Latest / TAKEN TV Podcasts / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Bombshell: D4VD Murder Accomplice In Death Of Celeste, 14, RPT
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Bombshell tonight, D4VD, a.k.a. David Anthony Burke, murder accomplice in
- 0:08Speaker 1: the brutal, the savage death of a 14-year-old girl, Celeste.
- 0:14Speaker 1: According to reports, let that sink in. Police, LAPD, reportedly
- 0:21Speaker 1: investigating a suspect, a co-defendant in the murder of A
- 0:28Speaker 1: 14-year-old girl, Celeste. Good evening. I'm Nancy Grace. This is
- 0:33Speaker 1: Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us.
- 0:43Speaker 1: David Anthony Burke contacting minors from behind bars.
- 0:47Speaker 2: But did you ever learn about consent about maybe not
- 0:50Speaker 2: getting with a minor?
- 0:51Speaker 1: A 13-year-old girl you're texting to get an abortion and
- 0:55Speaker 1: he's worried about mommy.
- 0:57Speaker 2: Who else was possibly responsible and had knowledge of what
- 1:00Speaker 2: was going on for Celeste that is to blame in this?
- 1:05Speaker 3: I've already been told a name as well.
- 1:07Speaker 4: A name of a suspect?
- 1:09Speaker 5: Of another person besides him.
- 1:12Speaker 6: In connection with the death or the dismemberment?
- 1:15Speaker 5: They're not ruling anything out. I mean, everything is on
- 1:18Speaker 5: the table. They have kept this wide open because they
- 1:23Speaker 5: believe and they believed since the beginning that since the get-go,
- 1:28Speaker 5: that there was more than one person involved. The other
- 1:31Speaker 5: person is not somebody after the car was found. That
- 1:35Speaker 5: would appear, or somebody close in time, is somebody who
- 1:39Speaker 5: was geographically overlaid with his location, and they are surmising
- 1:46Speaker 5: from that circumstantial evidence that the two of them had
- 1:50Speaker 5: a connection to either the trip or something that potentially
- 1:57Speaker 5: could have been untoward.
- 1:59Speaker 1: That's two angry men, my friend Harvey Levin over at
- 2:03Speaker 1: TMZ and my sparring partner, my sparring opponent, Mark Garagos,
- 2:10Speaker 1: who shot to fame across the country when he defended
- 2:13Speaker 1: Scott Peterson and many other famous killers. That said... Let
- 2:19Speaker 1: that sink in. Joining me in All-Star Panel to make
- 2:22Speaker 1: sense of what we are learning tonight, we believed at
- 2:27Speaker 1: the beginning it was a matter of time before digital
- 2:30Speaker 1: forensics ruled the day. A murder case is not just
- 2:35Speaker 1: something you throw together. There are many, many facets. For instance,
- 2:40Speaker 1: we've got the body, as it were, decomposed in the
- 2:44Speaker 1: back of D4VD David Anthony Burke's trunk. His front, by
- 2:49Speaker 1: the way, it's a Tesla. It's in the front of
- 2:50Speaker 1: the vehicle. Making sense of who is it. When Celeste's
- 2:55Speaker 1: body was found, it was largely goo, G-O-O. It had
- 2:59Speaker 1: been deteriorating for so many, many days. Then there are eyewitnesses.
- 3:06Speaker 1: Then there are earwitnesses. Then there are statements. Then there's
- 3:09Speaker 1: grand jury testimony. And finally, at the end of the day,
- 3:15Speaker 1: All of the digital forensic evidence falls into place. We've
- 3:21Speaker 1: got an all-star panel for you tonight analyzing what we
- 3:24Speaker 1: are learning. There is a suspect number two. There is
- 3:31Speaker 1: an accomplice. Will that accomplice choose to be a state's
- 3:35Speaker 1: witness or a co-defendant in a murder case? Straight out
- 3:41Speaker 1: to special guest joining us, Robert Freed, Certified Forensics Analyst, EVP,
- 3:47Speaker 1: a Forensics and Chief Investigative Officer, author of five digital
- 3:53Speaker 1: forensics books, including Forensics Data Collection 2.0. It's a whole
- 3:58Speaker 1: series on digital forensics. Okay, Robert, thank you for being
- 4:04Speaker 1: with us tonight. All along, I have believed that by
- 4:08Speaker 1: following the digital trail of D4VD, a.k.a. David Anthony Burke,
- 4:13Speaker 1: we would discover who was traveling with him in that Tesla,
- 4:18Speaker 1: who moved the Tesla, who was with him when the
- 4:23Speaker 1: body was disarticulated in that inflatable kiddie pool car, then
- 4:30Speaker 1: put literally in a body bag the idiots ordered on Amazon.
- 4:35Speaker 1: They go on and put in body bag. That said,
- 4:40Speaker 1: how does it work? You heard Geragos and you heard
- 4:45Speaker 1: Levin talking about overlaying, overlaying D4VD' s movements. Okay, dummy down
- 4:53Speaker 1: for me. What are they saying?
- 4:55Speaker 7: Yeah, it depends on looking at different types of social
- 5:00Speaker 7: media accounts that he may be logged into at the time.
- 5:04Speaker 7: There's GPS coordinates that can be obtained from all this activity.
- 5:10Speaker 7: So if you're on, let's say, Facebook or X or
- 5:14Speaker 7: other types of services and you're posting on those and
- 5:18Speaker 7: you have exact precise location types of options available in
- 5:25Speaker 7: these apps to trace your locations, this is definitely an
- 5:29Speaker 7: opportunity for investigators to go in and gather that information
- 5:35Speaker 7: and associate it to a specific location you may be in.
- 5:39Speaker 1: Okay, hold on. Put him back up, please. I was
- 5:43Speaker 1: thinking about the phone, digital tracking of the phone. I
- 5:48Speaker 1: was also thinking about the navigation system, the nav system
- 5:52Speaker 1: in the Tesla, which is highly sophisticated. They've even got
- 5:56Speaker 1: a 365 degree camera on a lot of Teslas. But
- 6:01Speaker 1: you just said something I hadn't thought about. Social media.
- 6:07Speaker 1: I assume you're talking about geotagging. When you post something,
- 6:10Speaker 1: it geotags where you are. Because in my book, Don't
- 6:14Speaker 1: Be a Victim, I talk about take geotagging off if
- 6:16Speaker 1: you don't want the world to know where you're posting
- 6:19Speaker 1: your child's photo. They give you the exact location of
- 6:22Speaker 1: your front yard. So geotagging. You said, Robert Freed, Social
- 6:28Speaker 1: media accounts he was logged into. That doesn't give you
- 6:34Speaker 1: a running navigation map, does it? Or does it? Because
- 6:37Speaker 1: I don't think he was posting, hey, here's where I
- 6:40Speaker 1: disarticulated the body. Here's where I buried remains. Here's where
- 6:43Speaker 1: I threw away the passport. So how does being logged
- 6:46Speaker 1: into social media tell me anything unless you're actually posting
- 6:49Speaker 1: at that moment?
- 6:51Speaker 7: Yeah, you can post, but your phone in general, like
- 6:54Speaker 7: you said, is also tracking at the same time. your locations,
- 6:58Speaker 7: for example, Snapchat, things like that. So it all depends.
- 7:02Speaker 7: I think it's, like we said, you know, in the beginning,
- 7:04Speaker 7: it's connecting the dots here. It's looking at, you know,
- 7:07Speaker 7: posts on social media, potentially.
- 7:10Speaker 3: It's the car. It's pinging of cell phone.
- 7:12Speaker 7: Towers to show a location here. And I think all
- 7:16Speaker 7: those points together need to be considered when looking at
- 7:20Speaker 7: a case like this.
- 7:21Speaker 1: Okay, let me ask you this. Robert Freed, what is
- 7:25Speaker 1: a data dump? Could that help? Or is that just TMI,
- 7:29Speaker 1: too much information? When they know who his inner circle is,
- 7:33Speaker 1: they can just get their phones by subpoena and follow
- 7:36Speaker 1: the trail, right? From AT & T or T-Mobile or Verizon.
- 7:40Speaker 1: Or do they need to do a cell tower dump
- 7:42Speaker 1: to find out everybody that may have been there, whether
- 7:44Speaker 1: they are known in the circle or not?
- 7:47Speaker 7: Yeah, it depends on the level of effort that they
- 7:50Speaker 7: want to go do that. But there are specialists that
- 7:53Speaker 7: focus in on cell power and information and And gathering that, again,
- 7:58Speaker 7: you have to interpret that information and see if you
- 8:01Speaker 7: can find that information to be useful here. I think
- 8:06Speaker 7: in a combination, again, of the cell phone tower data
- 8:09Speaker 7: in conjunction with information on the phone, from the car,
- 8:14Speaker 7: all these different things can be very helpful.
- 8:16Speaker 1: How do you do a cell tower dump? And please
- 8:18Speaker 1: be succinct and dummy down for me because it's actually
- 8:21Speaker 1: very complicated. What is a cell tower dump?
- 8:24Speaker 4: Let's just pretend.
- 8:25Speaker 1: Let's just pretend, okay? that we're taking the cell tower
- 8:28Speaker 1: closest to that spot in Santa Barbara where we know
- 8:32Speaker 1: items were disposed, such as Celeste's passport. I mean, in
- 8:36Speaker 1: the middle of the night, I'm going to circle back
- 8:38Speaker 1: to you, Steve Fisher, on that. In the middle of
- 8:40Speaker 1: the night, I think it was 2 or 3 a.m.,
- 8:44Speaker 1: when everybody else was sleeping so they'd be up bright
- 8:47Speaker 1: and early the next morning for work, D-4VD and his
- 8:50Speaker 1: henchperson out driving around in Santa Barbara in a remote
- 8:54Speaker 1: and forested area.
- 8:55Speaker 8: Why?
- 8:56Speaker 1: I wonder why. As I told juries repeatedly, Robert Freed,
- 9:00Speaker 1: nothing good happens after midnight. So what's he doing out
- 9:02Speaker 1: at 2 a.m. in a remote forested area? Well, of course,
- 9:06Speaker 1: police find out from the digital trail, and they go there,
- 9:09Speaker 1: and that's where her passport and other items were found.
- 9:14Speaker 1: So let's just pretend we're taking the cell tower closer
- 9:16Speaker 1: to that spot. Okay, that's where we are. Now what
- 9:20Speaker 1: do we do?
- 9:21Speaker 7: Yeah, so you would be able to subpoena the... you know,
- 9:25Speaker 7: sell providers for information and law enforcement can sift through that.
- 9:30Speaker 7: But I think that that is information that can be
- 9:33Speaker 7: very useful in cases to help corroborate the other evidence.
- 9:37Speaker 1: Freed, put him up. Freed, when you just said sifting
- 9:40Speaker 1: through it, I love to cook and you made me
- 9:44Speaker 1: think of sifting flour. Okay. Over and over and all
- 9:49Speaker 1: the particles coming down into whatever it is you're cooking.
- 9:53Speaker 1: So it's my understanding with a cell tower dump, you say, okay,
- 9:58Speaker 1: his car is there at 2 a.m. Let's get every
- 10:02Speaker 1: cell phone that connects to the Santa Barbara Tower closest
- 10:06Speaker 1: to the location between midnight and 4 a.m. Every cell phone.
- 10:13Speaker 1: And then you sift through that to see if anything
- 10:16Speaker 1: interests you. Is that what a cell tower dump is.
- 10:20Speaker 3: Essentially, yes.
- 10:23Speaker 1: Okay. When you look at this digital trail, do you
- 10:27Speaker 1: actually see, for instance, D4VD' s phone and then the co-defendant's
- 10:32Speaker 1: phone going along together?
- 10:35Speaker 7: You can, depending on activity within the cell phones at
- 10:39Speaker 7: the time. You would have to be able to get
- 10:42Speaker 7: their devices to corroborate that type of information. So if
- 10:47Speaker 7: his phone's already been collected in and then this supposed
- 10:51Speaker 7: accomplice has been giving of his devices as well, you're
- 10:56Speaker 7: going to be able to piece that information together.
- 10:58Speaker 1: I understand the digital angle that you're describing, Robert Free,
- 11:02Speaker 1: but what about GPS?
- 11:05Speaker 7: Yeah, we can definitely look at GPS coordinates. Those are
- 11:08Speaker 7: tied into phones, for example, your movements. If you get
- 11:12Speaker 7: a full file system dump of these various phones, the
- 11:16Speaker 7: investigators can go in And they can look at all
- 11:19Speaker 7: these different data points and corroborate other evidence showing, like
- 11:24Speaker 7: we said before, a path of evidence or a path
- 11:27Speaker 7: of travel.
- 11:28Speaker 6: Two separate law enforcement sources have told reporters that detectives
- 11:31Speaker 6: do not believe this was a one person job. According
- 11:34Speaker 6: to those sources, investigators think a second individual was involved
- 11:38Speaker 6: in the effort to dispose of Celeste's body during the
- 11:41Speaker 6: months before she was found inside that Tesla. So now
- 11:44Speaker 6: the focus isn't just on what happened. It's on who
- 11:47Speaker 6: else might have played a role in this thing. Who
- 11:50Speaker 6: is this other person? A friend? Someone in a circle maybe?
- 11:53Speaker 6: Or someone the public doesn't even know exists? When detectives
- 11:57Speaker 6: believe a second person was involved, that tells you this
- 12:00Speaker 6: wasn't one terrible moment or one impulsive decision. It suggests planning.
- 12:04Speaker 6: It suggests coordination. It suggests someone else out there is
- 12:07Speaker 6: holding secrets and staying quiet, at least for now.
- 12:11Speaker 1: That is Blackie Speaks on YouTube, and I really was captivated,
- 12:15Speaker 1: interested in the last thing he said. Randolph Rice joining me,
- 12:20Speaker 1: veteran trial lawyer, defense attorney joining us out of Baltimore.
- 12:26Speaker 1: At Rice Law, Randolph Rice, this suspect can either choose
- 12:32Speaker 1: to be a state's witness or a co-defendant. Think about
- 12:37Speaker 1: what Blackie Speaks on YouTube just said. When detectives believe
- 12:40Speaker 1: a second person is involved, that tells you it wasn't
- 12:43Speaker 1: just one terrible moment or one impulsive decision. It suggests
- 12:47Speaker 1: planning and coordination. Someone out there is holding secrets and
- 12:52Speaker 1: staying quiet.
- 12:53Speaker 3: Thoughts?
- 12:55Speaker 8: Nancy, I hate to say I told you so, but
- 12:57Speaker 8: I told you so. A couple weeks ago, I told
- 13:00Speaker 8: you there's this SOD, some other dude. And you said, oh, no,
- 13:04Speaker 8: there couldn't be some other dude.
- 13:05Speaker 1: But guess what?
- 13:06Speaker 8: There is some other dude. Mm-mm.
- 13:08Speaker 3: There is.
- 13:08Speaker 1: No, no. You said some other dude. It's S.O.D.D. Some
- 13:14Speaker 1: other dude did it. I never said there wasn't a co-defendant,
- 13:19Speaker 1: but I always said some other dude did not do this.
- 13:23Speaker 1: So you're just spinning. But I want to hear it.
- 13:25Speaker 1: Go ahead. Give me your theory how this could possibly
- 13:28Speaker 1: be good for David Anthony Burke.
- 13:30Speaker 8: This is fantastic for David Anthony Burke because if he
- 13:32Speaker 8: has to go to trial, he's going to be pointing
- 13:34Speaker 8: the finger at this other person. This is the other
- 13:37Speaker 8: person that was holding the sword or whatever the device
- 13:40Speaker 8: was that stabbed Ms.
- 13:41Speaker 1: Rivas.
- 13:41Speaker 8: This is the other person that put her in the frunk.
- 13:43Speaker 8: This is the other person that drove her away.
- 13:46Speaker 4: Not me.
- 13:47Speaker 8: This is the other person that had something to lose.
- 13:49Speaker 8: Not me. That's the person who killed her. Not me.
- 13:53Speaker 8: This is the sound of the reasonable doubt train coming
- 13:56Speaker 8: down the tracks, and it is coming down fast.
- 13:58Speaker 1: Put him up. There he is in all of his
- 14:02Speaker 1: splendor and glory. So Randolph Rice, when you said some
- 14:07Speaker 1: other dude did it, are you now stating that some
- 14:11Speaker 1: other dude did it all, that it wasn't D4VD? Because
- 14:15Speaker 1: I've never, ever thought he did not have a henchperson
- 14:19Speaker 1: hanging around. He can't do anything on his own. He
- 14:22Speaker 1: always has to have all of his parasite groupies hanging
- 14:25Speaker 1: around with him. Let's see some of that video. Everywhere
- 14:28Speaker 1: he goes, even to the bathroom, There's all these people there.
- 14:33Speaker 1: He doesn't want to be alone. Remember, he just moved
- 14:36Speaker 1: out of his mommy's house. He's still a teen when
- 14:39Speaker 1: he moves to L.A. and launches his life. Oh, there
- 14:44Speaker 1: you go. I love boobs is getting oil rubbed into
- 14:48Speaker 1: his body. So Randolph Rice, I never thought he was
- 14:52Speaker 1: alone when he murdered Celeste, according to reports. But you're
- 14:56Speaker 1: now saying, He did not murder Celeste. You're saying somebody
- 15:00Speaker 1: else did it totally. Is that going to be the defense, Bryce?
- 15:05Speaker 8: Well, the defense is going to be reasonable doubt. There's
- 15:07Speaker 8: somebody else involved. And I got to tell you, Nancy,
- 15:10Speaker 8: I think there's more than one co-conspirator or other individual,
- 15:13Speaker 8: because I just think that there had to be more
- 15:15Speaker 8: people in this circle of D4VD that were looking out
- 15:20Speaker 8: for him, his interest. And at the end of the day, Nancy,
- 15:23Speaker 8: More so, they're looking out for their interest, protecting what
- 15:26Speaker 8: they can get off of him. And so, yes, there
- 15:29Speaker 8: is reasonable doubt, reasonable doubt, and reasonable doubt is all
- 15:34Speaker 8: his defense team needs to get either a hung jury
- 15:37Speaker 8: or not guilty.
- 15:38Speaker 1: Let me just refresh your recollection, as we say in court.
- 15:43Speaker 1: Robert Freed, isn't it true that if the co-defendant's phone
- 15:48Speaker 1: is overlaying a phone, And that phone on the bottom
- 15:56Speaker 1: of this gesticulation is D4VD. I don't know how Randolph
- 16:01Speaker 1: Rice is going to get away from the fact that D4VD,
- 16:03Speaker 1: David Anthony Burke's phone, is right there at the time
- 16:07Speaker 1: of the murder and the disarticulation, that it's his phone
- 16:12Speaker 1: that is going out to the remote Santa Barbara area.
- 16:14Speaker 1: So what if he's got a henchperson as a wingman?
- 16:18Speaker 1: That doesn't relieve him of his liability, of his culpability,
- 16:23Speaker 1: If it's his phone traveling too.
- 16:25Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. That's right.
- 16:29Speaker 7: If you can take that information and like you said,
- 16:31Speaker 7: overlay it and they're going the same path, the same direction,
- 16:36Speaker 7: that's very good evidence that there's some relationship there, association.
- 16:42Speaker 1: To Steve Fisher joining us, Missing Persons Private Investigator, Search
- 16:46Speaker 1: Rescue Specialist, Owner of Search Investigations. He is the one
- 16:51Speaker 1: that basically handed over video evidence to LAPD on a
- 16:57Speaker 1: silver platter. Let's see that video that Fisher got showing,
- 17:02Speaker 1: there you go, there is Burke's Tesla being moved throughout
- 17:09Speaker 1: a period of weeks because in that fancy neighborhood, they
- 17:13Speaker 1: don't want a filthy, disgusting, stinky car parked in front
- 17:17Speaker 1: of their house. So if it's there for over a
- 17:19Speaker 1: couple of days, it has to be moved or it's
- 17:21Speaker 1: going to get towed. And ultimately, it did get towed. So,
- 17:25Speaker 1: Steve Fisher, how often, and I know, by the way,
- 17:30Speaker 1: you've seen the face of the person driving the car,
- 17:34Speaker 1: and I think I know who it is. Are you
- 17:36Speaker 1: ready to tell me?
- 17:38Speaker 3: No. Not yet. Okay.
- 17:41Speaker 1: We'll see. We'll see. But, Fisher... I want to talk
- 17:46Speaker 1: to you about the Tesla itself and what you observed
- 17:50Speaker 1: when you saw all this video. Because, come on, if
- 17:53Speaker 1: it's somebody else's phone that they have now identified and
- 17:57Speaker 1: are going to name as a suspect, we believe, you're
- 18:00Speaker 1: going to see their phone going.
- 18:02Speaker 4: Parallel park.
- 18:04Speaker 1: You want to tell me you couldn't smell that body
- 18:07Speaker 1: decomposing during all of that? Tell me what you saw
- 18:10Speaker 1: on the video and how that's going to relate to
- 18:13Speaker 1: the digital forensics we are now learning about that it
- 18:16Speaker 1: does exist and it points to a co-defendant.
- 18:22Speaker 9: Yeah, so, you know, the Tesla was being moved in
- 18:26Speaker 9: that particular shop. That's right before, that's the day that
- 18:28Speaker 9: they were leaving to start their tour. So they were
- 18:31Speaker 9: leaving for months. So the Tesla was being moved away
- 18:34Speaker 9: from the house. However, I'm speaking with, you know, neighbors.
- 18:38Speaker 9: They said that beginning in about May, the Tesla would
- 18:42Speaker 9: be left at different spots around the neighborhood. And as
- 18:45Speaker 9: I said before, the neighbors across the street, actually, they
- 18:51Speaker 9: would get this horrible stench anytime it'd be over like
- 18:53Speaker 9: 75 degrees. They had buried a dog that had died,
- 18:56Speaker 9: and they were unearthing that dog, thinking that's what it
- 18:58Speaker 9: was coming from.
- 18:59Speaker 3: But really, it was the Tesla parked on the street.
- 19:01Speaker 3: But yeah, you're going to.
- 19:02Speaker 9: See, listen, He had people over at the house all
- 19:06Speaker 9: the time. He was not the person who rented the
- 19:09Speaker 9: house either, let's keep in mind. So there was other
- 19:11Speaker 9: people living there. So you're going to see these phones
- 19:14Speaker 9: moving in tandem with each other, including burners. Because if
- 19:17Speaker 9: he's driving out to State Road 154 in Santa Barbara,
- 19:21Speaker 9: and all of a sudden a new device that's not
- 19:24Speaker 9: known to the geofence turns on and is pinging and
- 19:27Speaker 9: tracking with his, they're going to know that that's a
- 19:30Speaker 9: burner attached to him. And, you know, I went out
- 19:33Speaker 9: to State Road 154 again three days ago. And, you know,
- 19:37Speaker 9: I think that if a big effort was put in
- 19:40Speaker 9: that the evidence that he left out there could be
- 19:42Speaker 9: found because there's not that many areas that he can
- 19:44Speaker 9: really go far off road.
- 19:47Speaker 3: It's a single lane highway in each direction and it
- 19:49Speaker 3: has license plates.
- 19:50Speaker 4: Readers.
- 19:50Speaker 3: So he's really screwed.
- 19:51Speaker 1: So Steve Fisher, based on what you obtained, what you
- 19:55Speaker 1: discovered and you handed over to the LAPD, somebody, potentially
- 20:01Speaker 1: the suspect that we believe LAPD is going to name,
- 20:05Speaker 1: is moving the car, and if we have their phone number,
- 20:08Speaker 1: which LAPD does have, we're going to see them moving
- 20:12Speaker 1: the car, parking the car. I mean, how many times
- 20:16Speaker 1: at the most did they move the car and at
- 20:18Speaker 1: the least?
- 20:19Speaker 9: Look how filthy the car is. You can tell it's
- 20:21Speaker 9: not being driven as a regular driver, but it's being
- 20:24Speaker 9: moved around. And, you know, listen, everybody I've talked to,
- 20:28Speaker 9: everything we see online on Twitch and everything, he was
- 20:31Speaker 9: rarely alone. And I think it's really, really important to
- 20:34Speaker 9: remember that when this murder happened, 24 hours later, he
- 20:39Speaker 9: was leaving for New York and he did leave for
- 20:41Speaker 9: New York to go to a pop-up event for his
- 20:46Speaker 9: album release. He had a party the next night, his
- 20:49Speaker 9: album release party, that this was the record company.
- 20:52Speaker 3: This was it.
- 20:52Speaker 9: This was the payoff. This is where the money was
- 20:54Speaker 9: coming in. Everybody was in town. The managers were in town.
- 20:58Speaker 9: His family was in town. His friends were in town.
- 21:00Speaker 9: He was not, you know, it's just like the Academy Awards.
- 21:03Speaker 9: Those people that are up for Academy Awards, they're never
- 21:06Speaker 9: alone for the week or two before the event. And
- 21:08Speaker 9: here we are 24 hours before the party for his
- 21:11Speaker 9: album release.
- 21:12Speaker 3: He was not alone. There's just no way.
- 21:18Speaker 5: They did find information that showed that somebody knew about
- 21:25Speaker 5: what had happened at that connection with the parking of
- 21:29Speaker 5: the car. when David was out of the jurisdiction. They
- 21:33Speaker 5: believe they know who it was. The other person is
- 21:37Speaker 5: not somebody after the car was found. That would appear,
- 21:42Speaker 5: or somebody close in time, is somebody who was geographically
- 21:47Speaker 5: overlaid with his location, and they are surmising from that
- 21:52Speaker 5: circumstantial evidence that the two of them had a connection
- 21:57Speaker 5: to either the trip or something that potentially could have
- 22:03Speaker 5: been untoward.
- 22:04Speaker 1: That's our friend Harvey Levin on Two Angry Men with
- 22:08Speaker 1: renowned defense attorney Mark Garagos. Joe Scott Morgan joining me,
- 22:13Speaker 1: professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, and he is the
- 22:16Speaker 1: star of a YouTube hit, Body Bags with Joe Scott Morgan.
- 22:21Speaker 1: He is a death investigator with over 10,000 death scenes
- 22:25Speaker 1: under his belt that he personally investigated. Joe Scott, thank
- 22:29Speaker 1: you for being with us. Let's just get real.
- 22:32Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 22:33Speaker 1: By the time that Tesla was moved, her body had
- 22:38Speaker 1: to have a serious stench. No way could you get
- 22:43Speaker 1: in that vehicle and not know something horrible had happened.
- 22:48Speaker 1: And as you drive away and move it, the stench
- 22:51Speaker 1: goes with you. So it's not as if there is
- 22:55Speaker 1: a dead animal in the road or some other source
- 23:00Speaker 1: of the stench. It's in the car. Now, who would
- 23:05Speaker 1: you ask to go move your car that had a
- 23:09Speaker 1: dead body in it? Somebody you trust, somebody you really trust.
- 23:14Speaker 1: Is there any way somebody could have gotten in that
- 23:17Speaker 1: car and not smell the decomp. And what was the
- 23:21Speaker 1: condition of her body when it was found, Joe Scott?
- 23:24Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, so listen to me here. The reality is this.
- 23:29Speaker 4: As you saw that clip of the car driving past,
- 23:31Speaker 4: her body was in such an advanced state of decomposition
- 23:34Speaker 4: that if you were walking your dog down the road
- 23:38Speaker 4: at that moment in time, you would have gotten a
- 23:40Speaker 4: whiff of this. That's how pervasive the smell is. And also,
- 23:44Speaker 4: anybody that gets into the cab of this vehicle What
- 23:47Speaker 4: we would traditionally call in a standard car, where you
- 23:51Speaker 4: have the engine up front, the firewall that separates the
- 23:57Speaker 4: engine compartment, which doesn't exist here, from the interior, firewall
- 24:02Speaker 4: is not going to prevent that smell from getting into
- 24:05Speaker 4: the cabin of the car as well. So yeah, it
- 24:08Speaker 4: would have been quite pervasive. Now, what condition was she in? Well,
- 24:12Speaker 4: we've heard her description from from the authorities as being
- 24:17Speaker 4: almost liquefied, soup-like. It's not surprising. Her remains, these dismembered remains,
- 24:25Speaker 4: I want to remind everybody, had essentially begun to liquefy.
- 24:30Speaker 4: And they're in a couple of different conveyances, you will.
- 24:32Speaker 4: The most prominent for me is the body bag, you know,
- 24:37Speaker 4: that was apparently acquired by this individual or these individuals.
- 24:43Speaker 4: And so they've got her contained. And Nancy, as you
- 24:45Speaker 4: can imagine, been around a lot of body bags. The
- 24:49Speaker 4: smell is not going to be contained within the body
- 24:51Speaker 4: bag either. It will seep out. You will smell it.
- 24:55Speaker 4: But you just have to understand that as long as
- 24:58Speaker 4: that body had been in there and also kind of
- 25:01Speaker 4: cooking along all this time out there on the street,
- 25:06Speaker 4: Every single second that body is beginning to liquefy, the
- 25:10Speaker 4: cells are literally, you use the term goo, turning into that.
- 25:15Speaker 4: The cell walls are beginning to degrade and break down.
- 25:18Speaker 4: So this is leaching out all over the area within
- 25:22Speaker 4: the inside of this car. As a matter of fact,
- 25:24Speaker 4: I don't know that you could take this car now,
- 25:27Speaker 4: wherever it is, and clean it to the standard where
- 25:30Speaker 4: someone would actually want to utilize this car any longer.
- 25:33Speaker 4: It would It's within the car. You can't escape this.
- 25:38Speaker 1: Well, to you, Dave Mack, Crime Stories investigative reporter, some
- 25:44Speaker 1: time between the time Celeste's body, 14-year-old Celeste, who's lured
- 25:51Speaker 1: to D4VD' s mansion. Let's see a shot of that mansion.
- 25:54Speaker 1: She's lured there. She's ordered up like she's a pepperoni pizza.
- 26:01Speaker 1: D4VD pays for the Uber. She gets there, that photo
- 26:06Speaker 1: from Harvey 11 over at TMZ, and she dies that night.
- 26:12Speaker 1: At some point, Dave Mack, from the time that her
- 26:17Speaker 1: disarticulated body is put into the trunk and the time
- 26:23Speaker 1: the vehicle is found, I wonder if Steve Fisher might
- 26:27Speaker 1: know the answer to this, but at some point between
- 26:30Speaker 1: those two junctures, somebody throws what? 10 of those little
- 26:34Speaker 1: Christmas tree air fresheners in there?
- 26:36Speaker 10: Yeah, somebody was obviously noticing the odor inside this vehicle
- 26:43Speaker 10: and probably outside and decided that it was in their
- 26:47Speaker 10: best interest to try to cover up the horrible odor
- 26:50Speaker 10: and use air fresheners. And as you mentioned, 10 or
- 26:54Speaker 10: more air fresheners put inside the Tesla. Remember, we are
- 26:58Speaker 10: talking about between April 23rd, when she arrives at D4VD' s house,
- 27:03Speaker 10: through September the 3rd, when it's ticketed, September the 5th,
- 27:07Speaker 10: when it's towed, and September the 8th, when it's opened.
- 27:10Speaker 10: So 10 air fresheners did not cover up the odor.
- 27:14Speaker 1: Randolph Rice joining me. Randolph, the 11 plus air fresheners. Typically,
- 27:23Speaker 1: you see an air freshener hanging on somebody's rearview mirror.
- 27:27Speaker 1: But in this case, it was so intentional. I mean,
- 27:33Speaker 1: the air fresheners were not only hanging from the rearview mirror,
- 27:37Speaker 1: they were stuffed around the console. Many were sprinkled in
- 27:43Speaker 1: the front. More were tucked into the rear seats and
- 27:48Speaker 1: the door pockets. The smell was so bad that they
- 27:54Speaker 1: were depositing, planting the air fresheners like Easter eggs. In
- 28:00Speaker 1: other words, put up rice. Someone that was moving that vehicle.
- 28:06Speaker 1: I'm getting to the existence of a co-defendant. And the
- 28:12Speaker 1: murder and or the disarticulation of a little girl's body.
- 28:18Speaker 1: And they so callously stuffed air fresheners like Easter eggs
- 28:24Speaker 1: inside that murder frunk. That was intentional by the person
- 28:31Speaker 1: that smelled the decomp. That person, I submit to you,
- 28:35Speaker 1: is a co-defendant. Who else would do that?
- 28:41Speaker 8: Or Is he the actual, he or she, the defendant?
- 28:46Speaker 8: And Mr. Burke just happens to be in the sidelines
- 28:49Speaker 8: somewhere not knowing about what's actually going on because he
- 28:52Speaker 8: has all these hanger-ons. Is this the person who stabbed her?
- 28:58Speaker 8: Is this the person who hung those air fresheners in
- 29:01Speaker 8: the car, this co-defendant or this defendant who is going
- 29:05Speaker 8: to drag Mr. Burke down because he just happens to
- 29:08Speaker 8: be associated with him? I think there's a lot of
- 29:11Speaker 8: unanswered questions. And right now, if I'm Mr. Burke's defense team,
- 29:15Speaker 8: I like those unanswered questions because that helps my client
- 29:18Speaker 8: show somebody else did this.
- 29:23Speaker 1: To Rachel Tolles joining us, clinical forensic psychologist, author of
- 29:28Speaker 1: a brand new book coming out, Inventing the Psychopath and more.
- 29:36Speaker 3: Dr.
- 29:36Speaker 1: Rachel, who, what ghoul would go along with this? Sure,
- 29:43Speaker 1: I'll move your girlfriend's dead body around in the trunk,
- 29:46Speaker 1: around in the frunk of your Tesla. Happy to, and
- 29:49Speaker 1: not just once, but multiple times, smelling a decomposing body, Dr. Rachel,
- 29:55Speaker 1: and gingerly stuffing air fresheners. throughout the car, including on
- 30:01Speaker 1: top of the body and the trunk.
- 30:04Speaker 11: Who?
- 30:04Speaker 1: Who does that?
- 30:06Speaker 11: Yeah, Nancy, I mean, it's a really interesting psychological question.
- 30:10Speaker 11: Who would be willing to be a part of something
- 30:13Speaker 11: like this? So when I look at it, I would
- 30:16Speaker 11: examine probably someone who either is intensely loyal, so possibly
- 30:21Speaker 11: not saying a family member, but somebody who would basically
- 30:24Speaker 11: do anything for this person. Maybe somebody who's financially dependent
- 30:28Speaker 11: on him because now he's got a lot of money.
- 30:31Speaker 11: Somebody maybe whose entire identity is wrapped up in being
- 30:34Speaker 11: close to this famous person. Celebrity creates a very unusual
- 30:39Speaker 11: power dynamic. People can feel important simply because they're part
- 30:43Speaker 11: of someone's inner circle. And sometimes loyalty becomes so extreme
- 30:47Speaker 11: that people begin to rationalize behavior that they would ordinarily
- 30:51Speaker 11: find horrifying. So there's actually a famous quote. series of
- 30:56Speaker 11: experiments conducted by the psychologist Stanley Milgram that demonstrates just
- 31:01Speaker 11: how susceptible ordinary people can be to perceived authority. And
- 31:04Speaker 11: that would include somebody famous. Participants in the study believed
- 31:08Speaker 11: that they were administering increasingly dangerous electric shocks to other
- 31:14Speaker 11: people because an authority figure said that they needed to continue.
- 31:18Speaker 11: And it was shown that 65% went all the way
- 31:21Speaker 11: to the maximum shock level, which they believed could cause
- 31:25Speaker 11: death And so these are not just, you know, people
- 31:29Speaker 11: who someone might call a psychopath. These are just ordinary
- 31:31Speaker 11: people that were selected because we wanted to see, okay,
- 31:35Speaker 11: what would ordinary people do if a perceived authority person said,
- 31:39Speaker 11: do this thing? And so I think the most important, obviously,
- 31:43Speaker 11: question that a lot of you have been circling today
- 31:44Speaker 11: is when this person became involved. Because obviously helping somebody
- 31:49Speaker 11: plan a murder is very different psychologically from being called
- 31:53Speaker 11: afterwards and agreeing to help conceal it.
- 31:57Speaker 1: What about it, Joe Scott Morgan?
- 31:58Speaker 4: Hey, I got to tell you something, Nancy, dovetailing with
- 32:01Speaker 4: what Doc just said. Here's the really terrifying part of this.
- 32:06Speaker 4: If folks will take the right hand and find the
- 32:09Speaker 4: base of the ribs on the right side, that's approximating
- 32:12Speaker 4: where your liver is. She has got a fatal stab wound,
- 32:16Speaker 4: according to the ME, to this particular area, more toward
- 32:20Speaker 4: the midline. Nancy, this was not a quick death. This
- 32:25Speaker 4: was something where she languished from. Liver insults like this
- 32:30Speaker 4: do not take one out very, very quickly. Now, she's
- 32:33Speaker 4: got another injury on her left side. But it just,
- 32:37Speaker 4: it scrapes the rib. Here's the other thing. Whoever was
- 32:41Speaker 4: with this individual, okay, would have been there potentially present
- 32:46Speaker 4: and watching the life literally leak out of her or
- 32:51Speaker 4: internally because she's dying of internal bleeding at this point
- 32:54Speaker 4: in time. One other thing as well, having spent a
- 32:58Speaker 4: long time in the morgue and being around bodies, When
- 33:02Speaker 4: it comes to civilians who enter into my world where
- 33:08Speaker 4: we're using surgical instruments to render down bodies and disarticulate
- 33:12Speaker 4: bits of bodies, it's something that most people cannot bear
- 33:16Speaker 4: to be around. They want to exit and get out
- 33:18Speaker 4: of there as quickly as possible. Nancy, you've got someone
- 33:21Speaker 4: who's potentially assisting him and aiding him. So you think
- 33:26Speaker 4: about this dynamic that she was mentioning, this dynamic could
- 33:30Speaker 4: actually overcome the grotesque nature of all of this. And
- 33:34Speaker 4: as you watch that precious little angel right there, she
- 33:37Speaker 4: would have bled out. And then someone's going to stand
- 33:41Speaker 4: by or even maybe assist in the disarticulation of her body,
- 33:46Speaker 4: then facilitate getting the body into this car and then
- 33:50Speaker 4: riding around with the body there. It's beyond the pale, Nancy.
- 33:54Speaker 1: In addition to all of that, D4VD, a.k.a. David Anthony Burke,
- 34:00Speaker 1: has just been in court in the last hours with
- 34:04Speaker 1: an all-new legal team that, by the way, you and
- 34:10Speaker 1: I are paying for. In the last 12 months, he
- 34:13Speaker 1: had millions and millions of dollars, and now he says, oop,
- 34:17Speaker 1: I'm broke. Where did it go? How did he look
- 34:22Speaker 1: in court?
- 34:23Speaker 12: David came in, and he looked pretty sad, pretty, like, hopeless,
- 34:28Speaker 12: completely different to how he looked at the preliminary hearing.
- 34:30Speaker 12: And even last time at the status conference hearing, he
- 34:33Speaker 12: looked like his hair was a little bit grayer, kind
- 34:35Speaker 12: of like almost dirty, which again, when he was on
- 34:39Speaker 12: trial at the preliminary hearing, he looked happy as could be.
- 34:42Speaker 12: He was smiling, saying hi to the judge. You would
- 34:45Speaker 12: think that he was not on trial for murder. Today,
- 34:48Speaker 12: he looked a little bit more like someone who was
- 34:50Speaker 12: on trial for murder.
- 34:50Speaker 3: He looked sad, depressed.
- 34:52Speaker 1: That's Sloane Hooks on TikTok. Joining me now, a special guest,
- 34:57Speaker 1: Marissa Reyes. She is a star of The Light True Crime. Marissa,
- 35:04Speaker 1: thank you for being with us. He looked sad.
- 35:08Speaker 8: Boo.
- 35:09Speaker 1: Who?
- 35:09Speaker 3: Who?
- 35:10Speaker 1: He should be sad. What happened in court, and why
- 35:14Speaker 1: am I paying his legal bill?
- 35:16Speaker 2: Yeah, the reports of David in court were just, he
- 35:18Speaker 2: was looking sad. messy, exhausted, didn't have his glasses on, tired,
- 35:24Speaker 2: which I don't feel bad at all for him. But
- 35:26Speaker 2: this happened to be the quickest hearing that we have
- 35:28Speaker 2: had in any of the hearings. It lasted maybe approximately
- 35:33Speaker 2: three minutes, and he had his public defense team. They
- 35:36Speaker 2: basically just pushed the date out to January 11, 2027.
- 35:40Speaker 2: The defense also asked the prosecution for more evidence, and
- 35:44Speaker 2: they provided them with hard drives, which again, this is
- 35:46Speaker 2: a point that I consistently make in this case, 40
- 35:50Speaker 2: terabytes of evidence, 40 terabytes. Now, when he originally would
- 35:54Speaker 2: come in with a private defense team, he seemed a
- 35:56Speaker 2: little more upbeat. He was rolling with the big dogs
- 36:00Speaker 2: in court. But when you're walking in with public defense,
- 36:04Speaker 2: they don't have the same type of resources to be
- 36:07Speaker 2: going through 40 terabytes of evidence the way his prior
- 36:11Speaker 2: defense team did. And I anticipate that's going to be
- 36:13Speaker 2: a big reason that this case is probably going to
- 36:15Speaker 2: be pushed out further as we go along.
- 36:18Speaker 1: So- In court, we are paying for a fleet of
- 36:23Speaker 1: lawyers for him. That costs a lot of money. And
- 36:28Speaker 1: this is going to be a long road to hoe.
- 36:32Speaker 1: Where is all of his money? Has it been transferred
- 36:35Speaker 1: to other people's names? I know he hasn't spent it
- 36:38Speaker 1: all yet. So where is it? Is the court trying
- 36:40Speaker 1: to find out? Have they brought in a forensic accountant?
- 36:45Speaker 2: That's a really big question. A lot of those journalists
- 36:48Speaker 2: are also there. Big question is what happened to all
- 36:50Speaker 2: this money? We heard in court that he was going
- 36:53Speaker 2: to be making approximately 13 million up to 19 million
- 36:58Speaker 2: with the release of his new album and everything. Now,
- 37:00Speaker 2: did he get that? We don't believe so because he
- 37:03Speaker 2: didn't fulfill contracts. However, however, he was working all this
- 37:07Speaker 2: time beforehand. We know that his parents have various properties.
- 37:10Speaker 2: He's got various entertainment companies, LLCs listed under his name.
- 37:15Speaker 2: But the public defender verified that he qualifies for the defense.
- 37:20Speaker 2: It still just doesn't make sense to any of us.
- 37:22Speaker 1: Is it true Marissa Reyes is joining us from the
- 37:25Speaker 1: light true crime? Marissa, is it true that Celeste's family
- 37:31Speaker 1: is suing the so-called enablers, all of his gang, the leeches,
- 37:38Speaker 1: the parasites, the ticks that hung around him, soaking up
- 37:43Speaker 1: his celebrity life? suing them under the theory that they
- 37:48Speaker 1: enabled child abuse or worse. Absolutely.
- 37:53Speaker 2: They have a wrongful death suit that's going to be
- 37:56Speaker 2: a massive lawsuit. And the big thing about this lawsuit
- 37:59Speaker 2: is they want to hold others accountable besides David, those
- 38:02Speaker 2: that were surrounding him, including his mother, who was aware
- 38:06Speaker 2: of the trips that they made, who had Celeste at
- 38:09Speaker 2: her home in Texas. They have the various LLCs. They
- 38:13Speaker 2: have his bodyguard, Sheldon, on there. And one of the
- 38:17Speaker 2: things with this lawsuit is because it is a civil lawsuit,
- 38:20Speaker 2: it would allow us to have more information in any
- 38:23Speaker 2: of the filings or motions that come through, which is
- 38:26Speaker 2: an interesting aspect to that. We're still looking for so
- 38:28Speaker 2: much more information in this case. We're still looking for
- 38:31Speaker 2: that grand jury transcript to be unsealed, the investigative grand
- 38:34Speaker 2: jury that was held, that would hold so much more details,
- 38:38Speaker 2: as well as to the fact that you were discussing before, who's...
- 38:42Speaker 2: possibly involved in this crime, because that grand jury transcript
- 38:47Speaker 2: would have some information from those that were testifying. We
- 38:50Speaker 2: only really heard experts and detectives testify in court at
- 38:53Speaker 2: the preliminary hearing. What I really want to hear from
- 38:56Speaker 2: is those that were around him every day.
- 38:58Speaker 1: Marissa Reyes, you are so right. And one thing I'm
- 39:01Speaker 1: latching onto that you said is, what can we learn
- 39:06Speaker 1: from the civil lawsuits Celeste Rivas' family is filing against
- 39:11Speaker 1: against the so-called enablers, because a lot of people think
- 39:16Speaker 1: that civil and criminal do not overlap. But I really
- 39:19Speaker 1: learned when I was developing an expertise in felony arson investigations,
- 39:25Speaker 1: I really learned how valuable civil investigations can be because
- 39:31Speaker 1: when I got connected to the insurance fire investigator, I
- 39:38Speaker 1: learned so much. They had troves of information that I
- 39:41Speaker 1: didn't have access to, and it really helped me prove
- 39:45Speaker 1: various arson cases that were extremely difficult to prove. So
- 39:52Speaker 1: what you're saying is absolutely correct, but I want to
- 39:54Speaker 1: circle back to something you said at the get-go. You
- 39:57Speaker 1: said that he looked tired, that his, okay, I've got
- 40:01Speaker 1: that he looked, quote, like crap, that he had puffy eyes,
- 40:07Speaker 1: long hair, and looked stressed. So, but is that true?
- 40:14Speaker 2: He just came in messy. And looking down as well,
- 40:17Speaker 2: like I said, when he would come in with his
- 40:18Speaker 2: private defense team, he would come in seemingly, you know,
- 40:22Speaker 2: a little jovial. We were surprised how often he would smile.
- 40:26Speaker 2: They would rub his back. He's not getting that with
- 40:29Speaker 2: his public defense team. You know, I think he's coming
- 40:32Speaker 2: in realizing he does not have the same power standing
- 40:35Speaker 2: behind him trying to defend him. This is a much
- 40:38Speaker 2: different situation now in the courtroom for him when he
- 40:40Speaker 2: walks in.
- 40:41Speaker 1: Rubbing his back, Randolph Rice. rubbing his back. Is that
- 40:49Speaker 1: what you get paid to do in court, Bryce?
- 40:53Speaker 8: No, you don't get paid to rub backs, but I
- 40:54Speaker 8: will tell you when you have a private defense team,
- 40:56Speaker 8: you certainly get a lot more attention than you do
- 40:58Speaker 8: from a public defender's office. And I'm not going to
- 41:00Speaker 8: disparage public defenders because I work with them. I think
- 41:03Speaker 8: they're incredible attorneys. They are just overloaded and they don't
- 41:07Speaker 8: have the time to go the extra mile to and
- 41:10Speaker 8: do things like glam ups or do things like making
- 41:13Speaker 8: sure your client is in good spirits before you come
- 41:15Speaker 8: out or going to the jail and meeting with your
- 41:18Speaker 8: client maybe hours before the hearing to get them in
- 41:21Speaker 8: the right mindset. So that's maybe why we're seeing him
- 41:25Speaker 8: for this three minute hearing, not all happy, glowy, you know,
- 41:29Speaker 8: sunshines and rainbows. So that is certainly explainable, but public
- 41:33Speaker 8: defenders are good lawyers. They go through the cases just
- 41:35Speaker 8: like a private attorney, but you're not going to get
- 41:37Speaker 8: that attention like you do with a private attorney.
- 41:39Speaker 1: And what the public defender has that every other private
- 41:42Speaker 1: lawyer doesn't have is unlimited resources. What do I mean
- 41:48Speaker 1: by that? You and me, the taxpayer, we're paying for
- 41:51Speaker 1: his trove of defense attorneys, but yet he's still sad
- 41:55Speaker 1: sack in court. Gee, I wonder why. If you know
- 41:59Speaker 1: or think you know anything regarding the murder of Celeste Rivas,
- 42:04Speaker 1: dial 213-486-6890. We remember American hero, Officer Andrew Lansing, Ohio
- 42:13Speaker 1: Department Correction, killed and assaulted in the line of duty
- 42:18Speaker 1: after 24 years, leaving behind a grieving wife, Chun, and children,
- 42:24Speaker 1: Kimberly May and Edward. American hero, Officer Andrew Lansing. Thank
- 42:31Speaker 1: you to our guests, but especially to you for being
- 42:33Speaker 1: with us tonight. Nancy Grace signing off for tonight, but
- 42:36Speaker 1: I'll see you tomorrow night. And until then, good night, friends.
- 42:41Speaker 1: Thank you.