July 28, 2026

D4vd Preliminary Hearing: The Evidence Against David Anthony Burke in Celeste Rivas Hernandez's Killing, the Apalachee Sentencing.

D4vd Preliminary Hearing: The Evidence Against David Anthony Burke in Celeste Rivas Hernandez's Killing, the Apalachee Sentencing.
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A three-case roundup. In Los Angeles, David Anthony Burke — the singer known as D4vd — completed a week of preliminary-hearing testimony in the death of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, whose body was found in a vehicle at a Hollywood tow yard in September 2025, a year after she was reported missing. Burke has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14, and unlawful mutilation of human remains; prosecutors laid out physical, digital, and financial evidence, the defense attacked the investigation, and Judge Charlaine Olmedo will decide whether the case goes to trial. The DA has not said whether he'll seek the death penalty. In Winder, Georgia, the sentencing of Colt Gray, 16 — who pleaded guilty to all 55 counts in the September 2024 Apalachee High School shooting that killed teachers Richard Aspinwall and Cristina Irimie and 14-year-olds Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo — continued, as investigators testified about a notebook of advance planning that contradicts Gray's claim to police that the shooting was spontaneous; Judge Nicholas Primm will choose between life with or without parole. And in Fort Myers, Florida, Zachary Latham, 24 — acquitted in 2020 of killing a neighbor in a viral TikTok feud — was sentenced as a habitual violent felony offender to 12 years for the attempted kidnapping and strangulation of a woman who ended their relationship, plus witness tampering. This episode discusses child sexual abuse, a school shooting, and strangulation. Resources: 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline; Childhelp 1-800-422-4453; National Domestic Violence Hotline 1-800-799-7233.

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WEBVTT

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Callaroga Shark Media. Good morning. I am Garrett Fisher, and

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this is Daily Crime Injustice. It is Tuesday, July twenty eighth,

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twenty twenty six. Before we start, a warning, and I

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mean this one. Today we are dealing with the killing

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and dismemberment of a fourteen year old girl, with the

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sexual abuse of a child, with a school shooting, and

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with strangulation inside a relationship. If any of that is

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something you cannot be around this morning, skip this episode.

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We will be right here tomorrow. Nobody is keeping score

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three cases today and all three of them are about

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the moment the system finally catches up to somebody. In

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Los Angeles, prosecutors spent last week laying out, piece by

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piece the case against a twenty one year old singer

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who a few years ago had a song streamed a

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billion times. What they described was a blue inflatable pool,

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cleaned and folded and bundled with a dryer sheet, a

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burn box ordered on Amazon under a fake name, jugs

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of fake blood in a garage, eleven air fresheners, inside

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a tesla that had a fourteen year old girl in

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the front trunk, and on the last day of testimony,

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a defense attorney asking a deputy medical examiner whether that

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fourteen year old could have stabbed herself in winder Georgia,

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the sentencing hearing for the young man who shot up

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Appalachi High School is still running. He pleaded guilty on

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Friday to all fifty five counts with no deal in

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place and nothing negotiated. And then the people he shot

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stood up one at a time and told him exactly

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what he took. And then investigators put a notebook in

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front of the court that makes a liar out of

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the story he told police on the day of the shooting.

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And in Fort Myers, Florida, a man some of you

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will remember from a courtroom three years ago, a TikTok

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influencer who walked out of a New Jersey trial acquitted

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of killing his neighbor in a garage, has just been

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sentenced to twelve years in prison, not for that, for

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what he did to a woman who told him she

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did not want to see him anymore. I am Garrett Fisher.

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This is daily crime and justice. Here is where things

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stand in Los Angeles. David Anthony Burke, the singer known

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professionally as D four VD, pronounced David has completed a

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week of preliminary hearing testimony in the death of fourteen

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year old Celeste Revas Hernandez. He has pleaded not guilty

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to first degree murder, continuous sexual abuse of a child

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under fourteen, an unlawful mutilation of human remains. Judge Charlene

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Olmeado will decide whether there is enough evidence to send

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the case to a jury trial. In Wyinder, Georgia, sixteen

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year old Colt Gray pleaded guilty on Friday to all

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fifty five charges against him for the September twenty twenty

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four shooting at Appalachi High School that killed two teachers

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and two fourteen year old students and wounded nine other

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peace His sentencing hearing resumed Monday morning, and Judge Nicholas

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prim has two options under Georgia law, life in prison

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with the possibility of parole or life without it. And

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in Fort Myers, Florida, twenty four year old Zachary Latham

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has been sentenced as a habitual violent felony offender to

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twelve years in prison with a ten year minimum mandatory

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after pleading guilty to attempt at kidnapping, domestic battery by strangulation,

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criminal mischief, violating pre trial release, and tampering with a witness.

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The garage, the pool, and the front trunk. Let us

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go to Los Angeles. You have been with us on

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this one since the fall of twenty twenty five, when

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a towyard manager in Hollywood called police about a smell

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coming from a car on his lot. We covered the

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grand jury, We covered the arrest. In April, we covered

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the charges. Last week, the case moved into a different phase,

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and it is the phase where the state has to

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actually show its work. A preliminary hearing is not a trial.

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I want to be clear about that up front, because

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it matters. There is no jury. Nobody is deciding guilt.

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The only question in front of Judge Charlene Olmedo is

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whether prosecutors have shown enough to establish probable cause, which

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is a far lower bar than beyond a reasonable doubt.

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David Anthony Burke has pleaded not guilty to every count.

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He is presumed innocent, and he stays presumed innocent until

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twelve people say otherwise. What I am about to describe

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is the prosecution laying out one side of a case,

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and the defense got to cross examine every witness hard

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and I'm going to give you that too, but I

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want to start where this show always starts. Celeste Revas

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Hernandez was fourteen years old. She was from Lake Elsinor.

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She was reported missing, and for a long stretch of time,

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nobody was looking for her the way they should have been.

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On September eighth of twenty twenty five, officers opened the

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front trunk of a tesla sitting in a towyard and

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she was inside. She had been reported missing more than

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a year early. The day her body was found was

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one day after what would have been her fifteenth birthday.

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Last week, Deputy medical Examiner Grant Ho took the stand

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and told the court that at the time of her death,

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Celeste weighed seventy one pounds. Seventy one pounds. Sit with

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that number for a second, and then think about how

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much of the Internet spent a year calling this child

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the singer's girlfriend. Here's what the week produced. Day one,

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lap D detective Josh Byers described the discovery two body

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bags in the front storage compartment of the tesla. The

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compartment buyers testified he had been told is called a

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front The first bag held a partially dismembered torso and head.

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The second held arms and legs cut into pieces. Buyers

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testified that there were blue plastic fibers visible embedded in

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the cut surfaces of the body. Court TV's reporter in

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the room said Burke sat without any expression while those

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photographs were on the screen. Then prosecutors walked the court

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award in time. Months before the body was ever found,

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officers went to Burke's house on a routine missing person's

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check looking for a girl who had been reported missing.

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Body camera video from that visit was played in court.

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Burke answers the door himself. He is eating chips, He

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is casual. He tells the officers she is not there,

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that he met her exactly once, that he knew her

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from online chatting on discord back in twenty twenty one,

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that he did not really know her. And then he

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says this somebody sent me a yearbook photo. She says

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she is eighteen. I heard she is thirteen. I have

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listened to a lot of people talk to police on video.

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That is not a man who is confused. That is

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a man who has already decided which version of the

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story he is going with. Also at that house, according

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to investigators, a burn box purchased on Amazon under an alias,

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which detective buyers described as functioning like a mini crematorium

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built to burn things down to nothing, two chainsaws bought

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under the same alas, and a blue inflatable pool. That

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pool is the spine of the state's case and I

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want you to understand exactly why LAPD. Criminalist Lauren Wallace

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testified that the pool was found crumpled into a ball

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at Burke's home, bundled together with a dryer sheet, smelling

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like fresh laundry, with no stains on it at all.

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Somebody had cleaned it, but pieces of it were missing,

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and when criminalists compared those missing pieces against the blue

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plastic fragments embedded in Celeste's body, they matched. Criminalist Lisa

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Lehandro examined the pool and found four areas of damage

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with linear cuts, at least one of which went all

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the way through the bottom. There was hair inside it.

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They collected it. The garage told a version of the

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same story. Black rubber mats on the floor with linear

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cuts and red staining underneath the mats on the brick.

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A test showed the possible presence of blood, which prosecutors

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argued means it had soaked through from above, folded tarps

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in the same garage stained also testing positive for the

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possible presence of blood, and also in that garage jugs

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and trays of fake blood. Now that by itself is

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not evidence of anything. Burke's music videos are full of

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fake blood. It is a prop He is a performer.

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But the state clearly wants you to sit with the image,

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and honestly, so do I. One garage and it had

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both kinds. Then came the digital evidence, and this is

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the part that his hardest for the defense to argue with,

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because machines do not have a story to tell. Detective

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William Roker testified that he pulled data from Burke's tesla

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and from his cell phone on the night of April

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twenty third, twenty twenty five, which is the date prosecutors

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belief Celeste was killed. The car and the phone both

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show Burke at home until roughly eleven thirty at night.

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Then both of them travel together out to what Roker

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described as a pretty desolate stretch of State Route one

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hundred fift fifty four in Santa Barbara County. Both come

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back home by six minutes past seven. The next morning,

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and then, according to Roker, that same trip happens twice

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more May fifth, May thirty. First, here's why that particular

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road matters. In January of this year, a keltrn's worker

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found a United States passport card lying about ten feet

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off Highway one hundred and fifty four in a dirt

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patch with tall grass. A day or two after a

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rainstorm had come through. The worker typed the name into Google,

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saw the missing person coverage, and called the highway patrol.

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It was Celeste's passport card. And then there was money.

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Benjamin Gregor, who handled day to day financial management for

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Burke through a talent management company, testified that between twenty

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twenty three and twenty twenty five, Burke's approximate gross earnings

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ran between ten million and eleven and a half million dollars.

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Prosecutors have argued that is the motive. Their theory is

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that Burke was in a sexual relationship with Celeste that

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began when she was thirteen, that she threatened to expose it,

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and that a record deal and a debut album were

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sitting on the other side of that scale. Ten million

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dollars against a fourteen year old girl. That is the theory,

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a jury has not tested it yet. Now the defense,

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because they are entitled to one end, because they did

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their job. Marilyn Bednarsky and Blair Burke spent the week

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attacking the investigation rather than the narrative, which is the

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correct play when the narrative is this ugly, and they

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landed some real hits. Both chainsaws tested negative for blood

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and electric saw tested negative for blood. Nobody ran touch

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DNA on the chainsaws. Nobody performed tool mark analysis on

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the victim's clothing. The burncage was never tested for DNA

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at all. A trash bag in the garage held wipes

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carrying Celeste's DNA, but the outside of that bag had

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a mixture from four contributors, and the defense got the

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criminal to acknowledge that at least two of them were male,

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and that while Burke was a possible contributor, she could

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not say what percentage of the mixture was his. Those

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are legitimate questions a defense attorney is supposed to ask them.

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That is not a loophole. That is the whole point

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of the exercise. And then Friday happened when the autopsy

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photographs went up on the projector there was an audible

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intake of breath across the courtroom. People got up and

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walked out. Burke did not flinch. Doctor Ho testified that

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the cause of death was penetrating injuries to Celestis torso,

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one of which went deep enough to slash her liver.

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He testified that her ribs showed disruption that could be

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consistent with tool marks, places where bone appeared to have

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been chipped away. He could not determine whether she was

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dismembered before or after she died. He could not put

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the injuries in order. The decomposition had taken that away.

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And then Bednarsky asked him whether the child could have

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been the one holding the knife, us whether he could

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determine that Celeste was not holding the knife that caused

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those two wounds. He said he could not. She asked,

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you cannot rule that out right, and doctor Hoe answered

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that it is a consideration, but that they would expect

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to find hesitation marks. Look, I am going to be

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honest with you. I understand what a preliminary hearing is for.

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I understand that Burke's lawyers have an obligation to test

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every inch of the state's case, that the burden sits

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with the government and never moves, and that raising an

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alternate explanation is not a dirty trick, it is the job.

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I have defended that principle on this show for a year,

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but somebody should name what happened in that room. A

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fourteen year old girl who weighed seventy one pounds was

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found cut into pieces inside two bags in the trunk

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of a car with eleven air fresheners scattered through it,

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and a grown adult stood up in open court and

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floated the possibility that she did the stabbing herself. Her

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parents had been in that courtroom all week, sitting between

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the attorney handling their wrongful death case and a victim

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advocate from the district attorney's office. On the day the

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autopsy photographs went up, they were not there. I am

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not going to pretend I know what that decision cost them,

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so I will just put the record where it belongs.

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The medical examiner's answer was that you would expect hesitation marks.

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This show does not carry that theory any further than

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that where it stands. At the close of evidence, Judgelmato

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decides whether there is probable cause to send this to trial.

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District Attorney Nathan Hafkman said during a break last week

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that his office has still not decided whether it will

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seek the death penalty. Celeste Revas Hernandez was fourteen years old.

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Her passport card ended up in the weeds beside a

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highway in Santa Barbara County, and it took a road

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worker with a search engine to bring it back. Somebody

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has to say her name when we come back. A

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sixteen year old in winder Georgia who told investigators the

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shooting came out of nowhere, and the notebook that has

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been sitting there for months saying otherwise. Welcome back winder Georgia,

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Barrow County Superior Court. If you were with us in

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February and March, you already spent three weeks in this courtroom,

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and not for this defendant. We covered the entire trial

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of Colin Gray, the father who bought his fourteen year

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old son an assault style rifle for Christmas, seven months

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after the FBI came to his door about online school

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shooting threats, who knew what his son had put up

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on the wall above his computer, and who was convicted

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in March on twenty nine counts. So what closed on

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Friday is the other half of the same case. Colt Gray,

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now sixteen, pleaded guilty to all fifty five charges against him,

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four counts of malice murder, four counts of felony murder,

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every remaining count, and he did it with no agreement

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in place, no deal, nothing negotiated, which means Judge Nicholas

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Prim has complete discretion and under Georgia law, he has

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exactly two options on those murder counts, life in prison

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with the possibility of parole, or life in prison without it.

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There is nothing in between, and there is no third door.

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Sentencing started the same day and it is still going.

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It resumed Monday morning at nine. It may well be

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finished by the time you hear this, before any of

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the legal argument. The people he shot got to stand up.

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Mason Shermerhorn was fourteen years old, Christian Anguloh was fourteen

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years old. Richard Aspinwall was thirty nine, a teacher and

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a coach, Christina Eremi was fifty three, a math teacher.

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Nine other people were injured. Mason's mother told the court

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that if Colt had actually been coming to school the

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way he was supposed to, she has no doubt her

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son would have befriended him. She said she wakes up

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every morning to the reality that her son is gone,

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and goes to bed every night knowing there is nothing

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she can do to change it. And she said she

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has served six hundred and eighty eight days of a

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sentence with no parole, and that is what he should

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receive as well. Six hundred and eighty eight days she

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is counting, of course, she is counting. Shana Aspinwall, Richard's wife,

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told the court that no sentence can bring her husband back,

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that nothing restores the life he should have lived or

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the years they should have shared. But she asked the

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court to recognize the profound and permanent harm. She said

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the loss extends far past one day. She called it

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a life sentence of grief and trauma for the people

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left behind. And one of the teenagers who survived being

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shot stood up and said, I hate you, said I

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am mad at you because you had options. You had

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other options besides going in and killing a bunch of

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innocent people who did absolutely nothing to you. Gray showed

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no reaction to any of it. Now Here is the

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news that he came out of Friday, and it matters

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more than the headline makes it sound about thirty minutes

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after the shooting, Colt Gray waved his rights and talked

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to a Barrow County investigator for more than an hour.

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In that interview, he was distraught, He cried, he gasped

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for air, he apologized over and over again, and he

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told investigators the shooting was spontaneous last minute, that he

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had come to school that morning, heard voices, and on

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his way to get help from the crisis counselor, he

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simply decided to do it. Barrow County Sheriff's Office investigator

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Jason Smith testified about what they found on his phone

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and inside a binder he had been writing. In The

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notes go back months. Smith called it a pretty detailed plan.

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There is a page that looks like a hand drawn

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map of his second period classroom, written alongside it, I

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am not a killer, and next to that suicide fifty

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to fifty live. There is a page where he does

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arithmetic on how many people he expect to kill and

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how many he expects to injure, broken out by hallway

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and by classroom, and there is a page laying out

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a sequence of steps with a line sitting in the

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middle of it that reads, take a moment or two

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to stay calm and really think about if I want

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to do this. Smith testified that the writing mirrored the

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plan as it was actually carried out. I am not

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going to read you the rest of that page, and

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I want to tell you why, because I think the

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reason matters. There is nothing in the operational detail of

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a mass shooter's checklist that helps you understand anything. It

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00:18:33.079 --> 00:18:36.640
only helps the next one. What you need is the contradiction,

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and the contradiction is total. He told police it came

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out of nowhere. He had been writing it down for months.

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He told police he heard voices on the way to

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get help. He had already drawn the room, but that

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one line, take a moment or two to stay calm

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and really think about if I want to do this.

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He wrote himself a reminder to consider stopping. He built

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a pause into his own plan, and then he sat

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in a bathroom stall for twenty six minutes and did

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not take it. That is not a mistake, that is

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a choice. The defense has filed noticed that it plans

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to call expert witnesses on mitigation this week, and that

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will almost certainly center on his mental health at the time.

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Of the shooting. I want to be careful here, and

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I mean it. That is a real category. Children with serious,

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untreated mental illness exist. They are not fictional. And Georgia

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is asking a judge to decide whether a person who

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was fourteen years old at the time should die in

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a cell. That is a genuinely hard question, and I

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am not going to pretend it is easy just because

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the crime is unforgivable. But here's the thing about the

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mitigation argument in this specific case. Almost every warning sign

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that will be raised this week as mitigation for the

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sun was already argued in this same county as aggravation

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against the father. The FBI tip in twenty twenty three,

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the deteriorating mental health, the obsession with other school shooters,

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nine absences in twenty one days at a brand new school,

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his mother calling the school counselor that very morning, frantic,

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telling her the boy had access to firearms while he

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was already sitting in that stall. A jury looked at

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every bit of that in March and said Colin Gray

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was criminally responsible for what came next. Both things get

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to be true. The kid was failed by adults who

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had every warning available to a human being, and four

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people are dead because he chose to kill them. Nobody

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has to pick one. Marcy Gray, Colt's mother, sent a

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text message to CNN on Friday. She apologized to the families.

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She said that if she could swap places with their children,

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she would do it in a heartbeat, and that she

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understands there is no pain in this world that comes

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close to losing a child, and then she asked them

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to reach deep inside their hearts and find compassion for

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her son. At the time of the shooting, sh did

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not have custody because of her own struggles with addiction.

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I do not have anything cynical to say about that message.

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That is a mother with nothing left to offer but

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a request nobody is obligated to grant. Colin Gray's own

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sentencing hearing is scheduled to begin Thursday, July thirtieth. We

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will be on it, Mason Shermerhorn, Christian Angelo, Richard Aspinwall,

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Christina Iremi when we come back. A man who walked

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out of a New Jersey courtroom acquitted of killing his

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neighbor and is going to prison in Florida. Anyway, welcome back,

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new case for us this morning and I want to

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walk you through the whole thing properly, because this is

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one of those stories where the ending only makes sense

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if you have the beginning. Vineland, New Spring of twenty

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twenty quiet neighborhood, the kind where the biggest ongoing dispute

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is usually about a trash can. Zachary Latham was eighteen

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years old. He had been emancipated at sixteen, enlisted in

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the New Jersey National Guard shortly after turning eighteen, and

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was living with his wife and his grandparents. And he

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had built roughly forty thousand followers on TikTok, mostly by

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posting videos of expensive cars reving engines in front of

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the house running the neighborhood's streets fast. Next door lived

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the Durham family. William Durham Senior, who everyone called Timmy,

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fifty one years old, a corrections officer at Southwoods State Prison,

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which means he spent his working life inside a facility

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keeping order, and then came home to a street where

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a teenager was doing burnouts for content. His wife Catherine,

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who went by Tiffany, two sons, Billy and Gage. In

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April of twenty twenty, Tiffany Durham confronted Latham about the speeding,

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he filmed it, he posted it. It went viral, more

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than three million views inside a few days, and it

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became the most popular video on his account. And then

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he worked the comments section and some of his followers

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drove out to that neighborhood to harass the neighbors, and

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at one point the Durham's home address ended up posted

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in the comments under one of his videos. That is

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the setup, a feud escalating with an audience watching and

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a scoreboard attached. May fourth, twenty twenty, police said Latham

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00:23:31.240 --> 00:23:34.319
drove his car at Gage Durham, who was seventeen and

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00:23:34.480 --> 00:23:37.839
on a bicycle. Tiffany said that when she confronted him

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about it, he gave her a black eye. He was

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not charged for either of those things. The entire Durham family, unarmed,

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00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:49.599
then walked over to Latham's house to confront him. Latham

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00:23:49.640 --> 00:23:51.880
came out with a four inch knife and a stun gun.

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His wife recorded it on a cell phone. The fight

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00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:58.640
started outside and moved into the garage. Timmy Durham was

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stabbed multiple times and one of those wounds pierced his lung.

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He was pronounced dead at the scene at seven forty

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eight that evening, Latham called nine to one one and

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00:24:07.720 --> 00:24:11.079
told the dispatcher he had been assaulted and jumped, that

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they came onto his property with guns, that his windpipe

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00:24:14.799 --> 00:24:17.799
was crushed in, that he had been stomped and kicked

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00:24:17.799 --> 00:24:21.240
by about ten people, that they were going to kill everybody.

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He was treated at a hospital for a concussion and abrasions,

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and then taken into custody. He was charged with second

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00:24:27.799 --> 00:24:32.680
degree manslaughter, aggravated assault, and weapons offenses, and in April

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00:24:32.720 --> 00:24:35.400
of twenty twenty three, a jury acquitted him of all

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00:24:35.440 --> 00:24:38.839
of it, found that he acted in self defense. I

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00:24:38.880 --> 00:24:42.480
want to be precise here because precision is the whole job.

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00:24:43.119 --> 00:24:46.279
That verdict is final. It is not up for reltigation

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00:24:46.440 --> 00:24:50.000
on this show or anywhere else. A jury sat through

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00:24:50.079 --> 00:24:53.200
eight days of evidence, including the body camera footage and

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00:24:53.279 --> 00:24:57.359
Latham's own interrogation video, and they came back not guilty.

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00:24:58.000 --> 00:25:00.720
Under the law. Zachary Latham did not commit a crime

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00:25:00.720 --> 00:25:03.839
in that garage, And William Durham Senior is still dead

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00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:06.559
and his wife and his son still live inside that night,

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00:25:07.000 --> 00:25:09.680
and both of those things are true at the same moment.

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00:25:10.279 --> 00:25:12.880
That is what a self defense acquittal actually feels like

431
00:25:12.920 --> 00:25:15.200
from the outside and it is one of the most

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00:25:15.279 --> 00:25:18.960
uncomfortable things this system produces. I am not going to

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00:25:18.960 --> 00:25:22.200
smooth it over for you, but something else was already

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00:25:22.240 --> 00:25:26.319
running in the background. While that case was pending. January

435
00:25:26.480 --> 00:25:30.200
of twenty twenty one, Latham was out on pre trial

436
00:25:30.279 --> 00:25:33.920
release and had relocated to Florida. A motorist flagged down

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00:25:33.920 --> 00:25:36.920
a state trooper near Fort Myers and said another driver

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00:25:37.039 --> 00:25:41.000
had confronted him and brandished a firearm. According to the report,

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00:25:41.160 --> 00:25:44.039
Latham had threatened a seventeen year old driver with a

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00:25:44.079 --> 00:25:47.119
pellet gun built to look like an assault rifle after

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00:25:47.200 --> 00:25:51.319
allegedly trying to ram the kid's vehicle. He pleaded no contest,

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00:25:51.640 --> 00:25:54.880
was adjudicated guilty on two counts of aggravated assault, and

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00:25:54.920 --> 00:25:57.799
in twenty twenty three, a Lee County judge sentenced him

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00:25:57.799 --> 00:26:00.559
to twenty months. And then there is the case that

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00:26:00.680 --> 00:26:03.480
sent him to prison last week. The victim is a woman,

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00:26:03.640 --> 00:26:06.200
and prosecutors have not named her, and neither will we.

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00:26:06.960 --> 00:26:09.119
She met Latham online while he was still living in

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00:26:09.119 --> 00:26:12.519
New Jersey. He moved to southwest Florida, where she lived.

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00:26:12.920 --> 00:26:15.720
They saw each other briefly, she decided she did not

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00:26:15.839 --> 00:26:18.400
want to see him anymore. He did not accept that.

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00:26:19.039 --> 00:26:22.440
According to the State Attorney's Office for Florida's twentieth Judicial

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00:26:22.480 --> 00:26:26.519
Circuit and to a probable cause affidavit reviewed by Court TV,

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00:26:27.039 --> 00:26:30.839
Latham began following her in August of twenty twenty three.

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00:26:30.960 --> 00:26:33.799
He followed her to a doctor's appointment in Fort Myers,

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00:26:34.079 --> 00:26:36.200
forced her to get into her own car, and made

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00:26:36.200 --> 00:26:39.640
her drive him around the city. Detectives wrote it down

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00:26:39.680 --> 00:26:42.920
in plain language, Latham does not like taking no for

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an answer from the victim. She parked, she tried to

459
00:26:45.960 --> 00:26:49.039
get away, she screamed for help. He caught up with her,

460
00:26:49.079 --> 00:26:53.279
and he choked her until she lost consciousness. Detectives wrote

461
00:26:53.400 --> 00:26:55.799
that she was in absolute fear that she was going

462
00:26:55.839 --> 00:26:58.119
to die and believed there was nothing she could do

463
00:26:58.160 --> 00:27:01.359
to stop him. According to the affidavit, he told her

464
00:27:01.359 --> 00:27:03.680
how easy it would be to kill her, that he

465
00:27:03.720 --> 00:27:06.559
could knock her out again, put her in the back seat,

466
00:27:06.839 --> 00:27:08.640
and get rid of her in the car and be

467
00:27:08.759 --> 00:27:12.000
long gone before anybody found either one. Then he had

468
00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:15.519
her drop him off, and he let her go, and

469
00:27:15.599 --> 00:27:19.599
after he was arrested, he kept going Prosecutors said he

470
00:27:19.680 --> 00:27:22.880
used a teenager as an intermediary to get messages to her.

471
00:27:23.200 --> 00:27:26.960
The messages threatened her with exposure if she testified, all

472
00:27:27.000 --> 00:27:29.240
of our dirty laundry will be on TV. You will

473
00:27:29.240 --> 00:27:32.160
have to be present and get cross examined. All of

474
00:27:32.200 --> 00:27:36.200
our secrets will be shown text, sex, life, personal things,

475
00:27:36.279 --> 00:27:39.200
and it will just be a mess. And then in

476
00:27:39.240 --> 00:27:42.119
another message, I may even go pro seed, which means

477
00:27:42.160 --> 00:27:45.160
I represent myself. I almost did it for New Jersey.

478
00:27:45.200 --> 00:27:48.400
Remember I get to cross examine you, ask you whatever

479
00:27:48.839 --> 00:27:50.440
you know. I know the truth and I know what

480
00:27:50.519 --> 00:27:54.079
to say. On recorded jail phone calls, according to prosecutors,

481
00:27:54.160 --> 00:27:58.200
he said, if only, if only someone could get in

482
00:27:58.240 --> 00:28:01.200
contact with her, and then he handed the teenager her

483
00:28:01.240 --> 00:28:04.359
phone number. Read that one more time, because I want

484
00:28:04.359 --> 00:28:07.319
to make sure it lands. He is threatening a woman

485
00:28:07.440 --> 00:28:10.480
with the one thing that scares him least and scares

486
00:28:10.559 --> 00:28:15.559
her most. A courtroom, a television camera and him with

487
00:28:15.640 --> 00:28:19.160
a microphone and no lawyer between them. He is holding

488
00:28:19.240 --> 00:28:21.559
up the acquittal like a trophy and using it as

489
00:28:21.559 --> 00:28:25.000
a threat. Look what I walked away from. Look how

490
00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:28.359
good I am at this last week? He pleaded guilty.

491
00:28:28.559 --> 00:28:32.039
He was sentenced as a habitual violent felony offender on

492
00:28:32.079 --> 00:28:34.839
the attempt at kidnapping count twelve years in prison with

493
00:28:34.880 --> 00:28:37.960
a ten year minimum mandatory, followed by three years of

494
00:28:37.960 --> 00:28:42.640
probation on the domestic battery by strangulation count five years

495
00:28:42.880 --> 00:28:47.119
running concurrently credit for time served on criminal mischief and

496
00:28:47.279 --> 00:28:50.759
on first degree tampering with a witness twelve years, followed

497
00:28:50.759 --> 00:28:55.759
by fifteen years of probation, GPS monitoring a DNA sample,

498
00:28:56.119 --> 00:28:58.720
and no contact with the victim or her family. Ever,

499
00:28:59.440 --> 00:29:01.839
there is a playbook for this, and it does not

500
00:29:01.960 --> 00:29:04.720
start with a killing. It starts with a young man

501
00:29:04.759 --> 00:29:08.319
who films his neighbors for content, who learns very quickly

502
00:29:08.359 --> 00:29:11.519
that an audience rewards escalation, who finds out that he

503
00:29:11.559 --> 00:29:14.079
can point a fake rifle at a seventeen year old

504
00:29:14.119 --> 00:29:17.240
and get twenty months for it. It runs through a

505
00:29:17.279 --> 00:29:20.319
woman being strangled unconscious in her own car by someone

506
00:29:20.440 --> 00:29:22.880
narrating out loud how easy it would be to make

507
00:29:22.880 --> 00:29:26.039
her disappear. Every stop on that road had a person

508
00:29:26.079 --> 00:29:29.480
standing on it. The New Jersey jury answered the only

509
00:29:29.559 --> 00:29:32.920
question it was asked, and it answered honestly. Florida was

510
00:29:32.960 --> 00:29:36.839
asked a different question, and Florida answered it with twelve

511
00:29:36.960 --> 00:29:44.279
years and a ten year floor underneath it. That is

512
00:29:44.400 --> 00:29:48.519
daily crime Injustice. For Tuesday, July twenty eighth, twenty twenty six,

513
00:29:49.160 --> 00:29:52.559
Judge Charlene Olmato will decide whether the case against David

514
00:29:52.599 --> 00:29:56.400
Anthony Burke goes to a jury. The Los Angeles District

515
00:29:56.400 --> 00:29:59.640
Attorney has not said whether he will seek death. Burke

516
00:29:59.720 --> 00:30:04.319
has i leaded not guilty and is presumed innocent. Celeste

517
00:30:04.319 --> 00:30:08.240
Reevas Hernandez was fourteen years old and weighed seventy one pounds,

518
00:30:08.559 --> 00:30:11.160
and her body was found one day after what should

519
00:30:11.160 --> 00:30:15.039
have been her fifteenth birthday. Colt Gray's sentencing continues in

520
00:30:15.079 --> 00:30:18.480
winder Georgia, where a judge has two options and no others,

521
00:30:18.680 --> 00:30:23.160
and his father is sentenced Thursday. Mason Shermerhorn was fourteen,

522
00:30:23.599 --> 00:30:28.559
Christian Angelo was fourteen, Richard Aspinwall was thirty nine, Christina

523
00:30:28.599 --> 00:30:32.279
Eiremi was fifty three, and Zachary Latham is going to

524
00:30:32.319 --> 00:30:36.119
a Florida prison for twelve years, with ten of them mandatory,

525
00:30:36.240 --> 00:30:38.200
for what he did to a woman who told him no.

526
00:30:39.039 --> 00:30:42.720
William Durham Senior, who everybody called Timmy, was fifty one

527
00:30:42.799 --> 00:30:45.519
years old. If today's show told you something you did

528
00:30:45.519 --> 00:30:48.799
not already know. Send it to one person. That is

529
00:30:48.839 --> 00:30:52.599
the entire growth strategy of this program. No algorithm, no

530
00:30:52.720 --> 00:30:55.400
ad budget, just you handing it to somebody who would

531
00:30:55.400 --> 00:30:58.319
want it. And if you are listening on Spotify, drop

532
00:30:58.359 --> 00:31:00.839
a comment. I want to know, oh, what you make

533
00:31:00.880 --> 00:31:03.880
of a defense attorney asking a medical examiner whether a

534
00:31:03.920 --> 00:31:06.720
fourteen year old girl stabbed herself? Is that just the

535
00:31:06.799 --> 00:31:09.680
job or is there a line in there somewhere? Tell

536
00:31:09.720 --> 00:31:14.119
me I read them, Sam Goes. If you're watching on YouTube,

537
00:31:15.440 --> 00:31:17.759
a note on sourcing and on the law before we go.

538
00:31:18.279 --> 00:31:21.480
David Anthony Burke has pleaded not guilty to all charges

539
00:31:21.519 --> 00:31:25.799
and is presumed innocent. Everything described in today's first segment

540
00:31:25.920 --> 00:31:29.200
came from testimony at a preliminary hearing, which is a

541
00:31:29.240 --> 00:31:33.680
probable cause proceeding, not a trial. No jury has heard

542
00:31:33.680 --> 00:31:36.160
this case, and no one has been convicted of anything.

543
00:31:36.799 --> 00:31:40.519
Testimony reported here comes from court TV's reporting from inside

544
00:31:40.519 --> 00:31:45.920
the courtroom, corroborated against the Associated Press KTLA and Spectrum News.

545
00:31:46.799 --> 00:31:50.160
Court TV reported that Burke's defense questioned whether the victim's

546
00:31:50.200 --> 00:31:53.920
wounds could have been self inflicted. The deputy medical examiner

547
00:31:54.000 --> 00:31:56.839
testified that such a scenario would be expected to produce

548
00:31:56.880 --> 00:32:01.160
hesitation marks. This program does not present that theory as fact.

549
00:32:01.519 --> 00:32:04.319
Colt Gray has pleaded guilty to all fifty five charges.

550
00:32:04.799 --> 00:32:07.240
His sentencing hearing was still underway at the time this

551
00:32:07.319 --> 00:32:10.720
episode was produced, and a sentence may have been imposed

552
00:32:10.799 --> 00:32:14.359
after we recorded. Details of the plea and the sentencing

553
00:32:14.400 --> 00:32:19.359
hearing come from Court TV and CNN. Court TV's account

554
00:32:19.359 --> 00:32:23.400
spelled the teacher's name as Christina Ermey. CNN and prior

555
00:32:23.480 --> 00:32:27.240
court coverage used Christina Iiramy, which is the spelling we

556
00:32:27.279 --> 00:32:30.799
have used on the Zachary Latha matter. We have used

557
00:32:30.799 --> 00:32:34.279
the sentencing breakdown published by the State Attorney's Office for

558
00:32:34.359 --> 00:32:39.440
Florida's twentieth Judicial Circuit, which lists concurrent terms across four counts.

559
00:32:40.119 --> 00:32:43.759
Court TV summarized the same disposition more briefly as twelve

560
00:32:43.839 --> 00:32:48.000
years followed by fifteen years of probation. Latham was acquitted

561
00:32:48.039 --> 00:32:50.680
of all charges in the death of William Durham, Senior

562
00:32:50.839 --> 00:32:54.319
in April of twenty twenty three, and this program treats

563
00:32:54.359 --> 00:32:57.960
that verdict as final and correct under the law. Court

564
00:32:57.960 --> 00:33:00.880
TV's recent recap described the fatal wound is being to

565
00:33:01.039 --> 00:33:05.279
Durham's left lung. Medical examiner testimony at the twenty twenty

566
00:33:05.319 --> 00:33:08.960
three trial described three stab wounds, including one to the

567
00:33:09.039 --> 00:33:11.799
right armpit that pierced the lung, and we have simply

568
00:33:11.839 --> 00:33:15.319
described a wound that pierced his lung. The victim in

569
00:33:15.359 --> 00:33:18.400
the Florida case has not been named by prosecutors and

570
00:33:18.559 --> 00:33:21.799
is not named here. And if today's episode was a

571
00:33:21.799 --> 00:33:24.640
hard one to sit with a few resources. If you

572
00:33:24.680 --> 00:33:27.720
are struggling or thinking about hurting yourself, you can call

573
00:33:27.880 --> 00:33:30.720
or text nine eight eight in the United States anytime

574
00:33:30.839 --> 00:33:33.480
day or night. If you are worried about a child,

575
00:33:33.519 --> 00:33:36.480
the Child Help National Child Abuse Hotline is one eight

576
00:33:36.599 --> 00:33:39.640
hundred four to two two four four five three. And

577
00:33:39.720 --> 00:33:42.160
if you are in a relationship with somebody who does

578
00:33:42.240 --> 00:33:45.640
not take no for an answer, the National Domestic Violence

579
00:33:45.680 --> 00:33:48.240
Hotline is one eight hundred and seventy nine nine seven

580
00:33:48.279 --> 00:33:51.160
two three three. There is no threshold you have to

581
00:33:51.160 --> 00:33:53.480
clear before you are allowed to call. You can just

582
00:33:53.559 --> 00:34:00.599
call I am Garrett Fisher until tomorrow do better, wh