Law&Crime Sidebar - D4vd's Life Behind Bars Revealed!

Episode Date: August 5, 2026

As 21-year-old singer David Anthony Burke, known professionally as D4vd, awaits trial at the notorious Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles for the alleged murder and abuse of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, questions linger over what his life is like behind bars. From his daily schedule and mental health housing to potential safety risks in the high-profile case, Law&Crime's Jesse Weber breaks down the reported details of his lockup alongside Dr. DeWayne Hendrix, a retired senior warden with the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Taking care of your health just got easier – start here with Zocdoc: https://zocdoc.com/JESSE  #sponsoredHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea, & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson, Heather Berzak & 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.

As David is locked away at a notorious LA jail awaiting trial, what exactly is his life like? Is he in danger? How does he adjust to this new reality? Does his celebrity status affect anything? We have new reporting on the details of his life behind bars, and we are bringing on a prison expert to tell us what may be happening inside those walls. From the moment he wakes up to the last check of the night, we're going to talk about it right now. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber.

What is David's life behind bars right now? What is it like for him? Well, we got some details that I want to talk about. That's what I want to examine for the 21-year-old as he awaits a potential trial on charges of first-degree murder, continuous sexual abuse of a minor, and a lawful mutilation of human remains,

all in connection with the alleged killing and dismemberment of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez. Oh, by the way, if you want more details of the David case, including the transcripts, the filings. It is all on the long crime process. It's under the case files. We have one for David.

You can check it all out there. Now, with the Singer's arraignment scheduled for later this month as a judge just held that there is enough evidence for him to go to trial, he is being held at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility out in Los Angeles. He's been there since his arrest in April. The LA Sheriff's Office calls this facility, quote, the world's largest jail, as well as the nation's largest mental health facility. The facility is located at 450 Botchit Street in Los Angeles, California, and is operated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Now, friend of the show, Steve Fisher, who is a private investigator, he's been looking into Celeste's death since the beginning of this. He went on X recently, and he posted, quote, this is David's view tonight at men's central jail in L.A. County. This is as good as it will ever get for him. I hope every minute feels like a year. Hashtag Celeste Revis Hernandez. And he says these are actual men's central jail photos, and he attaches photos of what he claims to be a cell and a block that look absolutely horrendous. Now, let me just tell you something about this facility. So according to the LA Times earlier this year, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna requested that the National Institute of Corrections, this federal department, conduct a full review of Los Angeles jails because apparently this came after. 10 inmates died in custody in less than three months. Back in September of last year, California

Attorney General Rob Bonta apparently sued the Sheriff's Department, alleging unsafe and unconstitutional conditions at county jails. At the time, Banta said, let me be clear, this is about human dignity. These conditions aren't new. So with that in mind, we have learned some reported details about David's life behind bars, and that's what I want to get into. And as we do that, let me bring on Dr. Dwayne Hendricks, retired senior warden with the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prison. So good to see you, sir. Thanks for coming on. Right. Thanks, Jesse. What do you know about this Twin Towers Correctional Facility? What can you tell us? Well, I can tell you that it was built sometime in the mid-90s after the earthquake, the major earthquake that had in the L.A. area in

North Ridge back in 94. The prior facility had some damage there in Los Angeles. Angeles County. So they built this facility to accommodate, I believe it's about a million, a hundred something, a little over a million square feet of space. And it's designed for, you know, better accommodations for mental health care, health care, and also to house individuals who are going to be in what we call, you know, special housing. I know some would say solitary confinement, but to accommodate individuals who would probably be single-celled, for quite a bit of time while they're going through their pretrial cases in that process. How bad are the conditions?

You know, again, from my understanding as compared to the traditional L.A. County Jail is supposed to be a lot better, although they may have staffing difficulties like other facilities, but from my understanding, they have better food accommodations for those house, individuals housed there. And I can tell you throughout the years, individuals that are celebrities or high-profile cases, they normally send those folks over to the Twin Towers versus having them at the traditional L.A. County Jail. Can you talk about that for a second and generally speaking also there for a celebrity, for a high-profile individual? How is their experience different from someone else? Are they treated differently?

Is there a target on their back? Is there more security measures put in place for them? How does it work? Well, it's not necessarily that just because they're a celebrity, they want to keep them away. But typically, their initial experiences, just like any other, they'll go, they'll be arrested wherever they are. And depending on how that arrest goes in terms of they go quietly or without incident, they'll be taken there. They'll be booked. they'll be photographed, fingerprinted.

Obviously, they'll go through a visual, a total body visual search. And then they'll be placed in, you know, especially if they're a celebrity or someone that may be suicidal or something like that, they're going to place them in, you know, special housing, so to speak. Now, in terms of why they would house him initially in, you know, segregation or special housing, instead of putting him in a general population, unit initially. And that is because of the celebrity. You don't want a person that necessarily have a target on their back once they get there because people may try to harm them or extort them initially. Or it could be if they're suicidal, if there's some sort of suicidal ideation. So that will be typically why a celebrity or someone high profile would be placed in segregation initially. Okay, so before we jump back into this, I know this is a little bit of a 180,

but I just have to call this out. Do you dread calling to make a doctor's appointment like I do? I mean, I just did it. It is such a hassle. It is so easy to procrastinate, either because of phone anxiety or having to play phone tag, wait for callbacks, you know what it's like. Well, our sponsor, Zockdoch, makes it all so much easier. ZockDoc's free app and website lets you search and compare local in-network doctors, which means you can make an appointment without an anxiety-inducing phone call. They also have more than 150,000 providers within more than 200 specialties all across 50 states. I mean, look how simple it is to just pick a doctor with Zoc Doc. Real patient reviews, detailed doctor profiles. It takes all the guests work out, leaving everyone anxiety-free. Your health matters, taking care of

yourself shouldn't be complicated. Find and book the right doctor with Zok-Doc. Head on over to Zocdoch.com Jesse to get started today and check that appointment off your to-do list. That is Z OCDOC.com slash Jesse. What about somebody who's accused of sexually abusing and murdering a child? Are they treated differently by the inmates? Yes. And I can tell you with my experience at NBC Brooklyn, we had over 2 million square feet there. So we were actually able to house people who were charged or had allegations

of sexual abuse, child abuse, that kind of thing. We would put them in a particular unit with them only. And sometimes we may would house ex-cops or, you know, public officials whom also may have targets on their back. We will put them in that particular housing unit. So, yes, you would, especially someone who was high profile, the nature of the particular crime that we're talking about here, you know, having some 14-year-old young lady brutally murder.

murdered at the hands of, you know, a singer or someone who is a public figure, you know, obviously, one, he would have a target on his back for the sex crime itself. And then, you know, being a sex offender, a murdering of a young lady, and then being a celebrity, you automatically would want to put him in there. A niece, at least initially you would want to house him by himself and, you know, in segregation. And we're getting into his specifics of his housing in a minute. And to be clear, he is innocent unless proven guilty. He hasn't been convicted of anything. So as he's fighting these allegations and denying these allegations, I mean, the inmates won't care. I mean, the allegations of the allegations. Before we even get into something else about

this, I am wondering, is it the opposite effect, too? And I was kind of seeing this in the Ditty case, where people could be enamored by a celebrity inside and may want to protect them, befriend them, having allegiance to them, be loyal to them. You tell me how that works. Well, you know, everything is about leverage. And when you're talking about being confined in a space, whether it's a housing unit, whether it's a sale, you know, individuals who are a lot behind bars, especially those who we call indigent people that don't have a lot of funds or who don't

have influence or power, what they're trying to do is get leverage. and any person is kind of like, you know, you're going to a school yard. The new kid is going to get picked on. A new kid is going to get tested, right? So in a sense of someone like the person we're talking about, you know, he's new. He's he walk on that unit. And of course, people are going to try to figure him out. And again, is there something that they can get from him, whether it's money, whether

it's access to legal assistance? because again, a lot of inmates when they come into prison, a lot of them don't have anything. So they have to use either physical force, mental force, or whatever leverage they have, whether in gangs or anything like that, to try to level themselves up. Because once you owe someone a favor,

and if I owe ex person over here, and then you got this new guy coming in, if I can befriend them, if I can connect with them, and now I can pay back my favor to this, other person that I owe so that we can kind of control what's going on in the environment. So that's how typically that happens. So I want to go into a little bit about what his life seems to be like. People magazine reported on some of these apparent details of David's life, like how he's in a

single jail cell, which you mentioned, constantly monitored that this is reportedly a place where a source told people the inmates, and you mentioned this too, how's there have mental health needs, that they're kept apart from other inmates. You look at his schedule, so he's apparently, according to this reporting, housed in Tower 1, Section 142. Again, these single cells separated from others, 24-hour monitoring. He can leave his cell for limited periods of movement, but he has to be monitored, usually by a sheriff's sergeant with a body-worn camera. What is that life like? What is that experience like?

What does his day-to-day look like? Well, I mean, when he's not going to court, or let's just say if he's going to, he's going to, going for a hearing. They'll wake him up about 4 or 5 a.m. Get him a cold, you know, continental type breakfast, get him taken down to the booking area to where they're going to transport him over to the courthouse. He'll spend the day there and then he'll come back. But if he's there on the housing unit, he'll, again, they'll wake him up for breakfast. And then if he doesn't have a shower in his cell, you know, every three days, they will escort him out for a shower. And again, we would call that three-man hold in a,

in the federal system. So you'd have two staff members there and a supervisor. In this case, would be a sergeant. We would have a lieutenant. And then we would escort this high profile person out, whether it's high profile based on their celebrity, their crime, or if they are, you know, may cause physical harm to the staff.

And then we would, any time that person move, whether it's to talk on the phone, whether it's to go to recreation, whether it's go to court, or whether it was to come out to talk to law enforcement or talk to his attorney or visitation, they're going to move with someone. And typically, you'll get recreation five days out of the week. He'll get the shower three days outside of the sale.

And depending on and then the commissary and all that kind of stuff, he has money on his books. They would bring that to him. But he would spend the vast majority of his time in that single sale. But staff will be, other than them escorting him every 15 to 30 minutes, You're going to have staff making rounds to check on do a welfare check. You're going to have health services staff coming to see him. You're going to have mental health clinicians.

They're going to be coming by to see him on a day-to-day basis. His counselors, case managers, other officials. So he'll be seen and he'll talk to staff most of the time, but most of his time will actually be spent behind that cell. And what does he do in the cell? What can he do in the cell? Well, he can have his toll trees. He can have limited.

I'm assuming he's probably. given a limited amount of commissary. He'll have access to some of his legal materials. He can have writing utensils, pens, pads, and that thing. But it would be a pen that, you know, one of these rubber-type pins, it won't be anything that he can turn into what we call a shank to harm someone or harm himself. And any medical equipment that he may need, you know, his, medications, if he's on any medications, if he has sleep apnea, he'd have that machine in there in the cell, one or two blankets, a sheet, a pillow, very limited amount of property that he would be would have in there.

And then staff should be shaking down or doing cell searches when they move him out to court or to recreation to make sure that he's not, you know, creating any shanks or what we call homemade knives or anything like that to try to harm himself or someone else. Let's talk about the food. So reportedly, according to people, he eats three meals a day that law enforcement sources say that breakfast is served around 6 a.m., lunch between 10.30 and 11 a.m. Dinner at around 5 p.m. A, it feels like the day is centered around the meals. Like, it seems to be those to be the big events that you look out for and you wait for. And what is the food actually, like, generally speaking?

I don't know if you know what the menu is, like, people reported that the Twin Towers Facility might have a better menu, but I don't know. I mean, what is he typically looking like he's eating? Probably in the mornings, in the lunchtime, it'll probably be more cold foods. Like, you know, for breakfast, it would be like cereal, milk, maybe some fruit or some sort of breakfast cake or some sort of pastry. And then lunchtime, again, probably some cold cuts. Now, I don't know what type of diet he's on. You know, some people, you know, inmates come in with religious diets or, you know, they don't want to eat flesh and that kind of thing. So let's say if he doesn't eat flesh, they'll probably give him a peanut butter sandwich or some crackers or something like that or a sandwich if he does eat flesh.

And then your dinner meal is probably going to be your one warm meal for the day. And I can tell you most gels and, you know, have standards through the American Corrections Association. So they'll typically have, you know, like a hamburger day, chicken day, fish, you know, spaghetti. spaghetti school pizza, you know, like I will serve, you know, in public schools in California, you know, so there's little square little pizzas that they would give out. So it would be something sort of that nature and it will be balanced to make sure that, you know, he's getting a healthy diet. Of course, based on the amount of people they're serving there, obviously the taste and the quality is probably not going to be as good as you would get at home or maybe in a high-end restaurant like

he may be used to. But it will be edible enough because the staff, there, at least some of the administrative staff, there should be testing and tasting those meals each and every day to make sure if they could eat it, then it can be served to the population. How does someone mental adjust to this new reality? You know, he's a celebrity, he's young, he's young to, and all of a sudden, you know, he's arrested, he's taken to this facility, everything that he's known has changed, his whole lifestyle change, he's in a different environment. Typically speaking, how do people mentally, physically adjust to this new reality and environment? Well, again, it depends on the circumstances of the individual, you know, just

understanding who he is. I mean, from all reports, he's never been arrested before. He come from a, you know, a two-parent home. He grew up singing in church and he became, you know, creative in his music. But in terms of being locked up in solitary confinement, or special housing immediately, I'm sure, you know, and I know the case, you know, there were allegations well before they were arresting him. So he probably had a little bit of time to think about, okay, what is this going to be like, you know, if I am arrested for these allegations? So I am almost certain that the medical and the mental clinical staff are spending a lot of time with him to make sure if he's having a difficult time adjusting to being in solitary confinement.

and then the charges that he's facing as well are very heavy. So I would think that, you know, any signs of, you know, suicidal ideation or self-harm or harming others will be taken very seriously because it don't take very long to being behind a sale, for one, even if the door opens every hour or every other hour during the day. I'm sure it's taken a very strong mental toll on him after the, you know, last several months that he's been. incarcerated. I thought this was notable. Apparently, he has no infractions, no issues. You couple that with reports he's been cooperative during the preliminary process. What does I tell you? Well, you know, just doing a little additional background information on him. Apparently, you know, he's sort of

been reported as an introvert, you know, someone who would be creative in his sister's closet, I would believe. I hope I'm saying this correctly where he'd be writing his songs and different things of that nature. So I'm not surprised by hearing that he is very calm, collected, you know, isn't causing any problems or concerns for staff. But I also would like to say, I'm sure his legal team is probably telling him to lean in to being calm, collected, because the last thing you want is reports of being, you know, misbehaving, disrespecting staff, assaulting staff, or anything.

anything like that or making waves. And I also find it interesting that I also have been hearing that his family is supporting him, but he hasn't had any visits, any in-person visits since he's been incarcerated. So I'm not sure exactly what to read into that. Yeah, no visitors. No visitors. That's what's being reported. Right. And over time, you know, to have that human connection, especially for the people who love you, even though these allegations are out there, I know that's going to be something that's very important as he goes through this process. So I think time will tell, especially if he continues

to not get any family visits and have any connections with those who love him and those who he love the most, eventually I believe that will take a toll on his behavior. But I'm sure, like I said, I'm sure his legal team are probably telling him, look, you need to stay cool, you need to stay calm and follow the rules. Because while we're going through this process, the last thing you want, you already face a serious charges. The last thing you need is for this information to be brought into the courtroom, especially if he is found guilty or if he takes a plea deal, because obviously he'll be sentenced at some point if these allegations are found to be true

and if he is found guilty by a jury of his peers. I want to go back to something that you mentioned, him going to court for the preliminary hearing. Does that help inmates break up the monotony of the? day to day. And the way I looked at it recently, I was thinking about Brian Koberger, who has been convicted, right? And he pled guilty. Now he's trying to withdraw the guilty plea, try to fight this, try to get a new trial. In a way, it's like, what does he have to lose? Does that give him something to do? Does going back and forth to court, appearing in that courtroom, hearing the testimony, seeing people, does that just break up the monotony for them? Do they enjoy it? Is it exciting for them?

I think it does break, it definitely breaks the monotony, especially, and I'm not sure how far the Twin Towers is from the courthouse. So again, being able to get outside of the jail, even though you're in a secure van or a secure vehicle to the courthouse, even in that 10, 15, 30 minute car ride, and I'm sure there are in some L.A. traffic out there. And then he's probably, you know, and I'm not sure if he's engaging with staff and conversations and things of that nature. And then also it would depend on the situation at the courthouse. So let's just say, you know, he's sitting in a tank with 10 other people, which I doubt, because if they're keeping them separated at the jail, I'm sure he's in a single cell, the courthouse. So I would believe just being able to get out, because I can tell you, it's been my experience

for inmates who would get a chance to go to the hospital if they had any issues, medical concerns. They would love to spend a night in the hospital for a few days, you know, just to be able to see people from outside the facility, even though they're handcuffed to the bed, you know, so to speak. But it just gives them a chance to just get away from the environment just for a short period of time. Okay. Wow. It's fascinating to hear this. He's innocent and less proven guilty, but this is his reality as of right now until he goes to trial and sorts this out. So Dr. Dwayne Hendricks, again, thank you for coming on. Thank you for giving us some perspective. Really appreciate it.

It is just another aspect to what is a truly, truly sorted and disturbing case. Thanks for taking the time. All right. Thanks, Jesse. 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 Podcast, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcast. You can also check us out on NBC's Peacock as well. If you want to follow me, X Instagram, my News Nation show, Jesse Weber Live, Monday, and Friday, 11 p.m. Eastern.

See you next time, everybody.