PRESENTING CLUES: Celeste Rivas Hernandez: The Case Against D4VD

Today I’m sharing a special bonus episode from Clues, where we dig into the infamous d4vd case and the murder of Celeste Rivas Hernandez. In April 2024, 13-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez vanished from Lake Elsinore, California. Seventeen months later, her remains turned up in the trunk of an impounded Tesla at a Hollywood tow yard. The car was registered to rising R&B star named David Burke, known to millions as d4vd. We unpack the case that's been dominating the headlines all summer. Clues is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios. Follow wherever you get your podcasts or listen here https://pod.link/1792283951 TW: Child Abuse, SA of a minor, Grooming

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:06Speaker 00

  This is Crime House.

• 0:10Kaelyn Moore?

  A black Tesla sits abandoned for weeks on a quiet street in the Hollywood Hills. When it finally gets towed, workers at the lot notice a smell coming from the trunk, and inside is the body of a 14-year-old girl.

• 0:23Speaker 02

  The car is registered to a 21-year-old pop star with millions of fans, who's actually heading out on an international world tour, all while detectives are trying to figure out what exactly happened.

• 0:48Speaker 02

  Hi, guys. Welcome back to Clues, where we sneak past the crime scene tape to explore the key evidence behind some of the most gripping true crime cases.

• 0:54Kaelyn Moore?

  I'm Kayla Moore, and I'm gonna be the one digging deeper into the timelines, the backstories, and the court files released on these cases.

• 0:59Speaker 02

  And I'm your internet sleuth, Morgan Absher. I'm the one who's diving into the Reddit forums and anything else I can find online to talk about the lesser-known details and pull the threads that just don't add up. Don't forget to share your thoughts on social, want ad-free and early access to Clues and the rest of the Crime House lineup? Subscribe to Crime House Plus and get at least two bonus episodes from across Crime House every month. To join, go to crimehouseplus.com, or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap "Try Free" at the top of the Clues page. Now, let's get into the case of Celeste Rivas Hernandez and the clues that defined it.

• 1:35Speaker 02

  This is probably one of the most jarring cases I think that's happened in modern, recent times with internet sleuths and a public figure. And I'm absolutely bewildered by it.

• 1:50Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah.

• 1:51Speaker 02

  I'm just like, I don't understand the thought process and how deranged this all is.

• 1:57Kaelyn Moore?

  It is incredibly upsetting. Everyone listened to this one with care. It's even hard for us to like read through parts of it. Like when we were doing the research and stuff, like I found myself having to stop a lot to like...

• 2:09Speaker 02

  Yeah. And there's so much on social media. Like I think that's what I'm, I think that's what I'm having the hardest time with is...

• 2:16Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah.

• 2:17Speaker 02

  You know, there's a handful of journalists and TikTokers that have been let into the grand jury, and they will immediately come out and get on TikTok and describe exactly what they just saw in horrifying detail. And I'm like, I feel like we're losing a lot of respect here.

• 2:37Kaelyn Moore?

  Humanity, yeah.

• 2:38Speaker 02

  And Celeste is kind of getting lost in this.

• 2:40Kaelyn Moore?

  Yes.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  And it just is so deeply upsetting.

• 2:44Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  On all fronts. I know this is gonna be a really tough one. This is a 14-year-old little girl that was killed.

• 2:50Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah.

• 2:51Speaker 02

  In a horrific way. Everyone's mad at all the adults and families involved.

• 2:57Kaelyn Moore?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  And it's just, it's quite frankly, a shit show.

• 3:02Kaelyn Moore?

  It is. It really is. And so we wanted to have a place where we were just gonna put together all the information that we found, keep everything organized, where we're at. So we're recording this before the arraignment that's supposed to take place on August 31st. So we're just doing it with all the available information that we have at this time. More stuff I imagine will come out at the arraignment, but...

• 3:20Speaker 02

  Definitely will.

• 3:21Kaelyn Moore?

  With that, we're gonna start getting into it. As a reminder, if you're watching on YouTube, you're gonna see pictures, videos, maps, those kinds of things that will help you visualize the case. And if you're listening, you can find all the same assets on our Instagram. That's @cluespodcast. You should follow us there anyways.

• 3:37Speaker 02

  And just again, a warning, very clear before we begin. This episode does contain discussions of murder, dismemberment, sexual abuse of a child, sex trafficking, grooming, emotional abuse, and intimate partner violence. So please just listen with care, you guys.

• 3:51Kaelyn Moore?

  And another quick note before we get started. This is still an active case. So despite how horrible and how shocking some of the things we're gonna talk about are, no one in this crime is legally guilty as of this recording. So just keep that in mind. And all criminal defendants are legally innocent until proven guilty. And with that, we're gonna start at the end of August in 2025, a year ago. On one of LA's wealthiest streets, someone is really sick of looking at this abandoned car that's been sitting on Bluebird Avenue since late July. It's a black 2023 Tesla Model X. Now, this is a part of the Hollywood Hills West neighborhood called the Bird Streets. Some of the most famous people on earth live here.

• 4:36Kaelyn Moore?

  We're talking Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Aniston, Drake, Leonardo DiCaprio. There's houses in this neighborhood that sell for $70 million, some even more. But unlike flashy Bel Air, which is the neighborhood next door, the Bird Streets actually keeps a pretty low profile. Most of the people who live in LA honestly don't know that this part of the Hollywood Hills exists. People only drive through this neighborhood if you're visiting someone. If you go on a, one of those tours that we have here in LA where you're visiting the houses of famous people, they're not gonna take you through this neighborhood. This is, people pay for this privacy. The side streets are all dead ends. The through roads are really windy. And like most of the Hollywood Hills, the roads are barely two cars wide.

• 5:20Kaelyn Moore?

  So it is actually a problem that someone has ditched a Tesla there, and it's very noticeable. This is not a neighborhood where you just leave a car on the side of the road. And it's actually been there for so long that Apple Maps has a picture of it on their street view cameras. Someone picked it up and put it on Apple Maps.

• 5:37Speaker 02

  That's insane.

• 5:38Kaelyn Moore?

  Plus, this car is starting to look like an eyesore. It's covered in dust. It has a big dent in the back. There's tape on the bumper, trim that's missing over the left front wheel. And based on the neighborhood I just described to you, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

• 5:52Speaker 02

  Very out of place.

• 5:53Kaelyn Moore?

  So an officer comes out on August 27th, but he just writes a warning and then he moves on. And then the same thing happens on September 3rd. This time, though, the car does get a ticket. Finally, on September 5th, the officer comes back. The car is still there, so they just call a tow truck. The Tesla gets towed to Hollywood Tow Yard. It's five miles away. And no one really thinks about it again. I mean, this is LA. Thousands of cars get towed every single day. Maybe not from this neighborhood, but how many cars get towed? No one really thinks about it. Until a few days later. That's when workers at the impound lot call police because they've noticed that this car smells so bad. There is a very strong odor that's coming from this car.

• 6:38Kaelyn Moore?

  And around 12:20 PM on September 8th, the LAPD sends detectives over to take a look, and they notice this smell too, right away. They walk up to this car and they're just hit with this smell. So they tape off the area and they pop the front trunk of the car. And inside is a zippered black body bag and a black trash bag. Both have human remains inside that look like they've been dismembered. The remains are very decomposed when they look. They can tell that she's female and has wavy black hair, but there's really not much they can discern other than that. This body that they find is still dressed in a tube top,

• 7:19Kaelyn Moore?

  black leggings, socks, underwear, a yellow chain bracelet, and stud earrings. There's also a tattoo on her right index finger that reads "Shh..." S-H-H-H... Now, in this moment, detectives don't know who this girl is, and they, from the state of the remains, can tell that it's going to take some time to find out. But already, you can get a sense that this is turning into a story because as they're looking at this active crime scene, you can hear choppers start flying around overhead. Like the news has picked up on this and is now circling this lot. And the reason that the choppers were on the scene so fast is they figured out who the car is registered to almost right away.

• 8:05Kaelyn Moore?

  His legal name is David Anthony Burke, but he's better known as David, spelled D4VD. I've heard so many people call him Deforvid, not realizing that it's pronounced David. He's this millionaire. He's a massive TikTok star. At the time, I didn't know who he was, and someone played me one song, and I was like, oh my God, I've heard that song. It's everywhere on TikTok. It's, he's one of those people, you've heard his voice if you didn't even know who he was. He's a major label recording artist. And right now, while detectives pull a dismembered body from his Tesla, that 20-year-old star is out on a world tour. Right away. Not even really knowing what happened, officers know that there are charges to press, starting with the unlawful mutilation of human remains.

• 8:49Kaelyn Moore?

  It was too early to say if the young woman had in fact been murdered. I'm sure that they had the sense that she had. There is a lot more evidence you need to be able to to say with 100% certainty that this person was murdered.

• 9:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:04Kaelyn Moore?

  They could have died of natural causes and then dismembered and put in. So I get it.

• 9:08Speaker 02

  I know, hearing that, people are like, what do you mean? She was dismembered.

• 9:12Kaelyn Moore?

  Of course.

• 9:12Speaker 02

  But, yeah, there's a lot that could have happened where they're like, maybe it was an overdose and someone panicked. You don't know, you need to do a thorough investigation.

• 9:20Kaelyn Moore?

  Totally, but I think even then, they, they had a sense that this was probably going to be a homicide investigation. Regardless, it's too early to say what happened or who was responsible. And just because the car is registered to David Burke, I mean, it didn't prove that he had anything to do with this. And I think right when the news started coming out, people assumed that he didn't have anything to do with it. I think a lot of people were like, oh, my God, someone probably stole this guy's car and put a body in it or something.

• 9:44Speaker 02

  I remember that being the headline. I mean, his fans, whether it's on Discord, Reddit, TikTok, his fans were like, there's absolutely no way. I mean, they were really coming about defending him initially. And so there's, I mean, this is a major artist. He's surpassed a billion streams on Spotify. He is huge, again, on tour.

• 10:06Kaelyn Moore?

  He's at tour, he's not even there.

• 10:08Speaker 02

  He's not even there.

• 10:08Kaelyn Moore?

  He hasn't been there for months. And because he's been gone for so long, I mean, there's, could have been other people that had access to his car. And as the story spread, a spokesperson for David comes out and says that he is, quote, "fully cooperating with the police."

• 10:23Speaker 02

  So once detectives finish at this impound lot scene, they tow David's Tesla to a police facility. The next day, September 9th, an LAPD criminalist went through it, looking for more evidence, like being really thorough. And she made some really grim discoveries, which brings us to our first clue, the evidence inside the Tesla. There were at least 11 air fresheners packed into this car. Most were in the center console. There were some in the backseat, some up in that front trunk area, which like a lot of people refer to it just as the frunk.

• 10:55Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah, that's what they call them on Teslas.

• 10:57Speaker 02

  And there were so many like in that area. And there was a lot of insect activity that like, you can't even really tell that there's air fresheners. Like there's maggots covering the air fresheners.

• 11:09Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  Obviously, these air fresheners didn't work as the impound lot workers were able to smell this. And the car still reeked when it was processed, even after Celeste's remains were removed. Again, there were a lot of insects, huge numbers of fly larvae all over the trunk. That suggested that the body had been decomposing there for a while. And she was also able to spot stains that looked like blood. The investigator sprayed Blue Star, it's sort of like a luminol, all over the interior of this car and several spots lit up. The third row seats, the left side paneling, and the lower cargo compartment in the rear trunk. And here's the thing about the rear trunk. The Model X has a false floor that you can lift to reveal a hidden compartment underneath.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  So finding blood down there when the body was found up in the front also suggested that she had been moved after she was put in the car, which again, is why this is looking more and more like a murder. But again, that is ultimately going to be the medical examiner's decision.

• 12:13Kaelyn Moore?

  Yes. So the very next day, before the medical examiner even did an autopsy, the LAPD got a phone call. A man named Jesus Rivera thought that the body might be his daughter, Celeste Abigail Rivas Hernandez. He said that the police description matched Celeste down to that tattoo that was on her right index finger, the "sh" tattoo. And Celeste's mother, Mercedes Martinez, said Celeste had been dating a boy named David. And also, he had the same tattoo that she had. Plus, Jesus knew something about his daughter's tattoo that the police hadn't released yet. It was in red ink, not black, which matched the body in the car. Detectives requested Celeste's dental records to make it official,

• 12:58Kaelyn Moore?

  but they were already pretty sure that her father was correct. If so, that meant something really big and really disturbing. And that is that this victim was a minor, which means that they could be dealing with potential additional charges.

• 13:12Speaker 02

  Before anyone could think about the charges, they needed to know how Celeste had died, though. So that same day, September 10th, two LAPD robbery homicide detectives went to observe the autopsy. And that was performed by Dr. Grant Ho. It is our second clue. The advanced decomposition made the ME's job so much harder. There was a large number of what he called in his report defects. Now, in an autopsy, a defect just means a place where the skin is split, injured, or damaged. They use that neutral word because not every split is a wound and reports do have to hold up in court.

• 13:47Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah.

• 13:48Speaker 02

  Now, this next section does describe how Celeste was found. And if that is triggering for you, please skip ahead. In this case, two of the defects stood out. Dr. Ho believed that they were two stab wounds, one in her right abdomen, deep enough to penetrate her liver, the other in her left lower chest cavity, damaging her ribs. He determined that those two wounds were her cause of death. He couldn't pin down a time of death, though, but he believed that she'd been dead at least a few weeks, maybe a few months at that point. And the manner of death was homicide. Although this determination was not released to the public until three months later on December 9th. This was now officially a murder investigation.

• 14:33Speaker 02

  And there are three other important findings from this examination, too. First, there were tiny bits of blue plastic that was embedded in the cut marks where her limbs had been severed. The ME couldn't explain it, so his team collected the fragments and sent them to evidence. Second, her left ring finger and pinky finger were missing. Every other part of her was in the Tesla, but those two fingers were just gone. Third, toxicology. With no blood left, they had to test liver tissue instead. It first came back positive for benzodiazepines or benzos, which can be a type of anxiety medication, and also came back positive for meth.

• 15:16Speaker 02

  But further testing was negative for benzos and inconclusive for meth. And we have talked about this in other cases. Decomposition, especially this severe, can throw off these toxicology reports. So the tests are all still up for determination, but they were confidently able to say that she was indeed stabbed, just not in a way that killed her instantly. The ME believed that she lived at least a few minutes before dying of blood loss, and she most likely wasn't drugged, which means she was probably conscious when this happened. It's a horrible way for anyone to die, but I mean, they're looking at this 14-year-old teenager child

• 15:58Speaker 02

  and it just makes this all so, so much worse.

• 16:08Kaelyn Moore?

  So on the morning of September 16th, 2025, eight days after Celeste's body was found, dental records did confirm that it indeed was Celeste Abigail Rivas Hernandez. Celeste is so much more, though, than how she died. She was born on September 7th, 2010, in Lake Elsinore, California, which is about 70 miles from LA. Celeste was the youngest of three. She had a brother, Matthew, and a sister, Jennifer. Her parents became US citizens in 2001. And it seems like their family did come on some hard times in the recent past. So a neighbor had told News Nation that the family spent 2019 and 2020 in public housing. Celeste would have been nine years old and 10 years old at the time. Eventually, the family worked through the challenges

• 16:52Kaelyn Moore?

  and they moved into a little Spanish colonial house that had this picket fence and a terracotta roof. And they had a custom Hernandez family sign out front. Celeste went to Lakeland Village School, where people described her as being studious, hardworking, smart. Neighbors knew her by her long curly black hair. And most days, she stopped at the corner store for candy and talkies with friends, some that she had known since kindergarten. Her parents also described her as loving to sing and dance. And the family had this ritual where they would watch movies together every Friday. But it seems like there was maybe a bit more going on with Celeste, maybe that her parents weren't aware of. So we know that in middle school, she briefly dated a boy named Damian Hernandez, who also went to school with her.

• 17:35Kaelyn Moore?

  He said that Celeste was always talking about running away. According to Damian, she didn't describe there being abuse at home. She just didn't like the environment. Then on February 14th, 2024, about 19 months before the discovery, she actually did leave home. She left a note, we're not entirely sure what it said, and she slipped out at around 2:00 AM. A home security camera did catch her walking away. Her family reported the 13-year-old missing. And by 9:18 the next morning, they put up posters all over their neighborhood. Her mom, Mercedes, posted on Facebook begging for help finding her. And Celeste eventually did come home. We don't know when that happened. We don't exactly know how she, she made it back home.

• 18:19Kaelyn Moore?

  But she was upset about all of the publicity that her parents had drummed up over the event. She ran away again the next month on March 19th, 2024. And again, her parents reported her missing. And once again, she came back. Neighbors remembered her being dropped off by a police cruiser at least once, but law enforcement didn't give any more details. We know that she was gone again by April 5th. Once again, she came home. People in town saw her with her parents later that summer. But then, before she even finished middle school, she was gone again. However, this time, she didn't make it back.

• 18:55Speaker 02

  As detectives are getting to learn more about Celeste, they begin looking into their person of interest as well. So they paid a little visit to David's rental house at 1368 Viero Place, which is right around the corner from where the Tesla had been parked. This is clue number three for us. The 4,300 square foot mansion has four bedrooms, five bathrooms, a pool, a private gym, terraces, even a grand piano. David was paying $20,000 a month for it.

• 19:23Kaelyn Moore?

  A month.

• 19:25Speaker 02

  A month.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  So on September 17th, with David still on tour, police served a search warrant. Just like with the Tesla, a criminalist used Blue Star to hunt for hidden bloodstains, and they found them in the garage. There were seven damaged black rubber floor mats. They had cut marks in them. There was no blood visible to the eye, but under Blue Star, they lit up. So did a rowing machine, a Tesla charging plug. There were green tarps and a trash bag that lit up. And inside that trash bag, they found bloodstained cleaning wipes. Now, later DNA testing did confirm Celeste's DNA was on the wipes, the charger, the rowing machine, and the floor mats. There were also two chainsaws in the garage,

• 20:10Speaker 02

  which did not have blood on them, but there was a blue, plastic inflatable pool that did. It was also covered in cuts. It had pieces missing. A criminalist saw this and compared it to those bits of blue plastic stuck to Celeste's clothes that she was found in. And she found three fragments that fit specific holes in the pool, coming together like a jigsaw puzzle, essentially, is how they describe it.

• 20:37Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah. I mean, at that time, police still hadn't named a suspect, at least publicly.

• 20:43Speaker 02

  Which people are starting to go like crazy about this online.

• 20:46Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah, this is what I remember this when he was still on tour and they were starting to put things together and she had been named. And the tattoo came out that they had matching tattoos and still he was not named as a suspect.

• 20:57Speaker 02

  The Reddit also was going wild during this time as well. And we'll talk about all the social stuff a little bit later. But like, the Reddit for David was having posts about this on it.

• 21:07Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah.

• 21:08Speaker 02

  And like, all the moderators left. There were people being accused of deleting these posts, pointing this out, so much so, like, all the moderators left. Subreddit got shut down. And then a new one was made in order to gather evidence against him. Like, people are like, why is he still on tour? Like, this is unacceptable.

• 21:25Kaelyn Moore?

  Oh, my God, absolutely. I will say, like, I think the public opinion is fully against him. Like, there were people that were really defending him at this time on those reddits, the moderators too, who now have fully flipped.

• 21:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:36Kaelyn Moore?

  So even the people that were staunchly at the time, like, I don't think anyone defends him. I would hope not. But yeah, I remember when all this was happening. And so September 19th, two days after that search and 11 days after the body was found, that's when David finally canceled the rest of his tour. By September 26th, movers had cleared all of his belongings out of the Bird Streets house. And instead, he quietly moved into another rental, which was two miles away behind the Chateau Marmont. And so we were talking about their Reddit. So around this time, fans are on the Reddit. They realized that in his subreddit, the r/David subreddit, he is most likely the only moderator left. Like, there's one moderator left and the, his fans basically figure out that it's just him. They also accused him of deleting posts about Celeste's murder

• 22:21Kaelyn Moore?

  and removing at least one of the other mods. And hours later, the last moderator left the subreddit, which, when, that's how Reddit works. When all the mods leave, they just auto-lock it so no one else can post.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, if it's a big sub and it's not being moderated properly, Reddit will reach out to you. They try to help install new mods. They're, they're pretty good about making sure that communities are safe and protected.

• 22:44Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah, yeah, which is great. And so a lot of his fans also went over to Discord. There's a server called David's Closet. And the name is a reference to David's claim that he recorded his first hit in his sister's closet using his phone as a microphone, just to have music for his Fortnite videos. So in this subreddit, a 16-year-old fan and amateur hacker who goes by Ghost noticed that one of the mods there was also deleting messages. So Ghost downloaded the entire history of the hashtag #generalchannel, which was over three gigabytes. And he uploads, he or she, uploads all of it to the Internet Archive. Later, another former fan built a tool on GitHub to make the archive easier to search.

• 23:28Kaelyn Moore?

  I remember, David had really put together this community of like incredibly online, young fans. So his fans are...

• 23:38Speaker 02

  I mean, you have a hacker here.

• 23:40Kaelyn Moore?

  They're literally hackers.

• 23:41Speaker 02

  They're little tech...

• 23:41Kaelyn Moore?

  They're literally going on Discord, downloading like gigabytes of information, uploading it to Internet Archive, making it searchable for everyone. Like, it was so fast that they were able to turn against him. And so they also find a Discord account that they believe belonged to Celeste. And there's exchanges on this Discord that go back to as early as 2022. And quick math, at that time, Celeste was 11 years old and David was 16. One message from a since-deleted account showed a girl's left hand wearing a small ring. And it had a tattoo of David's name in red ink on one ring finger. That photo is unconfirmed, I will add.

• 24:24Kaelyn Moore?

  But the police do believe that it matches a tattoo that Celeste had. And David got a matching red ink Celeste tattoo on his own left ring finger, which gave detectives a possible explanation for something that they found in the autopsy, which we talked about. But Celeste's left ring and pinky finger were missing from the scene. They were never found. And it could be that those would have had identifying characteristics on them. So if we have messages going back to when she was 11 and he was 16, it makes sense that he was trying to hide elements of their relationship. And he's also online, he's deleting messages about her. It turns out that their relationship was actually not very well-hidden while it was happening. So fans pointed to anonymous posts from two different Redditors.

• 25:08Kaelyn Moore?

  Both of these Redditors said that David had dated a girl at their middle school. And one mentioned that this girl had run away. Those posts went up before the body was identified. It was just when the body was found, these posts go up. So we don't know that they're specifically about Celeste, but the posters weren't working off of the news. They didn't have other identifying information and they still provided things that matched Celeste. Meanwhile, as David's former fans tried to get him arrested, his close friends, ones that still cared about him, went into damage control. So unnamed associates told TMZ that all of David's friends knew Celeste and thought that she and David were a couple. A lot of them had seen the two together.

• 25:52Kaelyn Moore?

  But the sources claimed that they all thought Celeste was a college student at USC. Like, I know even one of them mentioned, like, she was 19. She was as young as 12, 13, when they first would have seen her.

• 26:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm sorry. Like, I think that argument of like, she looked a lot older. No, she did not. No, she did not.

• 26:15Kaelyn Moore?

  I've seen pictures of her. That was a child.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  A child, like, so little, just...

• 26:20Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah, and the internet is like, we have eyes and ears. We know that that's false.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:24Kaelyn Moore?

  So two friends in particular, a streamer named Neil Langston and a model named Asia Collins, they got flooded with comments accusing them of being complicit in the abuse, maybe even a potential murder. Asia put out a statement saying that she was no longer friends with David and was, quote, "working in silence to bring justice to Celeste Rivas in ways that I can." And Neil posted something similar. He said, quote, "At the end of the day, this case isn't about me. It isn't about you. It's about getting justice for the victim and her family. And I care a lot more about that than trying to fill the void because of public opinion."

• 26:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, at this time, you have everyone going through TikToks of the three of them. There's one in a bathroom where there is a mention of like a smell. And they all kind of share this glance. And so people are like, again, the court of public opinion. They're like, they know, everyone's guilty. Especially when you have David putting tweets and spamming his Discord with the word decay. Just like a week after.

• 27:24Kaelyn Moore?

  Apparently, people were going over to his house and he would immediately apologize about the smell. Like, there's a video that exists of him. It's like a Snapchat or something, where no one says anything about the smell, but he's like, "Sorry, my bathroom smells like I just took a shit in there two hours ago." And it kind of comes out of nowhere. So, and that was after the murder would have occurred.

• 27:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:42Kaelyn Moore?

  So you already see these hints that he was, that people were maybe figuring out that something was going on. Or like, they were going to his house and they could smell that something had happened.

• 27:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:51Kaelyn Moore?

  But what was the Discord decay spamming?

• 27:53Speaker 02

  So he went on X, formerly Twitter, and I believe, let me find the exact date on it. So on April 30th, 2025, he just tweeted one word: decay.

• 28:09Speaker 02

  And this would have been roughly a week after Celeste had been killed. And then there's him going on his Discord, which is just like getting flooded, decay, decay, decay, decay, decay, decay. Like

• 28:22Kaelyn Moore?

  Because he tweeted it?

• 28:24Speaker 02

  That's from him.

• 28:25Kaelyn Moore?

  Oh, wow.

• 28:25Speaker 02

  He is like one single decay on his Twitter and then his Discord, he's just spamming with the word decay. So it's like now in hindsight,

• 28:33Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  everyone's starting to analyze this Discord data and like all of his, his socials and all of these things. And they're like, this is a really weird thing to tweet when a decaying, decomposing body was just found in your car.

• 28:48Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah.

• 28:49Speaker 02

  Why are you tweeting that?

• 28:51Kaelyn Moore?

  Yes. It reminds me of Mackenzie Shirella when everyone's mad, she dressed up as Playboy Cardi, which a lot of the adults read as just dressing like a corpse after you had killed someone. And then now you're saying that he's tweeting like decay a week after he just, or you know, we haven't gotten to that part, but yeah, a week after Celeste was killed. So David went from being a rising star to essentially radioactive. I mean, you just see pop culture completely turn against him. I mean, before the end of September, figure skater Alyssa Liu, she went on to win Olympic gold. She was like a fan favorite. She's amazing. She pulls all of his music from her skating program. Then there's Kali Uchis, who has a song with him that's just taken off of streaming. She has it removed from streaming

• 29:32Kaelyn Moore?

  services. Lots of celebrities start unfollowing him. Cat's Eye starts unfollowing him. Ice Spice Toe, the creator Addison Rae, more. And the final blow to his career, David gets dropped by Darkroom Interscope Records. Unceremoniously, there's no announcement. It just happens.

• 29:50Speaker 02

  Now detectives are tuning a lot of this out to really keep their eye on this goal, which is like catching Celeste's killer, figuring out what exactly happened to her. And they had something they hadn't publicly revealed yet, which is our fourth clue, David's first conversation with police about Celeste. Now, it turns out the LAPD had looked into Celeste way before her death. On February 17th, 2024, the Riverside County Sheriff's Department was investigating her first disappearance and actually found David's number in her cellphone records. So deputies called it. David picked up and admitted that he had chatted with Celeste on either February 13th or 14th, but at this point, he's claiming that he

• 30:32Speaker 02

  didn't know she was a minor and he had no idea that she had been reported missing. Still, the Riverside PD asked the LAPD to go and do a welfare check at David's place, then in West Hollywood. And LAPD officers knocked on David's door at 8:15 PM and started asking about Celeste. Again, he said he didn't know she was a minor. He claimed he had only met her once in November of 2023. Otherwise, they only chatted online. They didn't find much there. Aside from the fact that David had a yearbook photo of Celeste saved on his phone at the time, officers noted that she looked to be about 11 in it and was wearing

• 31:16Speaker 02

  a Batman sweatshirt. And just two days after David told police, I know nothing, I haven't seen her, whatever he's saying to them, Celeste does come home on her own. So David had already admitted that he had chatted with Celeste online, which is why they are able to get a warrant for our fifth clue, David's cellphone records. Search warrants in this case are still sealed, but we can assume the police wanted their chat history, plus his texts, location, calls, I mean, everything. And sure enough, his phone is full of evidence. There are tons of texts between Celeste and David, but it's the photos

• 31:55Speaker 02

  that really just, I don't even have the proper word, like shook investigators. They took pictures together all the time. Some showed them kissing or cuddling in bed. Others showed explicit sex acts. And because of Celeste's age, those photos are actually considered child sexual abuse material and have to be handled completely differently.

• 32:19Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah.

• 32:20Speaker 02

  Child sexual abuse material, otherwise referred to as CSAM, can't be emailed or uploaded anywhere. It has to go into specific, very secure platforms that are built for it. Most departments also strictly limit who can even view this. And it's to protect the victim. I mean, even looking at some of this material can traumatize investigators. So they're very, very strict with it. And it usually can't even be shown in court. It has to be described out loud instead.

• 32:49Kaelyn Moore?

  And I've heard that even the descriptions traumatize jurors. Like it's horrible.

• 32:53Speaker 02

  It's horrible.

• 32:54Kaelyn Moore?

  It's horrible.

• 32:55Speaker 02

  Once they get into the texts, it became clear how much David had allegedly groomed Celeste. David appeared to be using money, gifts, attention to manipulate her into basically whatever he wanted. At the end of 2023, then 13-year-old Celeste and 18-year-old David texted about an unplanned pregnancy. And both of us screenshotted this text message because it's just like, again, so jarring. So David sends, quote, "I'm sorry again, baby. I didn't want to ever put you through this." Celeste, quote, "No, it's okay. Don't worry. Both of us are able to take care of it. David, I know, but still. Celeste, don't

• 33:36Speaker 02

  worry about it, my love. David, you so much stronger than me. I love you. Celeste, I love you more, my love. It's okay, though. Neither of us are capable of watching the baby. David, when you gonna get it done?" Celeste, "Two days. David, my mom said I have to ask this question. Don't get offended, but isn't mine?" Celeste, "Of course it is, David."

• 34:01Kaelyn Moore?

  Which the fact that she's talking him down. She's the one being strong, saying, "Don't worry about it, my love. Don't worry, we're not able to take care of it." And he's even admitting like, "You're stronger than me." She is, for not being an adult, she is the adult in this situation. And it's so sad to read text messages where she's the one who's like more mature.

• 34:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, at 12 and 13 too. There's other messages between them that got shared where, you know, he's like, "You gotta be on top of your shit. You need to get the Flow app and start tracking."

• 34:32Kaelyn Moore?

  So I have that one. So that's from November 25th, 2023, where Celeste goes, "Currently manifesting my period because I refuse to have kids." And then David, "Did you miss your date? Hmm, you should start tracking. Use Flow. I know that's why you should start tracking. It's ovulation week. It's important. I just need to make sure you're on top of your shit." And then Celeste goes, "If I'm pregnant, I'm not having it." So he's fully putting it on her.

• 34:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:54Kaelyn Moore?

  Takes two to tango, but he's fully putting it on her.

• 34:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, be on top of your shit.

• 34:57Kaelyn Moore?

  He is abusing a minor and telling her, I get so [bleep] mad, Morgan, when I read about this. To be abusing a child, and then you're telling her like, "Be on top of your shit because I'm gonna get in trouble if you get pregnant and I'm gonna go to jail and my life will be ruined." So like, you need the apps and you need the, the medicine and stuff to make sure that you're not getting pregnant? Oh my God.

• 35:17Speaker 02

  I mean, and again, this relationship, this grooming has been going on since she was 11. It's just, this is years down the line now. And it's again, like, she's 13, having to make this huge decision about a teen pregnancy or an abortion.

• 35:34Kaelyn Moore?

  In middle school.

• 35:35Speaker 02

  In middle school when

• 35:36Kaelyn Moore?

  Middle school.

• 35:37Speaker 02

  I don't know. The biggest thing I did in middle school was a field trip to an amusement park. Like it's just like, it's

• 35:42Kaelyn Moore?

  Cause you're a child.

• 35:43Speaker 02

  It's insane. Like you are so little and it's just insane. Absolutely insane. So obviously things progress. They, they go through text messages from February 2024, where David talks about something that they call Operation Awesome.

• 35:59Kaelyn Moore?

  Or she goes, "Operation Awesome gonna be so hard." And then he says, "Hard is in like hard to do or hard like the full Balenciaga, fit hard." And then she's saying like, "I don't know what to bring." And he's like, "We've been over this for weeks. Anything you use and can't replace immediately, you bring. Clothes, you like makeup jewelry, shoes. I'm giving you two duffel bags when I see you."

• 36:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. Essentially, this was a plan to sneak Celeste out of her parents' house with her belongings and basically move her in with David. He tells her that this day that they move her in is gonna be, quote, "The most important day of your life next to wedding."

• 36:39Speaker 02

  He says he'll have someone named Sheldon drive him to her house at 11:50 PM on February 14th. He even offers to hide so he can help her carry her bags. Detectives later learned Sheldon was David's live-in bodyguard. And all three times when Celeste went back to her parents, David repeatedly complained in texts about, quote, "Police and posters."

• 37:00Kaelyn Moore?

  Posters referring to like the flyers up about her being missing.

• 37:04Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:05Kaelyn Moore?

  And he's complaining about the fact that her parents are looking for her.

• 37:08Speaker 02

  Yeah. There's one message from June 2024 that really stood out. This is four months after that LAPD visit with 13-year-old Celeste back home. Then 19-year-old David texts her, quote, "I can't wait to move in together without the cops bitching, baby." He says they can solve all their problems with a, quote, "Four-year vacation and getting married in Italy."

• 37:35Kaelyn Moore?

  And like, I think he's doing the math in his head because he's like, "Four-year vacation, you'll be almost 18. It'll be legal."

• 37:42Speaker 02

  I know. Italy has interesting laws too, with like extradition. I know that comes, that's coming up in another case right now. So I feel like maybe they're looking at like, Italy is this refuge and

• 37:55Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. I know Roman Polanski could never go to the Venice Film Festival because if he ever stepped foot in Italy, they could send him back to the United States. So that's why he's had to hide out in Poland. I'm pretty sure that's why.

• 38:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:06Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah. So interesting.

• 38:08Speaker 02

  On top of all of this, there's a lot of explicit texts. I mean, there's so much explicit content with this. It again is like very upsetting and shocking and just sad. But towards the end of all of these texts, the tone between them really does shift. On March 24th, 2025, Celeste texts, quote, "This isn't happening. I feel like we can't have a balanced relationship. Maybe if things were different. All we do is have sex and hang out, man. I want more than that for myself," end quote. In April 2025, they start fighting about David's relationship with model Asia Collins, who had reportedly gotten a lot closer to him after appearing in one of his music

• 38:50Speaker 02

  videos. On April 22nd, Celeste threatens to, quote, "End your career and your life" over Asia spending time at his house. I mean, this is, I think, a quote that's gone pretty viral and it was kind of over Asia sitting in her chair and her just feeling a lot of disrespect. You have the text. You want to get into it?

• 39:10Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah, I mean, we have the whole exchange from the 22nd. I can read some of it. I mean, David does not seem that concerned that she actually is going to end his life in these text messages, but she goes, "Can you tell me why you want to be friends with Asia?" And he says, here it says, unspecified reply, basically, he states that Asia is just a friend. She goes, "Bro, just bump her. There's no need for friendship. Keep her as an acquaintance like Lane or Rob. And you're really saying you'd end our friendship just to be friends with her over me? That's disturbing and disgusting to me on a deeper level, David. It's actually crazy." And he said, "When did I say I would end my friendship with you for her?" And she goes, "Someone who's known you for years over someone you for one year." "Bro, I said I didn't want to be friends with you if you want to be friends with her.

• 39:53Kaelyn Moore?

  Why is she at your house then?" And he goes, "At my house when?" And Celeste sends an address. And David says, "For Coachella, everyone came over to get wristbands, so Asia was over for that reason." And that's when Celeste says, "Oh, my fucking god. I swear to god, I will kill you. She was in my damn seat. I will strangle you to..." dot, dot, dot, death row. "I will tell my dad so many fucking lies about you..." dot, dot, dot. "I will end your career and your life. I will damage anything. She posted at your house, you weirdo." I think that those texts were shown in a very specific context in court of like, I know that they're trying to say that anything that was done was done in self-defense. She was saying she was gonna come over and kill him. She was saying she was gonna strangle him.

• 40:36Speaker 02

  And that's what a lot of legal experts online are saying. Like, they're, they're pointing to these messages as like, this could be what his defense team uses to argue self-defense.

• 40:46Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah, yeah, like that's what will be is a self-defense.

• 40:48Speaker 02

  Just create that reasonable doubt.

• 40:49Kaelyn Moore?

  Yes. But if we look at them in the context of the entire story, of their entire relationship, you have a 14-year-old girl who's been abused and groomed since she was, since allegedly since she was 11. And now things are ending in the relationship, things are changing in the relationship. She doesn't have a lot of stability in her life.

• 41:09Speaker 02

  No, abortion with him at 13 for him potentially. And since that abortion has expressed a lot of regret and sadness in text messages, too.

• 41:19Kaelyn Moore?

  Yes.

• 41:19Speaker 02

  So emotionally, mentally, just, I don't know, I would imagine a lot of turmoil and just...

• 41:26Kaelyn Moore?

  Drained. Yes.

• 41:28Speaker 02

  This is so, it's just...

• 41:30Kaelyn Moore?

  And so you can see it. And we don't know that she did any of these things. We know that she sent a text message saying she would, but we don't know anything that happened in that house, but we do know he had a pool full of her blood that was all chopped up and the pieces were found in her dismembered body. So, like, I don't think you can look at any of those texts and be like, "Well, she probably..." You know what I'm saying? Like, does that make sense?

• 41:55Speaker 02

  And it's, it's, it's difficult, too, because at this grand jury, the defense is kind of trying to poke holes and, you know, question those on the stand of like, could this have been self-inflicted? And then, you know, the dismemberment happened after. And I think it was the ME that was on the stand that was like, "No, this is, this is homicide."

• 42:17Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah.

• 42:18Speaker 02

  And so you can kind of, you know, based on the questions and how they were asked during the grand jury, you can kind of

• 42:25Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah.

• 42:25Speaker 02

  see what the defense is trying to like, prepare.

• 42:29Kaelyn Moore?

  Suss out that they can get away with, that they might be able to convince people.

• 42:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. And again, like, this is, this is a child, like, still at this point, a young teenager. And it's just, it's insane. The very next day, on April 23rd, they text about David sending an Uber to Celeste's house to pick her up, which police confirmed did happen that night at 8:40 PM, and it dropped her off at David's mansion around 10:10 PM. There's a text message exchange that occurs at 10:01 PM. She texted him, quote, "Girlie pop, I'm almost there. Open your door if you are home," to which David responded, quote, "Got you," adding about 10 minutes later, quote, "Gate open, door unlocked." And that girlie pop text message was the last text message Celeste ever sent.

• 43:17Speaker 02

  Later that night, David sent a flurry of texts to her phone, asking where she was. Police, investigators are kind of reading this as an attempt for him to build an alibi, made it look like she never arrived. But based on this whole exchange, detectives were convinced that Celeste did indeed make it there and that David stabbed her to death almost as soon as she walked in. And they believe the motive was right there in those texts. I mean, Celeste had explicitly threatened to ruin David's career, and she was doing it at, you know, maybe a very challenging time because two days after that last text, David's debut album, "Withered," was released. To me, and maybe this is an unsolicited hot take, you have this 14-year-old texting you these

• 44:01Speaker 02

  things, like, why do you, as a 21-year-old, send an Uber the next day?

• 44:08Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah, right. If you were so scared that she was going to kill you, why are you sending?

• 44:11Speaker 02

  It just doesn't add up for me.

• 44:14Kaelyn Moore?

  I know. I don't think it adds up for anyone.

• 44:15Speaker 02

  We will see how it plays out in court.

• 44:17Kaelyn Moore?

  Well, what's interesting, too, is the people who, because David was working on his album and was like, writing more music as all of this was happening and in the coming months, and everyone that he was working with noticed he felt super locked in. Like, it really sounds like no one suspected anything. Like, it wasn't, like, he was able to just go back to the studio, sit down, was working on music, wasn't talking to anyone in a way that made it seem like he was coming undone, or like, was feeling haunted by something he had done. That, to me, is also just so chilling.

• 44:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, so many people pull up clips of him doing interviews and like, again, I think there's, you know, the viral song that he got famous for is about killing a lover. And so it's just like, people in hindsight, you're just like, "Oh, there's something just off."

• 45:16Speaker 02

  Especially when investigators start looking at his purchases. So after reading all of David's texts with Celeste, detectives had a pretty clear theory of why she was killed, but they still needed a lot more to tie him to the murder. Which brings us to our sixth clue, David's alleged suspicious purchases. Once they were finally able to get his financial records, a few purchased items really, really stood out to them. For example, on April 24th, a shovel from Home Depot, delivered via Postmates. On May 1st, two chainsaws bought on Amazon. Remember, two chainsaws turned up in the garage. They did not have blood on them. They were tested with a very, very specific, like, pH test.

• 46:00Kaelyn Moore?

  And it wouldn't have been that you'd be able to wash the blood off. That would have still red. Yeah, that was my understanding, too.

• 46:06Speaker 02

  May 4th, he allegedly ordered a third chainsaw, again, through Postmates. The third chainsaw was never recovered. May 5th, back to Amazon for cadaver bags, laundry bags, and the blue inflatable pool. Then on July 7th, a, quote, "Burn cage," a device for incinerating things, again, from Amazon.

• 46:30Kaelyn Moore?

  All being purchased on Amazon. The biggest paper trail you could ever have.

• 46:35Speaker 02

  That's what I'm like, I don't understand. The car is registered to you. Like, everything about this is so...

• 46:41Kaelyn Moore?

  Which is so straight.

• 46:41Speaker 02

  Which is because it does feel premeditated to me. If she showed up and then immediately he killed her, there was some level of premeditation, but then didn't think through any other element of this, like, where he would dispose of remains or how he would do it, which is so, it's just disgusting. Police actually were able to locate that burn box during the search. It was tucked behind the piano. And all of these were bought under one of two aliases, either Victoria Mendez or Travion Davis.

• 47:13Kaelyn Moore?

  Again, okay, I'm a master genius, whatever, da, da, da. He has that name in his text messages. So on December 1st of 2023, he texts Celeste, "I have different names and aliases and shit, though. I go by Travion Davis here. All my purchases and everything." He literally says in his text messages, "All my purchases I do under Travion Davis's." And she goes, "Please be joking." And he goes, "Nah." So I don't know if he was, if that was just like the alias that he was using and he just made the purchases, whatever, or if he thought he was going to get away with it because he was using a different name, but whatever, just like the worst idiot I've ever seen.

• 47:50Speaker 02

  Again, it's baffling. It's like, what was he? I just don't, I mean, clearly deranged. Again, having a relationship with such a young minor, like the sea sam, like all of this deranged.

• 48:03Kaelyn Moore?

  We didn't talk about it a lot here. Like, we, I think specifically haven't gone into David's backstory a whole lot because I don't think it matters. I don't find him to be an interesting person at all. But one thing he did say in the Rolling Stone long form piece on this, they mentioned that David does have a quote from a 2023 interview he did, like early 2023 interview he did, where he offhandedly mentioned that he used to be addicted to gore videos. So there is something, like, I have seen people talk about his internet usage and his, like, how he was a loner. He liked using the internet. He liked using Discord. It was all anime and it was all like comic books and stuff that he liked.

• 48:45Kaelyn Moore?

  But what gets lost was he was addicted to gore videos for some time. And I do think that that is indicative, that there was something very, very dark inside of this person. And he was maybe, this was like also maybe a fantasy.

• 48:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, there's another music video where he kills someone and puts them in the trunk of a car.

• 49:03Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah.

• 49:03Speaker 02

  So it's what he ended up doing is almost like it was fantasized about through his music.

• 49:13Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah, I think so.

• 49:15Speaker 02

  I mean, there's unreleased songs that have since been leaked and it's like trapped in a Tesla, locked up in a Tesla. And it's just like, what the dude? Like, you do this and then you potentially allegedly are making songs about it?

• 49:27Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah. And the, the music video where he's putting someone in the trunk, right? That's before the murder took place, too. So this was like a long time in the making.

• 49:36Speaker 02

  Again, kind of, is it premeditated then? Was this a fantasy?

• 49:40Kaelyn Moore?

  So with all of this, detectives had very strong, but very circumstantial evidence. They didn't want to move too early and jeopardize the case because there were still some big things that they did not have. For instance, they didn't have a murder weapon. That one chainsaw, if that was used in some way, never recovered. They do think she died from stab wounds. They don't have the specific artifact that was used. There was also no confession. On top of that, there's not a witness to the murder itself. So investigators make this unusual move. And in November of 2025, they convened a grand jury, but they didn't indict David. It was an investigative grand jury, which can subpoena witnesses and compel testimony, but it can't hand down charges.

• 50:25Kaelyn Moore?

  So basically, they use this as a way to force people to talk, though these people could still plead the fifth. They didn't have to. And if and when they did talk, though, it would basically stay a secret. So grand jury proceedings are routinely sealed. So this wasn't going to be something that TMZ was commenting on every day. And what ended up happening, so there were three consecutive grand juries. We still don't really know what happened inside any of them because they were sealed. Except for one thing that we do know from this, so that, and it revolves around Neil Langston, a fellow streamer. He didn't show up after being subpoenaed and he actually got arrested for it.

• 51:06Kaelyn Moore?

  A week later, though, he did testify because he had to. And he was apparently never formally charged for failing to appear. And it's also since come out that David's parents and his brother were called to testify, but they successfully fought their subpoenas and never appeared.

• 51:22Speaker 02

  And basically, right in the middle of all this, a completely unexpected piece of evidence turns up, which brings us to our seventh clue, a passport card. By the time prosecutors convened their grand juries, they already had David's cell phone location history and data from the Tesla, too. So they knew that around 11:30 PM on April 23rd, 2025, what they believe is the night of the murder, David's phone left his house and traveled all the way up to Santa Barbara County. And Tesla tracking Tesla data does match this as well. What they didn't know, though, was why. Then, on January 7th, 2026, almost exactly four months after Celeste's body was found,

• 52:06Speaker 02

  a highway maintenance worker kind of gave them a hint as to why. He was doing traffic control on state Route 154, just east of Painted Cave Road, and he ended up spotting a passport card in the brush on the side of the road. He picked it up with no idea that it might be evidence in a murder and saw that it belonged to Celeste Rivas Hernandez. The California Highway Patrol rushed to the site. They collected it. And the spot where it turned up, I mean, this is pretty remote. The nearest business is a yoga retreat center, but it's on a road to somewhere that could matter. I mean, it's on this road that leads to Lake Kachuma. It's a 3,100 acre reserve.

• 52:50Speaker 02

  And again, David's Tesla data show that the car had on one occasion, search directions to Lake Kachuma.

• 52:57Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah, I'm looking it up now. It is, I guess it's even north of Montecito. It's really in the mountains, too.

• 53:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:06Kaelyn Moore?

  Just up this winding road. And yeah.

• 53:09Speaker 02

  It's, I'm just like, I'm stunned that they were even able to find this passport card, that this, you know, this maintenance worker. I'm stunned that this maintenance worker even like came across this, like, but again, it, it speaks to the, like, what were you thinking? Like, I don't know.

• 53:27Kaelyn Moore?

  It is, no, it is very confusing. I agree. It's a very confusing thing.

• 53:30Speaker 02

  Really? Like, it's just, you just tossed it? You didn't bury it? You had an incinerator? You didn't burn it?

• 53:35Kaelyn Moore?

  You had an incinerator that you hid behind your piano in your rented home under your name, while you're on tour. So you're not even home and like all this stuff's being investigated, whatever. And but like the, it's a passport card that you drive up, which, I don't know. And he took the fingers. I think it was just like anything he felt like might identify her, he was interested in getting rid of.

• 53:53Speaker 02

  It's just so, but it's all so stupid. Like, he charged the Tesla on this journey as well.

• 53:59Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah.

• 54:00Speaker 02

  Like, your car, you have a Tesla. Do you have much data? It's a tech company that makes a car, like.

• 54:05Kaelyn Moore?

  No, I mean, he's an idiot. Like, he actually is an idiot in every sense of the word.

• 54:10Speaker 02

  Every sense.

• 54:11Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah.

• 54:12Speaker 02

  So after the passport turned up, prosecutors floated a theory, maybe this explains the missing murder weapon and third chainsaw. David could have dumped those. Maybe even Celeste's two missing fingers are out there. They could be in the lake. Like, it's just, the possibilities are endless now at this point, because they do know what he was doing up there, which is at least destroying or trying to destroy evidence.

• 54:35Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah. So on April 16th, 2026, prosecutors felt like they did have enough to make a move. And David Burke was arrested on suspicion of murdering Celeste Rivas Hernandez. He was still in his hideaway, that little place he had behind the Chateau Marmont. Officers in bulletproof vests brought him out in handcuffs. And David's defense team, led by celebrity attorney Blair Burke, they put out a statement and it says, quote, "Let us be clear. The actual evidence in this case will show that David Burke did not murder Celeste Rivas Hernandez, and he was not the cause of her death. There has been no indictment returned by any grand jury in this case and no criminal complaint filed. David has only been detained under suspicion. We will vigorously

• 55:20Kaelyn Moore?

  defend David's innocence." And four days, yeah, good luck. Four days later, on April 20th, David was formally charged with one count each of murder, continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14, and unlawful mutilation of human remains. Now, in California, quote, "continuous sexual abuse of a child" is a more serious alternative to unlawful sexual intercourse, the state's term for what is commonly called statutory rape. It carries steeper penalties, but prosecutors can't stack it with other sex crimes tied to the same conduct. So it is like just part of their strategy, I guess, in trying to get him the most amount of time behind bars.

• 56:05Kaelyn Moore?

  So the murder charge came with four special circumstances. Murder of a witness, murder for financial gain, lying in wait, and use of a deadly weapon. Murder of a witness because Celeste was allegedly about to disclose their relationship, which would have been reporting him for a crime. So she was witness to the crime of the grooming and abuse. She would have reported that he killed her. That's murder of a witness. Financial gain because prosecutors said that the murder was about protecting his career. That's how he makes money. That's murder for financial gain. Lying in wait and deadly weapon, that speaks to how calculated the murder allegedly was. And adding special circumstances is something that puts the death penalty on the table in theory, though, we've

• 56:50Kaelyn Moore?

  talked about this before, you actually can still get the death penalty in California. We do have a moratorium on executions. We haven't executed anyone since the early 2000s, but death penalty is on the table. So in the meantime, David was being held without bail. But as he was booked into jail, officers noticed that he still had Celeste's name tattooed on his left ring finger.

• 57:12Speaker 02

  Less than eight months after Celeste was found in his Tesla, 21-year-old David Burke was arrested and charged with her murder. He has entered a not guilty plea as of this recording. His attorneys say he's innocent. And whether or not he's convicted, the whole thing has left a lot of people. Utterly confused. The crime sounds sloppy. David has everything to lose.

• 57:36Kaelyn Moore?

  Everything.

• 57:37Speaker 02

  Which brings us to our eighth and final clue. What we seemingly know about David's mind? I mean, this is Celeste's story, not David's. Again, like, he's the least interesting, like, [BLEEP] David.

• 57:49Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah, not an interesting person, but there are kind of what we were talking about before, just like the stuff that he mapped out in his career that led up to it. Because that is going to be stuff that in theory gets brought up during this investigation. So I think it's worth talking about.

• 58:03Speaker 02

  It can't be ignored. And so, looking back, David was telling the world for years that he had a lot of violent thoughts. I mean, again, that breakout single is called Romantic Homicide. The lyrics include, quote, "In the back of my mind, I killed you and I didn't even regret it. I can't believe I said it, but it's true. I hate you." In the music video, he introduces a, quote, murderous alter ego of himself named Itami, which is Japanese for pain. The video even has a funeral-like scene with a woman who appears to be Latina with long black hair, playing a victim murdered by Itami. David later explained that Itami came from an idea he had for manga, one where he'd play detective, solving murders committed by his own evil alter ego.

• 58:49Speaker 02

  Now, being into dark manga is far from a confession, but there's more. I mean, there's so, there's so much more. And as fans dug through old TikTok reposts, they found that he was constantly resharing videos about hurting women out of jealousy. There was one captioned, quote, "Me watching her scream after pouring boiling water on her after she told a boy, 'Happy birthday,' because why are you happy he made it another year?"

• 59:16Kaelyn Moore?

  That's the stuff that I see people just coming upon on their, their social media and liking, because it's just like a, not that it's funny, but is that like type of humor?

• 59:26Speaker 02

  It could be a reach.

• 59:27Kaelyn Moore?

  No, but I'm also like, what is that doing to your brain? If that, if you're just seeing that kind of stuff all the time? Like, is that actually, you know, I just think people need to be really careful about like the diet they're consuming on social media. Because I do think it's getting darker and darker.

• 59:41Speaker 02

  And as we saw with the Mackenzie Shirilla case too, like, all of your social media can be used against you. So why engage with that?

• 59:49Kaelyn Moore?

  Be really intentional online with the stuff that you are consuming.

• 59:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, there's so much online discourse around this. David was extremely into what he called his lore. There's hundreds of screenshots and clips that look suspicious in hindsight.

• 1:00:05Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah, I know he was like the four and David was like part of, like, he was gonna do four universes or something, like four different characters with story and lore. The lore comes up a lot, like, he was very obsessed with like the lore he was building for his brand.

• 1:00:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I mean, people have gone through concert clips. They've posted clips of Celeste watching with David's family from backstage, showing that, you know, she's there, family knew, everyone knew. There's a clip from Twitch with Celeste. It's said to be from January 2024 where David says, quote, "You know I media trained you. That's controversial." And Celeste replies, quote, "As controversial as you raping kids." And then David ends the stream yelling, quote, "Delete everything." At the time, his fans laughed it off as an Epstein joke.

• 1:00:54Kaelyn Moore?

  You know, that hilarious guy Epstein is just so funny. Like, what, I'm just so confused. I also like, flagging that Celeste's there with his family, like, your family is there with a 13-year-old girl? And not asking any questions or being like, knock it off? There's just so, like-

• 1:01:14Speaker 02

  She was go, I mean, she was going to like Tara Yummy parties. She was going to like parties with them, like, she was, she was around everyone. It wasn't like this was so secret.

• 1:01:24Kaelyn Moore?

  She was failed by so many people.

• 1:01:28Speaker 02

  And that-

• 1:01:29Kaelyn Moore?

  All it takes is one person to come forward to say something, to talk to her, to talk to, just to like, make noise about what's happening because he's been abusing a child for three years in public and no one said anything. And like, I don't, we've seen the yearbook photo of her in the Batman sweatshirt. She looks like a child. Like, when she was 11, she looked like a fifth grader, because that's what she is.

• 1:01:53Speaker 02

  I mean, she was so tiny, too.

• 1:01:55Kaelyn Moore?

  So I just don't understand how you're bringing her around and no one is saying anything.

• 1:01:59Speaker 02

  No, and this is coming up a lot, too. I mean, obviously, her family was at this grand jury. They're listening to the way her body was found. You know, at a certain point, they do leave the courtroom. I think it's during, when the autopsy photos are being shown. And there's a lot of online calls to also hold the family responsible in this. Like, they let their child go to London with him? And I think you have a little bit about that to get into, but it's like this, this whole thing. And then, like, everyone's calling for action. It's just like, I just, it's gonna be insane how this all plays out.

• 1:02:41Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah, so that kind of brings us to the latest updates that we have in this case. A preliminary hearing was held between July 21st and July 27th of 2026. Preliminary hearing just requires the prosecution to show probable cause to move towards trial. So the defense usually does, and this is what we talked about. The defense doesn't usually present evidence or call witnesses. It's not for the defense. They can cross-examine, but they typically don't do much more. So what Morgan was saying of like, you can kind of start sussing out what arguments might work on your behalf as the defense, which is how we get them kind of sussing out if self-defense would work. Over those five days, the prosecution laid out why they believe David should stand trial

• 1:03:26Kaelyn Moore?

  on all of these charges. You've heard a lot of it already, I'm sure. But there were a few new reveals about how far David allegedly, allegedly, went to groom Celeste. Prosecutors say that Celeste came home in February of 2024 and her parents took her phone away when that happened. So David allegedly bought her a burner phone and paid a student in Celeste's middle school. So he's talking to other middle schoolers, no, no qualms about that.

• 1:03:53Speaker 02

  I mean, other girls have come out since then and been like, I talked to David in middle school, too, when he was an adult. Like, there's other people that have come forward, and this is a pattern of behavior.

• 1:04:02Kaelyn Moore?

  Oh, my God. I'm gonna get sued for this episode. We're gonna have to cut so many things, but I'm like, was he just not interested in her anymore? Because she was 14 and that's too old? Like, you [BLEEP] loser. Like, going after literal, like, fifth graders, children.

• 1:04:15Speaker 02

  Why?

• 1:04:16Kaelyn Moore?

  So anyways, he paid Celeste's middle school classmate $1,000 to give her a phone so that she could continue to communicate with him.

• 1:04:23Speaker 02

  You are a desperate loser.

• 1:04:24Kaelyn Moore?

  You're a desperate [BLEEP] pedophile loser. And we're gonna have to bleep out all of this, or else we're gonna get sued. I do think that he will go to jail for this and then this episode will be fine. But I, like, it, it's just so hard because we have to say allegedly on all of this. Like, David allegedly bought her a burner phone. Like, we'll know once he's actually convicted, but right now, everyone is innocent until proven guilty. At this hearing, though, David's defense argued that Celeste's parents knew far more than they let on about how much time she was spending with him. And according to the defense, this is according to the defense, but Celeste's parents tolerated a lot of the interactions that their daughter was having with David.

• 1:05:05Kaelyn Moore?

  So David's attorney said that in 2024, Celeste's parents signed a notarized permission form for her to travel with David to London for a week. The defense also pointed to messages that suggested Celeste and her sister traveled to Las Vegas for one of his concerts, and that David and Celeste had made plans to attend church with her family. There was also testimony that Celeste sat with David's family in the VIP section at one of his concerts, which you mentioned earlier.

• 1:05:32Speaker 02

  Pictures have been posted of that.

• 1:05:33Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah, there's pictures.

• 1:05:34Speaker 02

  And I will say, a lot of people share their own experiences and they go, "I was in a relationship like this when I was young and my parents allowed me to do this because they knew that if they cut me off and blah, it would just make it worse." I would have ran away. I would have not talked to them. I mean, she'd ran away four times, three, at least three. So a lot of people, again, we do not know. This is, there's so much context, this is so nuanced, it's, it's horrible, it's tragic, it's sad. But there are people that are just contributing that to the conversation that like, hey, maybe that was their strategy in order to try to keep her safe, but who knows?

• 1:06:14Kaelyn Moore?

  And I want to hear from the parents in the comments right now, because I have a seven-month-old son. He's not doing, he can't even walk. So it's easy for me to sit here and say like, I would have done this, I would have done that. But if you have a child who you're trying to have a relationship with, they are running away. I don't know the intentions of her parents at all. I'm just trying to think if it was something, like you were saying, where they're like, maybe if we just give her a little bit more freedom, she won't feel like she has to escape us to get that freedom and we'll be able to stay in contact with her. Like, maybe the bar is pretty low for the type of relationship they're, they want to have with her.

• 1:06:50Speaker 02

  You wonder. You just, you wonder.

• 1:06:51Kaelyn Moore?

  And I, I think that's all gonna come out, because the defense is gonna have a lot more time during the trial to explain what was going on, to talk about that.

• 1:06:59Speaker 02

  I mean, they're gonna try everything.

• 1:07:00Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:01Speaker 02

  They're gonna, they're really gonna, I think, sling a lot of mud with this. And I think a lot of people after this trial, unless, you know, plea changes, like, a lot of people are probably gonna be deeply upset by what gets said.

• 1:07:16Kaelyn Moore?

  But his lawyer said that Celeste could have just killed herself at his house.

• 1:07:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was posed as a question during that grand jury. And it's just like, you can already, again, see the mud they're gonna try to sling potentially. Like, it's, this is so up in the air and it's like, this is as it is today. Like, this is the conversation that's happening today, like-

• 1:07:35Speaker 02

  You know, I'm not a parent. I am not, I can't even imagine, but like, I know at least there's one person, David, who this is deeply, deeply disgusting behavior. Like, again, minor. Like, Celeste is just such a victim in all of this. And it's just, this whole situation's horrific.

• 1:07:51Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah. Again, we have written in this script because we have to keep saying it, but David is considered innocent until he's proven guilty. On July 27th, 2026, though, the judge did rule that the case can proceed to trial, and that was expected, given all of the evidence that was shown. And David is expected to be arraigned for a second time. There is no guarantee that that holds, though, because murder proceedings get delayed all the time, often for years. In the meantime, David is being held without bail. His music career is over, though his catalog is still up on streaming. I'm sure there's ways to listen to it in a way that doesn't financially benefit. I mean, I don't even think he can

• 1:08:35Kaelyn Moore?

  make any money from his streaming anymore now that he, certainly not after he gets convicted.

• 1:08:39Speaker 02

  There's a lot of talk about the uncertainty of that. Yeah, I'm not sure either.

• 1:08:42Kaelyn Moore?

  I know some people are like-

• 1:08:43Speaker 02

  There's petitions for streaming platforms to remove it.

• 1:08:46Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:47Speaker 02

  Has not happened yet. I'm sure, like, they're also trying to protect themselves legally because if, for some reason, he is proven innocent and they pulled everything preemptively.

• 1:08:59Kaelyn Moore?

  Right.

• 1:08:59Speaker 02

  Then are they at risk of being sued? Like-

• 1:09:01Kaelyn Moore?

  Of course.

• 1:09:01Speaker 02

  The legal system and everything, it's just like, that is above my pay grade. Lawyers, if you're out there, please chime in. But, you know, there's, there's so much to this.

• 1:09:10Kaelyn Moore?

  I know, I know. There's a lot of sides to it. And yeah, pretty soon, a jury's gonna decide his fate.

• 1:09:17Speaker 02

  As for loose ends and theories, well, I mean, they're infinite at this point, since nothing has really been resolved. A lot of people online are wondering if anyone else is gonna face charges for covering up this alleged abuse. I mean, there's the bodyguard who prosecutors say drove David and Celeste around, who supposedly picked Celeste up on Valentine's Day 2024, right before she was reported missing. There's also been a lot of false rumors flying around. Again, maybe because this case is so high-profile and there is such a huge online component of it.

• 1:09:50Kaelyn Moore?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:09:50Speaker 02

  And I think with AI now, too, like, there's a lot of question about, like, photos that are being released of Celeste at shows, or Celeste here, and like, them online. It's like, are those even real?

• 1:10:00Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah, be so careful where you're getting your information from, because there's a lot of misinformation out there.

• 1:10:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. There has been a P I. named Steve Fisher who has-

• 1:10:10Kaelyn Moore?

  This guy shows up everywhere, also. He was all over Hannah Kobayashi when that was happening. He loves to just jump in a high-profile case, but I will say, sometimes he does offer really good insight that, like, he kind of finds the thing that the police aren't telling people, and he'll just kind of say it.

• 1:10:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. Interesting, unclear if that's what he's doing here. I mean, he has publicly suggested that the person who parked the Tesla last wasn't David, but prosecutors indicate that they do have video showing David was the last person to drive that car.

• 1:10:41Kaelyn Moore?

  Interesting. I mean, I don't think he's saying anything that indicates that maybe David's not involved. I think he's maybe saying that other people were also involved in this.

• 1:10:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, and maybe it has a motive, right? Because Fisher also theorized that David lured Celeste to Santa Barbara and actually killed her up there. However, prosecutors say that they have strong evidence that she did die in David's rental house. And it could be potentially, allegedly, I don't know, motivated, because it is worth noting, Fisher was hired by the owner of that mansion. So confirming that the murder happened-

• 1:11:11Kaelyn Moore?

  Interesting.

• 1:11:12Speaker 02

  -inside probably isn't the outcome that his client is hoping for. I mean, the house-

• 1:11:18Kaelyn Moore?

  So with Hannah Kobayashi, Steve Fisher was the first person to come forward and say, she's alive, she left on her own. When the family, when everyone was saying she was trafficked to Mexico, she was trafficked, like, got kidnapped, she's been drugged, like, scam, he came forward and he was like, I think it's actually incredibly irresponsible that we're doing this investigation because she is just an adult that left on her own. So, I don't know, but that's interesting to hear that he was hired by the mansion.

• 1:11:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, and potentially because the house is back on the market, it's now listed for rent at $24,000 a month. So, $4,000 more than David was paying after-

• 1:11:57Kaelyn Moore?

  To live in an act of-

• 1:11:58Speaker 02

  Potentially, allegedly, a crime was committed there.

• 1:12:00Kaelyn Moore?

  Crime scene. I wonder if they jacked it up because they know people will want to stay there because that's where it happened.

• 1:12:06Speaker 02

  That's a sick, twisted-

• 1:12:08Kaelyn Moore?

  People are so messed up.

• 1:12:09Speaker 02

  Morbid thing.

• 1:12:10Kaelyn Moore?

  For as horrible as this case is, we do like to end on activism, and I think there is a lot of activism that can be done to help people in this kind of situation. So, we wanted to share some tips from HealthyChildren.org. It's a service from the American Academy of Pediatrics, and they have tips to prevent and recognize childhood sexual abuse. So, the responsibility for child abuse falls on the abuser, full stop, no caveats, absolutely 100% of the time. But, adults can help by protecting kids before it happens, and noticing some of the warning signs if it does happen. So, according to HealthyChildren.org,

• 1:12:52Kaelyn Moore?

  one in four girls and one in 13 boys in the United States will experience unwanted sexual contact before their 18th birthday. They share seven tips for teaching kids about body autonomy to help prevent abuse. And if you want to learn more about that, I think it's great, even if you don't have children, I think it's great for everyone to be aware of, just so that we all kind of have our, like, eyes and ears open-

• 1:13:14Speaker 02

  It's good to know.

• 1:13:15Kaelyn Moore?

  -when we're interacting with people who could be victims.

• 1:13:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. This is a big conversation I've had with, you know, my family, my brother and sister-in-law that have had young kids, and something they've always stressed and that this website does talk about is using correct terms to describe genitalia and body parts, because oftentimes abusers will use different words, and that helps hide abuse. So, it is a website that has a lot of information and just could help ensure your kids stay safe.

• 1:13:43Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah, and that is at HealthyChildren.org.

• 1:13:48Speaker 02

  And on that note, we are moving on to our missing person of the week.

• 1:13:57Kaelyn Moore?

  This week, we want to highlight the case of Lindsay Lee Watts. This is a missing person case that did come from our community. It was sent by one of you guys. Lindsay Watts is reported missing from Adena, Missouri, since May 19th, 2026. She is 35 years old. Lindsay was reported as a missing person to the Knox County Sheriff on May 19th, 2026. Her car, car keys, wallet were found left behind at her residence in Adena, Missouri, and her phone was found by the sheriff in a ditch not very far from her house. She is reported as being 5'2", 125 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. If you have any information, you can contact the Knox County Sheriff's Department at 660-397-2186, extension

• 1:14:42Kaelyn Moore?

  1. And that is all we have for this episode. Obviously, we got very heated, but I really want to hear from you guys now. Thoughts, theories, anything about this case. I mean, there's just, there's so much to it. It's all devastating to hear about, but now we turn it over to you guys.

• 1:15:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. And please, practice some self-care after this one. I know, looking at the subreddit for Celeste, I mean, a lot of people are deeply disturbed by all of this, and rightfully so. I mean, it is a jarring, distressing, horrible case, so please make sure you take some time to look after yourself.

• 1:15:20Kaelyn Moore?

  And hopefully, you know, at some point soon, we will have justice for Celeste.

• 1:15:24Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 1:15:25Kaelyn Moore?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:25Speaker 02

  At Crime House, we really value your support. So again, share your thoughts on social media. Remember to rate, review, and follow Clues to help others discover the show. And don't forget, for early ad-free access, subscribe to Crime House Plus at CrimeHousePlus.com, or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap Try Free at the top of the Clues page. Until next time, guys. Bye.

• 1:15:44Kaelyn Moore?

  Bye.