SEASON 1 FINALE - "COLIN GRAY'S DAUGHTER BREAKS, DEE WARNER FOUND IN A FERTILIZER TANK & DAVID BURKE NAMED GRAND JURY TARGET"

0:03 Callaroga Shark Media. Good morning. I'm Red Carter. Friday, February twenty seventh, twenty twenty six. Three stories, three court rooms, and for one of them, not a courtroom at all, just a grand jury, sealed records, and a fourteen year old girl who's been waiting nearly six months for someone to be charged with her murder. Georgia. First, We've been in Barrow County Superior Court all week watching Colin Gray's trial for his alleged role in the Appalachi High School shooting. His son, Colt, killed four people on September fourth of last year, two teachers, two students. We covered days three through five earlier this week, Days six and seven brought the most devastating testimony yet. Colt's own mother took the stand, then his sister, and what they said about Colin Gray is going to follow that man into every courtroom for the rest of this trial. Michigan, the trial of Dale Warner is underway. An Adrian his wife d vanished from their teacumps of farm in April twenty twenty one. She stayed missing for three years, then in August twenty twenty four, investigators found her strangled bound in duct tape, her body sealed inside a pressurized fertilizer tank on property Dale owned.

1:22 This case has everything, surveillance, GPS trackers, bruises on, a woman who couldn't leave, and a husband who reportedly said that locking up the guns would cause a shit storm. Wait, wrong case, that's Georgia. But D's story has its own kind of nightmare, and we're going to lay it all out and Los Angeles. If you've been listening since the fall, you know the case of David Burke, the young pop star who performs under the stage name David, and the body found in his tesla. The victim was Celestrivas Hernandez, fourteen years old. Her body had been cut apart and placed in cadaver bags in the trunk for nearly six months. The LAPD and the District Attorney's office have filed zero charges.

2:05 This week, court documents leaked showing David Burke has been formally named as a target of the grand jury investigation, and a private investigator went public calling the investigation a quote blown case. I'm reed, Carter, We've got a lot of ground to cover. This is celebrity trials. Let's start in winder Georgia. You know the basics. September fourth, twenty twenty four, Appalachi High School, fourteen year old Colt Gray walked into his second class of the day with an AR fifteen style rifle hidden in his backpack under a poster board. He was only five days into his freshman year. He left class, hid in a bathroom for half an hour, then emerged in yellow work gloves with the gun exposed, and opened fire. Four people died, teachers Richard Aspinwall thirty nine and Christina Eremi fifty three, and students Mason Shermerhorn and Christian Angelo, both fourteen. Nine More people were wounded.

3:06 Colt was subdued by school resource officers. He's charged with murder as an adult. His father, Colin Gray, is charged separately twenty nine counts, including second degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. The prosecution's theory is that Colin Gray consciously disregarded a cascade of red flags and kept giving his troubled son access to a loaded weapon, knowing the boy was obsessed with school shooters, knowing his mental health had collapsed, Knowing Colt had previously made school shooting threats. The defense says Colin was trying to help, that Colt was deceptive and that the father didn't know his son was planning anything. Days three through five established the infrastructure of failure. The DFCS investigations, the school behavior records, the FBI tip about a school shooting threat on discord, the shrine to Parkland shooter Nicholas Cruz that Colt built above his computer, the counseling appointments Colin never followed through on. Colt had one hundred three rounds of ammunition on him when he walked through those doors. Day six was Marcy Gray, Colt's mother, Colin's ex wife. She came to the stand and dismantled the narrative that Colin was a helpless bystander. Marcy testified about a summer of desperation. By August twenty twenty four, Colt's mental state had deteriorated beyond anything manageable. At home, he was texting her things like acute mania sucks, and there are people after me, my teachers. I feel as if they're plotting against me. Marcy said those texts were

4:39 almost identical to things Colin had already told her. Cult was saying both parents knew both parents had the same information. She tried to get Colt into a crisis stabilization center in Athens, Georgia. She found the program, texted Colin a direct link and asked him to get Colt evaluated. The plan was set for August thirty, first, five days before the shooting. Then Colin backed out the night before the appointment. He went dark, stopped responding, never followed up, never explained why. She also testified about a direct conversation with Colin about the guns in the house. Marcy asked him point blank are the guns locked up? He admitted they weren't. She pushed him, what happens if I take the gun away?

5:26 She asked, or words to that effect, and Colin reportedly said that taking the gun would cause a shit storm let that land. His fourteen year old son had a shrine to a mass murderer above his computer. He'd made school shooting threats. He was texting his mother that his teachers were plotting against him and that he was hearing voices, and his father looked at the unlocked rifle, the same ar fifteen he'd given Colt as a Christmas gift, and decided the greater danger was taking it away. The morning of September fourth, Marcie was the one who tried to stop it. At nine fifty am, she called the school's guidance counselor and warned her that Colt had access to multiple firearms and was obsessed with school shootings. She told them to find him immediately. Colt had already left his second period classroom. He was in the bathroom. He'd been hiding for more than twenty five minutes. At ten seventeen am, before a single shot had been fired, Marcy texted Colin, telling him to leave work and go to the school.

6:28 Four minutes after that, at ten twenty one am, Colt walked out of that bathroom with a rifle in his hands. On cross examination, the defense focused on Marcie's own struggles, her documented drug problems, her periods of absence from Colt's life. They tried to spread the blame wide enough to obscure where it landed most heavily. Marcy acknowledged her failures. She also acknowledged that she'd recently googled the James and Jennifer Crumbly case, the parents convicted in Michigan for their role in the Oxford High School shooting and Georgia's gun storage laws. She was doing research on consequences. She knew what this situation looked like. The school's counselor, Lisa Butler, also testified on day six. She described meeting Colt for the first time during freshman registration on August thirteenth. On August twenty seventh, eight days before the shooting, Colt spent nearly six hours in her office, crying, fragile, scared. She described him as very fragile. She tried to connect Colin with an in school counseling program called Project Aware, sent him a consent form, said he seemed interested. Nothing happened. When Marci called the morning of the shooting and told her Colt had access to guns and was obsessed with school shootings, Butler called it exactly what it was, a red flag. Day seven was Jenny Gray, fourteen years old, Colt's sister. She testified that after the shooting, her father came to her and pressured her to cover for him if anyone as asked

8:00 whether he knew about Colt's problems, Jenny said Colin told her to protect him. Whether he knew the warning signs would lead up to this He specifically mentioned the pictures and articles on Colt's wall the shrine to Nicholas Cruz. Colin knew about the shrine, he wanted his daughter to pretend he didn't. Jenny also testified about the morning of September fourth, She noticed Colt leaving for school with something wrong about his backpack, a suspicious poster board sticking out of it. He said it was for a school project. Then she went to check his room and discovered his gun was missing. She didn't tell anyone. She was fourteen. On cross examination, Jenny acknowledged she is now living in a Foster home and that she's happier there. The defense asked whether it would be easier for her if her father were convicted, whether a guilty verdict would distance her from being known as the sister of the school shooter or the sister who knew the gun was gone and didn't tell anyone. Jenny agreed that it would be easier.

9:01 The defense was planting reasonable doubt seeds about her motive to testify against her father. That's their job. But here's what those seeds can't explain away. She was fourteen. She saw a poster board sticking out of her brother's backpack. She checked his room, the gun was gone. She was a child in a household where the adults had already failed so completely that she was living with this alone. Day seven also gave us Colin Gray's boss, George Clackham, who testified that Colin called him the morning of September fourth and said he needed to leave work because his son had broken his arm. Phone records showed that call came in at eleven fifteen am, after news of a school shooting at Appalachi High School had already begun circulating.

9:45 Clackham testified that Gray didn't sound emotional during the call. A GBI investigator also testified about her ninety minute interview with Colin at his home the afternoon of the shooting. He sat on his truck tailgate. He was calm. He told her. Colt's behavior had been escalating for five to seven months. Broken windows, physical confrontations he described as bullrushes. He told her the AR fifteen had recently been in Colt's room because Colt was working on attachments for it. He said he'd seen a school shooter poster on Colt's wall. He said Colt took it down when asked, He said he was trying to get Colt help. He gave consent to search his phone. He showed them Colt's final message that morning, sent just before the shooting started. I'm sorry, it's not your fault. I love you. Richard Aspinwall was thirty nine years old. A teacher and a coach. Should be watching his students graduate, should be on the sideline at the next game. Christina Eremi was fifty three years old.

10:44 She walked out of her classroom and was shot once, a bullet through her Aorda Mason Shermerhorn was fourteen years old, shot three times. Christian Angelo was fourteen years old. He was shot once, the bullet tearing through both of his arms as he tried to protect himself. Someone has to say their names. Someone has to remember they were people, not just the backdrop for a father's trial. Rest in peace, all four of you. We'll be right back. A Michigan woman told her husband their marriage was over. He strangled her, sealed her body inside a pressurized tank, and told police she was unstable and probably just left. It took three years to find her. Welcome back to celebrity trials. I'm reed, Carter Adrian, Michigan, Lena Wee County Circuit Court, the trial of Dale Warner, charged with open murder and evidence tampering in the twenty twenty one death of his wife, Dee.

11:47 This case is a few weeks in and most of you haven't heard much about it, so let me bring you up to speed from the beginning. To come to Michigan. April twenty fifth, twenty twenty one. D Warner, a businesswoman in her fifties who ran and three companies on a farm with her husband, was last seen alive at approximately seven oh five in the morning. Her phone went silent. Her last Internet session ended at seven five forty five am. Her final cell tower ping was at seven fourteen am. After that nothing, Her hummer was parked at the farm, her door was unlocked. D was gone. She was found three years later, August twenty twenty four in an anhydrous ammonia tank on property belonging to Dale Warner. The tank was sealed on both ends. Her family told reporters she was found strangled, duct tape around her head, still in her pajamas. Dale's fingerprint was on the tank. November twenty twenty three, Dale was arrested and charged with her murder even before her body was found. Prosecutors had enough to charge him on the circumstances alone. In January twenty twenty six, just before trial, Dale rejected a plea deal for second degree murder. He wants a full trime. He's getting one who was d Warner, by every account, a force. She was running those farm businesses, a trucking company among them, employing a small team, managing everything herself. Her daughter Rickle described a mother she spoke to constantly every day. Her

13:18 personal assistant, Madison, worked for the family for six years, starting at age sixteen, and testified that the marriage had long since become more like a business arrangement. D wanted out, had wanted out for years, told her assistant, told her massage therapist, told her children, told her friends. She wanted to leave Dale and sell the trucking company. April twenty fourth, twenty twenty one, Saturday, the day before she vanished, D had eyelash extensions. In the morning. She showed up to her appointment crying, visibly distressed by that evening, Multiple witnesses saw her in tears. Her daughter Amber saw her in the morning upset after a disturburbing text involving Dale. Her daughter Rickle, spent time with her. Her sister in law, Amy, arrived at seven forty two pm to pick up a child for a sleepover and said D had red, blotchy skin on her neck, puffy eyes, and her makeup, normally perfect, was off. D told multiple people that night she was done.

14:19 She was selling everything, She was asking Dale for a divorce. That night, according to De's son Zachary, was the last time anyone heard from her. His last communication with her was around seven pm on April twenty fourth. The next morning, she was gone. Dale told people different stories about what happened. He told Rickle that D had been leaving in the night, taking off pill issues unstable. He told police she was very unstable. He discouraged the family from calling law enforcement right away, saying not to get ahead of themselves. When they did call police, Dale was cooperative. He sat with investigators, talked, but he'd already begun quietly moving pieces in the background.

15:05 The testimony in this trial has painted a portrait of methodical control. A GPS tracker purchased through D's son in law, Brian Bush, put in D's hummer in January twenty twenty, because Dale suspected she was having an affair, Over twenty one hundred access requests to their Cadillac Escalades' on Star system were logged in sixteen months, mostly checking the vehicle's location. Dale asked the family's IT contractor how to clone D's phone, which the contractor refused to do without D's permission. After she disappeared, the first thing Dale did was call the same contractor and asked to have his remote camera access set up on his phone and remove the access of D's family members from the farm's surveillance system. D's massage therapist testified she observed bruises on D eight to ten times over the years, a large bruise on her hip marks consistent with some being grabbed like a handprint. The last time she saw D, she was shaking, distraught, tired of her situation, talking about consulting a lawyer. The prosecution's opening told the jury this plainly. D came home from a day of crying, told Dale their marriage was over and their businesses would be sold, and before sunrise the next morning, she was dead. Dale strangled her, wrapped duct tape around her head, put her in her pajamas, cut open a pressurized tank on his farm, sealed her inside and welded it shut. Then he called police and told

16:37 them she was unstable and probably just left for three years. That's what the world believed that d Warner had walked away. The defense argues the state's cases built on speculation. Yes, Dale tracked d. Yes, they fought constantly. Yes, she wanted a divorce, but plenty of people in difficult marriages don't commit murder. The defense points to the number of other people present on that farm property. They're asking the jury to apply reasonable doubt to every piece of circumstantial evidence. Cell Phone evidence showed D's phone went silent just after seven am on April twenty fifth. The Cadillac escalade was unlocked twice in sixteen months, both times by an iPhone twelve pro Max that was only added to the system in March twenty twenty one. The second unlock was April twenty fifth, twenty twenty one, the day d disappeared. Trial continues, d Warner deserved better. She deserved to sell those businesses, take back her life, and see her grandchildren grow up.

17:42 She deserved the divorce she'd been planning for years. She deserved to walk off that farm alive, rest in peace. D coming up. A fourteen year old girl's body was cut apart and placed in cadaver bags in a tesla. Six months later, no charges, but a grand jury has finally named a target and a private investigator is calling it what it looks like, welcome back. I'm read Carter, and this story has haunted me since September. Let me remind you what we know. September eighth, twenty twenty five, a tesla had been towed to an LAPD parking lot after being reported abandoned. Officers noticed a smell, a foul, overwhelming smell. They got a search warrant. When they opened the front storage compartment of the vehicle. The front they found a black cadaver bag covered in insects. Inside the bag was a decomposed human head in torso. When investigators removed that bag, they found a second cadaver bag beneath it.

18:51 Inside the victim's arms and legs removed from her body. Someone had sawed them off. The victim was selet lest reevas Hernandez, fourteen years old. The tesla was registered to David Burke, a recording artist who performs under the stage name David. He was nineteen years old at the time. His music lo fi, bedroom pop, heartfelt, and atmospheric had earned him millions of streams and a dedicated Following September twenty twenty five, he had a teen fanbase, a record deal, and a dead fourteen year old in a cadaver bag in his car. We covered this case in the fall. We told you about the discovery of what investigators later described as sadistic materials found during a search of David's former Hollywood home. We told you about Neo Langston, one of David's friends, an online streamer who was subpoened to appear before a grand jury as a witness and failed to show up. He was arrested last month for that failure to appear. This week, court documents leaked by private investigator Steve Fisher have given us the clearest picture yet of where the investigation stands. The court documents, which are part of a legal battle over subpoenas, formally name David Burke as a target of the grand jury investigation, not a witness. A target that is a legally significant distinction.

20:15 A witness is someone with information. A target is someone the grand jury believes may have committed a crime and is investigating for potential indictment. David's parents, Dawood and Colleen Burke, and his brother Caleb were subpoened by the grand jury and ordered to travel to California to testify. They fought the subpoenas in Texas, arguing that the documentation didn't adequately explain how their testimony would be material to the investigation. A Texas judge refused to quash the subpoenas. They are being compelled to testify, and yet six months since Celeste's body was found, no charges have been filed, not against David Burke, not against anyone the autopsy and investigative findings have been seen, with lap D and the DA's office issuing a press release claiming it wasn't meant to undermine transparency.

21:07 The records remain sealed. Steve Fisher, the private investigator who has been pushing loudly on this case, went public this week with a detailed statement that I think deserves to be heard, he says, and I paraphrasing closely. They went out with a press release saying the only potential criminal culpability might be concealment of a body. They issued that press release knowing that Celeste's arms and legs had been sought off. They knew what had been done to her, and still floated concealment of a body as the possible charge. He's calling the investigation failed. He says critical surveillance footage was lost because nobody followed up to obtain it in time, that important evidence was left behind after the search warrant that after nearly six months, if the evidence hasn't been secured, people need to say so plainly. He also mentions other names Neo Christopher Langston, the friend who was arrested for failing to appear. Fisher has publicly said Langston knew what happened.

22:06 He mentions a person named Asia the court document's name only David Burke as a target. But Fisher believes multiple people were involved in what happened to Celeste, and that one person could not have done this alone. Think about what was done. Someone or multiple people killed a fourteen year old girl, then purchased cadaver bags, deliberately purchased them, removed her arms and her legs from her body, placed her remains in those bags, separated put them in the trunk of a Tesla and continued living their lives while Celeste decomposed in a parking lot. Fisher's question is the right one. How do people like that go on with their lives? How do they wake up every morning? The answer, apparently is because no one has charged them with anything.

22:52 I want to be clear about what we know and don't know. David Burke has not been charged with any crime. He is a target of a grond and jury investigation. That investigation is ongoing. Grand jury proceedings are secret. He is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. But Celeste Rivas Hernandez was fourteen years old. Her head and torso were in one bag, her arms and legs were in another, and six months later, the people responsible, whoever they are, have not been charged. The records are sealed. The DA issued a misleading press release. Surveillance was lost, evidence may have been missed. Make it make sense. Someone has to say her name. Someone has to remember that she was a real person, not just a body in a cadaver bag in a parking lot. She was fourteen years old. She should be in school, She should be annoying her parents. Figuring out who she is, listening to music, making plans for a future she was never given. Her name is Celeste Rivas Hernandez. She was fourteen years old.

23:56 Rest in peace, Celeste. That celebrity trials for Friday, February twenty seventh, twenty twenty six. Colin Gray's daughter testified her father pressured her to cover for him. His ex wife testified he refused to lock up the guns because it would cause a problem. His boss testified he lied about why he was leaving work on the morning four people were murdered. Trial continues. Dale Warner's trial is underway in Michigan, laying out three years of evidence in the disappearance and murder of his wife die found strangled and sealed inside a pressurized tank on his own property, and David Burke has been formally named as a grand jury target in the murder of Celeste Revas Hernandez. Six months no charges.

24:45 A private investigator is calling it what it looks like now I need to take a moment. This is my last episode after more than nine months and nearly two hundred episodes, starting the summer of twenty twenty five with the Diddy trial, the verdict that stunned the country and everything that came after. This is where Reed Carter says goodbye. We covered the Appalachi shooting as it happened. We covered Luigi Mangioni's arrest, his journal, his Thailand bar fight, and his march toward a federal murder trial. We covered Brian Coberger's nine hundred sixty two days of innocence claims before he walked into a courtroom and pleaded guilty. We covered the Manson family, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ed Geen, and the systems that failed to stop all of them. We covered the eight days of o Jay. We covered Selina.

25:34 We covered John Lennon's killer. We covered Charlie Kirk's assassination and the political violence tearing at the fabric of this country. We covered Blake Lively versus Justin Baldoni and the machinery of reputation destruction. We covered families destroyed, Chris Watts, Scott Peterson, Susan Smith and the children who deserved better. We set a lot of names. That was always the point. So thank you for listening every day, for caring about these cases, for not looking away. Justice isn't always fast but it's always riveting. The show is not going anywhere. In two weeks, Celebrity Trials becomes Daily Crime and Justice. New name, new host, Garrett Fisher takes the chair, same commitment to the truth, same victim centered coverage, more crime, more justice, wider net.

26:29 We'll be back with season two and a bigger show than ever. For the next couple of weeks, we'll be revisiting some of our greatest trials, cases that define this show, cases that deserve another listen. It's been an honor covering this beat with you. I'm read Carter. This has been Celebrity Trials