D4vd PRELIM HEARING: Day 1 BOMBSHELLS | New Evidence Revealed by COURTROOM INSIDER

[00:00:00]All right. I attended the David preliminary hearing in Los Angeles. Day one just wrapped. I'm back in my hotel room. And what I'd like to do is I'm going to play the video that I did earlier outside the courthouse. This is going to be an entire recap. So, I'm going to play the video that I did earlier outside of the courthouse and then I'm going to give you an afternoon recap of some of the the biggest bombshells and and kind of go into detail with the cross-examination. But I will give you a quick little preview of the afternoon. something that we learned that in my opinion was incredibly shocking and and actually the Rivas Hernandez family attorney Patrick Steinfeld actually said this as well after court uh was the fact that the last witness who worked for Mogul Vision at one time he was the finance director he still works with David's mother Colleen to this day said he was on a monthly retainer and when asked by Beth Silverman the prosecutor what they were working together on. He literally said that they were trying to find David an entertainment attorney like right now. They were trying to find him a new one while he's sitting in jail facing murder charges and more.

[00:01:19]Potentially could face the death sentence. I guess that's not serious enough. So, they're trying to find him an entertainment attorney for his his career for when this is all over, I guess.

[00:01:30]Yeah. So, we'll we'll get into um more of that witness later, but let me play um my uh my recap from the morning. And also, you can head to lamag.com for two very comprehensive written stories that I did uh today from inside the courtroom and you'll find a lot more detail there.

[00:01:50]And also, I uh tweeted a lot as well um during the breaks at conlin lauren. So, um here's the video from this morning.

[00:01:58]If you've already seen it, fast forward and then I will just recap the end of the day or the afternoon after lunch. It is day one, lunchtime at the David preliminary hearings in Los Angeles. And I'm going to give you a recap of the morning. I'm going to try to do it within 10 minutes. And uh Taylor uh Pice, another reporter for LA Mag. She is capturing DA Hawkman's presser. So, we'll have that later on.com on all of our socials. So, check there. But um I'm gonna go uh backwards for a minute or actually no I'm gonna just sort of start off by uh letting you know who was in the courtroom. So Nathan Hawkman was sitting in the second row I believe and also in that row was the family attorney Patrick Steinfeld for the Revas Hernandez family. I believe they are also present or some of them are as it was discussed this morning um before the proceedings began that they would be able to attend under Marcy's law even if they are going to be testifying at the actual trial should it go to trial and this is the case as well for uh David's family the Burke family I did not see them but I didn't look very hard so I'll check later um and and I'll have an update on lamag.com later today again as well as all the socials but um yeah So David uh his his attorney Blair Burke, you know, first argued about the shackles. You know, she said that these are are very they're inappropriate because his behavior has been appropriate and all other proceedings.

[00:03:23]He's very mildmannered. He's been polite and he is innocent until proven guilty.

[00:03:27]And uh Judge Alita basically said, you know, he he can have his handcuffs off to drink water, take notes, but he needs to be, you know, shackled at the waist.

[00:03:35]So there was that. Um and you know, I I just want to say something. I I tweeted uh I tweeted out this morning just some very graphic details about the photos we saw from inside the Tesla. And I that's what I mean when I'll I'll go backwards here. So, let's go backwards from there.

[00:03:51]This was um from a detective detective buyers from the LAPD robbery homicide unit. Um these these photos again, they they were very awful. They made my stomach turn. Um a few other reporters I noticed as well kind of had to look away, but David did not. David was uh did not take his eyes away from these photos. He he also kind of gave me the sense that he was very relaxed in court almost like he was kind of sitting in English class or something, you know, just following along with the teacher.

[00:04:22]So, you know, he would sit back in his chair a little bit. He would he would lean forward sometimes and and you know, his his mannerisms with his attorney, they were interesting. She would Blair Burke would rub his back. They would smile at each other. But again, throughout the showing of these graphic photos, he didn't move. He didn't flinch. He just stared at the screen.

[00:04:41]Um, so, Detective Buyers was called to the scene after the uh the impound lot called the police for this very strong odor. So, police had opened the trunk.

[00:04:53]You know, they end up calling robbery homicide division when they they found a body. Detective Byer shows up and uh he describes the scene and then we see the photos. So, what what we saw um it was very troubling. We we saw several garbage bags with blue handles and they were closed. We'd see them closed and then we would see them open. So, we saw a closed bag with lots of liquid and blood and just insects um sort of around it and then we would see the bag opened with her uh arms and legs bloody and it was it was bad. Um they were they were wet. they were uh dismembered and it's what you would think they would look like. Um then we saw another bag that contained her her head and her torso and I did see um a black mass of hair or or so I thought I did. Um and again it was just bloody wet and and very very decomposed. Um he was asked if he could identify any facial features and he said no. it was so badly decomposed because of uh skin slippage is what he called it. Um we also saw a closeup of her hands. We saw the um the fingers that were amputated, you know, we saw the the sh finger as well from the other hand.

[00:06:12]Um and yeah, it was it was tough, but again, he he had his his eyes just glued to the screen. Um, so I want to go back because from there they obviously were able to identify the Tesla as belonging to David David Burke um from the plates, you know, the Texas plates and uh they were able to get a warrant as well. And so then we, you know, we we talked a lot about the different warrants that buyers was was able to obtain here. So, they were able to see um that David his iCloud account disconnected from this Tesla last on July 29th, 2025. They also found a receipt in the Tesla from Ross' like uh clothes for less or something like that. And they had the address um and they had the the date. So, they went over to Ross's and they pulled surveillance and they saw that it was David buying clothes on July 29th, 2025.

[00:07:08]So, they were able to kind of match that up as well. Um, and let me just go back.

[00:07:14]Sorry. Um, I have so many notes. So many notes here. Um, so yes. So, they were able to do um through a warrant just extractions from from his phone, which apparently was an iPhone 16 Pro, and it was uh Pro Max called the Tranquilizer. And this phone, by the way, has never physically been located. Um, and and this was the phone disconnected on on the 29th. So, um, per Celebrate Activity, you know, they were kind of showing us sort of the the places that he went and they were screenshotting some of these places from the infotainment center on the Tesla and matching it up to the iCloud. For example, we had um a trip identified um in navigation to Santa Barbara and Lake Pachuma, plus a Tesla charge in uh Sanz Valley in May of 2025, a month after they believe she was killed. Um there was another location of interest, a charging station on 729, which is on the way to um to Santa Barbara as well. And they also they found um surveillance footage from a home nearby when he parked the Tesla on July 29th, 2025, the alleged last time that it was in his possession. And um they showed us just multiple angles of him getting out, going into his home, you know, and that's that. Um so let me see. Oh, they they talked about getting um a a search warrant for the home as well where they went over the the evidence that we kind of already knew about the burn cage.

[00:08:54]They found that in a a box behind the piano. They found a blue iPhone 15 that belonged to David. And um you know, they also said they found a a tower computer where there was another email address.

[00:09:07]Um and this email address was also connected to um the the iPhone that or the iCloud data that he had. and it's follow follow it which is f a l uh iit t and some numbersgmail.com and they actually found through that email um or through that iCloud on the tower computer several flights that David had booked between um I think it was LA to Texas and LA to uh London for for both he and Celeste. So, um, oh, there was also purchases made under another alias besides Victoria Mendes, um, Traayvon Davis. I I believe it was.

[00:09:46]Um, yeah, also the red Tesla in the garage, they were showing us photos when they were discussing the search warrant.

[00:09:52]They said that was registered to Robert Morgan Roth and they identified him as David's manager and personal assistant.

[00:09:59]I found that to be interesting. So, um, how they also identified Celeste, um, Jesus Rivas called LAPD Communications on September 10th after he saw, uh, lots of media coverage on the ETH and he said, "Look, I I think this might be my daughter." And um basically he used his son as an interpreter or Celeste's brother and he was able to provide LAPD or the medical examiner's office with her um dentist office so they could you know identify the dental records and it was her and also um you know he did say that per Jesus Rivas Hernandez um or sorry I think it's yeah Jes Rivas sorry um that she had two different phone numbers and he gave them to police and then they also found out that she had a third phone number that no one no one knew. And when the um detective said her name, he said, you know, did did he say his daughter's name? He said yes, it was Celeste Abigail Rivas Hernandez. That was very sad. It was a very sad moment to hear her full name. Um but just going back really quick cuz I'm trying to get this under 10 minutes. Um the uh first witness that we we heard from was uh Detective Joshua Buyers. No, I'm sorry.

[00:11:13]That's what I just talked about. Uh it was Deputy Juan Gonzalez from um the sheriff's department in LA who was told to go to David's house based on the investigation that the Riverside uh sheriff's department was doing when Celeste went missing. So we saw body cam from that where basically, you know, he talked to David and David kind of said, "Yeah, she told me she was 18, but then I heard she was 13." We see the photo of her, by the way, that yearbook photo.

[00:11:40]And man, apparently she's in sixth grade there. She looks younger, you guys. She looks much younger. Um, she had this Batman zip-up sweatshirt on that was just again, um, yeah, it was meant for a little kid. So, anyway, let me, uh, let me stop this video. I will have more details later. Again, lamag.com.

[00:11:58]Okay, the afternoon. Let's let's continue. David still appeared very, very relaxed again, like he was in some kind of uh, class. I don't know. Like I I think I said English class before, but yeah, he was super chill. Alarmingly so.

[00:12:13]Um, but let's get into the the cross-examination. So, the cross-examination of Detective Buyers, he was the lead detective. What Blair Burke did was she kind of attacked the investigation, so to speak. So, she first started with the cadaavver bag or one of the cadaavver bags that was found um in the Tesla and she just said, you know, was this processed for, you know, into evidence? And buyers actually said no. The criminologist on the scene said that the the state of the bag due to the the liquid um that was in it and the blood and and everything with the the decomposition, it just wouldn't it wouldn't have made a difference if if they were to have preserved that. That's what he said. So he said they took the zipper off, they took the handles off, and they preserved those. So she kind of just was like, "Wait, so like you didn't test the bag for fingerprints, any evidence, etc." and he's like, "No, the criminologist said XYZ, so we took the handles and the zipper." So then she um she moved on to the home. So when the home was searched, this was a day after um they identified uh Celeste being the the young teen in the trunk. They uh got a search warrant for his home, and that's when we, you know, we know a lot about what he ordered. Um, and again, I actually put this in chronological order, what he ordered after she uh died on Twitter. You can go ahead and see that. Conlin Lauren. And again, I'm just sort of sidetracking, speculating. It does seem like based on what he ordered, he was kind of changing his mind allegedly on how to dispose of her body because at first it's like a shovel that's ordered. um you know, then it's it's the the chainsaws and then you get down to like fire or or basically um fireproof mats and then the the burn cage. So going to the burn cage. Uh she says, "So you you saw a burn cage in the home." And he said, "Yes, it was an unopened box and it was behind the piano on the second floor." And she asked, you know, if it was photographed, whatever.

[00:14:20]And he says, "Yes." And she's like, "But you didn't take it into evidence." And he's like, "No, we didn't." She's like, "Okay, cool." So yeah, I guess they didn't deem the burn cage um I guess relevant, but they took photos, but they didn't take it into evidence. Okay, so you also heard me talk about this um light blue iPhone that they found in the home in the first video. and buyers had said, you know, this phone, uh, I believe it was David Burks because, you know, when we opened it, we saw some credit cards, we saw some, you know, a license, uh, selfies. We we thought it was his. So Blair Burke starts to say, "Well, you know, I'm going to show you this search warrant that that you got for for this phone to extract the data. you have an email associated with it and it's Abigail blue something something you [email protected] which indicates it's Celeste because her name is Celeste Abigail and he's like I I don't know what you're talking about.

[00:15:21]She shows him this affidavit and he kind of says yeah the email we believe belongs to Celeste but we never said you know it it has anything to do with this phone. And I I'll read let me read to you exactly um exactly what I wrote in the article because it made more sense when I when I had written it out. Um so okay so sorry. Okay. Defense attorney Blair Burke also challenged investigators claimed that the light blue phone recovered from Burke's home belonged to him. During direct examination buyers testified that the phone belonged to Burke based on this. on Cross Burke, meaning Blair Burke, pointed to a search warrant affidavit related to Celeste iCloud and her email address, Abigail Blue, and questioned whether investigators had previously linked that phone to Celeste. Instead, when Blair Burke asked Buyers about the warrant, he initially said, "I don't recall that specific language." Then he uh read the document and he said, "Yeah, this affidavit is referring to the email belonging to the Celeste, but not the ownership of the phone." And there was some heated uh exchanges between the two of them until Beth Silverman objected.

[00:16:36]And basically Blair Burke kind of said to the judge, she's like, "We just think the people are eventually going to um really hone in, attribute this phone to David and all of the contents on it."

[00:16:49]it. So, my spidey senses went off kind of like, oh, and they didn't say this.

[00:16:53]I'm speculating that could be where the seam material is, you know, on the phone. Um, possibly. So, oh, they also talked about she talked about the chainsaws that were found in the home.

[00:17:06]There were three chainsaws found and basically buyers testified that all three were tested for blood and each came back negative. And Burke said, "Well, did investigators do any DNA testing or compare any of the saw marks on Celeste remains to these chainsaws since she was dismembered?" And he said, "No, none of that was done because they didn't find blood on, you know, on the saw when they tested it." And so she just kind of kept saying, "So no additional forensics, you know, testing was done on this, like nothing." And he's just like, "No." She's like, "So you didn't test chainsaws when you have a a a victim of dismemberment? you didn't test it further and he just kept saying no, there was no blood found on them. So that's why we didn't. But that was her way of trying to poke a hole in the investigation. So um then the last witness of the day was a former mogul vision employee. His name was Benjamin Greger. He was the director of finance and um his his purpose really was to kind of show us how much money David has or had. I don't you know I don't know how it works right now but um he uh he had amassed about let's see 10 to 12 what does it say?

[00:18:19]Here we go 10 to 11 million um gross income between 2023 and 2025 a $600,000 signing bonus. He got to that whole thing about you know being in contact with David's mom and how he's still working for them and that was totally crazy. But the whole point was um you know during cross-examination as well they wanted to point out that he deals with David's mom, not David. And I don't know if I mentioned this before, but it got a little heated with Beth Silverman when she was talking about Benjamin Greger communicating with Josh Marshall and Robert Morgan Morgan Roth, excuse me, part of mogul vision. um and David's mom after Celeste's body was found in the trunk frunk, sorry. Uh through encrypted apps like Signal and WhatsApp and he kept saying, "Well, it wasn't it wasn't up to me. It was their suggestion." And also, you know, we went back and forth. It wasn't all the time.

[00:19:15]So, but that went on for a while to the point where Beth Silverman's like, "So, when you talk to David's mom here, did you talk to her normally or through an encrypted app?" And he was kind of getting a little bothered by it. Um you could tell. But uh they also talked about how Greor was trying to move money around from David's homes uh to uh pay the bond and there obviously he he there was no bond here but um or maybe there was I don't recall if it was like $3 million but yeah it it really I don't think it it I can't remember now so just just forgive me but that was actually discussed and I I feel like the this was discussed much earlier as well. Um, and this is my guess from when he was arrested because they also discussed reportedly um Greor gave Colleen Burke the name of someone that could move the homes the titles into her name and Beth Silverman said, "Oh, did you did you is it true that you did this?" So, um, so basically Celeste's family wouldn't have access to this money if they filed a wrongful death civil suit and he said no. But I think it was implicated that yeah, that's that's why he did it. Um Marilyn Bernarkski started the the cross-examination of Greor at the end of the day. She really spent a long time laying this foundation of David just being a gamer before he um became a musician and just that the dayto-day of the finances and everything else really was handed or handled by Colleen and not David. So Gregor didn't have any real communication with David when it came to his money. So anyway, um I'll be back in the courtroom for I believe the rest of the week except for Friday. So hopefully we're This is supposed to finish between 3 and 5 days. We ended at 400 p.m.

[00:21:03]today, but we started right at 9:30.

[00:21:05]There's no um transmission in the courtroom, so I can't be live tweeting.

[00:21:09]I only tweet during breaks. So you can check my Twitter, you can check LA Mag, and then you can check back um on Pop Crime later. So all right, guys. Um thanks for watching. Thanks for listening and I'll have more updates uh