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The D4vd Case: Body Bags, Teslas, and Grand Jury Secrets · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: You know, when you think about like red flags for
0:03
law enforcement, Yes, the kind of purchases that would automatically
0:07
put you on a federal watch list, you'd probably imagine
0:11
something inherently dangerous.
0:12
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely, like explosives or restricted chemicals, that kind of thing.
0:17
Speaker 1: Exactly. But here is a jarring fact for you. In
0:20
the United States, there was a time when buying a
0:22
simple money counting machine online was considered like way more
0:27
alarming to the government than buying a heavy duty, leak
0:30
proof human cadaver bag.
0:33
Speaker 2: It is just a profound paradox. I mean, if we
0:35
look back to roughly two thousand and eight, the DEA
0:40
actually started issuing these blanket administrative subpoenas to vendors who
0:44
sold money counters.
0:45
Speaker 1: Wow. Really Yeah.
0:46
Speaker 2: The logic was entirely based on the mechanics of money laundering.
0:49
They assumed, you know, why would an average person need
0:51
it rapidly count stacks of mixed bills.
0:54
Speaker 1: Right, because nobody has that much cash lying around just
0:56
for fun.
0:57
Speaker 2: Exactly. The government believed that anyone buying a money counter
1:01
was likely engaged in well illicit cash businesses. They thought
1:05
people were trying to quickly structure deposits to avoid that
1:09
ten thousand dollars reporting threshold at banks.
1:12
Speaker 1: So they just demanded the buyer lists.
1:14
Speaker 2: Yes, the demanded lists of every single buyer. You could
1:17
literally get placed on a federal wash list just for
1:20
purchasing a completely lawful mechanical item used in basic accounting.
1:24
Speaker 1: That is insane. And eventually, you know, human rights and
1:28
privacy groups pushed back on that. They argued it was
1:30
a massive overreach and the DEA had to back off,
1:33
right they did, But it leaves us with this incredible
1:36
modern reality, like you might get scrutinized for buying machine
1:39
that counts fives and tens, but today you can log
1:43
onto Amazon and purchase a professional grade, more quality body
1:46
bag for thirty two.
1:47
Speaker 2: Dollars and there's no background check whatsoever.
1:50
Speaker 1: Nothing, no questions asked. You just click add to Kart
1:53
and it arrives with two day shipping. And honestly, what's
1:56
even wilder is looking at the reviews for these things.
1:59
People use them for the most absurd, mundane tasks.
2:02
Speaker 2: Oh, the reviews are a fascinating study and how consumers
2:05
just repurpose industrial items. The utilitarian nature of a cadaver
2:12
bag makes it highly adaptable Yeah, they're super tough, right,
2:15
It's waterproof, it has heavy duty zippers, and it features
2:18
these reinforced handles designed to their significant weight.
2:21
Speaker 1: I was actually reading through them this morning. One person
2:24
wrote a five star review saying the bag was perfect
2:28
for storing a nine foot tall silicone mermaid tale under
2:31
their bed.
2:32
Speaker 2: A mermaid tale that is that's incredible, I know.
2:35
Speaker 1: And another reviewer was like a sports medicine doctor who
2:38
uses the body bags as makeshift ice baths.
2:41
Speaker 2: Wait really ice baths?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, they just fill the leakproof bag with freezing water
2:46
and literally toss an overheated athlete inside while they wait
2:49
for the EMTs to arrive. Somebody else used one to
2:52
store two seven foot pre lit Christmas garlands so they
2:55
wouldn't get crushed in the attic.
2:57
Speaker 2: Well, I mean for search and rescue teams or livestock
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vetterans who need to transport large animals. It's a completely
3:02
normal tool, you know, but it's mundane availability. The sheer,
3:06
frictionless experience of buying it is exactly what makes it
3:10
so chilling when it is used for its literal original
3:14
purpose in a criminal context.
3:16
Speaker 1: And that brings us to the mission of this deep dive. Today,
3:19
we are unpacking a massive, incredibly dense stack of sources.
3:23
Speaker 2: It's a lot of material, it is.
3:25
Speaker 1: We are looking at prosecutor briefs, medical examiner reports, private
3:29
investigator findings, and just an absolute ocean of digital forensics.
3:34
We are focusing on the tragic, highly complex case of
3:37
fourteen year old Celestrious Hernandez, such a sad case, and
3:40
the famous singer David Anthony Burke who goes by the
3:43
stage name David.
3:44
Speaker 2: We're going to look partially at the bizarre commerce of concealment,
3:48
the digital trails we all leave behind, and the highly
3:50
specific forensic puzzles that took authorities seven months to unravel.
3:55
Speaker 1: Seven months is a long time in an investigation like this.
3:57
Speaker 2: It really is so to you listening to the right now.
4:00
Have you ever considered the digital trails you leave behind
4:03
with your online purchases? Have you thought about the metadata
4:06
on your phone when you call a ride share?
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Speaker 1: People rarely do right, because in this story, those innocuous
4:12
everyday systems basically mask a deeply sinister reality.
4:18
Speaker 2: This case perfectly illustrates how modern crime intersects with modern convenience.
4:22
You know, the digital footprints left by ubers, text messages,
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live streams, e commerce. They are indelible.
4:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't just erase them exactly.
4:31
Speaker 2: We're going to examine how those digital breadcrumbs were simultaneously
4:35
weaponized for a cover up, and ultimately how they became
4:39
the roadmap for investigators to deconstruct that cover up.
4:42
Speaker 1: So let's start with the physical location where this story
4:44
violently came to light. Imagine a sunny, wealthy neighborhood in
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the Hollywood Hills and early summer of twenty twenty five,
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zidyllic total paradise. But there is a localized problem on
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this one street, a terrible lingering smell. Now, there's a
4:58
specific family in thisighborhood who had a beloved husky. The
5:02
dog passed away in February, and despite Los Angeles City
5:05
ordinances making it illegal to do so, they decided to
5:08
bury their pet in their own backyard, which.
5:10
Speaker 2: You know people do. It's a grieving process.
5:12
Speaker 1: Right in February in la is relatively cool, but as
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summer hits and temperatures climb consistently above seventy eighty degrees,
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this foul odor starts wafting through the immediate vicinity and.
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Speaker 2: Human psychology plays a huge role here. The family naturally
5:27
assumes the worst about their own actions.
5:30
Speaker 1: They think it's their fault exactly.
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Speaker 2: They believe they simply didn't bury the dog deep enough.
5:35
The guilt and anxiety must have been immense. I mean,
5:38
they're preparing for the grim task of digging up their
5:41
pet to rebury it deeper, convince they're the source of
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the neighborhood's problem.
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Speaker 1: But then in September twenty twenty five, the smell just vanishes.
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Speaker 2: Just gone gone.
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Speaker 1: It's actually getting hotter outside, yet the odor is completely gone.
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And coincidentally, a black Tesla Model three that had been
5:58
parked on the street in front of a neighbor's house
6:00
for month is also gone.
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Speaker 2: And that is the inciting incident of the entire investigation. Yeah,
6:05
because the smell wasn't the husky at all. No.
6:07
Speaker 1: Fast forward to September eighth, that black Tesla is sitting
6:10
in the impound lot of Hollywood Towe employees notice a
6:14
swarm of flies circling the front trunk, you know, the
6:16
fronk of the electric vehicle.
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Speaker 2: Right, and the smell is suddenly overwhelming again, so they
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call the LAPD, an LAPD detective arrives, pops open that
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front trunk and finds a large black zippered body bag
6:30
with handles. When he partially on zips it, he finds
6:33
a human torso in the back of a head.
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Speaker 1: The autopsy report, which was sealed for a long time
6:40
but later presented to Grand Juries, it details a horrifying
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biological reality.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty graphic.
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Speaker 1: The remains were in an advanced state of decomposition. The victim,
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later identified s Celeste, was found lying prone, face down.
6:54
If we look at the environmental conditions inside that fronk
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for over a month, oh manny heat, the confinement created
7:00
an accelerated deterioration process. A Tesla fronk is essentially a
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heavy plastic tub. It doesn't have engine heat, but parked
7:07
in the Los Angeles sun, it acts like a greenhouse.
7:10
Speaker 2: Right, it just bakes.
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Speaker 1: Yes. The medical examiner noted discoloration, severe liquefaction of the
7:14
soft tissues, and just heavy, heavy insect activity. The details
7:18
in the corner's report are staggering. Her fingers were so
7:21
water logged from the decomposition fluids pooling inside that heavy duty,
7:25
leakproof Amazon bag that they couldn't even take fingerprints to
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id her.
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Speaker 2: It makes identification incredibly difficult, and.
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Speaker 1: There were even more disturbing details. Her left eye was
7:36
completely missing, and underneath the body bag there was a
7:39
tied off black trash bag containing her dismembered arms and legs.
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Speaker 2: And the specific methodology of the dismemberment really caught the
7:46
attention of multiple forensic pathologists. Why is that well, Typically
7:52
in cases where the perpetrator lacks anatomical or medical knowledge,
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you see dismemberment occurring in the joints, the shoulders, the elbows,
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the ease, the ankles.
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Speaker 1: Because it's easier to cut through cartilage.
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Speaker 2: Precisely, it's anatomically much easier to separate cartilage and ligaments
8:07
than to saw through the dense center of the solid
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bone like the femur or the humorous.
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Speaker 1: But the report states the arms were severed at the
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biceps right through the middle of a bone of the elbows,
8:17
and the legs were cut in four separate pieces, severed
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above the knee around the thigh, and below the knee
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around the calf. They actively avoided the joints. Yes, why
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would someone do it the hard way?
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Speaker 2: It's a highly unusual forensic signature It suggests a reliance
8:34
on brute mechanical force rather than anatomical precision. If someone
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is using a power tool like a reciprocating saw or
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a chainsaw, aiming for a joint might actually be more
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difficult because the tool can catch on the irregular shapes
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of the ligaments and bone ends.
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Speaker 1: Oh, I hadn't thought of that.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, cutting straight through the long bone is faster if
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you have the mechanical power, which raises immense questions about
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the tools used and the psychological state of the person
9:01
performing the act.
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Speaker 1: There was also the mutilation of her hands. The examiner
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noted that her left ring finger and her pinky finger
9:08
were severed and completely missing from the scene. They still
9:11
haven't been found it this day. But before we get
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into the how and the why of that specific mutilation,
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I have to push back on the logistical reality of
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this timeline.
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Speaker 2: Okay, let's hear it.
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Speaker 1: It's like trying to hide an elephant under a rug
9:24
in the middle of a crowded room, or trying to
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contain a biological time bomb and a vacuum flask. Eventually,
9:31
the pressure is going to break the seal. How does
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someone leave a decomposing body in a car parked on
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a public street in Los Angeles, where, by the way,
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parking enforcement is famously ruthless for over a month without
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raising massive alarms.
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Speaker 2: It speaks to a bizarre intersection of luck, societal blindness,
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and urban anonymity.
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Speaker 1: What do you mean by societal blindness?
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Speaker 2: In a dense city, people are conditioned to ignore anomalies.
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You smell something foul, you assume it's roadkill, or neighbor's trash,
10:02
or the case of the neighbor's a buried pet, you
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just kind of put your head down and walk past it.
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Speaker 1: That's true.
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Speaker 2: Furthermore, the car was actually ticketed. Parking enforcement came out
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on August twenty seventh, chalked the tires and marked its position.
10:13
Speaker 1: They were right there.
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Speaker 2: The officer was inches in the vehicle, but no odor
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complaint was officially logged. This tells us that the seal
10:21
on the Tesla's front, combined with the leak proof nature
10:24
of the Amazon body bag, contained just enough of the
10:27
reality to pass as normal urban grime, at least until
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the decay progressed too far and the biological gases forced
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their way out.
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Speaker 1: That is just terrifying. I was reading through the timeline,
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and it struck me that after the discovery in September,
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it took seven months for an arrest. Seven whole months
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is a significant gap. David is out on a world
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tour during this time. My mind immediately went to DNA labs,
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like the backlog in La County can take over half
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a year, especially for heavily degraded DNA from a decomposition scene.
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Is that what took so long? Because the first arrest
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in this case wasn't David.
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Speaker 2: The DNA backlog is certainly a factor, yes, but the
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delay was fundamentally rooted in a highly methodical legal strategy
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by the prosecution. In January of twenty twenty six, four
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months after the discovery, authorities travel all the way to
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Montana to arrest a young man named Neo Langston.
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Speaker 1: Neo is a Twitch streamer a close friend of David's.
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The sources describe his online presence as well somewhat mediocre,
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mostly him in a beanie dispensing pseudo philosophical dating advice
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to a pretty small audience.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 1: He even refers to himself on camera as davis one
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and only Asian friend. But he is arrested in Montana
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at his mother's house, literally smiling in his mugshot, purely
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for failing to appear as a witness before a grand
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jury in Los Angeles and.
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Speaker 2: The decision to fly across the country to arrest a
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peripheral streamer introduces the critical difference between a charging grand
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jury and an investigative grand jury.
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Speaker 1: Which is a nuance often lost in standard true crime coverage.
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Let's break that down, because the source is noted, the
12:00
Internet was incredibly confused.
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Speaker 2: By this move. Oh the Internet went wild.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, people thought, oh, the DA doesn't have enough evidence
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to charge David, so the case is falling apart. They're
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going after his friends out of desperation.
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Speaker 2: That is a fundamental misunderstanding of the tool the prosecutors
12:13
were using. Most people picture a charging grand jury, you know,
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the district attorney goes into a sealed room, presents evidence
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and witnesses to the jurors without a judge or defense
12:24
attorney present, and asks the jurors to vote on an indictment.
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Speaker 1: And if they vote yes, the person is charged.
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Speaker 2: Exactly, but on a state level, like in California, the
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DA has a choice. They can seek an indictment or
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they can simply file a criminal complaint and arrest the
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suspect directly.
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Speaker 1: But the DA here convened three separate investigative grand juries.
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Speaker 2: Exactly that. An investigative grand jury does not end in
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a vote for indictment. Its sole purpose is to utilize
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the grand jury's immense subpoena power.
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Speaker 1: Okay, so how is that different from regular questioning.
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Speaker 2: Normally, if the police knock on your door, I want
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to talk to you about a crime your friend committed,
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you can just politely say no and close the door,
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right the.
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Speaker 1: Fifth Amendment, or just not wanting to talk.
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Speaker 2: But if you are subpoened by a grand jury, you
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are legally compelled to testify under oath or you face
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felony contempt of court charges. That is what happened to
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Neo when he refused to show up.
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Speaker 1: Oh I see, so think of it less like a
13:19
trial and more like an evidence freezer. The prosecution uses
13:22
it to flash freeze a witness's memory under oath. Right. Now,
13:25
that's a great analogy because in high profile cases involving celebrities,
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witnesses who are friends or employees of the suspect often
13:33
have a sudden change of heart if the trial happens
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two years down the line, a witness might mysteriously get
13:39
amnesia on the stand out of loyalty. They might say
13:42
I don't remember seeing anything.
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Speaker 2: And if they do that, the prosecutor simply pulls out
13:47
the frozen original statement from the grand jury transcript and says, well,
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two years ago, under oath, you said exactly this. They
13:53
can impeach their own witness. It prevents loyalty, bribery, or
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intimidation from eroding the evidence over time.
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Speaker 1: That is incredibly smart.
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Speaker 2: Furthermore, grand jury proceedings are entirely sealed. This means David,
14:06
the target of the investigation, has absolutely no idea what
14:09
his friends are saying about him behind those closed doors.
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It keeps him entirely in the dark while the DA
14:15
builds an ironclad case.
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Speaker 1: But here's where I need some clarification from you. They
14:19
didn't use the grand jury to indict him. They didn't
14:22
file a criminal complaint before the arrest. Finally, on Thursday,
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April sixteenth, twenty twenty six, the LAPD just walks up
14:31
the driveway of a three point five million dollar rental
14:35
house in the Hollywood Hills and arrests him just like that. Yeah,
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he's in gray sweatpants, entirely cooperative. The police warn him
14:42
not to run or they'll release the canines, and he
14:44
just calmly says, I got you. I got you. If
14:46
they didn't get an indictment, what's su improbable cause that
14:49
the LAPD get in April that they didn't have in September.
14:52
It feels like waiting for a pot to boil while
14:54
someone keeps turning the heat up and down.
14:56
Speaker 2: When the LAPD makes a warrantless arrest on a homicide,
14:59
which in Californi requires establishing undeniable probable cause, it usually
15:04
points to a sudden breakthrough that ticks the scale. The
15:07
arresting officer mentioned that the keptabs on him, but quote,
15:11
once we developed probable cause to arrest him for murder,
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we were on him pretty diligently.
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Speaker 1: So it could be the degraded DNA finally coming back
15:19
from the lab.
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Speaker 2: It could be, or perhaps one of those flash frozen
15:23
witnesses in the investigative grand jury finally cracked and provided
15:28
a statement that police could independently verify with cell phone data.
15:31
Speaker 1: Oh, that makes sense.
15:32
Speaker 2: Both are highly probable. Another pragmatic factor is flight risk.
15:37
If investigators caught wind that David, who has international ties
15:41
and significant wealth, was preparing to leave the country permanently.
15:45
That would force their hand, right, they can't let him
15:47
leave exactly, They would have to act immediately on the
15:49
probable cause they had accumulated, rather than waiting to formally
15:53
file the complaint first.
15:54
Speaker 1: To really grasp what probable cause they finally landed on,
15:58
we need to look at the specific devastating charges filed
16:01
against him and the deeply disturbing backstory between David and Celeste.
16:06
Speaker 2: The charges are incredibly severe.
16:08
Speaker 1: They are staggering first degree murder with three special circumstances.
16:13
Those circumstances are lying in weight, financial gain, and murder
16:17
of a witness. He's also charged with unlawful mutilation of
16:21
human remains and continuous sexual abuse of a child under fourteen.
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Speaker 2: Those special circumstances are not just descriptive adjectives, you know,
16:29
they are specific legal triggers under the California Penal Code.
16:33
Speaker 1: Right, they change the sentencing.
16:34
Speaker 2: They elevate the severity of the first green murder charge
16:37
to a potential maximum sentence of life without parole or
16:40
even the death penalty.
16:41
Speaker 1: Let's look at the timeline of the abuse because this
16:43
is where the tragedy really comes into focus and where
16:46
the statutory law becomes so crucial. According to the prosecutor's
16:50
preliminary hearing brief, which by the way, the sources note
16:53
is highly unusual for prosecutors to release this early with
16:56
this much detail.
16:57
Speaker 2: Very unusual.
16:58
Speaker 1: Yes, David and celest met in January twenty twenty two.
17:02
She was just eleven years old. The brief alleges the
17:05
sexual abuse began in November twenty twenty three, when she
17:09
was thirteen and he was eighteen.
17:11
Speaker 2: And the continuous sexual abuse charge is incredibly specific in
17:14
the filing. It covers the window from September seventh, twenty
17:18
twenty three to September seventh, twenty twenty four, which is
17:21
the exact year she was thirteen years old. This is
17:24
a highly calculated legal move by the prosecution.
17:27
Speaker 1: I was wondering about that. Why limit the charge specifically
17:30
to when she was thirteen if the brief explicitly says
17:34
the abuse continued until she was fourteen.
17:36
Speaker 2: It comes down to California's strict statutory laws regarding minors.
17:41
When a victim is under the age of fourteen, the
17:43
law entirely removes the concept of consent as a defense,
17:47
not it completely completely, the prosecution does not have to
17:50
disprove consent. Even if a defense attorney attempts to argue
17:54
that the victim initiated contact or returned willingly, the judge
17:58
will instruct the jury to comple deletely disregarded as legally irrelevant.
18:03
By restricting the charge to the window she was thirteen,
18:06
the prosecution shuts down any muddying of the waters by the.
18:09
Speaker 1: Defense, and the mistake of age defense is completely barred too,
18:12
writ like he can't say he thought she was older.
18:14
Speaker 2: Ah absolutely inadmissible, even if David could somehow provide a
18:19
mountain of evidence proving he genuinely believed she was eighteen
18:22
fake IDs text messages. The law states that for victims
18:26
under fourteen, mistake of age is not a viable defense
18:29
under any circumstances. It is a strict liability scenario.
18:32
Speaker 1: Which is vital context because his defense in the past
18:35
was exactly that feigned ignorance right In February of twenty
18:39
twenty four, Celeste ran away from home. Her parents reported
18:42
her missing to the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. The police
18:46
pulled her phone records saw she was communicating heavily with
18:49
David and went to visit him. He claimed he only
18:51
met her once and had no idea she was a miner.
18:54
Speaker 2: And bizarrely, he showed the visiting deputies a cropped yearbook
18:58
photo of her as proof.
18:59
Speaker 1: Yes, but at the same exact time, according to the documents,
19:03
he drove to Lake Elsinore and paid a middle schooler
19:06
in Celeste class one thousand dollars in cash to get
19:10
her a secret burner cell phone so they could keep talking.
19:13
Speaker 2: The contradiction there is just glaring. It speaks to a
19:16
severe level of manipulation and a deeply ingrained belief that
19:21
he could outsmart law enforcement. I mean he was actively
19:24
subverting her parents discipline, who had taken her phone away
19:29
while calmly lying to deputies.
19:30
Speaker 1: It's like claiming you don't know it's raining while actively
19:32
holding an umbrella.
19:33
Speaker 2: That's a perfect way to put it.
19:35
Speaker 1: And let's talk about the financial gain special circumstance on
19:38
the murder charge, because the sources say legal experts are
19:41
intensely debating this one online.
19:43
Speaker 2: Oh, this will absolutely be highly litigated. Traditionally, murder for
19:47
financial gain applies to situations where the perpetrator acquires.
19:50
Speaker 1: New capital like a life insurance policy.
19:53
Speaker 2: Right, think of killing a spouse for an insurance payout,
19:56
killing for an inheritance, or a direct murder for higher plot. Here,
20:00
prosecutors are arguing that David killed Celeste to protect his
20:04
existing multimillion dollar music career and his lucrative product endorsements.
20:09
Speaker 1: So killing to prevent a loss rather than killing to.
20:12
Speaker 2: Gain a check Precisely. Legal scholars debate whether protecting a
20:16
pre existing income stream qualifies under the statute. However, there
20:20
are historical precedents where avoiding a massive financial loss, such
20:24
as killing someone to prevent a run a civil lawsuit,
20:27
has been successfully prosecuted as financial gain.
20:30
Speaker 1: And his career was blowing up right at that moment.
20:32
Speaker 2: Right, prosecutors will likely point out that his debut studio
20:35
album was dropping just days later and a massive world
20:38
tour was imminent. Those represent new future revenue streams that
20:43
would have been completely annihilated by her allegations.
20:46
Speaker 1: That toxic escalating dynamic, the grooming, the secret phones, the
20:50
intense fear of exposure. It reached its absolute breaking point
20:54
in April of twenty twenty five. This brings us to
20:57
the murder timeline and the juxtaposition of what he was
21:00
doing privately versus publicly is chilling. April twenty second, David
21:05
and Celeste get into a massive argument via text message.
21:09
Speaker 2: The prosecution's brief details that she was expressing extreme jealousy
21:13
over his relationships with other women. She felt that he
21:16
had promised her a future and she realized he was
21:19
discarding her. She became incredibly upset and explicitly threatened to
21:23
disclose the damaging information about their relationship.
21:26
Speaker 1: And remember, his debut studio album, titled Withered, is scheduled
21:30
to drop on April twenty fifth. The pressure is astronomical,
21:33
so the next day, April twenty third, pre sale tickets
21:36
for his world tour go live. He posts on TikTok
21:39
your prayers have finally been answered. My album drops tomorrow.
21:42
Then at eight forty pm, he calls an uber for Celeste.
21:46
It picks her up from her family's house in Lake
21:48
Elsinore and drives her an hour and a half to
21:50
his house in the Hollywood Hills. She arrives at ten pm,
21:53
according to.
21:54
Speaker 2: The prosecution, Knowing he had to silence her before she
21:57
derailed his career, he attacked her almost immediately upon arrival.
22:01
Speaker 1: It's so fast it is.
22:03
Speaker 2: The autopsy reveals she suffered two penetrating stab wounds to
22:06
the torso, one injuring her liver on the right side,
22:09
the other penetrating the intercostal space on her left chest.
22:12
Speaker 1: And the brief uses a very specific phrase. It says
22:15
he stood by while she bled out. Now the sources
22:18
mentioned there's a lot of debate about that specific phrasing online.
22:22
Was someone else there? Did he film it?
22:24
Speaker 2: It is highly likely that phrase is a narrative entrance
22:27
by the prosecution designed to emphasize his complete lack of
22:30
life saving efforts.
22:31
Speaker 1: Ah.
22:32
Speaker 2: From a legal standpoint, they are establishing intent and malice
22:36
a forethought. He didn't call nine to one one, He
22:39
didn't apply pressure to the wounds. He didn't take her
22:41
to a hospital. He let the natural biological consequence of
22:44
his actions take their course. It paints a picture of cold,
22:47
calculated intent for the judge and the future jury.
22:50
Speaker 1: Okay, so shiras at ten pm. By ten thirty pm,
22:55
just twenty minutes later, he is already executing a cover up.
22:58
He sends a text message to her phone asking where
23:01
she is. Yeah, if you look at your own phone
23:03
right now. Think about how much geographic metadata you generate
23:07
just commuting to work. He was essentially trying to outsmart
23:10
a system that pings a cell tower every few seconds.
23:14
Speaker 2: It's a classic, yet flawed digital alibi. He is creating
23:18
a paper trail to suggest he was waiting for her
23:21
and she never arrived, knowing full well she has already deceased.
23:24
Speaker 1: In his home, but the cell towers will show there
23:26
in the same place exactly.
23:28
Speaker 2: The sell side location Information or CSLI will show both
23:31
of their phones pinging off the exact same tower at
23:34
his house when he sent that text.
23:36
Speaker 1: An hour later, at eleven thirty pm, he gets in
23:38
his car and drives hours up the coast to Santa Barbara.
23:41
Along the way, he's calling and texting her phone. And
23:44
this isn't the only time he goes to Santa Barbara.
23:46
He makes three separate trips there in the following weeks.
23:48
In January twenty twenty six months later, her passport card
23:52
is actually found discarded off a highway in Santa Barbara.
23:55
Speaker 2: Which heavily implies he was utilizing the isolation of that
23:58
drive to dispose of physical ebasvidence her id her belongings,
24:02
potentially their murder weapon. He is attempting to sever the
24:05
physical link between her existence and his home.
24:08
Speaker 1: But the next morning he is back to business as usual,
24:11
and this is where the psychology gets so weird. The
24:14
next day he does a radio interview, He orders a
24:17
shovel from home depot via Postmates. He jumps onto a
24:21
live stream to promote his fortnit locker, acting incredibly manic.
24:25
Speaker 2: The contrast is stark. You have a calculated forensic cover
24:28
up occurring in the shadows, creating digital alibis, driving hours
24:33
to dump evidence, happening simultaneously with hypervisible, reckless public behavior.
24:38
Speaker 1: Right, he's just streaming to thousands of people.
24:40
Speaker 2: In the live stream. He's rambling in a million miles
24:43
an hour, repeating phrases like monumented moment. Clinical observers noted
24:48
it looked like he was high on adrenaline and stimulants,
24:50
desperately trying to fill the silence to keep his own
24:52
intrusive thoughts at bay.
24:54
Speaker 1: Then he attends his own album release party at the
24:56
one hundred Thieves compound. He's wearing sunglasses as hugging people,
25:01
but photos from the event show him constantly keeping his
25:03
hands balled up into fists with the palms facing away
25:06
from the cameras. Internet sleuth's point out that when you
25:09
stab someone, especially repeatedly, the blood makes the handle of
25:13
the knife incredibly slippery. It's very common for the knife
25:16
to slip severely, slicing the attacker's own palm.
25:19
Speaker 2: It is a hallmark injury in knife related homicide. Really, yes,
25:23
the physics of a stab wound involve immense forward pressure.
25:27
Once the blood acts as a lubricant on the handle,
25:29
the hand slides right down onto the blade. If he
25:32
sustained an injury to his palm, he would be highly
25:34
motivated to hide it during a heavily photographed event, resulting
25:37
in those awkward, clenched fists.
25:39
Speaker 1: It's like watching a bank robber walk back into the
25:42
bank to chat with the tellers right after a heist,
25:45
and the public performances only get more disturbing. A few
25:48
days later, he's playing an album release show in his
25:50
hometown of Houston. He performs a song called Afterlife. The
25:54
lyrics are literally, I crossed it with you, and when
25:57
I die, you're holding the knife. I'll love you even
26:00
from the afterlife.
26:01
Speaker 2: Yeah.
26:02
Speaker 1: During the performance, he completely breaks down She's on his knees,
26:05
clutching his chest, sobbing, looking out into the crowd.
26:08
Speaker 2: Before the body was discovered, fans interpreted this as a
26:11
moment of profound gratitude, the classic I Made It emotional release,
26:17
but with the context of the timeline, it takes on
26:19
a deeply macabre undertone. Is he crying from.
26:22
Speaker 1: Guilt or something else entirely exactly.
26:25
Speaker 2: As some forensic psychologists suggest. Is he experiencing a twisted
26:29
sense of self pity and justification. The internal narrative might be,
26:33
you know, I had to do this to preserve this moment.
26:34
You forced my hand.
26:36
Speaker 1: It's horrifying. While he's publicly celebrating his album, crying on stage,
26:40
flying to New York and Asia, the prosecution alleges that
26:43
a gruesome, mechanical reality was unfolding back at his rental house,
26:47
which takes us to May fifth and the forensic puzzle
26:50
of the dismemberment. Let's go back to the first week
26:53
of May. May. First, an Amazon delivery arrives at his
26:56
house addressed to Victoria Mendez, alias he reportedly used regularly
27:02
for his online shopping, perhaps not a specific attempt at
27:05
a cover up for this crime. Initially but an established
27:08
habit of a celebrity trying to maintain some privacy for
27:11
mundane deliveries.
27:12
Speaker 2: Right, and this delivery contains that thirty two dollars cadaver
27:15
bag we talked about earlier, a large blue inflatable pool,
27:19
a stainless steel burn cage, and two chainsaws. Fast forward
27:23
to May fifth, twelve days after the murder. The prosecution's
27:26
brief alleges that this is the day he dismembered her body.
27:29
Speaker 1: They believe he set up that blue inflatable pool inside
27:31
his garage. Crucially, garages often have essential drainage point or
27:35
at least a sloped concrete floor, making the pool an
27:38
effective containment zone to catch the blood and fluids. And
27:41
we know this because the medical examiner found small blue
27:44
plastic fragments embedded inside celeste remains. The LAPD Forensic Science
27:50
Division matched those exact plastic fragments to the blue inflatable
27:54
pool he bought.
27:55
Speaker 2: It is a damning piece of trace evidence that directly
27:58
links the active dismas emberment to his specific purchase and
28:02
his specific location.
28:04
Speaker 1: He also amputated her left ring finger, which reportedly had
28:07
a tattoo of his name on it along with her
28:09
pinky finger. Logistically, I guess taking the pinky just makes
28:13
it easier to remove the ring finger cleanly. But where
28:16
did they go? Did he toss them off a cliff
28:17
in Santa Barbara? We still don't know, but the chainsaws.
28:21
This sparked a massive forensic debate online.
28:23
Speaker 2: It did. Internet sleuths and even some former medical examiners.
28:26
Commenting on news pointed out that using a chainsaw in
28:29
a garage with fifteen foot high brick walls would create
28:32
a horrific, uncleanable scene like a horror movie. Exactly. The
28:36
assumption heavily fueled by horror movies is that chainsaws sling
28:40
tissue and blood everywhere into three hundred and sixty degree
28:43
arc They argued. David, who doesn't seem like a articulous cleaner,
28:47
could never have sanitized that space.
28:49
Speaker 1: But you looked into this and the science is something
28:52
entirely different.
28:53
Speaker 2: There is a fascinating, albeit morbid precedent. In two thousand
28:57
and nine, the journal Forensic Science published his study directly
29:00
addressing this misconception.
29:01
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Yeah.
29:03
Speaker 2: Investigators in a real case were baffled by lack of
29:06
blood spatter after a dismemberment, so frented pathologists conducted a
29:10
controlled study using deceased pigs and small electric chainsaws. They
29:15
discovered that if the saw is held at a specific
29:18
angle parallel to the floor, the blood spatter is shockingly minimal.
29:22
The saw essentially pulls the tissue down into the curf
29:25
the cut it makes, rather than flinging it outward.
29:27
Speaker 1: Wow. So it is entirely plausible he did this in
29:30
his garage without turning the place into a Jackson Pollock
29:32
painting of biological evidence. But here is my biggest pushback,
29:36
the logistical puzzle that breaks my brain. Where was her
29:40
body for the twelve days between April twenty third and
29:42
May fifth?
29:43
Speaker 2: That is the most significant logistical gap in the timeline.
29:46
Twelve days is a massive period for decomposition, especially in
29:50
a temperate climate like Los Angeles.
29:52
Speaker 1: Right, things break down fast biologically.
29:54
Speaker 2: As a body decays over almost two weeks, you experience
29:57
severe skin slippage, massive lwoiod purge, and a profound loss
30:02
of structural integrity. Moving a body after twelve days without
30:05
leaving a catastrophic trail of evidence is incredibly difficult.
30:09
Speaker 1: TMZ reported at one point that she had been frozen,
30:12
but the LAPD explicitly denied that. If she wasn't frozen,
30:16
and he didn't buy the pool until May first, where
30:19
was she was She just sitting in a guest bathroom
30:21
while he was off playing concerts in Brooklyn.
30:24
Speaker 2: It's entirely possible she was left in a bathroom or
30:26
a sealed closet. If the air conditioning was cranked down,
30:28
it might slow the decomposition process slightly, but the biological
30:32
reality of the odor would be undeniable within a few days,
30:35
which brings us perfectly into how this hidden reality started
30:38
to bleed into his very public digital life.
30:40
Speaker 1: Yes, hiding in plain sight. Let's talk about the infamous
30:45
July fourth live stream. It's a couple of months after
30:48
the murder. A Twitch streamer named Sakra is broadcasting live
30:52
while getting ready for a Fourth of July party at
30:55
David's house. Neo is there? Another friend Asia is there.
30:59
At one point, Sacara has the camera set up in
31:02
one of the bathrooms. David off camera, apologizes to them
31:06
for the terrible smell in the bathroom, claiming he'd just
31:08
used the toilet right. Sacara laughs it off, saying she
31:10
did too, but Neo looks incredibly uncomfortable, darting his eyes around.
31:15
Speaker 2: Observers note that Neo's reaction seems entirely disproportionate to a
31:18
simple joke about bathroom motors. His body language implies there
31:22
is an underlying tension, a recognized foulness in the house
31:25
that they are attempting to casually explain away on camera.
31:28
Speaker 1: And it gets weirder later in the stream, one of
31:30
the girls asks David to get bug spray because they're
31:33
little spiders everywhere. She specifically notes they aren't the oval ones.
31:37
Speaker 2: Now, spiders are predatory insects. They're naturally attracted to areas
31:41
with high insect activity. And what causes massive localized insect activity.
31:45
Speaker 1: A decomposing body.
31:46
Speaker 2: The decomposing body which breeds blowflies and maggots. If the
31:50
house was infested with spiders, they were likely there feeding
31:53
on the secondary ecosystem created by the decay.
31:57
Speaker 1: It's stomach churning to think about. And then there's there's
32:00
the decoy Celeste. Throughout the stream, people refer to someone
32:04
named Celeste being in the house who doesn't want to
32:06
be on camera. At first, the Internet freaked out, thinking
32:09
it was the victim, but it turns out to be
32:11
an adult woman named Celeste.
32:12
Speaker 2: Heterra, which investigators and behavioral analysts view as a deliberate
32:17
obfuscation tactic by David. By purposely surrounding himself with an
32:21
adult named Celeste, he creates plausible deniability.
32:25
Speaker 1: Ah I see if.
32:26
Speaker 2: Someone overhears him talking about Celeste or sees a text,
32:29
he can simply point to this adult woman muddying the
32:31
waters regarding the missing fourteen year old.
32:34
Speaker 1: And at one point he intentionally grabs the livestream camera
32:37
points it directly at this adult Celeste, who axenoid and
32:41
then apologizes. It feels completely performative, like, hey, everyone, look,
32:45
here is the celest I hang out with, perfectly alive
32:47
and of age.
32:48
Speaker 2: It highlights the sheer volume of digital data he was
32:51
producing and how he tried to manipulate it. In fact,
32:55
prosecutors stated they seized forty terabytes of data from his
32:59
devices and ic cloud forty terabytes.
33:02
Speaker 1: Initially, there were horrific rumors online that all forty terabytes
33:06
were seesam child's sexual abuse material. To put that in perspective,
33:10
forty terabytes is roughly ten million photos or twenty thousand
33:14
hours of HD video.
33:15
Speaker 2: While the district attorney confirmed they did find a significant
33:18
amount of seesam, encompassing photos and explicit texts between him
33:22
and the victim, including discussions about Plan B. The forty
33:25
terabytes likely encompasses his entire digital life.
33:28
Speaker 1: Oh so it's everything right.
33:30
Speaker 2: When digital forensics teams use software like Celebrate to image devices,
33:34
they pull everything. High resolution audio files for his music,
33:37
countless hours of highday video streams, thousands of texts, app data.
33:41
The true challenge for the prosecution is data culling, finding
33:45
the needle of evidence in a forty terabyte haystack.
33:47
Speaker 1: But the Internet sloths didn't wait for the trial. They
33:50
went down some incredibly dark rabbit holes trying to explain
33:53
his motives. The biggest one is the manga theory.
33:56
Speaker 2: David was a vocal fan of Japanese manga, specifically mentioning
33:59
a ses that closely resembles MPD Psycho. In this story,
34:04
a detective with multiple personalities is investigating a serial killer,
34:07
only to realize he is the killer. The killer in
34:10
the manga leaves victims torsos and heads in boxes, having
34:13
amputated the limbs, and crucially, the protagonist has a barcode
34:17
tattooed on his left eye, which represents his soul or identity.
34:21
Speaker 1: So Nuttisen's connected this to Celeste being found as a
34:24
torso and head with her limbs amputated and her left
34:27
eye completely missing. They theorize David was ritualistically acting out
34:31
this manga, taking her eye and her fingers as some
34:34
sort of dark sacrifice for fame.
34:36
Speaker 2: It's a classic example of patternicity, the human tendency to
34:39
find meaningful patterns in meaningless noise. As a forensic reality,
34:43
the missing left eye is almost certainly the result of
34:45
insect activity. Blowflies seek out moisture to lay their eggs,
34:49
known as ovia position. Maggots will consume soft moisture rich
34:52
tissues like the eyes.
34:54
Speaker 1: First right, nature just taking its course.
34:56
Speaker 2: The amputation of the limbs, as we discussed regarding the
34:59
non joint seven, was likely a crude logistical choice for
35:03
fitting the remains into the trunk and body bag, not
35:06
a comic book homage.
35:07
Speaker 1: I completely agree the idea of him being some mastermind
35:10
killer just falls apart when you look at the mundane evidence.
35:13
The private investigator hired by the homeowners found that he
35:16
just left the blue inflatable pool and the unopened burn
35:19
cage sitting in the house. If he was a genius,
35:22
he would have destroyed them. It's the criminal equivalent of
35:25
sweeping dirt under a glass rug. He wasn't a mastermind.
35:28
He was disorganized. He just parked his Tesla on the street,
35:31
leaving a body to rot in an Amazon bag, and
35:33
flew to Asia for a tour.
35:34
Speaker 2: It speaks to a profound delusion and an illusion of control.
35:38
He relied on a false sense of invincibility, likely fostered
35:42
by his rapid rise to fame and the yes men
35:45
surrounding him. He ignored the problem, assuming it would somehow
35:48
resolve itself, which is the hallmark of a deeply disorganized
35:51
and immature offender, not an evil genius.
35:54
Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? As we wrap up
35:57
this deep dive, we have to distill the reality from
36:00
the spectacle. We've traced a horrifying collision of real world
36:03
violence with modern internet fame. We saw a perpetrator attempt
36:07
to use Uber, Amazon and Twitch streams to mask a
36:11
brutal murder, only to leave a digital trail a mile
36:14
wide for the grand juries to uncover.
36:16
Speaker 2: And we must remember the human element at the core
36:19
of this data. Beneath the forty terabytes of evidence, the
36:22
special circumstance charges in the wild Internet conspiracies is a
36:26
fourteen year old girl with braces. Her life was tragically
36:30
eclipsed by a perpetrator more concerned with a music release
36:33
schedule than human life.
36:35
Speaker 1: It is deeply heartbreaking, and I want to leave you
36:37
with a final provocative thought to mulover. According to the sources,
36:40
in October twenty twenty five, a full month after Celeste's
36:44
body was discovered, while David was ostensibly in hiding and
36:47
the Internet was exploding with rumors, he was actively replying
36:50
to Instagram dms from another musician. He was casually discussing
36:53
his faith, offering advice on how to read the Bible,
36:56
and debating the twist endings of movies like Gone Girl.
36:58
Speaker 2: It forces us to add ask a terrifying question about
37:01
modern psychology.
37:03
Speaker 1: How deeply has the performative, compartmentalized nature of social media
37:07
rewired the human brain's capacity to process guilt and reality.
37:11
Can someone truly separate a rotting reality parked on their
37:14
street from their curated digital persona. It's something to think
37:17
about the next time you leave a digital footprint, or
37:20
watch someone perform their life on a screen. Thank you
37:23
for joining us on this deep dive. Keep questioning the
37:25
narratives unfolding on your screens, and we'll see you next time.