lie. Not everything, but... Which part was true?

I got to look at the letter. We'll do that. All right. Approximating, how many lies would you say you told in that letter? I don't know. I can't... It's a rule. I haven't...

I got to count. Give me an estimate. I don't have... I'm not giving an estimate because I don't know. Ten? I don't know. Fifty? I don't know.

A hundred? That's all right. I don't know. I have to see the letter. I don't know. I have to see the letter. How about 360? I don't know.

I have to see the letter. So kind of gives you an idea about what it would be like if, you know, David took the stand in his own defense. You know, defense attorneys have a long conversation with their clients before they decide to testify. And they probably study the opposing attorney's style of questioning. So I do have to believe that it's episodes like this that will be analyzed by Blair Burke. But again, it's really up to David if he wants to take the stand. I can do a whole episode on that.

Maybe I will. And one more sense of this, one more thing to think about, I want you to listen to her cross-examine Baker about, this was kind of a shocker, Monica's nude photos while there was this sense of grieving? When Monica left after you murdered Fabio to go to Toronto for the various funeral services, the cremation,

the church services during that time period while she was in Toronto, you were still in communication with her, weren't you? I believe so. In fact, during that week, February 3rd through February 6th, isn't it true that she sent you numerous photographs of herself? I don't know. I don't know. So if I were to tell you that she sent you numerous photographs of herself while she was and posing naked showing off her private parts and that she sent these to you during that week,

does that refresh your recollection? Not really. But it wouldn't be unusual, right? For her to send pictures? Yeah. No. So you don't think there's a distinction between a time when you're allegedly grieving and time when you're trying to be flirty or sexy or whatever you want to think.

You don't think when someone's grieving the last thing on their mind is speaking their while they're... She sent you photographs of her with her while she was in Toronto? I don't know. I don't know. I really don't know. I'm not looking at the pictures and I'm not looking at the date, so I can't tell you. I don't have a photographic memory like that.

Okay, so now I want to talk about some other cases. How about the grim sleeper trial? Okay, so Beth Silverman, alongside Deputy District Attorney Marguerite Rizzo of the Forensic Science Section, prosecuted Lonnie Franklin Jr. And this was for the brutal killings of nine women and a teenage girl. And they secured convictions against this former city sanitation worker. on all 10 counts of first-degree murder with special circumstance allegations. This one was multiple murders.

They also got convictions for one count of attempted, willful, deliberate, and premeditated murder. And by the way, this was a capital case. So while we wait to see whether Silverman will move forward with the death penalty in the David case, here in the Franklin case, the Franklin Jr. case, she successfully argued to the jury who agreed to recommend a death sentence. So again, she has the experience. in this area as well. And a death penalty case, the penalty phase, that's a different kind of trial,

right? It's actually elongated. It's a second stage. It goes into considerations if you want to go that way. And can you find jurors who are not only going to be able to decide this case, but are they death penalty qualified? Can they look at the evidence objectively and determine one way or another, whether or not a criminal defendant should be sentenced to death? Not easy. Now, during the penalty phase, in this case, in the Franklin case, just to give you an idea, and we're talking about, Seth Silverman, the prosecution introduced evidence tying Franklin to four additional murders of women between 1984 and 2006. There was a woman who was kidnapped and apparently raped by Franklin and two army buddies

in Germany on April 17, 1974. They also testified. This is according to the LADA's office. So she has experience with cold cases and older evidence, and she still secures convictions and penalties. But to give you a better idea of what she did here, one of the things that, Beth Silverman did. And again, just keep this in mind when we think about the Celeste case, the graphic evidence. Silverman in the Grim Sleeper case showed photo after photo of all the victims.

That's how she started the trial. That emotional beat. And when you think about the brutal end to 14-year-old Celeste, that may be how she starts this trial with an opening statement, showing photos of Celeste, humanizing her, showing what she was like. And Silverman, in her opening statement in the Franklin case, she had crafted the narrative that this guy took advantage of the young drug-addicted women. And to give you a sense of that, in her opening statement, she said, this was the perfect opportunity for someone who prayed on women. Someone who knew the streets and the dark alleys by heart. Someone who lived there was able to blend in. Someone who knew where the drug-addicted women and perhaps prostitutes would congregate and who knew how to lure potential victims into the darkness.

and the isolation of a vehicle through the promise of crack. Obviously, different circumstances in the Celeste case. But I do wonder about common themes of vulnerability, right? And this one would be, I imagine, how young she was, impressionable, musical artist, fame, luring. So could they come up again in her opening statement or arguments against David? In terms of the evidence, she linked Franklin to the murders through firearms and DNA and photographs. And again, in the David case, we don't have a firearm. It's not a firearm-related case as far as we see. And we don't know the exact murder weapon other than it was a sharp instrument, according to authorities in the David case.

But through the ME's report and potential DNA evidence, you see how crucial the physical evidence will be here. Actually, focusing on DNA evidence for a minute. So in the David pre-trial brief that I mentioned before, the one prepared by Beth Silverman, when she talks about the alleged dismemberment of Celeste at David's property, she writes, DNA evidence developed from bloodstains collected from defendant's garage, which match the victim's genetic profile. So that's going to be key, right? You go to the Franklin case.

She took the jury meticulously through the intricacies of DNA evidence, talked about the odds, quadrillions, quintillions. So in other words, how unlikely it would be that it was somebody else's DNA, right? that can be very tricky to explain. That can be tough to explain to a jury. It's complicated, but clearly she has experience in this too. And I'm going to highlight one other powerful moment from the Franklin trial where she said, 10 of the victims can't tell you themselves.

The defendant took their voices when he brutally murdered them. The evidence in this case is the voice of the victims. Will we see something similar in the Celeste case from her? Silverman has also prosecuted Sandy D. John Mieves, the mother accused of killing her four children in a house fire in 1998. She was convicted. She was sentenced to death. The death sentence actually got reversed, by the way. But the big thing to note about this is the specific circumstances allegations were part of this case, too, lying in wait. Lying in wait, part of the David case too. And the prosecution's case reportedly relied on in what was presented, a 911 phone call, first responder testimony, crime scene evidence, such as

the presence of gasoline, apparent suicide letters, medical personnel, and much of it highlighted the defendant's suspicious and incriminating behavior. When you go to the David case, a big theme from the prosecution's pre-trial brief, Beth Silverman's brief, is trying to explain what he was doing, what David was allegedly doing his behavior, that if he's completely innocent, is it strange that he stopped trying to contact Celeste after she disappeared? Is it strange that he allegedly took a Santa a barber trip late at night. Is it strange? He allegedly ordered all of these materials to the property after they say Celeste died. So chainsaws, body bag, laundry bags, inflatable pool. Is it strange that he allegedly lied to those around him about the strong smell of what they claim is decay,

decomposition at the car and the property? Is it strange that he allegedly sends a text to Celeste asking where she is after she reportedly arrived at his place. Is it an alibi, right? So just to give you a sense of what she's done in the past. And one more case, I got to call out. Beth Silverman successfully prosecuted got convictions for murder, mayhem, and torture against Blake Leibel. In May 2016, Laibelle murdered his 30-year-old girlfriend, Yana Kazian, at their apartment in West Hollywood. She was tortured, mutilated, before she was killed. nearly all of her blood was drained from her body. And that case, like Celeste, was about the use of a sharp instrument to kill.

Here, Yanna died from blood loss. It's horrific. And you can see, again, the allegations in the Celeste case, sharp instrument, brutal crime, stabbing. What are we talking about here? So the prosecution in the Laibel case, that's Silverman, presented evidence of bloody sheets and clothes that were hidden inside of a dumpster. Also in the Laibel case, there was evidence of luminal. and a massive cleanup.

Silverman actually argued that the killing, this was interesting, was based on a graphic novel that Laibel had developed years before. She told the court, the defendant basically handed us a blueprint, a case of life imitating art. Sadism is the gratification, obviously, from the infliction of pain and suffering on another, and we know that in this case, the defendant obviously enjoyed it because he continued to do it for hours and hours. So this was a brutal case with a brutal crime scene in autopsy photos.

And again, we are dealing with the same kind of thing in the Celeste case, given the allegations here. Something to think about, a little bit of a primer on Beth Silverman. We will follow what she does next in this case. But that's all we have for you right now. Thank you so much for joining us. As always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast. You can also check us out at NBC's Peacock as well. 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.