00:00:00
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Bombshell tonight, D4VD, aka David Anthony Burke, murder accomplice in the brutal, the savage death of a 14-year-old girl, Celeste. According to reports, let that sink in. Police, LAPD, reportedly investigating a suspect, a co-defendant in the murder of 14-year-old girl Celeste. Good evening. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us. David Anthony Burke contacting minors from behind bars.
00:00:53
Speaker 2: But did you ever learn about consent, about maybe not getting with a minor?
00:00:58
Speaker 1: A 13-year-old girl you're texting to get an abortion, and he's worried about mommy?
00:01:03
Speaker 2: Who else was possibly responsible and had knowledge of what was going on for Celeste that is to blame in this?
00:01:11
Speaker 3: I've already been told a name as well.
00:01:13
Speaker 4: A name of a suspect?
00:01:15
Speaker 3: Of another person besides him.
00:01:18
Speaker 5: In connection with the death or the dismemberment?
00:01:21
Speaker 3: But they're not ruling anything out. I mean, everything is on the table. They have kept this wide open because they believe and they believed since the beginning. since the get-go, that there was more than one person involved. The other person is not somebody after the car was found. That would appear, or somebody close in time, is somebody who was geographically overlaid with his location, and they are surmising from that circumstantial evidence that that the two of them had a connection to either the trip or something that potentially could have been untoward.
00:02:05
Speaker 1: That's two angry men, my friend Harvey Levin over at TMZ and my sparring partner, my sparring opponent. Mark Garagos, who shot to fame across the country when he defended Scott Peterson and many other famous killers. That said, let that sink in. Joining me in All-Star Panel to make sense of what we are learning tonight, we believed at the beginning it was a matter of time before digital forensics ruled the day. A murder case is not just something you throw together. There are many, many facets. For instance, we've got the body, as it were, decomposed in the back of D4VD David Anthony Burke's trunk. His front, by the way, it's a Tesla. It's in the front of the vehicle. Making sense of who is it, when Celeste's body was found, it was largely goo, G-O-O. It had been deteriorating for so many, many days. Then there are eyewitnesses. Then there are ear witnesses. Then there are statements. Then there's grand jury testimony. And finally, at the end of the day, all of the digital forensic evidence falls into place. We've got an all-star panel for you tonight analyzing what we are learning. There is a suspect number two. There is an accomplice. Will that accomplice choose to be a state's witness or a co-defendant in a murder case? Straight out to special guest joining us, Robert Freed, Certified Forensics Analyst, EVP, a Forensics and Chief Investigative Officer, author of five digital forensics books, including Forensics Data Collection 2.0. It's a whole series. on digital forensics. Okay, Robert, thank you for being with us tonight. All along, I have believed that by following the digital trail of D4VD, a.k.a. David Anthony Burke, we would discover who was traveling with him in that Tesla, who moved the Tesla, who was with him when the body was disarticulated in that inflatable kiddie pool. then put literally in a body bag the idiots ordered on Amazon. They go on and put in body bag. That said, how does it work? You heard Geragos and you heard Levin talking about overlaying, overlaying D4VD' s movements. Okay, dummy down for me. What are they saying?
00:05:01
Speaker 6: Yeah, it depends on looking at different types of social media accounts that he may be logged into at the time. There's GPS coordinates that can be obtained from all this activity. So if you're on, let's say, Facebook or X or other types of services and you're posting on those and you have exact precise location types of options available in these apps to trace your location, this is definitely an opportunity for investigators to go in and gather that information and associate it to a specific location you may be in.
00:05:45
Speaker 1: Okay, hold on. Put him back up, please. I was thinking about the phone, digital tracking of the phone. I was also thinking about the navigation system, the nav system in the Tesla, which is highly sophisticated. They've even got a 365-degree navigation camera on a lot of Teslas. But you just said something I hadn't thought about. Social media. I assume you're talking about geotagging. When you post something, it geotags where you are. Because in my book, Don't Be a Victim, I talk about take geotagging off if you don't want the world to know where you're posting your child's photo. They give you the exact location of your front yard. So geotagging. You said, Robert Freed, Social media accounts he was logged into. That doesn't give you a running navigation map, does it? Or does it because I don't think he was posting, hey, here's where I disarticulated the body. Here's where I buried remains. Here's where I threw away the passport. So how does being logged into social media tell me anything unless you're actually posting at that moment?
00:06:57
Speaker 6: Yeah, you can post, but your phone in general, like you said, is also tracking at the same time. your locations, for example, Snapchat, things like that. So it all depends. I think it's, like we said, you know, in the beginning, it's connecting the dots here. It's looking at, you know, posts on social media, potentially. It's the car. It's pinging of cell phone towers to show a location here. And I think all those points together need to be considered when looking at a case like this.
00:07:27
Speaker 1: Okay, let me ask you this. Robert Freed, what is a data dump? Could that help? Or is that just TMI, too much information? When they know who his inner circle is, they can just get their phones by subpoena and follow the trail, right? From AT & T or T-Mobile or Verizon. Or do they need to do a cell tower dump to find out everybody that may have been there, whether they are known in the circle or not?
00:07:54
Speaker 6: Yeah, it depends on the level of effort that they want to go do that. But there are specialists that focus in on cell tower information and And gathering that, again, they have to interpret that information and see if you can find that information to be useful here. I think in a combination, again, of the cell phone tower data in conjunction with information on the phone, from the car, all these different things can be very helpful.
00:08:22
Speaker 1: How do you do a cell tower dump? And please be succinct and dummy down for me because it's actually very complicated. What is a cell tower dump? Let's just pretend. Let's just pretend, okay? that we're taking the cell tower closest to that spot in Santa Barbara where we know items were disposed, such as Celeste's passport. I mean, in the middle of the night, I'm going to circle back to you, Steve Fisher, on that. In the middle of the night, I think it was 2 or 3 a.m., when everybody else was sleeping so they'd be up bright and early the next morning for work, D-4VD and his henchperson out driving around in Santa Barbara in a remote and forested area Why? I wonder why. As I told juries repeatedly, Robert Freed, nothing good happens after midnight. So what's he doing out at 2 a.m. in a remote forested area? Well, of course, police find out from the digital trail, and they go there, and that's where her passport and other items were found. So let's just pretend we're taking the cell tower closer to that spot. Okay, that's where we are. Now what do we do?
00:09:27
Speaker 6: Yeah, so you would be able to subpoena the... you know, sell providers for information and law enforcement can sift through that. But I think that that is information that can be very useful in cases to help corroborate the other evidence.
00:09:43
Speaker 1: Freed, put him up. Freed, when you just said sifting through it, I love to cook and you made me think of sifting flour. Okay. Over and over and all the particles coming down into whatever it is you're cooking. So with it, my understanding with a cell tower dump, you say, okay, his car is there at 2 a.m. Let's get every cell phone that connects to the Santa Barbara Tower closest to the location between midnight and 4 a.m. Every cell phone. And then you sift through that to see if anything interests you. Is that what a cell tower dump is?
00:10:27
Speaker 6: Essentially, yes.
00:10:30
Speaker 4: Okay.
00:10:31
Speaker 1: When you look at this digital trail, do you actually see, for instance, D4VD' s phone and then the co-defendant's phone going along together?
00:10:41
Speaker 6: You can, depending on activity within the cell phones at the time. You would have to be able to get their devices to corroborate that type of information. So if his phone's already been collected and then this supposed accomplice has been, you know, giving up his devices as well, you're going to be able to piece that information together.
00:11:05
Speaker 1: I understand the digital angle that you're describing, Robert Free, but what about GPS?
00:11:09
Speaker 7: Yes.
00:11:11
Speaker 6: Yeah, we can definitely look at GPS coordinates. Those are tied into phones, for example, your movements. If you get a full file system dump of these various phones, the investigators can go in and they can look at all these different data points and corroborate other evidence showing, like we said before, a path of evidence or a path of travel.
00:11:34
Speaker 5: Two separate law enforcement sources have told reporters that detectives do not believe this was a one-person job. According to those sources, investigators think a second individual was involved in the effort to dispose of Celeste's body during the months before she was found inside that Tesla. So now the focus isn't just on what happened. It's on who else might have played a role in this thing. Who is this other person? A friend, someone in a circle maybe, or someone the public doesn't even know exists. When detectives believe a second person was involved, that tells you this wasn't one terrible moment or one impulsive decision. It suggests planning. It suggests coordination. It suggests someone else out there is holding secrets and staying quiet, at least for now.
00:12:17
Speaker 1: That is Blackie Speaks on YouTube, and I really was captivated, interested in the last thing he said. Randolph Rice joining me, veteran trial lawyer, defense attorney joining us out of Baltimore. At Rice Law, Randolph Rice, this... Suspect can either choose to be a state's witness or a co-defendant. Think about what Blackie Speaks on YouTube just said. When detectives believe a second person is involved, that tells you it wasn't just one terrible moment or one impulsive decision. It suggests planning and coordination. Someone out there is holding secrets and staying quiet.
00:13:00
Speaker 7: Thoughts?
00:13:02
Speaker 8: Nancy, I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. A couple of weeks ago, I told you there's this S.O.D., some other dude. And you said, oh, no, there couldn't be some other dude.
00:13:12
Speaker 4: But guess what? There is some other dude. There is.
00:13:15
Speaker 7: No, no.
00:13:16
Speaker 1: You said some other dude. It's S.O.D. Some other dude did it. I never said there wasn't a co-defendant. But I always said some other dude did not do this. So you're just spinning. But I want to hear it. Go ahead. Give me your theory how this could possibly be good for David Anthony Burke.
00:13:36
Speaker 8: This is fantastic for David Anthony Burke because if he has to go to trial, he's going to be pointing the finger at this other person. This is the other person that was holding the sword or whatever the device was that stabbed Ms.
00:13:47
Speaker 7: Rivas.
00:13:48
Speaker 4: This is the other person that put her in the frunk. This is the other person that drove her away. Not me. This is the other person that had something to lose. Not me. That's the person who killed her. Not me.
00:13:59
Speaker 8: This is the sound of the reasonable without train coming down the tracks, and it is coming down fast.
00:14:12
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. So Randolph Rice, when you said some other dude did it, are you now stating that some other dude did it all that it wasn't D4VD? Because I've never, ever thought he did not have a hench person hanging around. He can't do anything on his own. He always has to have all of his parasite groupies hanging around with him. Let's see some of that video. Everywhere he goes, even to the bathroom, there's all these people there. He doesn't want to be alone. Remember, he just moved out of his mommy's house. He's still a teen when he moves to L.A. and launches his life. Oh, there you go. I love boobs is getting oil rubbed into his body. So Randolph Rice, I never thought he was alone when he murdered Celeste, according to reports. But you're now saying he did not murder Celeste. You're saying somebody else did it totally. Is that going to be the defense, Rice?
00:15:18
Speaker 8: Well, the defense is going to be reasonable doubt if there's somebody else involved. And I got to tell you, Nancy, I think there's more than one co-conspirator or other individual, because I just think that there had to be more people in this circle of D4VD that were looking out for him, his interest. And at the end of the day, Nancy, more so they're looking out for their interest, protecting what they can get off of him.
00:15:42
Speaker 4: And so, yes, there is reasonable doubt, reasonable doubt.
00:15:46
Speaker 8: And reasonable doubt is all his defense team needs to get either a hung jury or not guilty.
00:15:52
Speaker 1: Let me just refresh your recollection, as we say in court. Robert Freed, isn't it true that if the co-defendant's phone is overlaying a phone and that phone on the bottom of this gesticulation is D4VD? I don't know how Randolph Rice is going to get away from the fact that D4VD, David Anthony Burke's phone, is right there at the time of the murder and the disarticulation, that it's his phone that is going out to the remote Santa Barbara area. So what if he's got a henchperson as a wingman? That doesn't relieve him of his liability, of his culpability, if it's his phone traveling too.
00:16:39
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's right.
00:16:42
Speaker 4: That's right.
00:16:42
Speaker 6: If you can take that information and, like you said, overlay it and they're going the same path, the same direction, that's very good evidence that there's some relationship there, association.
00:16:56
Speaker 1: To Steve Fisher joining us, missing persons private investigator, search rescue specialist, owner of Search Investigations. He is the one that basically... handed over video evidence to LAPD on a silver platter. Let's see that video that Fisher got showing, there you go, there is Burke's Tesla being moved throughout a period of weeks because in that fancy neighborhood, they don't want a filthy, disgusting, stinky car parked in front of their house. So if it's there for over a couple of days, it has to be moved or it's going to get towed. And ultimately, it did get towed. So, Steve Fisher, how often, and I know, by the way, you've seen the face of the person driving the car, and I think I know who it is. Are you ready to tell me?
00:17:50
Speaker 9: No.
00:17:52
Speaker 10: Not yet.
00:17:54
Speaker 6: Okay.
00:17:55
Speaker 1: We'll see. We'll see. But, Fisher... I want to talk to you about the Tesla itself and what you observed when you saw all this video. Because, come on, if it's somebody else's phone that they have now identified and are going to name as a suspect, we believe, you're going to see their phone going, parallel park. You want to tell me you couldn't smell that body decomposing during all of that? Tell me what you saw on the video and how that's going to relate to the digital forensics we are now learning about, that it does exist. And it points to a co-defendant.
00:18:36
Speaker 6: Yeah.
00:18:36
Speaker 10: So, you know, the Tesla was being moved in that particular shop. That's right before, that's the day that they were leaving to start their tour. So they were leaving for months. So the Tesla was being moved away from the house. However, I'm speaking with, you know, neighbors. They said that, beginning in about May, the Tesla would be left at different spots around the neighborhood. And as I said before, the neighbors across the street, actually, they would get this horrible stench anytime it would be over like 75 degrees. They had buried a dog that had died, and they were unearthing that dog, thinking that's what it was coming from. But really, it was the Tesla parked on the street. But you're going to see, listen, he had people over at the house all the time, he was not the person who rented the house either. Let's keep in mind. So there's other people living there. So you're going to see these phones moving in with each other, including burners, because if he's driving out to state road, one 54 in Santa Barbara, and all of a sudden a new device that's not known to the geo fence turns on and is pinging and tracking with his, they're going to know that that's, a burner attached to him. And, you know, I went out to State Road 154 again three days ago. And, you know, I think that if a big effort was put in that the evidence that he left out there could be found because there's not that many areas that he can really go far off road. It's a single lane highway in each direction and it has license plate readers. So he's really screwed.
00:20:05
Speaker 1: So, Steve Fisher, based on what you obtained, what you discovered, and you handed over to the LAPD, somebody, potentially the suspect that we believe LAPD is going to name, is moving the car. And if we have their phone number, which LAPD does have, we're going to see them moving the car, parking the car. I mean, how many times at the most did they move the car and at the least?
00:20:33
Speaker 4: Look how filthy the car is.
00:20:34
Speaker 10: You can tell it's not being driven as a regular driver, but it's being moved around. And, you know, listen, everybody I've talked to, everything we see online on Twitch and everything, he was rarely alone. And I think it's really, really important to remember that when this murder happened, 24 hours later, he was leaving for New York and he did leave for New York to go to a pop-up event for his album release. He had a party the next night, his album release party, that this was the record company.
00:21:05
Speaker 4: This was it.
00:21:06
Speaker 10: This was the payoff. This is where the money was coming in. Everybody was in town. The managers were in town. His family was in town. His friends were in town. He was not, you know, it's just like the Academy Awards. Those people that are up for Academy Awards, they're never alone for the week or two before the event. And here we are 24 hours before the party for his album release. He was not alone.
00:21:27
Speaker 4: You know, there's just no way.
00:21:32
Speaker 3: They did find information that showed that somebody knew about what had happened at that connection with the parking of the car when David was out of the jurisdiction. They believe they know who it was. The other person is not somebody after the car was found. That would appear, or somebody close in time, is somebody who was geographically overlaid with his location. And they are surmising from that circumstantial evidence that the two of them had a connection to either the trip or something that potentially could have been untoward.
00:22:18
Speaker 1: That's our friend Harvey Levin on Two Angry Men with renowned defense attorney Mark Garagos. Joe Scott Morgan joining me, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University. And he is the star of a YouTube hit, Body Bags with Joe Scott Morgan. He is a death investigator with over 10,000 death scenes under his belt that he personally investigated. Joe Scott, thank you for being with us. Let's just get real.
00:22:46
Speaker 7: Yeah.
00:22:47
Speaker 1: By the time that Tesla was moved, her body had to have a serious stench. No way could you get in that vehicle and not know something horrible had happened. And as you drive away and move it, the stench goes with you. So it's not as if there is a dead animal in the road or some other source of the stench. It's in the car. Now, who would you ask to go move your car that had a dead body in it? Somebody you trust, somebody you really trust. Is there any way somebody could have gotten in that car and not smelled the decomp? And what was the condition of her body when it was found, Joe Scott?
00:23:38
Speaker 11: Yeah, okay, so listen to me here. The reality is this. You saw that clip of the car driving past. Her body was in such an advanced state of decomposition that if you were walking your dog down the road at that moment in time, you would have gotten a whiff of this. That's how pervasive the smell is. And also, anybody that gets into the cab of this vehicle, what we would traditionally call in a standard car, where you have the engine up front, the firewall that separates the engine compartment, which doesn't exist here, from the interior, firewall is not going to prevent that smell from getting into the cabin of the car as well. So yeah, it would have been Quite pervasive. Now, what condition was she in? Well, we've heard her description from the authorities as being almost liquefied, soup-like. It's not surprising. Her remains, these dismembered remains, I want to remind everybody, had essentially begun to liquefy. And they're in a couple of different conveyances, you will. The most prominent for me is the body bag. You know, that was apparently... acquired by this individual or these individuals. And so they've got her contained. And Nancy, as you can imagine, been around a lot of body bags. The smell is not going to be contained within the body bag either. It will seep out. You will smell it. But you just have to understand that as long as that body had been in there and also kind of cooking along all this time out there on the street, every single second that body is beginning to liquefy, the cells are literally, you use the term goo, turning into that, the cell walls are beginning to degrade and break down. So this is leaching out all over the area within the inside of this car. As a matter of fact, I don't know that you could take this car now, wherever it is, and clean it to to the standard where someone would actually want to utilize this car any longer. It's within the car. You can't escape this.
00:25:52
Speaker 1: Well, to you, Dave Mack, Crime Stories investigative reporter, some time between the time Celeste's body, 14-year-old Celeste, who's lured to D4VD' s mansion. Let's see a shot of that mansion. She's lured there. She's ordered up like she's a pepperoni pizza. D4VD pays for the Uber. She gets there, that photo from Harvey 11 over at TMZ, and she dies that night. At some point, Dave Mack, from the time that her disarticulated body is put into the trunk and the time the vehicle is found, I wonder if Steve Fisher might know the answer to this. But at some point between those two junctures, somebody throws, what, 10 of those little Christmas tree air fresheners in there?
00:26:50
Speaker 9: Yes, somebody was obviously noticing the odor inside this vehicle and probably outside and decided that it was in their best interest to try to cover up the horrible odor and use air fresheners. And as you mentioned, 10 or more air fresheners put inside the Tesla. Remember, we are talking about between April 23rd, when she arrives at D4VD' s house, through September the 3rd, when it's ticketed, September the 5th, when it's towed, and September the 8th, when it's opened. So 10 air fresheners did not cover up the odor.
00:27:28
Speaker 1: Randolph Rice joining me. Randolph, the 11 plus air fresheners. Typically, you see an air freshener hanging on somebody's rearview mirror. But in this case, it was so intentional. I mean, the air fresheners were not only hanging from the rearview mirror, they were stuffed around the console. Many were sprinkled in the front. more were tucked into the rear seats in the door pockets. The smell was so bad that they were depositing, planting the air fresheners like Easter eggs. In other words, put up rice. Someone that was moving that vehicle, I'm getting to the existence of a co-defendant. And the murder and or the disarticulation of a little girl's body. And they so callously stuffed air fresheners like Easter eggs inside that murder frunk. That was intentional by the person that smelled the decomp. That person, I submit to you, is a co-defendant. Who else would do that?
00:28:55
Speaker 4: Or Is he the actual, he or she, the defendant? And Mr.
00:29:00
Speaker 8: Burke just happens to be, you know, in the sidelines somewhere not knowing about what's actually going on because he has all these hanger-ons. Is this the person who stabbed her? Is this the person who hung those air fresheners in the car, this co-defendant or this defendant who is going to drag Mr.
00:29:20
Speaker 4: Burke down because he.
00:29:21
Speaker 8: Just happens to be associated with him? I think there's a lot of unanswered questions. And right now, if I'm Mr. Burke's defense team, I like those unanswered questions because that helps my client show somebody else did this.
00:29:35
Speaker 1: To Rachel Tolles joining us, clinical forensic psychologist, author of a brand new book coming out, Inventing the Psychopath and more.
00:29:47
Speaker 7: Dr.
00:29:48
Speaker 1: Rachel, who, what ghoul would go along with this? Sure, I'll move your girlfriend's dead body around in the trunk, around in the front of your Tesla. Happy to, and not just once, but multiple times, smelling a decomposing body, Dr. Rachel, and gingerly stuffing air fresheners throughout the car, including on top of the body and the trunk.
00:30:16
Speaker 2: Who?
00:30:16
Speaker 1: Who does that?
00:30:18
Speaker 7: Yeah, Nancy, I mean, it's a really interesting psychological question. Who would be willing to be a part of something like this? So when I look at it, I would examine probably someone who either is intensely loyal, so possibly not saying a family member, but somebody who would basically do anything for this person. Maybe somebody who's financially dependent on him because now he's got a lot of money. Somebody maybe whose entire identity is wrapped up in being close to this famous person. Celebrity creates a very unusual power dynamic. People can feel important simply because they're part of someone's inner circle. And sometimes loyalty becomes so extreme that people begin to rationalize behavior that they would ordinarily find horrifying. So there's actually a famous series of experiments conducted by the psychologist Stanley Milgram that demonstrates just how susceptible ordinary people can be to perceived authority, and that would include somebody famous. Participants in this study believe that they were administering increasingly dangerous electric shocks to other people because an authority figure said that they needed to continue. And it was shown that 65% went all the way to the maximum shock level, which they believed could cause death. And so these are not just people who someone might call a psychopath. These are just ordinary people that were selected because we wanted to see, okay, what would ordinary people do if a perceived authority person said, do this thing? And so I think the most important, obviously, question that a lot of you have been circling today is when this person became involved. Because obviously helping somebody plan a murder is very different psychologically from being called afterwards and agreeing to help conceal it.
00:32:08
Speaker 1: What about it, Joe Scott Morgan?
00:32:09
Speaker 11: Hey, I got to tell you something, Nancy, dovetailing with what Doc just said. Here's the really terrifying part of this. If folks will take the right hand and find the base of the ribs on the right side, okay, that's approximating.
00:32:24
Speaker 4: Where your liver is.
00:32:26
Speaker 11: She has got a fatal stab wound according to the ME to this particular area, more toward the midline. Nancy, this was not a quick death. This was something where she languished from, okay? Liver insults like this do not take one out very, very quickly. Now, she's got another injury on her left side, But it just, it scrapes the rib. Here's the other thing. Whoever was with this individual, okay, would have been there potentially present and watching the life literally leak out of her or internally because she's dying of internal bleeding at this point in time. One other thing as well, having spent a long time in the morgue and being around bodies, When it comes to civilians who enter into my world, where we're using surgical instruments to render down bodies and disarticulate bits of bodies, it's something that most people cannot bear to be around. They want to exit and get out of there as quickly as possible. Nancy, you've got someone who's potentially assisting him and aiding him. So you think about this dynamic that she was mentioning, this dynamic could actually overcome the grotesque nature of all of this. And as you watch that precious little angel right there, she would have bled out. And then someone's going to stand by or even maybe assist in the disarticulation of her body, then facilitate getting the body into this car and then riding around with the body there. It's beyond the pale.
00:34:12
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. D4VD, a.k.a. David Anthony Burke, has just been in court in the last hours with an all-new legal team that, by the way, you and I are paying for. In the last 12 months, he had millions and millions of dollars, and now he says, oop, I'm broke. Where did it go? How did he look in court?
00:34:44
Speaker 12: David came in and he looked pretty sad, pretty like hopeless, completely different to how he looked at the preliminary hearing. And even last time at the status conference hearing, he looked like his hair was a little bit grayer, kind of like almost dirty. which, again, when he was on trial at the preliminary hearing, he looked happy as could be. He was smiling, saying hi to the judge. You would think that he was not on trial for murder. Today, he looked a little bit more like someone who was on trial for murder.
00:35:12
Speaker 4: He looked sad, depressed.
00:35:14
Speaker 1: That's Sloane Hooks on TikTok. Joining me now, a special guest, Marissa Reyes. She is a star of The Light True Crime. Marissa, thank you for being with us. He looked sad. Boo. Who? Who? He should be sad. What happened in court and why am I paying his legal bill?
00:35:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, the reports of David in court were just he was looking messy, exhausted, didn't have his glasses on, tired, which, you know, I don't feel bad at all for him. But this happened to be the quickest hearing that we have had in any of the hearings. I lasted maybe approximately three minutes and he had his public defense team. They basically just pushed the date out to January 11th, 2027. The defense also asked the prosecution for more evidence and they provided them with hard drives, which again, this is a point that I consistently make in this case, 40 terabytes of evidence, 40 terabytes. Now, when he originally would come in with a private defense team, he seemed a little more upbeat. He was rolling with the big dogs in court. But when you're walking in with public defense, They don't have the same type of resources to be going through 40 terabytes of evidence the way his prior defense team did. And I anticipate that's going to be a big reason that this case is probably going to be pushed out further as we go along.
00:36:39
Speaker 1: So in court, we are paying for a fleet of lawyers for him. That costs a lot of money. And this is going to be a long road to hoe. Where is all of his money? Has it been transferred to other people's names? I know he hasn't spent it all yet. So where is it? Is the court trying to find out? Have they brought in a forensic accountant?
00:37:06
Speaker 2: That's a really big question. A lot of those journalists are also there. Big question is what happened to all this money? We heard in court that he was going to be making approximately $ 13 million up to $ 19 million in with the release of his new album and everything. Now, did he get that? We don't believe so because he didn't fulfill contracts. However, however, he was working all this time beforehand. We know that his parents have various properties. He's got various entertainment companies, LLCs listed under his name, but the public defender verified that he qualifies for the defense. It still just doesn't make sense to any of us.
00:37:43
Speaker 1: Is it true? Marissa Reyes is joining us from the light true crime. Marissa, is it true that Celeste's family is suing the so-called enablers, all of his gang, the leeches, the parasites, the ticks that hung around him, soaking up his celebrity, suing them under the theory that they enabled child abuse or worse? Absolutely.
00:38:14
Speaker 2: They have a wrongful death suit. That's going to be a massive lawsuit. And the big thing about this lawsuit is they want to hold others accountable besides David, those that were surrounding him, including his mother, who was aware of the trips that they made, who had Celeste at her home in Texas. They have the various LLCs. They have his bodyguard, Sheldon, on there. And one of the things with this lawsuit is because it is a civil lawsuit, it would allow us to have more information in any of the filings or motions that come through. which is an interesting aspect to that. We're still looking for so much more information in this case. We're still looking for that grand jury transcript to be unsealed, the investigative grand jury that was held, that would hold so much more details, as well as to the fact that you were discussing before, who's possibly involved in this crime? Because that grand jury transcript would have some information from those that were testifying. We only really heard experts and detectives testify in court at the preliminary hearing, What I really want to hear from is those that were around him every day.
00:39:19
Speaker 1: Marissa Reyes, you're so right. And one thing I'm latching on to that you said is, what can we learn from the civil lawsuits, solicitations? Rivas' family is filing against the so-called enablers? Because a lot of people think that civil and criminal do not overlap. But I really learned when I was developing an expertise in felony arson investigations, I really learned how valuable civil investigations can be because when I got connected to the insurance fire investigator, I learned so much. They had troves of information that I didn't have access to, and it really helped me prove various arson cases that were extremely difficult to prove probatively. So, What you're saying is absolutely correct, but I want to circle back to something you said at the get-go. You said that he looked tired, that his, okay, I've got that he looked, quote, like crap, that he had puffy eyes, long hair, and looked stressed. So, but is that true?
00:40:35
Speaker 2: He just came in messy and looking down as well. Like I said, when he would come in with his private defense team, he would come in seemingly, you know, a little jovial. We were surprised how often he would smile. They would rub his back. He's not getting that with his public defense team. You know, I think he's coming in realizing he does not have the same power standing behind him trying to defend him. This is a much different situation now in the courtroom for him when he walks in.
00:41:02
Speaker 1: Rubbing his back, Randolph Rice. Rubbing his back. Is that what you get paid to do in court, Rice?
00:41:14
Speaker 8: No, you don't get paid to rub backs, but I will tell you when you have a private defense team, you certainly get a lot more attention than you do from a public defender's office. And I'm not going to disparage public defenders because I work with them. I think they're incredible attorneys. They are just overloaded and they don't have the time to go the extra mile to and do things like glam ups or do things like making sure your client is in good spirits before you come out or going to the jail and meeting with your client maybe hours before the hearing to get them in the right mindset. So that's maybe why we're seeing him for this three minute hearing, not all happy, glowy, you know, sunshines and rainbows. So that is certainly explainable, but public defenders are good lawyers. They go through the cases just like a private attorney, but you're not going to get that attention like you do with a private attorney.
00:42:01
Speaker 1: And what the public defender has that every other private lawyer doesn't have is unlimited resources. What do I mean by that? You and me, the taxpayer, we're paying for his trove of defense attorneys, but yet he's still sad sack in court. Gee, I wonder why. If you know or think you know anything regarding the murder of Celeste Rivas, dial 213-486-6890. Tonight, a few updates on the story of a young man who goes missing, found dead, Nolan Wells. We seek and sought to bring you the very latest on the story, which included a CTO distress call while it was breaking and the Wells family's independent pathologist at the time. First, it was unclear then what the CTO audio said, but we know now. speculation about it was wrong, so we pulled it down when new facts came to light, and I'm sorry we ever ran it. Second, our reference to the Wells family independent pathologist not having access to certain things or that things were missing or hidden, that was incorrect, and we apologize. We know news moves very quickly. Trust is earned, and we are very grateful for you, our audience. Nancy Grace signing off for tonight, but I'll see you tomorrow night. And until then, good night, friend.
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Bombshell tonight, D4VD, aka David Anthony Burke, murder accomplice in the brutal, the savage death of a 14-year-old girl, Celeste. According to reports, let that sink in. Police, LAPD, reportedly investigating a suspect, a co-defendant in the murder of 14-year-old girl Celeste. Good evening. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us. David Anthony Burke contacting minors from behind bars.
00:00:53
Speaker 2: But did you ever learn about consent, about maybe not getting with a minor?
00:00:58
Speaker 1: A 13-year-old girl you're texting to get an abortion, and he's worried about mommy?
00:01:03
Speaker 2: Who else was possibly responsible and had knowledge of what was going on for Celeste that is to blame in this?
00:01:11
Speaker 3: I've already been told a name as well.
00:01:13
Speaker 4: A name of a suspect?
00:01:15
Speaker 3: Of another person besides him.
00:01:18
Speaker 5: In connection with the death or the dismemberment?
00:01:21
Speaker 3: But they're not ruling anything out. I mean, everything is on the table. They have kept this wide open because they believe and they believed since the beginning. since the get-go, that there was more than one person involved. The other person is not somebody after the car was found. That would appear, or somebody close in time, is somebody who was geographically overlaid with his location, and they are surmising from that circumstantial evidence that that the two of them had a connection to either the trip or something that potentially could have been untoward.
00:02:05
Speaker 1: That's two angry men, my friend Harvey Levin over at TMZ and my sparring partner, my sparring opponent. Mark Garagos, who shot to fame across the country when he defended Scott Peterson and many other famous killers. That said, let that sink in. Joining me in All-Star Panel to make sense of what we are learning tonight, we believed at the beginning it was a matter of time before digital forensics ruled the day. A murder case is not just something you throw together. There are many, many facets. For instance, we've got the body, as it were, decomposed in the back of D4VD David Anthony Burke's trunk. His front, by the way, it's a Tesla. It's in the front of the vehicle. Making sense of who is it, when Celeste's body was found, it was largely goo, G-O-O. It had been deteriorating for so many, many days. Then there are eyewitnesses. Then there are ear witnesses. Then there are statements. Then there's grand jury testimony. And finally, at the end of the day, all of the digital forensic evidence falls into place. We've got an all-star panel for you tonight analyzing what we are learning. There is a suspect number two. There is an accomplice. Will that accomplice choose to be a state's witness or a co-defendant in a murder case? Straight out to special guest joining us, Robert Freed, Certified Forensics Analyst, EVP, a Forensics and Chief Investigative Officer, author of five digital forensics books, including Forensics Data Collection 2.0. It's a whole series. on digital forensics. Okay, Robert, thank you for being with us tonight. All along, I have believed that by following the digital trail of D4VD, a.k.a. David Anthony Burke, we would discover who was traveling with him in that Tesla, who moved the Tesla, who was with him when the body was disarticulated in that inflatable kiddie pool. then put literally in a body bag the idiots ordered on Amazon. They go on and put in body bag. That said, how does it work? You heard Geragos and you heard Levin talking about overlaying, overlaying D4VD' s movements. Okay, dummy down for me. What are they saying?
00:05:01
Speaker 6: Yeah, it depends on looking at different types of social media accounts that he may be logged into at the time. There's GPS coordinates that can be obtained from all this activity. So if you're on, let's say, Facebook or X or other types of services and you're posting on those and you have exact precise location types of options available in these apps to trace your location, this is definitely an opportunity for investigators to go in and gather that information and associate it to a specific location you may be in.
00:05:45
Speaker 1: Okay, hold on. Put him back up, please. I was thinking about the phone, digital tracking of the phone. I was also thinking about the navigation system, the nav system in the Tesla, which is highly sophisticated. They've even got a 365-degree navigation camera on a lot of Teslas. But you just said something I hadn't thought about. Social media. I assume you're talking about geotagging. When you post something, it geotags where you are. Because in my book, Don't Be a Victim, I talk about take geotagging off if you don't want the world to know where you're posting your child's photo. They give you the exact location of your front yard. So geotagging. You said, Robert Freed, Social media accounts he was logged into. That doesn't give you a running navigation map, does it? Or does it because I don't think he was posting, hey, here's where I disarticulated the body. Here's where I buried remains. Here's where I threw away the passport. So how does being logged into social media tell me anything unless you're actually posting at that moment?
00:06:57
Speaker 6: Yeah, you can post, but your phone in general, like you said, is also tracking at the same time. your locations, for example, Snapchat, things like that. So it all depends. I think it's, like we said, you know, in the beginning, it's connecting the dots here. It's looking at, you know, posts on social media, potentially. It's the car. It's pinging of cell phone towers to show a location here. And I think all those points together need to be considered when looking at a case like this.
00:07:27
Speaker 1: Okay, let me ask you this. Robert Freed, what is a data dump? Could that help? Or is that just TMI, too much information? When they know who his inner circle is, they can just get their phones by subpoena and follow the trail, right? From AT & T or T-Mobile or Verizon. Or do they need to do a cell tower dump to find out everybody that may have been there, whether they are known in the circle or not?
00:07:54
Speaker 6: Yeah, it depends on the level of effort that they want to go do that. But there are specialists that focus in on cell tower information and And gathering that, again, they have to interpret that information and see if you can find that information to be useful here. I think in a combination, again, of the cell phone tower data in conjunction with information on the phone, from the car, all these different things can be very helpful.
00:08:22
Speaker 1: How do you do a cell tower dump? And please be succinct and dummy down for me because it's actually very complicated. What is a cell tower dump? Let's just pretend. Let's just pretend, okay? that we're taking the cell tower closest to that spot in Santa Barbara where we know items were disposed, such as Celeste's passport. I mean, in the middle of the night, I'm going to circle back to you, Steve Fisher, on that. In the middle of the night, I think it was 2 or 3 a.m., when everybody else was sleeping so they'd be up bright and early the next morning for work, D-4VD and his henchperson out driving around in Santa Barbara in a remote and forested area Why? I wonder why. As I told juries repeatedly, Robert Freed, nothing good happens after midnight. So what's he doing out at 2 a.m. in a remote forested area? Well, of course, police find out from the digital trail, and they go there, and that's where her passport and other items were found. So let's just pretend we're taking the cell tower closer to that spot. Okay, that's where we are. Now what do we do?
00:09:27
Speaker 6: Yeah, so you would be able to subpoena the... you know, sell providers for information and law enforcement can sift through that. But I think that that is information that can be very useful in cases to help corroborate the other evidence.
00:09:43
Speaker 1: Freed, put him up. Freed, when you just said sifting through it, I love to cook and you made me think of sifting flour. Okay. Over and over and all the particles coming down into whatever it is you're cooking. So with it, my understanding with a cell tower dump, you say, okay, his car is there at 2 a.m. Let's get every cell phone that connects to the Santa Barbara Tower closest to the location between midnight and 4 a.m. Every cell phone. And then you sift through that to see if anything interests you. Is that what a cell tower dump is?
00:10:27
Speaker 6: Essentially, yes.
00:10:30
Speaker 4: Okay.
00:10:31
Speaker 1: When you look at this digital trail, do you actually see, for instance, D4VD' s phone and then the co-defendant's phone going along together?
00:10:41
Speaker 6: You can, depending on activity within the cell phones at the time. You would have to be able to get their devices to corroborate that type of information. So if his phone's already been collected and then this supposed accomplice has been, you know, giving up his devices as well, you're going to be able to piece that information together.
00:11:05
Speaker 1: I understand the digital angle that you're describing, Robert Free, but what about GPS?
00:11:09
Speaker 7: Yes.
00:11:11
Speaker 6: Yeah, we can definitely look at GPS coordinates. Those are tied into phones, for example, your movements. If you get a full file system dump of these various phones, the investigators can go in and they can look at all these different data points and corroborate other evidence showing, like we said before, a path of evidence or a path of travel.
00:11:34
Speaker 5: Two separate law enforcement sources have told reporters that detectives do not believe this was a one-person job. According to those sources, investigators think a second individual was involved in the effort to dispose of Celeste's body during the months before she was found inside that Tesla. So now the focus isn't just on what happened. It's on who else might have played a role in this thing. Who is this other person? A friend, someone in a circle maybe, or someone the public doesn't even know exists. When detectives believe a second person was involved, that tells you this wasn't one terrible moment or one impulsive decision. It suggests planning. It suggests coordination. It suggests someone else out there is holding secrets and staying quiet, at least for now.
00:12:17
Speaker 1: That is Blackie Speaks on YouTube, and I really was captivated, interested in the last thing he said. Randolph Rice joining me, veteran trial lawyer, defense attorney joining us out of Baltimore. At Rice Law, Randolph Rice, this... Suspect can either choose to be a state's witness or a co-defendant. Think about what Blackie Speaks on YouTube just said. When detectives believe a second person is involved, that tells you it wasn't just one terrible moment or one impulsive decision. It suggests planning and coordination. Someone out there is holding secrets and staying quiet.
00:13:00
Speaker 7: Thoughts?
00:13:02
Speaker 8: Nancy, I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. A couple of weeks ago, I told you there's this S.O.D., some other dude. And you said, oh, no, there couldn't be some other dude.
00:13:12
Speaker 4: But guess what? There is some other dude. There is.
00:13:15
Speaker 7: No, no.
00:13:16
Speaker 1: You said some other dude. It's S.O.D. Some other dude did it. I never said there wasn't a co-defendant. But I always said some other dude did not do this. So you're just spinning. But I want to hear it. Go ahead. Give me your theory how this could possibly be good for David Anthony Burke.
00:13:36
Speaker 8: This is fantastic for David Anthony Burke because if he has to go to trial, he's going to be pointing the finger at this other person. This is the other person that was holding the sword or whatever the device was that stabbed Ms.
00:13:47
Speaker 7: Rivas.
00:13:48
Speaker 4: This is the other person that put her in the frunk. This is the other person that drove her away. Not me. This is the other person that had something to lose. Not me. That's the person who killed her. Not me.
00:13:59
Speaker 8: This is the sound of the reasonable without train coming down the tracks, and it is coming down fast.
00:14:12
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. So Randolph Rice, when you said some other dude did it, are you now stating that some other dude did it all that it wasn't D4VD? Because I've never, ever thought he did not have a hench person hanging around. He can't do anything on his own. He always has to have all of his parasite groupies hanging around with him. Let's see some of that video. Everywhere he goes, even to the bathroom, there's all these people there. He doesn't want to be alone. Remember, he just moved out of his mommy's house. He's still a teen when he moves to L.A. and launches his life. Oh, there you go. I love boobs is getting oil rubbed into his body. So Randolph Rice, I never thought he was alone when he murdered Celeste, according to reports. But you're now saying he did not murder Celeste. You're saying somebody else did it totally. Is that going to be the defense, Rice?
00:15:18
Speaker 8: Well, the defense is going to be reasonable doubt if there's somebody else involved. And I got to tell you, Nancy, I think there's more than one co-conspirator or other individual, because I just think that there had to be more people in this circle of D4VD that were looking out for him, his interest. And at the end of the day, Nancy, more so they're looking out for their interest, protecting what they can get off of him.
00:15:42
Speaker 4: And so, yes, there is reasonable doubt, reasonable doubt.
00:15:46
Speaker 8: And reasonable doubt is all his defense team needs to get either a hung jury or not guilty.
00:15:52
Speaker 1: Let me just refresh your recollection, as we say in court. Robert Freed, isn't it true that if the co-defendant's phone is overlaying a phone and that phone on the bottom of this gesticulation is D4VD? I don't know how Randolph Rice is going to get away from the fact that D4VD, David Anthony Burke's phone, is right there at the time of the murder and the disarticulation, that it's his phone that is going out to the remote Santa Barbara area. So what if he's got a henchperson as a wingman? That doesn't relieve him of his liability, of his culpability, if it's his phone traveling too.
00:16:39
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's right.
00:16:42
Speaker 4: That's right.
00:16:42
Speaker 6: If you can take that information and, like you said, overlay it and they're going the same path, the same direction, that's very good evidence that there's some relationship there, association.
00:16:56
Speaker 1: To Steve Fisher joining us, missing persons private investigator, search rescue specialist, owner of Search Investigations. He is the one that basically... handed over video evidence to LAPD on a silver platter. Let's see that video that Fisher got showing, there you go, there is Burke's Tesla being moved throughout a period of weeks because in that fancy neighborhood, they don't want a filthy, disgusting, stinky car parked in front of their house. So if it's there for over a couple of days, it has to be moved or it's going to get towed. And ultimately, it did get towed. So, Steve Fisher, how often, and I know, by the way, you've seen the face of the person driving the car, and I think I know who it is. Are you ready to tell me?
00:17:50
Speaker 9: No.
00:17:52
Speaker 10: Not yet.
00:17:54
Speaker 6: Okay.
00:17:55
Speaker 1: We'll see. We'll see. But, Fisher... I want to talk to you about the Tesla itself and what you observed when you saw all this video. Because, come on, if it's somebody else's phone that they have now identified and are going to name as a suspect, we believe, you're going to see their phone going, parallel park. You want to tell me you couldn't smell that body decomposing during all of that? Tell me what you saw on the video and how that's going to relate to the digital forensics we are now learning about, that it does exist. And it points to a co-defendant.
00:18:36
Speaker 6: Yeah.
00:18:36
Speaker 10: So, you know, the Tesla was being moved in that particular shop. That's right before, that's the day that they were leaving to start their tour. So they were leaving for months. So the Tesla was being moved away from the house. However, I'm speaking with, you know, neighbors. They said that, beginning in about May, the Tesla would be left at different spots around the neighborhood. And as I said before, the neighbors across the street, actually, they would get this horrible stench anytime it would be over like 75 degrees. They had buried a dog that had died, and they were unearthing that dog, thinking that's what it was coming from. But really, it was the Tesla parked on the street. But you're going to see, listen, he had people over at the house all the time, he was not the person who rented the house either. Let's keep in mind. So there's other people living there. So you're going to see these phones moving in with each other, including burners, because if he's driving out to state road, one 54 in Santa Barbara, and all of a sudden a new device that's not known to the geo fence turns on and is pinging and tracking with his, they're going to know that that's, a burner attached to him. And, you know, I went out to State Road 154 again three days ago. And, you know, I think that if a big effort was put in that the evidence that he left out there could be found because there's not that many areas that he can really go far off road. It's a single lane highway in each direction and it has license plate readers. So he's really screwed.
00:20:05
Speaker 1: So, Steve Fisher, based on what you obtained, what you discovered, and you handed over to the LAPD, somebody, potentially the suspect that we believe LAPD is going to name, is moving the car. And if we have their phone number, which LAPD does have, we're going to see them moving the car, parking the car. I mean, how many times at the most did they move the car and at the least?
00:20:33
Speaker 4: Look how filthy the car is.
00:20:34
Speaker 10: You can tell it's not being driven as a regular driver, but it's being moved around. And, you know, listen, everybody I've talked to, everything we see online on Twitch and everything, he was rarely alone. And I think it's really, really important to remember that when this murder happened, 24 hours later, he was leaving for New York and he did leave for New York to go to a pop-up event for his album release. He had a party the next night, his album release party, that this was the record company.
00:21:05
Speaker 4: This was it.
00:21:06
Speaker 10: This was the payoff. This is where the money was coming in. Everybody was in town. The managers were in town. His family was in town. His friends were in town. He was not, you know, it's just like the Academy Awards. Those people that are up for Academy Awards, they're never alone for the week or two before the event. And here we are 24 hours before the party for his album release. He was not alone.
00:21:27
Speaker 4: You know, there's just no way.
00:21:32
Speaker 3: They did find information that showed that somebody knew about what had happened at that connection with the parking of the car when David was out of the jurisdiction. They believe they know who it was. The other person is not somebody after the car was found. That would appear, or somebody close in time, is somebody who was geographically overlaid with his location. And they are surmising from that circumstantial evidence that the two of them had a connection to either the trip or something that potentially could have been untoward.
00:22:18
Speaker 1: That's our friend Harvey Levin on Two Angry Men with renowned defense attorney Mark Garagos. Joe Scott Morgan joining me, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University. And he is the star of a YouTube hit, Body Bags with Joe Scott Morgan. He is a death investigator with over 10,000 death scenes under his belt that he personally investigated. Joe Scott, thank you for being with us. Let's just get real.
00:22:46
Speaker 7: Yeah.
00:22:47
Speaker 1: By the time that Tesla was moved, her body had to have a serious stench. No way could you get in that vehicle and not know something horrible had happened. And as you drive away and move it, the stench goes with you. So it's not as if there is a dead animal in the road or some other source of the stench. It's in the car. Now, who would you ask to go move your car that had a dead body in it? Somebody you trust, somebody you really trust. Is there any way somebody could have gotten in that car and not smelled the decomp? And what was the condition of her body when it was found, Joe Scott?
00:23:38
Speaker 11: Yeah, okay, so listen to me here. The reality is this. You saw that clip of the car driving past. Her body was in such an advanced state of decomposition that if you were walking your dog down the road at that moment in time, you would have gotten a whiff of this. That's how pervasive the smell is. And also, anybody that gets into the cab of this vehicle, what we would traditionally call in a standard car, where you have the engine up front, the firewall that separates the engine compartment, which doesn't exist here, from the interior, firewall is not going to prevent that smell from getting into the cabin of the car as well. So yeah, it would have been Quite pervasive. Now, what condition was she in? Well, we've heard her description from the authorities as being almost liquefied, soup-like. It's not surprising. Her remains, these dismembered remains, I want to remind everybody, had essentially begun to liquefy. And they're in a couple of different conveyances, you will. The most prominent for me is the body bag. You know, that was apparently... acquired by this individual or these individuals. And so they've got her contained. And Nancy, as you can imagine, been around a lot of body bags. The smell is not going to be contained within the body bag either. It will seep out. You will smell it. But you just have to understand that as long as that body had been in there and also kind of cooking along all this time out there on the street, every single second that body is beginning to liquefy, the cells are literally, you use the term goo, turning into that, the cell walls are beginning to degrade and break down. So this is leaching out all over the area within the inside of this car. As a matter of fact, I don't know that you could take this car now, wherever it is, and clean it to to the standard where someone would actually want to utilize this car any longer. It's within the car. You can't escape this.
00:25:52
Speaker 1: Well, to you, Dave Mack, Crime Stories investigative reporter, some time between the time Celeste's body, 14-year-old Celeste, who's lured to D4VD' s mansion. Let's see a shot of that mansion. She's lured there. She's ordered up like she's a pepperoni pizza. D4VD pays for the Uber. She gets there, that photo from Harvey 11 over at TMZ, and she dies that night. At some point, Dave Mack, from the time that her disarticulated body is put into the trunk and the time the vehicle is found, I wonder if Steve Fisher might know the answer to this. But at some point between those two junctures, somebody throws, what, 10 of those little Christmas tree air fresheners in there?
00:26:50
Speaker 9: Yes, somebody was obviously noticing the odor inside this vehicle and probably outside and decided that it was in their best interest to try to cover up the horrible odor and use air fresheners. And as you mentioned, 10 or more air fresheners put inside the Tesla. Remember, we are talking about between April 23rd, when she arrives at D4VD' s house, through September the 3rd, when it's ticketed, September the 5th, when it's towed, and September the 8th, when it's opened. So 10 air fresheners did not cover up the odor.
00:27:28
Speaker 1: Randolph Rice joining me. Randolph, the 11 plus air fresheners. Typically, you see an air freshener hanging on somebody's rearview mirror. But in this case, it was so intentional. I mean, the air fresheners were not only hanging from the rearview mirror, they were stuffed around the console. Many were sprinkled in the front. more were tucked into the rear seats in the door pockets. The smell was so bad that they were depositing, planting the air fresheners like Easter eggs. In other words, put up rice. Someone that was moving that vehicle, I'm getting to the existence of a co-defendant. And the murder and or the disarticulation of a little girl's body. And they so callously stuffed air fresheners like Easter eggs inside that murder frunk. That was intentional by the person that smelled the decomp. That person, I submit to you, is a co-defendant. Who else would do that?
00:28:55
Speaker 4: Or Is he the actual, he or she, the defendant? And Mr.
00:29:00
Speaker 8: Burke just happens to be, you know, in the sidelines somewhere not knowing about what's actually going on because he has all these hanger-ons. Is this the person who stabbed her? Is this the person who hung those air fresheners in the car, this co-defendant or this defendant who is going to drag Mr.
00:29:20
Speaker 4: Burke down because he.
00:29:21
Speaker 8: Just happens to be associated with him? I think there's a lot of unanswered questions. And right now, if I'm Mr. Burke's defense team, I like those unanswered questions because that helps my client show somebody else did this.
00:29:35
Speaker 1: To Rachel Tolles joining us, clinical forensic psychologist, author of a brand new book coming out, Inventing the Psychopath and more.
00:29:47
Speaker 7: Dr.
00:29:48
Speaker 1: Rachel, who, what ghoul would go along with this? Sure, I'll move your girlfriend's dead body around in the trunk, around in the front of your Tesla. Happy to, and not just once, but multiple times, smelling a decomposing body, Dr. Rachel, and gingerly stuffing air fresheners throughout the car, including on top of the body and the trunk.
00:30:16
Speaker 2: Who?
00:30:16
Speaker 1: Who does that?
00:30:18
Speaker 7: Yeah, Nancy, I mean, it's a really interesting psychological question. Who would be willing to be a part of something like this? So when I look at it, I would examine probably someone who either is intensely loyal, so possibly not saying a family member, but somebody who would basically do anything for this person. Maybe somebody who's financially dependent on him because now he's got a lot of money. Somebody maybe whose entire identity is wrapped up in being close to this famous person. Celebrity creates a very unusual power dynamic. People can feel important simply because they're part of someone's inner circle. And sometimes loyalty becomes so extreme that people begin to rationalize behavior that they would ordinarily find horrifying. So there's actually a famous series of experiments conducted by the psychologist Stanley Milgram that demonstrates just how susceptible ordinary people can be to perceived authority, and that would include somebody famous. Participants in this study believe that they were administering increasingly dangerous electric shocks to other people because an authority figure said that they needed to continue. And it was shown that 65% went all the way to the maximum shock level, which they believed could cause death. And so these are not just people who someone might call a psychopath. These are just ordinary people that were selected because we wanted to see, okay, what would ordinary people do if a perceived authority person said, do this thing? And so I think the most important, obviously, question that a lot of you have been circling today is when this person became involved. Because obviously helping somebody plan a murder is very different psychologically from being called afterwards and agreeing to help conceal it.
00:32:08
Speaker 1: What about it, Joe Scott Morgan?
00:32:09
Speaker 11: Hey, I got to tell you something, Nancy, dovetailing with what Doc just said. Here's the really terrifying part of this. If folks will take the right hand and find the base of the ribs on the right side, okay, that's approximating.
00:32:24
Speaker 4: Where your liver is.
00:32:26
Speaker 11: She has got a fatal stab wound according to the ME to this particular area, more toward the midline. Nancy, this was not a quick death. This was something where she languished from, okay? Liver insults like this do not take one out very, very quickly. Now, she's got another injury on her left side, But it just, it scrapes the rib. Here's the other thing. Whoever was with this individual, okay, would have been there potentially present and watching the life literally leak out of her or internally because she's dying of internal bleeding at this point in time. One other thing as well, having spent a long time in the morgue and being around bodies, When it comes to civilians who enter into my world, where we're using surgical instruments to render down bodies and disarticulate bits of bodies, it's something that most people cannot bear to be around. They want to exit and get out of there as quickly as possible. Nancy, you've got someone who's potentially assisting him and aiding him. So you think about this dynamic that she was mentioning, this dynamic could actually overcome the grotesque nature of all of this. And as you watch that precious little angel right there, she would have bled out. And then someone's going to stand by or even maybe assist in the disarticulation of her body, then facilitate getting the body into this car and then riding around with the body there. It's beyond the pale.
00:34:12
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. D4VD, a.k.a. David Anthony Burke, has just been in court in the last hours with an all-new legal team that, by the way, you and I are paying for. In the last 12 months, he had millions and millions of dollars, and now he says, oop, I'm broke. Where did it go? How did he look in court?
00:34:44
Speaker 12: David came in and he looked pretty sad, pretty like hopeless, completely different to how he looked at the preliminary hearing. And even last time at the status conference hearing, he looked like his hair was a little bit grayer, kind of like almost dirty. which, again, when he was on trial at the preliminary hearing, he looked happy as could be. He was smiling, saying hi to the judge. You would think that he was not on trial for murder. Today, he looked a little bit more like someone who was on trial for murder.
00:35:12
Speaker 4: He looked sad, depressed.
00:35:14
Speaker 1: That's Sloane Hooks on TikTok. Joining me now, a special guest, Marissa Reyes. She is a star of The Light True Crime. Marissa, thank you for being with us. He looked sad. Boo. Who? Who? He should be sad. What happened in court and why am I paying his legal bill?
00:35:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, the reports of David in court were just he was looking messy, exhausted, didn't have his glasses on, tired, which, you know, I don't feel bad at all for him. But this happened to be the quickest hearing that we have had in any of the hearings. I lasted maybe approximately three minutes and he had his public defense team. They basically just pushed the date out to January 11th, 2027. The defense also asked the prosecution for more evidence and they provided them with hard drives, which again, this is a point that I consistently make in this case, 40 terabytes of evidence, 40 terabytes. Now, when he originally would come in with a private defense team, he seemed a little more upbeat. He was rolling with the big dogs in court. But when you're walking in with public defense, They don't have the same type of resources to be going through 40 terabytes of evidence the way his prior defense team did. And I anticipate that's going to be a big reason that this case is probably going to be pushed out further as we go along.
00:36:39
Speaker 1: So in court, we are paying for a fleet of lawyers for him. That costs a lot of money. And this is going to be a long road to hoe. Where is all of his money? Has it been transferred to other people's names? I know he hasn't spent it all yet. So where is it? Is the court trying to find out? Have they brought in a forensic accountant?
00:37:06
Speaker 2: That's a really big question. A lot of those journalists are also there. Big question is what happened to all this money? We heard in court that he was going to be making approximately $ 13 million up to $ 19 million in with the release of his new album and everything. Now, did he get that? We don't believe so because he didn't fulfill contracts. However, however, he was working all this time beforehand. We know that his parents have various properties. He's got various entertainment companies, LLCs listed under his name, but the public defender verified that he qualifies for the defense. It still just doesn't make sense to any of us.
00:37:43
Speaker 1: Is it true? Marissa Reyes is joining us from the light true crime. Marissa, is it true that Celeste's family is suing the so-called enablers, all of his gang, the leeches, the parasites, the ticks that hung around him, soaking up his celebrity, suing them under the theory that they enabled child abuse or worse? Absolutely.
00:38:14
Speaker 2: They have a wrongful death suit. That's going to be a massive lawsuit. And the big thing about this lawsuit is they want to hold others accountable besides David, those that were surrounding him, including his mother, who was aware of the trips that they made, who had Celeste at her home in Texas. They have the various LLCs. They have his bodyguard, Sheldon, on there. And one of the things with this lawsuit is because it is a civil lawsuit, it would allow us to have more information in any of the filings or motions that come through. which is an interesting aspect to that. We're still looking for so much more information in this case. We're still looking for that grand jury transcript to be unsealed, the investigative grand jury that was held, that would hold so much more details, as well as to the fact that you were discussing before, who's possibly involved in this crime? Because that grand jury transcript would have some information from those that were testifying. We only really heard experts and detectives testify in court at the preliminary hearing, What I really want to hear from is those that were around him every day.
00:39:19
Speaker 1: Marissa Reyes, you're so right. And one thing I'm latching on to that you said is, what can we learn from the civil lawsuits, solicitations? Rivas' family is filing against the so-called enablers? Because a lot of people think that civil and criminal do not overlap. But I really learned when I was developing an expertise in felony arson investigations, I really learned how valuable civil investigations can be because when I got connected to the insurance fire investigator, I learned so much. They had troves of information that I didn't have access to, and it really helped me prove various arson cases that were extremely difficult to prove probatively. So, What you're saying is absolutely correct, but I want to circle back to something you said at the get-go. You said that he looked tired, that his, okay, I've got that he looked, quote, like crap, that he had puffy eyes, long hair, and looked stressed. So, but is that true?
00:40:35
Speaker 2: He just came in messy and looking down as well. Like I said, when he would come in with his private defense team, he would come in seemingly, you know, a little jovial. We were surprised how often he would smile. They would rub his back. He's not getting that with his public defense team. You know, I think he's coming in realizing he does not have the same power standing behind him trying to defend him. This is a much different situation now in the courtroom for him when he walks in.
00:41:02
Speaker 1: Rubbing his back, Randolph Rice. Rubbing his back. Is that what you get paid to do in court, Rice?
00:41:14
Speaker 8: No, you don't get paid to rub backs, but I will tell you when you have a private defense team, you certainly get a lot more attention than you do from a public defender's office. And I'm not going to disparage public defenders because I work with them. I think they're incredible attorneys. They are just overloaded and they don't have the time to go the extra mile to and do things like glam ups or do things like making sure your client is in good spirits before you come out or going to the jail and meeting with your client maybe hours before the hearing to get them in the right mindset. So that's maybe why we're seeing him for this three minute hearing, not all happy, glowy, you know, sunshines and rainbows. So that is certainly explainable, but public defenders are good lawyers. They go through the cases just like a private attorney, but you're not going to get that attention like you do with a private attorney.
00:42:01
Speaker 1: And what the public defender has that every other private lawyer doesn't have is unlimited resources. What do I mean by that? You and me, the taxpayer, we're paying for his trove of defense attorneys, but yet he's still sad sack in court. Gee, I wonder why. If you know or think you know anything regarding the murder of Celeste Rivas, dial 213-486-6890. Tonight, a few updates on the story of a young man who goes missing, found dead, Nolan Wells. We seek and sought to bring you the very latest on the story, which included a CTO distress call while it was breaking and the Wells family's independent pathologist at the time. First, it was unclear then what the CTO audio said, but we know now. speculation about it was wrong, so we pulled it down when new facts came to light, and I'm sorry we ever ran it. Second, our reference to the Wells family independent pathologist not having access to certain things or that things were missing or hidden, that was incorrect, and we apologize. We know news moves very quickly. Trust is earned, and we are very grateful for you, our audience. Nancy Grace signing off for tonight, but I'll see you tomorrow night. And until then, good night, friend.
