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Just a trigger warning. Some of this reporting is graphic and disturbing. Please listen or watch with care.
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Welcome to 48 Hours Case by Case. I'm Erin Moriarty. There are now pages pages of newly released details in the case of
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singer-songwriter David Anthony Burke, better known by his stage name David. The 21-year-old singer-songwriter is
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charged with the murder of 14-year-old Celeste Riveras Hernandez, whose mutilated remains were discovered in the
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front trunk of his impounded Tesla last September. David has pleaded not guilty.
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On Wednesday night, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office shared a brief, and that's what this is,
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regarding preliminary hearing evidence. With me today to discuss it all is Los Angeles Times Investigative Crime Writer
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Richard Winton. Richard, I want to give a little bit of background before we start just for
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listeners to know a little bit more about David. I mean, it wasn't too long ago that David seemed to be on this path
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to major stardom. He had billions of streams on multiple platforms. He composed the music for Fortnite. Um, and
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now he's in jail without bail. Tell me about the brief and how unusual that there is a brief without a preliminary
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hearing. >> This is more, I think, done before a trial in in typically in Los Angeles
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County. Here, uh, Deputy District Attorney Beth Beth Silverman, one of our most experienced prosecutors, basically
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just laid out the whole case right there in a document in great detail. Basically set out everything
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they know. >> And it was filled with some pretty hard to hear details. Uh you can understand
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them why the defense tried to get this sealed before any of us could read it. >> Yeah, I mean he is
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basically cuz you're literally laying out how did David commit this murder? >> In addition to the murder charge he
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faces, he's been charged with continuous sexual abuse of a child under the age of
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14, unlawful mutilation of human remains, and then you have to add to that the special circumstances that
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exist murder of a witness, murder for financial gain, and lying in wait. But, let's start with really from the
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beginning what you learn in this brief. Again, it's according to the prosecution. It is a
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uh it's their case. Tell me a little bit about her disappearances from home. >> Okay, so we were at the LA Times we were
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already aware that she'd run away at least three times from her home in Riverside County. She lives in an area
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called Lake Elsinore. It's considerable distance from LA, inland from LA. Um it turns out as early as the age of
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11 she'd had contact with David. Eventually, going to this document, by 13 she's in a relationship, a sexual
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relationship, and staying at his house. So, at one point the Riverside County Sheriff's have been contacted and her
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family reported her missing. So, they track down that she's possibly staying with this David, and they call him on
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his phone, and he basically says that she's not there right now, but she saw her a few days ago. He tells that story.
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That very same day Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies turn up at the home to do a welfare check.
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Basically, have the same conversation, emphasize her age, that she's a minor, she's not even 14 at stage. And
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basically, within days, she returns to Riverside County. But, it's not over there.
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According to this document, he pays another student a thousand bucks to basically give her a phone so they can
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keep in contact. >> What other kinds of information does this brief does the prosecution say they found that
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indicated that he was, in fact, still seeing her and, according to this brief, having sexual relationships with her?
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>> Well, they have visuals from from his digital. They have text message, numerous text messages, quite graphic
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and detailed. There's also references to abortion, Plan B medication, basically things which clearly indicate
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sexual activity. >> According to the brief, the date April 23rd, 2025 is uh a crucial date. Is there something
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that led up to that date? Is there a reason for that that is listed in the brief?
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>> Yeah, so basically, we get to see for the first time at the the most detailed
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account of what may be the motive. She's basically sending him texts which suggests she's, you know, unhappy with
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him, concerned basically about the relationship, and she's, you know, implying that she might tell some people
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about it. Obviously, that would have as Raff Sillman lays out in the brief, that
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would have massive financial consequences if he was accused of having sexual relationship with the minor,
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probably jeopardize everything he had. So, what they they say, on that night after getting those that one of those
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messages, he gets Serena Uber and she takes it from Lake Elsinore to the Hollywood Hills home
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and arrives about 10:10. That's basically the last time anyone can account for her being alive.
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>> And is that why the prosecutor picks that date as the date that there is no longer any more communications
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from her phone, but there apparently are communications from his phone? >> He starts sending between 10:30 and
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11:30 a series of texts about her not being there or not turning up and then basically implying that she wasn't
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there, which is kind of strange given we know the prosecutor says they have direct
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evidence that that Uber dropped her off at the house that very night, 20 minutes before those
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messages started. So, this is where the window starts where suspicious activity >> I mean, I can't help it. I work for a
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show called 48 Hours that you hear those kind of details and if in fact that is true that he is calling
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knowing that she is gone, he would know that that's going to look very, very suspicious.
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>> As most people accused of murder often do, they tend to not be thinking straight in the immediate moments.
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>> Now, I do want to warn listeners and anyone watching this podcast at this moment that some of the details I'm
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going to ask you about are are hard to listen to because I think what matters now, according to the
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prosecution, they believe that she is dead on that evening. >> They allege that he he stabbed her
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and more interestingly and sadly, they allege that he let her bleed out. >> And they also allege that
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if there was stabbing, it didn't end with her death, that there was dismemberment afterwards, and was there
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a particular reason why? >> Oh, okay. So, this is this is one of the more incriminating facts, and I'll be
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interested to see how the defense handles this. Two of her fingers were cut off.
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Um one of her on one of her ring fingers. They alleged that on that finger was a tattoo.
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And the name on that tattoo was David. I mean, everyone wondered when we had initially heard that there was some
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fingers missing, what the deal was. And now Bastille man seems to have laid out what she alleges the reason why they
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were gone. >> And the evidence that they list, what kinds of things did they say he ordered
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in order to cover up the crime? >> Well, the the first thing that happens that night is they managed to track the
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He's car and him drove all the way to Santa Barbara County to a remote roadside near a lake, Lake Cachuma,
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which is a long way, by the way, from his home. I mean, a long, long way. And by the morning he'd gone back.
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But then he starts the series what they alleged the series of purchases which he uses aliases to do. The first
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purchase from Home Depot is a is a spade. A spade he has delivered by Postmates the day after she's they prosecutors
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alleged she damn it disappeared. >> But it doesn't end there, does it? And what was the the name he used?
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>> Victoria Mendez. Go on to this document, that's when he took to Amazon and he bought two chainsaws,
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a burn box, a body bag, and a laundry bag, all in quick succession as the days unfolded.
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>> I may be naive, but um until I read this brief, that was the first time I even
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knew what a burn box, burn cage is. >> Yes, but he did end up using another item, which would be not
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something you normally think about in disposing of a body, that was an inflatable pool, the kind of
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one that young toddlers and kids use. >> How does the prosecution explain ordering an inflatable pool?
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>> So, what Beth Silverman has alleged in this document is that in the days that
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that follow in May, they she alleges that David used one of those chainsaws to cut up Celeste
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in the garage in the pool. Blood was found in the garage. DNA tied to Celeste is found there, but
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here's a really, really, probably very important part of that. When they did eventually find her
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remains in his Tesla months later, it she was cut up, and she was in two bags. They also found embedded in amongst her
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remains bits of plastic. Plastic that the prosecutors allege is from that small pool.
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>> Does that explain to you, Richard, then why there were those circum- those special circumstances alleged initially,
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the killing of a witness, um uh murder for uh for gain? It Does that evidence kind of point to the reason why
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those special circumstances were added? >> Yeah, I mean, basically, the whole thing is basically
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it Sillman is underlying this case with the bottom line is in the end what's it was all about
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money. All about making money in the music business the success. In the end she became a potential obstacle to all
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this. And then he decided to do the most horrific things. >> Richard, I know the way this brief is
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written, the prosecution wants us to believe that it was absolutely David who did this. Um, but up until I read this
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brief, there was a side of me that I mean, I thought couldn't he be set up? Do you really kill someone and leave
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that person in your car knowing it's going to be traced straight directly to you? Does that make you at least wonder
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about the details of this? >> I mean, the defense is clearly going to present okay, that's all you say all
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this, where's your witnesses? The people lived in this house. And what the brief doesn't say
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and this interesting because we had three three periods of grand jury activity and
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investigated grand jury sat in this case. They were different grand juries. And basically what Beth Sillman did was
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take witnesses in this case people with information before that grand jury and questioned
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them and then got the transcripts to you to help develop her case. She wasn't actually trying to indict him, but
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rather gather up information and basically bring people in who didn't want to maybe cooperate from his
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entourage. We know members of his entourage were sat before that grand jury parts of the record company
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management team was sat before that grand jury. So, that does dangle that massive question is well, are they cuz
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then there's no witnesses in this document per se beyond the law enforcement and forensic officials.
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So there is this big big unanswered question. >> Richard did it bother you at all? It
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just struck me as you mentioned there were a number of grand juries that were called investigative grand juries, but
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isn't it more common that the DA would have a grand jury indict him rather than a prelim? And
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so I keep wondering is the case as strong as they say it is when they have not they obviously did not get a grand
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jury to indict him. >> Yeah, this is a big difference I think that people don't really completely
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understand. So in Los Angeles historically grand jury indictments are generally rare. Other parts of the
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country grand jury indictments are pretty common. Here grand juries tend to be more investigative than indictive.
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We learned fairly early on that this was not really they were not doing the indictment route. This was all about
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hey, we need to get these people. >> Richard you had said that this this brief really lays out a very detailed
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story the way the prosecution sees it. Now before this was released the defense had been very strong saying that the
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evidence will show that that Burke did not do this. David Burke did not do this.
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Have they responded? Have they talked about this brief being released and had new comments about their their client?
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>> They haven't yet. What they did do in court is they tried to stop this from being made public because they'd
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obviously read it. Pretty stalled by it what has happened and they tried to block it. They have not addressed it.
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What they had going into that hearing they'd been pushing for a preliminary hearing as soon as possible. A very kind
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of unusual let's see if we can catch the prosecution off guard. They don't expect
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us to go to go and make this have a hearing. In California, basically, unless you have an indictment, you
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basically have a small hearing where with the judge with a limited number of witnesses and they basically have to
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find that there's establish some preponderance of the evidence. This isn't beyond a reasonable
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doubt with the jury. It's just is the preponderance of the evidence that this that this event this allegation can is
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at least strong enough to stand up to proceed to a trial. Here, the defense was like, "Okay, we don't
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think they're ready. We're going to go for it." And they immediately start going for it. The prosecution is like,
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"Oh, we're ready, but you should know there's like tons of terabytes, which is like the
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equivalent of like a small library, okay, to look at in this case. Most of it is obviously visual and audio, which
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takes up a lot of space. We get to yesterday and that this is the day where they're still meant to be
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setting the date and lo and behold, Bev Sillman drops this document not not long after the defense is now
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looking at, you know, next month, basically a month away from this date for for the for the prelim.
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Obviously, they want more time now, they but they've got to see a little bit. You know, it was kind of like, "Hey, I
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you punch us, we punch you." >> Well, but isn't there a risk for the prosecution as well? Because one of the
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reasons why you want a preliminary hearing is you want to surprise the defense with evidence they may not know you have
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and they're not prepared. Doesn't this brief then give the defense a chance to defend this at the preliminary hearing?
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>> Yeah, I mean, I think yeah, the the the good thing for the defense and it's probably partly apart from the fact they
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just got to look at a lot of evidence and they haven't got it all and it's like an enormous amount of terabytes is
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yeah, they wanted to see they want to see the cards of the prosecutors here. They want to see what they got.
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Now, they didn't they showed some of their cards, let's be real honest. They didn't show all their cards. They
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didn't tell us anything about the human witnesses beyond the authorities. They didn't tell us what the friends are
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going to say or who's going to Now, they don't usually in this kind of crime put
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those kind of people on. Typically, they put on just the key detectives and forensic people just to prove something
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happened. >> Richard, you actually alluded to this. Um the defense is correct, isn't it,
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when the lawyers say releasing something like this pre-trial really could affect the jury pool?
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>> I mean, there's no doubt in the in the modern era as well. Affecting the jury
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pool is a big part of the of how things operate. Yeah, I don't think Beth Silvers naive. She knows by putting this
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all out there that even those who've never heard of David and that's probably a lot of people over the age of 35
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will now heard something about this and will it will permeate somehow into their sort of news cycle, their social
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media or something, which means she'll now have you know, a leg up when it does eventually reach the trial, if it does.
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>> Now, I'm just slightly over the age of 35, but I had been really curious about David and
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I spent a lot of time looking at his videos. I mean, he was he was a a person whose start him was on the rise.
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Um and I was interested in how he had set up this chat. It was very large on the Discord server. Um this area called
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David's Closet. But Wired Magazine wrote a really interesting article recently talking about how I think the title
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actually is uh they made David a star, now they want him convicted of murder. Have these young people who have been
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following him, supporting him um turned against him? >> Some of them have cuz some of them were
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very quick to start digging through the old imagery of that group. There's basically you have this whole sort of
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interconnected community who put their sort of time into him. I mean, I don't know how this will play out at trial,
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but in one of his videos he literally drags a body to the back of a car and puts it in there. It's actually very
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weird because he's also the body as well as the dragging person. >> That's him. >> Yeah. And then there's you know another
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one of his videos there's blood everywhere. Remember they have like his entire iCloud, they have all his
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materials. So they'll know how he constructed songs. He wrote some of these songs probably with other people.
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Typically when you work for a label, they may have interacted, they may know if this particular song references uh or
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you know, so this is songs which aren't published possibly. >> Richard, do you know for a fact where
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David met Celeste? Uh was it on Discord? Do you know? >> No, and we just know it's online. His
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story is I mean, he's an interesting character in that he developed his sort of early career just by basically
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originally doing other people's songs. He even like basically did this Alvin and the Chipmunks style voice. so he
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would find ways to expand his audience and that turned out I Here's an interview early on with um
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Benny Blanco, well-known music producer, who's a good interviewer. And he asked him a lot of questions
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about how he grew his career and he sort of outlines the whole expansion of basically doing other people's music.
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You know, he was in the sort of Fortnite game world where he became somewhat of a
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personality. And then he was like basically creating these Alvin and the Chipmunks songs and then he moves into
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the real music and starts producing his own stuff. >> I should point out that um
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Epic Games, which publishes Fortnite, has actually offered refunds and Rolling Stone is reporting that in fact he's
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been dropped from his label. Is that in fact the case? >> Yes, he was he's been dropped from his
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label. We've confirmed that. >> So um we will continue to follow this case as it goes on. Is there anything
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else that you found significant about this in just one day? >> I think I think one of the most I mean,
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I think what we're going to see here is the the prosecution of Best Seller one of
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the best prosecutors on this case. She's well-known and she's done other cases of
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the highest level in Los Angeles and put away some of the most infamous murders.
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But this Here we're going to see two of the more powerful players of LA LA legal community play
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again a head-to-head. He's been principally represented by Blair Berk. Blair Berk has had Harvey Weinstein.
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She's had a numerous clients. These two only recently have squared off in a murder case involving a
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very famous hairstyle executive. So these two know each other well and they take no prisoners, both of them.
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>> Are you predicting that the preliminary hearing, when in fact it's held in a month or longer, will be like a mini
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trial? It's going to get the same kind of attention because these two are going to fight it out.
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>> Oh, yeah. This is going to be a early showdown to see what you've got. Of course, Beth could also, given we just
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see what she did with this this she could also just impanel a grand jury next week and indict him and just get
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past the whole process. >> Now, I don't know whether you got any sleep last night because you actually
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covered two hearings yesterday, two high-profile hearings. Um the first one was actually uh Nick
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Reiner's. Is that unusual that you would have two of these very high-profile hearings on the same day in the same
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courthouse? >> Um not in Los Angeles. Fortunately, the ninth floor uh is famous for handling high-profile
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cases. Most Americans probably only familiar with this floor or maybe a brief reference in their minds of their
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his is to the history that this was the floor where Judge Lance Ito, Judge Lance
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Ito oversaw O.J. Simpson and it's kind of a has a little extra level of security. Luckily,
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my colleague James Quealy was also covering all this stuff, so he actually did the lot of the bulk of the lifting
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yesterday. But it's Yeah, it's a microcosm because these big cases get sent to this one
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place in this massive LA court system. There's like this one floor where the judges handled the most biggest and most
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heinous cases tend to be there. >> Now, this was simply a hearing and I should again, just for listeners and
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viewers, uh to remind people that Nick Reiner is accused of killing his on or around December 14th, 2025. He has
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pleaded not guilty. Um and I'm just kind of curious, what is the latest? Why was there a hearing?
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>> What we have is pre-preliminary hearing. Them trying to work out the logistics of
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how this is moving forward. Yesterday, we ran into a sort of significant obstacle, which is
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apparently the autopsy and the medical examiner's report isn't ready for either of the Reiners yet. So, which is kind of
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surprising cuz it was quite a while ago. >> I know. What would be the hold-up? >> We don't know. So, obvious delay. It's
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obviously a major factor in any sort of prelim. It's okay, what happened? You know, what do you find? What
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forensically do you have? They don't have it. So, delay happens here again. Now, we don't know a lot of details
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about the the the deaths beyond in terms of facts. Before that seal was put on, we know
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that the current the medical examiner in Los Angeles described this the the deaths as basically sharp object
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penetration wounds. In the death certificate, it says knife. Um but there's not like a whole bunch of
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Beyond that, we don't know a lot factually. >> I I also want to talk about unlike the
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David case, it seems like the defense is not in a hurry to get this case uh adjudicated. You have written about uh
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Nick Reiner's medical history. Um what part do you think that's going to play in this case if it actually goes to
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trial or will it be the reason why it doesn't go to trial? Is there any indication at this point that there may
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be an affirmative defense, not guilty by reason of insanity, anything like that at this point.
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>> We don't have officially have that, but behind the scenes it's being talked about widely because he has a history of
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mental illness, a severe history of drug usage. He's He's He Prior to this the deadly events, he's changed his
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medications in the weeks before. There's apparently been issues with the medication. All this stuff has been
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percolating. He has a very heavily documented history of drug and mental health issues. Some
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of it she's even discussed, you know, in podcasts and things. You know, quite openly that there's a
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lot of that. He's moved from being represented by a private attorney, Alan Jackson, that many
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listeners probably are familiar with, to being now represented by the public defender.
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>> Do you know why? Was it because his siblings didn't want to pay for his defense? That's been out there. Do you
00:27:44
know from your reporting whether that's true? >> From our reporting, we know that
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we wouldn't say his siblings, but we would say his family discontinued paying the law firm that Mr. Jackson
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works for. So there's There was a decision at some level within the family or the executor
00:28:02
to no longer continue to pay. Will that affect how Nick's represented? I I don't actually think it will as this
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does lean towards some version of insanity defense or some sort, you know, try to plea down to
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a a second degree or something. The public defender here in this case is actually a very able individual who's
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handled that kind of case, and this case is very different from David. I In that
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I don't think the defense will ever say he didn't do it. I think it's more he didn't do it or didn't knowingly do
00:28:41
it. So it's going to be a very, very different case. And those cases tend to take a lot of time historically when
00:28:48
I've seen them in Los Angeles. >> That's a That's a very good point because he's pleaded not guilty, but
00:28:53
that can also be pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, which which is saying I did it, but I didn't
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know I was doing anything wrong or or knowingly killed somebody. So, we will have to see that. How would you describe
00:29:10
his demeanor in the court yesterday? Did he look differently? Did he >> Uh well, he's thinner. He's got a shaved
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almost shaved head, very short haircut. He's, you know, he just looks like someone who's a little distant from
00:29:24
everything. >> Which brings us to Nick's older brother, Jake, who wrote a moving essay on
00:29:29
Substack late last week about what it was like losing his parents. He recounted hearing about what happened
00:29:36
from his sister, Romy, who first discovered their parents. I'd just like to get your reaction to it. It's It's
00:29:44
heartbreaking to read. He wrote, "We lost more than half of our family that night in the most violent way
00:29:50
imaginable. Sure, any loss of a parent is devastating, but nothing compares to losing both of them at the same time,
00:29:58
and on the top of that, having your brother be at the center of it. It's almost too impossible to process. I
00:30:04
understand that people have questions about what happened. Some of those answers will come in time, but some
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parts of this belong only to our family, and keeping them private is the only way
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to protect what little remains of something that was taken from us." What was your reaction when you read
00:30:22
that? >> My reaction overwhelmingly was there was something missing in the piece.
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He never said Nick, which is kind of startling when you know your brother's the accused here.
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He never mentioned him at all. So, he said a lot of really dramatic and sad facts about the family
00:30:46
and the loss and he told wrote beautifully about his parents and his sister's struggle, you know,
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dealing with it. But he never mentioned Nick directly by name which was kind of telling about
00:31:02
it was like the unwritten what what he was saying. >> So, he'll be back in court when?
00:31:07
>> So, Nick will be back in court in September. It's just going to move on very slowly. At some point
00:31:13
in probably the fall, we're probably going to see what the real plea is and the real kind of approaches.
00:31:20
And then we'll see where it's going, where this is actually looking a trial or a bifurcated trial, you know, with
00:31:26
two parts essentially. >> And I hope you'll be back with us to talk about these cases as they advance,
00:31:33
promise? >> Yes, I'll be here as always. >> We'll be back next week with another
00:31:38
episode of Case by Case. Be sure to rate and review and let us know which cases you are following and you want us to
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follow.