D4vd Preliminary Hearing: Day One

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1:29Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:was found decomposing in the front trunk of a Tesla linked to him. Now, David has entered a not guilty plea on all charges. And his attorneys have previously told us that the actual evidence in this case will show that David Burke, that's his real name, did not murder Celeste Revis Hernandez and he was not the cause of her death. They say they will vigorously defend David's innocence. Joining me now is our reporter, Sam Mulek, who's been inside that courtroom all day. Hi, Sam. Hi, Inushka. So the big question was, was David going to be there today? And I believe if you said that he was. Yeah, David came out at the beginning of today's hearing and he stayed throughout the entirety of it.

2:04And we saw how he reacted throughout the day's hearings. We saw him conferring with his defense attorneys. The first thing that happened was the judge denied the defense's unshackling motions. So he was allowed to have his hands free throughout the day, but he was shackled to his chair throughout the day of the court's proceedings.

2:27Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:And who else was in court? Well, we saw Celeste's family members and we saw Celeste's mother and Celeste's father. They were sat in the front row of the courtroom. And other than that, it was the attorneys, witnesses and members of the press and public. So we've been building up to this for a while and it kept getting pushed back, this preliminary hearing. Can you just explain to us or remind our listeners what a preliminary hearing is for? Yeah, so this preliminary hearing is just for the prosecution to prove that there is probable cause that the defendant committed the crime in order for it to go to trial.

3:07So they do not have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime. It's a lower evidentiary standard. It is just to see if there is enough evidence for this to go to trial.

3:21Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:Yeah. And what we are hearing is that there's going to be quite a lot of evidence put on there saying three to six days worth of a preliminary hearing. It's almost like a mini trial in and of itself. But the burden of proof is on the prosecution. So they're the people calling witnesses to the stand. Who did they call up first? The first person who was called up was Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Deputy Juan Gonzalez, who's stationed at the West Hollywood Station. He was the person who responded to a wellness check at David's residence on February 17th, 2024, after Celeste had gone missing.

3:57And so we're sitting in the courtroom and we watched this 10 and a half minute video of Deputy Gonzalez conducting this wellness check with another sheriff's deputy. and we saw them interact with David for about 10 minutes and body cam footage of him directly going into David's residence and questioning him if he knows where Celeste's whereabouts, if he had a relationship with Celeste, if he, you know, anything he might know about her. We have David in the front of the courtroom and Celeste's family right behind as we're watching this wellness check. And so initially David said in the body cam footage that he had only met Celeste once in person previously.

4:42They initially met through the online server Discord, and they're questioning David as to if he knows what she looks like. And he presents a yearbook photo of Celeste wearing a Batman zip-up sweatshirt. He also presents to the sheriff's deputy the missing person flyer of Celeste. And as they're questioning, and during this interaction, David is eating food. He's very casual. He's very kind of cavalier with how he's speaking with the deputies. And at one point, Deputy Gonzalez says to David, we're not investigating you. And David immediately responded, got you, like this kind of long got you in response.

5:27And then without being prompted, David says to the deputy, and again, this is in 2024, he says, about Celeste. She said she was 18. Everybody's saying she's 13. But she said to me she was 18. And then the deputy said to David, does she look 13? And David said no.

5:49Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:This is important because one of the things that he's charged with is the continuous sexual abuse of a minor under 14 years old. Although sexual abuse of a child is abhorrent at any age, it is treated more harshly when the child in Los Angeles is under 14 because they're seen as more vulnerable. The defense don't have to say anything in a preliminary hearing, but I believe they did do a cross-examination here. Yes, they cross-examined Deputy Gonzalez right after his testimony. And most of just their cross-examination was highlighting that David did indeed cooperate with the detectives. And we watched the video.

6:25It was a very cordial interaction.

6:27Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:So talk to me about the next witness that was put on by the prosecution. Yeah, so the next witness was the main person who has been investigating the case, Detective Joshua Byers of the Los Angeles Police Department, who responded to the tow yard that allegedly David's Tesla was brought to in Hollywood. And when the manager of the tow yard smelled a particularly strong stench coming from the Tesla, he contacted the police department and Detective Byers is the one who responded to the scene. So then followed Byers' testimony where we saw what he saw on that day and the prosecution displayed images of the corpse that was in the front trunk of the Tesla on that day, which were incredibly graphic.

7:24So we're seeing photos of this dismembered body, so much to the extent that the body's unrecognizable. It's kind of like this white matter with liquid all around it. And buyers testified that there were maggots and insects surrounding this body. And so at this moment, when we're going through these different images, one is of this corpse. Another is of this bag containing Celeste's legs, you know, cut down from her kneecap. Another one is her amputated left hand with her pinky finger and ring finger cut off. As we're seeing these images in court, Celeste's mother became very visibly emotional.

8:07She started sobbing into her hands. She was comforted by Celeste's father sitting next to her. And as we're seeing the prosecution go through these photos, at different points, Silverman, the prosecutor, she checks with Celeste's mother and she says, are you OK? She also makes an effort to notify the family when she's removing the photos from the stand so that they're no longer visible. This was probably the most emotionally charged moment of the day.

8:38Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:Yeah, I imagine so. I mean, that's an extremely difficult thing for anybody to have to go through. But why we're looking at these pictures is particularly relevant to one of the charges. Yes, the murder, but the unlawful dismemberment of human remains. The allegation is that David dismembered Celeste after murdering her. Now, one of the things that we heard about in the briefing documents that the prosecution released before the preliminary hearing is that there was plastic fragments found on her body. Did they go into that at all? Yes, as the criminalist from the medical examiner's office arrived and started investigating the body, there were blue plastic fragments in the corpse or on or adjacent to the corpse, along with this decaying corpse, the liquid, decaying bodily liquid around the corpse.

9:28So yes, there was plastic fragments present. And again, I have to emphasize that these images were harrowing and these images were so hard to decipher what they were, which is why the prosecution and the detective made an effort to describe what was happening in these images. But yes, ultimately the plastic fragments were present.

9:50Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:And we know what the prosecution are alleging with that. They've released it once again in their pre-court documents. They said that that plastic blue fragment matches the blue plastic of an inflatable pool. They claim that David ordered to his house in order to dismember the body. And these are all allegations that he denies. But you mentioned that how harrowing the imagery was and the emotional reaction from the family as to be expected. What was David's reaction? David watched the entire proceeding very attentively. there was no visible emotion. He was very focused. He watched all of the evidence presented, all of the photos, all of the testimony, all of the cross-examinations.

10:30Periodically, he would write a note or two on his legal pad with a pencil and show his attorneys. And also periodically, at a couple of different moments, his attorney, Blair Burke, she would lean over and they would have a very brief word with each other conversation and she could be seen patting David on the back during this time.

10:54Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:No specific reaction to those images being put up in court? Did he look at them the entire time? Did he look down? No, he looked at them. He looked at everything. Whenever he was identified by a witness, he looked at them identifying him. he faced what was happening. And any emotional reaction to those images of her body, decayed body? Not that I could see. I was behind David. I had a kind of a diagonal view of him. But yeah, he remained pretty emotionless in his facial expression throughout the day. There was really no visible reaction. I'd say at the beginning of the day, he was a bit fidgety, settling into that chair that he was shackled to.

11:35He was moving around a lot, but as the evidence became more and more serious and more and more graphic, more and more gruesome, he watched it in stillness.

11:45Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:And did they cross-examine detective Byers? Yes. So when the defense was cross-examining him, they centered in on his investigation of David's home in the Hollywood Hills, where Byers executed a search warrant to go through the home, to look through different parts of the home. And when he was in that home, he found evidence of an unopened burn box. An incineration box. Yeah. Is that what that is? Yeah. So this was something that at first the prosecution brought up that a burn box is used to burn something in a contained container, essentially. And the defense kind of zeroed in on how Byers went around about the investigation, asking him, how did you determine that this was a burn box?

12:37All you reported was that you saw an unopened box next to David's piano. How did you determine that this is a burn box? Did you test it? Byers also mentioned that there were multiple chainsaws in, I believe, the garage of David's residence. And one of the chainsaws, they tested it for blood and they did not find any blood on that chainsaw. And so that was another thing that the defense was yearning in on the prosecution. But also all of this to be said is that there were various points where the prosecution objected to the defense's questioning, saying the purpose of a preliminary hearing is not for discovery.

13:22and there were various times where the judge sustained the objection saying that we're not here to go through all of the discovery that they are here today to establish probable cause

13:36Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:and so in the first half of the day we've had a focus on some of that really harrowing what the prosecution say is evidence of this crime that david denies he denies all the allegations but in the second half of the day we have a focus on economics and his financial situation and And for people who aren't aware, this is because one of the special circumstances of the murder is murder for financial gain. And what the prosecution are alleging is that David murdered Celeste because she was about to out him for having an inappropriate relationship with her while she was underage. And that would have led to him losing money.

14:09Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:So by murdering her, a witness to a crime, which is another one of the special circumstances, he mitigated against that financial loss. Now, talk to me about what we were told about his financial situation. This was a really interesting part of the day when Benjamin Greger took the stand and Greger was the previous director of finances for Mogul Visions, which was David's talent management firm for his career. And Gregor really went into detail about David's finances and how much money he had already made up until Celeste's body was found in the trunk of this Tesla. He said that from 2023 to 2025, Gregor estimated that David made cumulatively 10 to 11 and a half million dollars in total.

15:05And so another another thing that came up later on in Gregor's testimony is that Gregor has been conferring with Colleen Burke, David's mom, up until last week, he testified over an encrypted messaging system, Signal or WhatsApp, which the prosecution made sure to emphasize. In his testimony, Gregor said that him and Colleen Burke have had conversations about transferring the title of one of David's homes from David's name to Colleen's name. And the prosecution made sure to ask, why are you talking about that? And Gregor explicitly said to avoid a civil lawsuit, to avoid the house being seized in a civil lawsuit.

15:57conferring with Colleen about the family's finances. And specifically, Gregor said that he conferred with Colleen about finding an entertainment lawyer. So later on in the day, outside the courtroom with Celeste Family's attorney, Patrick Steinfeld, the first thing he said to the press was how disgusted he was. And he used that exact word, I'm absolutely disgusted that David's family is still engaged in his music career and what they can gain from his music career despite him being in custody, despite Celeste's death.

16:38Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:Yeah, we haven't heard from the family really much at all, their attorney. I mean, their attorney made very clear before, you know, these are real people, they've got real jobs and real lives that they need to live and this has been extremely harrowing. It's the first time we've heard a comment on David and David's family from Celeste Rivers Hernandez's family's attorney. Was that all he said? Did he add anything else? I had the chance to ask Steinfeld what the family's experience was of seeing David there in the courtroom in the flesh. And all he said to me was that they did not look at him. They could not even look at David.

17:11Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:So you heard from the attorney for Celeste's family. You also heard from the district attorney, Nathan Hockman. What did he have to say? Yeah, the L.A. County District Attorney, Nathan Hockman, gave a statement during the middle of the day where he explained what the preliminary hearing was, what the purpose of the preliminary hearing was to prove the probable cause that David committed the murder. and Hockman very pointedly said that when we try David and when we convict David, he made a point to say not if, but when, his office will then determine whether or not they will pursue the death penalty in David's sentencing if he is convicted and then sentenced.

17:54So he made a point to talk about that his office is still, that's still under determination. Interestingly, Steinfeld, again, who's representing Celeste's family in these proceedings, he did not mention the death penalty during his press conference. He more focused on life in prison without the possibility of parole is what he would like to see happen with David.

18:20Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:Yeah. And with those special circumstances attached to the murder allegation, lying in wait, murdering a witness and murder for financial gain. The crime is elevated in the eyes of the law, which could make it a death penalty case. It's interesting to hear that they're not ruling that out at this stage. And Sam, have we heard anything about what tomorrow is going to bring? So Hockman said that throughout the duration of the preliminary hearings, that they're going to bring more than 10 witnesses. So right now we're on the third and we haven't finished with the third witness. But Steinfeld did make a point to say that more gruesome details are going to emerge in the coming days, even more gruesome than what we saw today.

18:58He also made a point that the nature of Celeste and David's relationship is also going to be discussed in the courtroom in the coming days. So, Steinfeld made a point to say that the family will continue to be there, though what is to follow continues to be gruesome and harrowing for dental witness.

19:20Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:This isn't going to be a short preliminary hearing, I don't think. They're saying three to six days now. Ten witnesses, you say, as well as cross-examination. So we'll see where we go from here, but we'll have the updates for you guys as soon as they happen. Sam, thank you so much for joining me today. Yeah, thank you so much. That was our reporter, Sam Mulek, joining me from Los Angeles. And that's it for this episode of Fame Under Fire from BBC Sounds with me, Anushka Matanda-Dowity. As always, if you've got any questions, send them to me on social media. It's Anushka underscore MD on Instagram and TikTok.

19:50Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:Make sure you subscribe and turn on your push notifications so you never miss a thing.

20:20Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:How did a boycott Jimmy become a billionaire from posting videos? On Good Bad Billionaire, we're going to find out how the world's most popular YouTuber, Mr Beast, made his fortune. He's buried himself in a coffin for days. Counted to 100 ,000 on camera. And even recreated Squid Games, all in an attempt to go viral on the internet. But it all started when he gave a homeless man$10 ,000. So is he a philanthropist reshaping capitalism? Or is he just the king of the attention economy? Find out on Good Bad Billionaire. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.