Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Celeste Rivas Hernandez Died of ‘Multiple Penetrating Injuries,’ Medical Examiner Says

Transcript

Celeste Rivas Hernandez Died of ‘Multiple Penetrating Injuries,’ Medical Examiner Says · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: Imagine a city parking enforcement officer right just walking down
0:06
Bluebird Avenue in the Hollywood Hills. It is August twenty eighth,
0:09
typical late summer in Los Angeles.
0:11
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, just baking exactly, just.
0:13
Speaker 1: Dry baking, heat radiating off the asphalt. And the officer
0:18
spots a Tesla. It's got Texas plates and it's been
0:21
sitting there untouched for weeks. So the officer does what
0:24
they always do. They punch the license plate into their
0:26
little handheld device. They print out a standard seventy three
0:30
dollars citation for a seventy two hour parking violation. They
0:34
slip it under the wiper blade, and they literally just
0:36
walk away, just another Tuesday in the whole bureaucratic machinery
0:40
of the city. Except inside the front trunk of that
0:45
electric car. Is the terrifying conclusion to a massive, year
0:48
long systemic failure.
0:49
Speaker 2: It's honestly the ultimate collision of the mundane and the horrific.
0:53
I mean, think about it, a piece of paper flagging
0:55
a parking violation, sitting literally inches away from a murdered child.
1:00
Speaker 1: Yeah. Today we are opening the unsealed files on a
1:03
case that has just dominated the news cycle. It's a
1:06
story that feels almost too dark to be real. And
1:09
you know, we know you've been asking for this. You've
1:11
been flooding our inbox, requesting that we help you understand
1:14
the full scope of what actually happened here.
1:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an incredibly heavy deep dive today, but we
1:19
are genuinely glad you're here to navigate it with us,
1:23
because this isn't just, you know, a true crime investigation.
1:26
It is a profound, glaring indictment of our digital age.
1:32
It exposes these vulnerabilities that every single person with a
1:35
smartphone or frankly a teenager, really needs to understand.
1:39
Speaker 1: So let's lay out the mission for today. We have
1:41
a massive stack of sources in front of us. We're
1:43
looking at breaking news reports. We've got official statements from
1:46
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hawkman, detailed court documents,
1:50
and most crucially, a newly unselled twenty six page autosy report.
1:56
Speaker 2: Right, the autopsy report.
1:57
Speaker 1: Is key, it is and all of this material centers
2:00
on the tragic homicide of fifteen year old Celeste weave
2:03
Us Hernandez and the subsequent arrest of twenty one year
2:07
old pop star David Anthony Burke, who you know the
2:09
entire world knows by his stage name D four ved Right.
2:13
Our mission for you on this deep dive is to
2:15
cut entirely through the sensationalism and the social media noise.
2:19
We are going to piece together the actual timeline, the
2:22
highly unusual legal maneuvers in this case, and the broader
2:25
systemic blind spots that allowed a child to just vanish
2:29
into thin air. Okay, let's unpack this by starting at
2:33
the foundation. We have two central figures whose lives really
2:36
shouldn't have intersected at all. The geography of their physical
2:39
lives was worlds.
2:40
Speaker 2: Apart, but the physical grfy doesn't matter anymore. I mean,
2:43
that's the core tragedy here in the modern era, the
2:47
digital geography collapse. The distance between a suburban middle school
2:51
and a Hollywood recording studio the absolutely zero.
2:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's look at who Celeste was, because her background
2:56
is essential to understanding how she fell through the cracks.
2:58
She was born to l Salvador immigrants and lived in
3:01
Lake Elsinore. For context, if you're not familiar with southern California,
3:05
Lake Elsinore is in Riverside County. It's about eighty miles
3:09
southeast of Los Angeles. So it's a suburban, family oriented community.
3:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, a totally different world from the Hollywood Hills completely.
3:17
Speaker 1: She attended Lakeland Village School, and the picture painted of
3:22
her by neighbors, by her family, by teachers is of
3:26
a bubbly, incredibly sweet girl, just a normal kid who
3:29
loves spending time with her friends.
3:31
Speaker 2: And you can tangibly measure how deeply her community felt
3:34
her loss too. After she was finally identified, her family
3:37
set up with GoFundMe just to help Layer to arrest,
3:40
and it raised over twenty three thousand dollars almost immediately.
3:43
Speaker 1: Wow.
3:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the owner of a local corner store she
3:46
frequented actually spoke to reporters and he was visibly devastated,
3:50
saying the entire neighborhood was grieving. She was a real
3:53
fixture in that community.
3:54
Speaker 1: But you know, our sources also point to some extremely
3:57
troubling contradictions, and this is where the safety net starts
3:59
to frame. Despite being so clearly loved by her broader community,
4:03
she faced severe documented struggles at home. Former acquaintances, and
4:08
even a middle school ex boyfriend came forward describing intense
4:12
tensions with her parents. The quotes in these reports use
4:15
phrases like she experienced really mean treatment at home. And importantly,
4:20
she frequently talked to her peers about wanting to run away, which.
4:23
Speaker 2: Brings us to a critical systemic vulnerability because she didn't
4:28
just talk about running away, she actively did it repeatedly.
4:33
In the year twenty twenty four, when she was just
4:35
a thirteen year old seventh grader, she was reported missing
4:39
by the Riverside County Sheriff's office at least three times
4:43
in an incredibly short window.
4:45
Speaker 1: So let's look at the official dates on that. She
4:46
was first reported missing on February fifteenth, which is notably
4:50
the day after Valentine's Day.
4:51
Speaker 2: Keep that day in mind.
4:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely keep that in mind. Then she was reported
4:54
missing again around mid March, and finally on April fifth.
4:58
Each of those first few times she returned after a
5:01
few days, but that April fifth incident really marks a
5:04
turning point. Her last official, verified contact with her family
5:08
was a phone call home in May of twenty twenty four.
5:11
Speaker 2: And this is exactly where we have to discuss the
5:14
psychology of institutional response.
5:16
Speaker 1: Okay, what do you mean by that?
5:18
Speaker 2: Well, what happens when a teenager becomes classified in a
5:22
police database as a chronic runaway. When local authorities, social services,
5:27
and even the surrounding community deal with a kid who leaves,
5:30
comes back, leaves, comes back, there's this very dangerous psychological
5:34
phenomenon that sets in. It's known as runaway fatigue.
5:37
Speaker 1: Runaway fatigue, So if I'm understanding that term, it basically
5:40
implies that the people whose literal job it is to
5:43
look for you just get tired of doing it.
5:45
Speaker 2: It's a bit more insidious than just fatigue. In law enforcement,
5:51
resources are finite. Every department is triaging emergencies all the time. Sure,
5:55
when a thirteen year old disappears the very first time,
5:58
the response is immediate. It's an all hands on deck crisis.
6:01
You've got helicopters, search dogs, neighborhood canvases.
6:05
Speaker 1: All of it, right, they throw everything at it, exactly.
6:08
Speaker 2: But when she walks back through the front door unharmed
6:11
three days later, and then does the exact same thing
6:14
a month later, well, the system unconsciously recalibrates its response.
6:19
The authorities begin to view a highly vulnerable child who
6:23
is in profound danger as just a rebellious teenager blowing
6:27
off steam.
6:28
Speaker 1: Wow.
6:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, the urgency evaporates. The operational assumption shifts from she's
6:33
in danger to she'll come back when she gets hungry.
6:37
You're tired, just like she did last time.
6:39
Speaker 1: I uh. I have to push back on the logic
6:42
of that system, though, because if a thirteen year old
6:44
child disappears three times in three months, shouldn't that escalate
6:47
the response, not diminish it?
6:49
Speaker 2: You would think so yet, I mean.
6:50
Speaker 1: Think about it like a fire alarm in an apartment building.
6:52
If the alarm blaars at two am every single week,
6:55
you don't just start putting in earclugs, and, assuming the
6:57
alarm is faulty, you look for the smoke. Right, you
7:00
figure out why the glass keeps getting broken and the
7:02
lever keeps getting pulled.
7:04
Speaker 2: Your frustration is exactly what advocates from missing children argue
7:07
every single day. The repeated running away was the smoke.
7:11
It was a massive flashing indicator that this child was vulnerable,
7:16
that she was desperately seeking an escape from her environment.
7:19
But because of runaway fatigue, nobody went looking for the fire. Yeah.
7:23
And the terrifying reality of twenty twenty four is that
7:26
predators don't have to loiter around bus stations or diner
7:29
parking lots looking for vulnerable runaways anymore.
7:32
Speaker 1: No, they don't.
7:33
Speaker 2: They just have to wait for the system to stop
7:35
looking while the kids log onto their phones.
7:37
Speaker 1: Right, because if the physical safety nets, you know, the sheriffs,
7:42
the schools, the community programs, if they were all recalibrating
7:45
to ignore her disappearances, it created a vacuum. That absolutely
7:48
and the terrifying thing about a vacuum in the digital
7:50
age is that it is immediately filled by the Internet.
7:54
Which brings us to the digital bridge that connected a
7:56
Riverside County middle schooler to a multi million dollar pop.
8:00
Speaker 2: Star, and the origins of this relationship, which are fully
8:03
documented in the digital forensics, traced back to around twenty
8:07
twenty two.
8:08
Speaker 1: Right according to the investigation, they met on Burke's official
8:11
discord server. And let's get the ages straight here, because
8:16
this is where the grooming timeline begins, and it is staggering,
8:19
it really is. In twenty twenty two, Celeste would have
8:22
been eleven or twelve years old. David Anthony Burke was
8:25
seventeen or eighteen.
8:26
Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is the architecture of these celebrity discord
8:30
servers for listeners who might not be deeply embedded in
8:33
gaming or music fan culture. Discord isn't just a simple
8:37
chat room, No, not at all. It's a robust platform
8:40
allowing for voice, video, and text channels. Artists use it
8:44
to build community, to drop teasers, to interact directly with
8:48
their most hardcore fans, but the very design of the
8:51
platform inherently blurs boundaries.
8:54
Speaker 1: Yeah. I always think of a celebrity discord server less
8:56
like a traditional fan club newsletter and more like a
8:59
massive virtual nightclub where the bouncers looking the other way.
9:03
Speaker 2: Oh that's a good way to put it.
9:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like the main rooms are packed and public, filled
9:07
with thousands of people typing at light speed, but the
9:10
architect of the club in this case, the celebrity, has
9:13
built infinite private VIP backrooms and they hold the only keys.
9:17
Speaker 2: It is a perfect analogy. You have a space that
9:20
feels public and safe to a parent.
9:22
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
9:23
Speaker 2: A parent might look over their child's shoulders see them
9:25
chatting about a singer's new album with other kids and
9:28
think it's totally harmless. They are completely unaware that the
9:32
platform features direct messaging and private, locked voice channels, right,
9:37
It grants unmonitored direct access to miners. Essentially bypassing every
9:41
traditional parental safeguard, the artists can literally pluck a fan
9:46
out of the crowded public room and pull them into
9:48
a private, invisible space.
9:50
Speaker 1: And what's wild is that, according to the sources, the
9:52
relationship wasn't even entirely hidden within that ecosystem. It was
9:56
normalized by the fandom.
9:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a key point.
9:59
Speaker 1: She used the user name Celeste on the server, and
10:03
other users openly referred to her as Burke's girlfriend. Now,
10:07
if you're listening to this right now, you're probably screaming
10:09
at your dashboard, like how did the parents not know
10:11
she was on this server? And to understand that, we
10:14
really have to look at how quickly a teenager can
10:17
switch tabs, delete apps, or use alternate accounts. But within
10:21
the server itself, this wasn't some deeply buried secret. It
10:24
was known, and.
10:25
Speaker 2: That normalization online emboldened the real world escalation. This digital
10:31
bond eventually manifested in the physical world in a very
10:34
permanent and deeply disturbing way.
10:37
Speaker 1: You're talking about the tattoos, yes, the matching tattoos.
10:39
Speaker 2: Okay, the medical examiners report which we will definitely get
10:42
to in detail, and statements from Celeste's mother both confirmed
10:45
that Celeste had a red ink tattoo on her right
10:48
index finger and it read shh. And Burke has been
10:51
extensively photographed with an identical red ink tattoo in the
10:55
exact same location on his right index finger.
10:58
Speaker 1: That detail operates as a psychological fingerprint of the grooming dynamic.
11:02
It's beyond dark. Think about the irony and the absolute
11:05
controlling nature of a tattoo that literally demands silence. You
11:09
hold your index finger to your lips. It is a
11:12
permanent physical brand, enforcing secrecy on an eleven or twelve
11:17
year old girl. It's essentially an nda inked into a
11:20
child's skin. Yeah, it is, and it becomes even more
11:23
horrific when you look at the special circumstances he's facing now,
11:26
which include the murder of a witness. The silencing wasn't
11:29
just a metaphor, and that.
11:31
Speaker 2: Total psychological control allowed Burke to bring her entirely into
11:36
his physical world under a complete manufactured fabrication. Because the
11:41
record show that by twenty twenty four and into twenty
11:43
twenty five, Celeste was living part time at a luxury
11:47
rental property in the Hollywood Hills that was associated with Burke.
11:50
Speaker 1: See this is the part of the source material that
11:52
genuinely baffles me. How does a fourteen or fifteen year
11:55
old child exist in a Hollywood Hills mansion surrounded by
11:58
a famous musician's entos, managers, his friends, without a single
12:02
person calling the police. The sources explicitly state that Burke's
12:05
inner circle believed the girl living there was a nineteen
12:08
year old student at the University of Southern California.
12:11
Speaker 2: We have to break down that facade because it speaks
12:14
volumes about the toxic ecosystem of celebrity. How does a
12:18
young suburban teenager pass for a college student to a
12:23
team of hardened music industry professionals.
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Speaker 1: I mean, it's crazy.
12:27
Speaker 2: The grim reality is they didn't look too closely because
12:31
they were incentivized not to right.
12:33
Speaker 1: It's like a corporate structure. If you compare the ecosystem
12:36
of a multi million dollar pop star to a small
12:39
corporation where the star is the CEO and the entourage
12:42
are the employees. Yes, if the CEO brings in someone
12:45
who clearly violates HR policy, but pointing it out means
12:48
you lose your six figure salary, your access to private jets,
12:52
and your status in the industry. You just look the
12:54
other way.
12:54
Speaker 2: Exactly when your livelihood depends on the star a deeply
12:58
ingrained willful blindness. Take if Burke says, this is my
13:01
nineteen year old girlfriend who goes to USC the entourage
13:05
nods and accepts it. To question it, to ask for
13:08
id to point out that she looks incredibly young, while
13:11
that means risking your position in the inner circle. The
13:15
entire ecosystem is designed to protect the primary asset, which
13:19
is Burke's career. It is not designed to protect a
13:22
vulnerable child who wandered into their orbit.
13:25
Speaker 1: Willful blindness that perfectly encapsulates it. But the cracks in
13:29
this facade were starting to show, even to the fans
13:31
on the outside who were paying attention. They were there
13:33
were these bizarre, chilling musical clues left behind on the Internet.
13:39
So let's talk about the song crisis of Summer twenty
13:42
twenty four.
13:43
Speaker 2: This is a pivotal moment in the digital timeline. Right
13:46
in the middle of her period of disappearance, Burke posted
13:49
something on his discord server referencing a crisis regarding.
13:52
Speaker 1: A song release right, and an anonymous user replied directly
13:55
to him on the server, explicitly telling him to drop
13:58
the song with the missing girls Celestia vus Hernandez.
14:01
Speaker 2: The fact that a fan out in the world connected
14:03
the dots matching her username to her full real name,
14:07
realizing she was officially listed as a missing person, and
14:10
then confronting him with it on his own server is
14:12
just staggering. It is. It shows that digital breadcrumbs were
14:15
visible if anyone cared to.
14:17
Speaker 1: Look, and he reportedly didn't respond to that user. But
14:20
the digital footprint gets worse. Investigators and fans later found
14:24
an unreleased demo track floating around the internet. It was
14:27
titled something along the lines of Celeste demo on finn.
14:31
The lyrics of this unreleased song directly referenced the girl
14:34
named Celeste. They referenced tattoos, they referenced an intense obsession,
14:39
and they specifically mentioned a Valentine's Day connection. There's that
14:42
date again, which exactly if we look back at our timeline,
14:45
February fifteenth, the day out for Valentine's Day, was the
14:49
exact date of her first official runaway report in twenty
14:52
twenty four.
14:53
Speaker 2: The sheer hubris of putting those incredibly specific, incriminating details
14:59
into a demo is hard to comprehend. It's the behavior
15:02
of someone who believes they're entirely untouchable, insulated by their
15:06
fame and their enablers.
15:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the timeline of her disappearance was eventually going
15:10
to collide head on with the timeline of Burke's rising career,
15:14
and that collision led to a grim, devastating countdown. Let's
15:18
construct that timeline because piecing together Celeste's final months is
15:22
absolutely crucial to understanding the mechanics of the charges here.
15:25
Speaker 2: If we look at the evidence, the last official family contact,
15:28
as we noted, was that phone call in May twenty
15:31
twenty four, but we know she survived for months after that.
15:35
Speaker 1: Yes, surveillance video actually showed her alive and briefly at
15:38
her family home in Lake Elsinore in September twenty twenty four,
15:42
so she had returned at least momentarily before vanishing again.
15:45
Speaker 2: And then the digital forensics, which were derived from the
15:48
massive data seizure will discuss shortly proved definitively that she
15:52
was alive well into January twenty twenty five.
15:55
Speaker 3: Her digital footprint was still active, but the absolute last
15:59
time she was definitive seen alive by anyone, according to
16:02
the investigation, was at Burke's Hollywood Hills rental home in
16:05
April twenty twenty five, and based on a confluence of
16:09
forensic and digital evidence, investigators have pinpointed the estimated time
16:13
of death to around April twenty three to twenty twenty five.
16:16
Speaker 2: The timing of that specific date late April provides critical
16:19
context for the prosecution's theory of the case because April
16:22
twenty twenty five was the exact window just before Burke's
16:26
highly anticipated Withered tour was scheduled to ramp up. Oh okay,
16:30
the pressure of a major album tour, the media obligations,
16:34
the intense scrutiny of rehearsals and travel. All of that
16:37
immense professional pressure was bearing down on him exactly when
16:41
Celeste was last seen.
16:42
Speaker 1: Alive, and that leads us to the vehicle timeline. This
16:45
is where the story shifts from a psychological thriller into
16:48
a gruesome logistical reality.
16:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really does.
16:51
Speaker 1: Let's go back to that tesla from the beginning of
16:54
our deep dive. It's a tesla registered in Texas. Link
16:57
to Burke. According to city wrecords, it was abandoned on
17:00
Bluebird Avenue in the Hollywood Hills in late July twenty
17:03
twenty five. It just sat parked on a.
17:05
Speaker 2: Public street, and it's sat there for weeks.
17:07
Speaker 1: On August twenty eighth, that parking enforcement officer wrote it
17:10
a ticket for a seventy two hour parking violation. It
17:13
sat for several more days. Finally, on September third, the
17:16
city dispatched a tow truck and it was towed to
17:19
an impound lot.
17:20
Speaker 2: When you analyze the sheer chaos of those logistics, it's staggering.
17:24
Speaker 1: It's the absurdity of it that gets me. A luxury
17:27
car containing the murdered remains of a child sat on
17:30
a public street for over a month, right it received
17:32
a standard bureaucratic parking ticket. It was hooked up by
17:36
city towyard workers who were just doing their daily routes,
17:39
complaining about the heat, drinking their coffee, having absolutely no
17:42
idea what they were hauling through the winding streets of
17:44
Los Angeles.
17:45
Speaker 2: This is where forensic investigators really focused their lens look
17:49
at the massive gap in the timeline. Okay, the estimated
17:51
time of death is April twenty third, but the car
17:56
wasn't abandoned on Bluebird Avenue until late July. That is
17:59
a three month gap.
18:00
Speaker 1: Wow.
18:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, Why did the car sit somewhere else from April
18:04
to July? Where was it being hidden?
18:06
Speaker 1: So? What does this all mean for the investigation?
18:09
Speaker 2: It speaks to the incredibly chaotic logistics of attempting to
18:12
cover up a severe, messy crime while simultaneously preparing for
18:17
and executing a major album tour. You have an individual
18:21
attempting to manage a burgeoning global music empire, doing interviews,
18:25
performing managing staff, while simultaneously trying to manage the reality
18:31
of a decomposing body in a vehicle. It's a logistical
18:34
and psychological nightmare that inevitably unraveled, and.
18:38
Speaker 1: It unraveled on September eighth, twenty twenty five, And the
18:42
detail of this specific date is just agonizing. September eighth
18:46
was exactly one day after what would have been Celes's
18:48
fifteenth birthday. Workers at the tow Yard and the Hollywood
18:52
Hills were doing inventory and they noticed a severe foul
18:56
odor emanating from the tesla. They popped the front trunk
18:59
space under the hood where an engine would normally be
19:01
in a gas powered car. Inside that confined space, they
19:04
found a large black bag, and inside that bag were
19:07
human remains. They were severely decomposed and they had been
19:10
partially dismembered.
19:11
Speaker 2: The advanced post mortem changes caused by a body sitting
19:14
in a sealed car trunk through a Los Angeles summer
19:17
made immediate visual or standard fingerprint identification entirely impossible. The
19:22
coroner's office had to rely on forensic anthropology to finally
19:26
confirm it with Celeste eight days later, on September sixteenth.
19:30
Speaker 1: To add another layer of absolute darkness to this, the
19:34
sources reveal that a private investigator later discovered a burn
19:37
cage like a heavy duty incinerator at the Hollywood Hills
19:41
rental property Burke had occupied. Oh wow, when you pair
19:44
an incinerator with a dismembered body found in a trunk,
19:48
the implications of what might have been attempted or what
19:51
other evidence might have been destroyed there are absolutely terrifying.
19:54
Speaker 2: They are, and the physical discovery in that towyard instantly
19:57
triggered a massive multi agency forensic undertaking. The LAPD homicide
20:03
detectives knew immediately they had an incredibly complex case involving
20:06
a high profile suspect, but the public, the fans, and
20:10
the media were kept completely in the dark about the
20:12
specifics of her death for months, and the reason for
20:15
that delay is due to a highly unusual, heavily debated
20:19
legal maneuver.
20:20
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting from a legal and
20:22
procedural standpoint. Let's dive into part four, the twenty six
20:26
page autopsy report and the battle for transparency. The Medical
20:30
Examiner's report on Celeste was actually completed and finalized on
20:33
December nine, twenty twenty five, but you, me, and the
20:37
rest of the world didn't see a single word of
20:39
it until April twenty two to twenty twenty six because
20:43
it was sealed tight under an LAPD security hold case
20:46
number twenty twenty five one, four to two, five to two.
20:50
Right now, I understand a police department not wanting to
20:52
release gruesome details to the press on the day of
20:55
a murder, But why actively prevent the medical examiner from
20:58
releasing a finalized cause of death for almost five months.
21:02
Speaker 2: It's a fantastic question, and it's actually a massive point
21:04
of friction between city departments. Oh really, Yeah, the medical
21:07
Examiner's office publicly challenged this hold, stating it was rare
21:11
and unnecessary for public safety. But if you look at
21:14
it from the LAPD strategic perspective, a security hold in
21:17
a high profile case is an incredibly powerful tool. It's
21:21
all about preserving holdback evidence.
21:22
Speaker 1: Okay, let's define that holdback evidence means specific details of
21:25
the crime scene or the body that are deliberately kept
21:28
from the public so that only the actual killer and
21:30
the police know them precisely.
21:33
Speaker 2: When law enforcement is dealing with a wealthy, well connected suspect,
21:37
someone who has the financial resources to hire top tier
21:40
defense attorneys, private investigators, and crisis pr managers, information is
21:45
the absolute most valuable currency in the investigation. Right If
21:49
the LAPD allows the autopsy to be published in December
21:53
detailing exactly how Celeste died, the suspect's legal and crisis
21:57
team can immediately begin tailoring their defense.
22:00
Speaker 1: That makes sense.
22:00
Speaker 2: They can coach witnesses, they can destroy specific types of evidence,
22:04
like specific tools or clothing that align with the published injuries.
22:08
Speaker 1: Okay, So by placing a security hold on the report,
22:11
detectives can bring in the entourage, the managers, the friends,
22:14
and conduct interviews. They're essentially laying a.
22:16
Speaker 2: Trap exactly they want to see. If someone accidentally lets
22:19
slip a detail about a specific type of knife or
22:22
a specific wound location. Wow, if a witness mentions a
22:26
detail that isn't in the press, the police instantly know
22:28
that person was either involved, present, or was told about
22:32
the crime by the killer.
22:33
Speaker 1: That makes incredible tactical sense. So what did the autopsy
22:38
finally reveal when the hold was legally lifted in April?
22:41
The cause of death is officially listed as a homicide
22:44
by multiple penetrating injuries caused by objects or objects.
22:48
Speaker 2: The gruesome specifics detailed by the pathologist in that twenty
22:51
six page report paint a clinical but horrific picture of
22:55
her final moments.
22:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, the report documents two distinct penetrating wounds the torso.
23:01
One wound was to the upper abdomen, which went deep
23:03
enough to pierce her liver. The second wound was to
23:05
the left chest, which the report says disrupted the ribs
23:08
in the intercostal spaces, meaning the blade went between the ribs.
23:12
And crucially, the medical examiner specifically noted smooth edges on
23:16
these bone and tissue wounds.
23:18
Speaker 2: That detail about smooth edges is paramount in forensic pathology.
23:22
When tissue is severely decomposed, medical examiners rely on the
23:25
marks left on cartilage and bone. Smooth edges on a
23:28
rib or sternum definitively point investigators away from blunt force trauma,
23:34
which leaves jagged microfractures, and directly towards sharp force trauma.
23:39
It indicates a knife or a similar finely bladed instrument
23:42
was used with significant force.
23:45
Speaker 1: And then there is the bilateral dismemberment of her upper
23:48
and lower extremities.
23:49
Speaker 2: We have to address the dismemberment analytically the way prosecutors
23:53
and criminal profilers do okay. In forensic analysis, dismemberment is
23:56
exceedingly rarely the actual cause of death. It is almost
23:59
all a calculated post mortem act of concealment. Prosecutors are
24:04
alleging here that Burke used a sharp instrument not just
24:07
to commit the murder, but to systematically mutilate her remains,
24:10
specifically to fit them into the confined space of the
24:13
tesla's front trunk.
24:14
Speaker 1: Which shatters any potential defense argument of an accidental death
24:18
or a sudden crime of passion that he immediately regretted.
24:21
It shows a chilling, sustained presence of mind and calculation
24:25
for hours after the murder.
24:26
Speaker 2: It does. It demonstrates a massive shift from panic to
24:29
logistical problem solving.
24:31
Speaker 1: We also need to use this autopsy report to clear
24:34
up a massive rumor that was circulating widely on social
24:37
media and even in some early news reports. People were
24:39
suggesting the body was partially frozen when it was found,
24:42
and armchair detectives speculated that was why the autoxy took
24:45
so long to finalize. The LAPD officially and categorically disputed
24:51
that rumor.
24:52
Speaker 2: Right, It's vital to stick strictly to the documented findings.
24:55
The delaying complication wasn't due to freezing. It was due
24:59
to the severe post mortem decomposition.
25:01
Speaker 1: Yeah.
25:02
Speaker 2: A body enclosed in a small unventilated space like a
25:06
car trunk in southern California, heat accelerates decomposition exponentially, making
25:11
toxicology and tissue analysis incredibly difficult.
25:14
Speaker 1: When the report was finally unsealed, Chief medical examiner doctor
25:17
Oda Ukpoh released a very poignant statement. He expressed profound
25:21
relief that the grieving family could finally know the truth
25:24
of what happened to their little girl. Yeah, he stated,
25:27
it is unfathomable they have had to wait this long
25:29
to learn what happened to their daughter. He really emphasized
25:32
that transparency eventually is key to community healing and accountability.
25:36
Speaker 2: And the meticulous, quiet gathering of all this horrific evidence,
25:41
you know, the autopsy findings, the digital trails, the vehicle forensics,
25:44
all of it culminated in a massive, tactical rate Right
25:48
investigators collected in astonishing forty terabytes of data, compiling a
25:53
list of charges meticulously designed to ensure the suspect never
25:57
sees the outside of a prison.
25:58
Speaker 1: Again, let's get into the mechanics of that raid and
26:01
the ensuing legal showdown. On September eighteenth, twenty twenty five,
26:05
just ten days after the Toyard workers found the body,
26:08
detectives executed a major search warrant at that Hollywood Hills
26:12
rental property. They seized all the electronics, computers, phones, hard drives,
26:16
But interestingly, they didn't arrest Burke immediately. They built their
26:19
case for months. They finally arrested him on April sixteenth,
26:23
twenty twenty six. They apprehended him at a home on
26:26
Marmont Avenue, which is eerily just over a mile away
26:28
from the towyard where his car was found. He was
26:31
formally charged by La County DA Nathan Hawkman a few
26:34
days later, on April twentieth.
26:35
Speaker 2: The charges leveled against him are comprehensive and exceptionally severe.
26:39
Speaker 1: Yes they are.
26:39
Speaker 2: We're looking at first degree murder, continuous sexual abuse of
26:43
a child under the age of fourteen, lude and lascivious
26:47
acts with a minor, and mutilation of human remains.
26:50
Speaker 1: Be the heaviest legal weight. The thing that changes the
26:53
entire trajectory of this trial comes from the special circumstances
26:57
attached to the murder charge lying in wait, murder for
27:02
financial gain, and murder of a witness. Now we have
27:06
to state clearly that Burke has pleaded not guilty to
27:09
all of this, and his defense team strictly denies he
27:12
caused her death. His preliminary hearing is set for April
27:15
twenty three to twenty twenty six. But the stakes here
27:18
are literally life and death. If he is convicted with
27:21
these special circumstances, California law dictates he faces life in
27:24
prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty.
27:27
Speaker 2: Let's break down California law regarding these special circumstances because
27:31
they elevate this from a standard murder trial to a
27:34
capital case, and they require a massive burden of proof. Okay,
27:37
Lying in wait means the prosecution has to prove there
27:40
was evidence of concealment, watchfulness, and surprise, essentially deep premeditation.
27:46
Murder of a witness is relatively self explanatory. In its definition.
27:50
Prosecutors are explicitly alleging she was silenced permanently to prevent
27:54
her from testifying about the ongoing sexual abuse she endured.
27:57
Speaker 1: Okay, I follow those two, but I have a question
28:00
on the financial gain circumstance. Sure, when I think of
28:03
murder for financial gain, my mind goes to the classic
28:07
true crime tropes. You know, a spouse poisoning their partner
28:11
to collect a two million dollar life insurance payout, or
28:15
a cartel hitman getting paid a briefcase full of cash
28:18
to eliminate a rival. If someone commits a horrific crime
28:22
simply to avoid going to jail and therefore avoids losing
28:25
their high paying job, is that universally considered financial gain
28:29
under the penal code.
28:30
Speaker 2: That's a good question, because.
28:32
Speaker 1: If so, wouldn't almost every murder by a wealthy person
28:35
include that charge.
28:36
Speaker 2: It's an incredibly astute question, and it highlights a nuanced,
28:40
aggressive application of the law by the district attorney. In
28:43
this specific context, prosecutors are drawing a direct, premeditated, and
28:48
calculated line between the physical act of murder and the
28:51
preservation of a men's wealth. They're alleging he didn't just
28:54
kill her in a sudden panic. They are building a
28:58
case that he calculated, likely with cold rationality, that her
29:02
exposing his years of sexual abuse, which the state alleges
29:06
started when she was just eleven, would absolutely obliterate his
29:10
highly lucrative music career Wow, his upcoming Withered tour, his
29:15
streaming revenue, royalties, his brand endorsements, his entire corporate entity
29:19
would evaporate overnight. Therefore, the theory is he killed his
29:23
victims specifically to protect his economic empire, and to prove.
29:27
Speaker 1: That theory of motive to a jury. To prove that calculation,
29:31
they are going to rely on a mountain of digital evidence.
29:34
We mentioned it earlier, but we need to grasp the scale.
29:37
Forty terabytes of digital data wassees.
29:39
Speaker 2: It's massive.
29:40
Speaker 1: Just to give you an idea of how much information
29:42
that is. A single terabyte can hold about two hundred
29:45
and fifty thousand high resolution photos or roughly five hundred
29:48
hours of HD video. They have forty times that amount.
29:51
Speaker 2: This means we are going to witness a trial fought
29:53
almost entirely on the battleground of digital forensics. The prosecution
29:58
will use discord, chat logs, server permissions, deleted cash files,
30:03
cell phone tower handshakes, and GPS location data extracted directly
30:07
from both of their phones and the Tesla's internal computer Wow.
30:11
It will use this data to build a minute by minute,
30:13
irrefutable timeline of premeditation, the execution of the murder, and
30:17
the subsequent cover up. They have to prove not just
30:20
that he held the knife, but that he planned the
30:22
entire sequence of events to protect his assets.
30:25
Speaker 1: But beyond the courtroom, beyond the legal definitions of special circumstances,
30:29
this case has sent absolute shock waves through the culture.
30:33
It is forcing a really uncomfortable reckoning with how society
30:37
treats vulnerable teens and the extremely dark, unmonitored side of
30:41
internet fame.
30:42
Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, the societal
30:44
complicity here is glaring. It touches every single level of
30:48
our infrastructure from local government procedures to global tech platforms.
30:52
Speaker 1: On a local level, the community impact in Riverside County
30:55
has been immediate and severe. Officials there are actively reviewing
30:59
their MISTAS children protocols. They are looking at how dispatchers
31:03
and deputies handle chronic runaways, trying to dismantle that runaway
31:07
fatigue so someone like Celeste doesn't fall through the cracks
31:09
and get dismissed as a rebellious teen ever again. Meanwhile,
31:13
child safety advocates are protesting and demanding stricter accountability and
31:17
age verification for platforms like Discord. They are asking the
31:22
fundamental question, how can an adult celebrity legally have an unmonitored, private,
31:28
encrypted pipeline to an eleven year old fan in her bedroom.
31:32
Speaker 2: And then you look at the music industry's reaction, which
31:34
has been remarkably and perhaps strategically quiet. Yeah, Cricket, major
31:39
industry figures and labels offered the standard generic condolences regarding
31:43
a tragic loss of life, but they have largely remained
31:46
entirely silent on the specific horrific grooming and mutilation charges
31:50
Givest one of their rising stars. You see the fans
31:53
themselves grappling with massive cognitive dissonance. D four vd's streaming
31:58
numbers actually fluctuated wild on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.
32:03
Amid this news, you had organized boycotts pulling numbers down
32:07
on one side, and more big curiosity driving streams up
32:10
on the other.
32:10
Speaker 1: I think a lot about the parasocial relationships we form
32:13
in music. Fans connect deeply with an artist's lyrics. They
32:16
feel like they understand the soul of the person singing.
32:19
Burke's music frequently explored dark themes of love, heartbreak, and
32:22
intense obsession. He has a massive hit song literally titled
32:26
romantic Homicide. How do fans grapple with streaming a song
32:31
titled romantic homicide when the artist singing it is now
32:34
accused of literally living out those dark themes in reality,
32:37
resulting in the actual dismemberment of a fifteen year old girl.
32:40
Speaker 2: It's chilling.
32:41
Speaker 1: It completely shatters the illusion of art separating from reality.
32:44
Speaker 2: It does it forces the audience to confront the reality
32:46
of the media they consume. And perhaps the most grotesque
32:49
reality of how detached segments of our society had become
32:52
is the financial exploitation of this tragedy.
32:55
Speaker 1: You're talking about the meme coins. This part made me
32:58
viscerally angry to read.
33:00
Speaker 2: Yes, well, the family's go fund me was a genuine,
33:03
beautiful outpouring of community support to help bury their daughter.
33:07
A sector of cryptocurrency enthusiasts actually created short lived, mean
33:11
coins using Celeste's name to trade online. It's disgusting, it
33:16
really is.
33:16
Speaker 1: It demonstrates a segment of society so entirely detached from reality,
33:21
so devoid of human empathy, that a brutally murdered, dismembered
33:25
fifteen year old girl is viewed as nothing more than
33:28
an seo keyword opportunity for digital day trading. Yeah, the
33:32
family and authorities actually had to publicly condemn these cryptotokens
33:35
to get them taken down.
33:37
Speaker 2: It distracts from the core of this tragedy. The family's
33:39
pain is the emotional center of all of this, and
33:42
we cannot lose sight of it amid the true crime spectacle.
33:44
After the arrest was finally made in April, her father,
33:48
Jesus Reevas, expressed a profound, simple relief to the press.
33:52
He just said, thank God, justice for Celeste. The family
33:56
released a formal statement through their attorney reiterating how much
33:59
they loved her despite the struggles. They said, we love
34:03
her very much, and she always told us that she
34:05
loved us. We miss her deeply.
34:07
Speaker 1: We have to remember that at the center of this
34:09
forty terabyte investigation, beneath the special circumstances, beneath the celebrity
34:14
headlines and the la tow yards, is a bubbly, sweet
34:17
girl from Lake elsinor exactly, a girl who loved her family,
34:20
but who had struggles, who cried out for help by
34:22
running away, and who tragically fell through the cracks of
34:25
multiple societal safety nets until she was caught by a
34:28
predator waiting in the digital shadows.
34:31
Speaker 2: It is an immense scope of failure to wrap our
34:33
heads around. It demands that we look at our own communities,
34:37
our own homes, and the devices we hand to our children.
34:39
Speaker 1: We want to thank you for joining us today to
34:41
navigate such complex and deeply heavy source material. As we mentioned,
34:46
the legal battle officially kicks off with the preliminary hearing
34:49
on April twenty three, twenty twenty six. We will of
34:52
course be following the facts as they unfold in court.
34:55
Speaker 2: It's going to be a long, arduous process of seeking accountability,
34:59
both in the court room and hopeful in the bardrooms
35:01
of the platforms that enable this. It is.
35:04
Speaker 1: But before we sign off, I want to leave you
35:06
with a lingering, unsettling question to mull Over. We live
35:10
in an era of unprecedented omnipresent surveillance, an era where
35:15
forty terabytes of digital footprints, gps pings, deleted texts, server
35:19
logs are left behind by just two people. If an
35:22
entire digital life can be so meticulously tracked, logged, and
35:26
recovered by law enforcement after the fact, how is it
35:29
that a child can physically disappear into the orbit of
35:31
a massive celebrity for an entire year without a single
35:34
digital alarm bell ringing before it's too late.
35:37
Speaker 2: It's a question that demands an answer from all of us.
35:39
Speaker 1: Stay curious, stay informed, and please look out for each other.
35:43
We'll talk to you next time.