July 24, 2026
D4vd Hearing Day 3: Jugs Of Fake Blood, Tension In Courtroom, And Chilling Autopsy Details
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RSS Feed Prosecutors called two more criminalists and the medical examiner to the stand in Day 3 of the preliminary hearing for singer D4vd, charged with the first degree murder and dismemberment of his underaged girlfriend, Celeste Rivas Hernandez. Before testimony even began, things got testy as a reporter and a private investigator were removed from the courtroom, while the prosecutor was heard threatening another attorney. The judge heard about a strange discovery in D4vd’s home: jugs and trays of fake blood, as investigators continued to testify to the actual blood found with a “strong DNA match” to Rivas Hernandez. The most chilling testimony will continue on Friday as the medical examiner returns to the stand after describing the condition of Celeste’s remains.
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey folks, it is Friday, July twenty fourth, and jugs of fake blood. That was one of a number of new and disturbing details coming out of Day three of the preliminary hearing for singer David with that welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Day four expected to get underwag ropes and just a little bit from this recording, but it was another day in rows we are we're learning so much more about this case in details big and small. But that was a weird one that I don't know how relevant it is, but it was just another bizarre detail from this.
00:00:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know that I've ever heard of anyone that police have raided their home and they've come away with jugs of fake blood. Unclear? And what is this about making his music videos? Because he's got some dark and twisted lyric and a lot of his songs that have been certainly pointed out and have some eerie similarities in terms of just even the title of romantic homicide.
00:01:10
Speaker 3: That's disturbing in and of itself.
00:01:12
Speaker 2: And yes, some of his videos they've got some anime to them right like as well, and it's they've been violent. There's stabbings, there's deaths and so yes, I guess maybe he needed fake blood to make videos.
00:01:24
Speaker 1: But that was, you know, of all the stuff they found in there, that was probably the least terrifying of what they described. When you talk about chainsaws, when you talk about bloods, it's batter all over the place. But yes, day four is today, but day three rapped yesterday. So we want to hop on and let you know what happened in court and ropes once again, how many criminalists does the LAPD have. They've had at least four or five testify just in this case alone. I'm shocked at how many criminalists, criminalists, how many that they had. I don't know why that stood out to me.
00:01:55
Speaker 3: I know, and I was impressed in at least on day two they were both women. I was like, okay, we're present.
00:02:00
Speaker 1: Wait the day before, I think it was both women.
00:02:02
Speaker 3: I was surprised because look, we always kind of go on default. He said. I was like, oh wait, no, her name is Chelsea. Yeah it was.
00:02:10
Speaker 2: I was kind of impressed, Like, way to go. I love seeing women in those types of positions.
00:02:14
Speaker 1: Well, these women are in very important positions right now because they processed a lot of the evidence and processed a lot of the scene having to do with this murder. Again, folks know by now singer David twenty one years old now but was twenty years old when he was arrested, but accused of the killing and dismemberment of the body of fourteen year olds ce Les reeveas Hernandez, a girl that police say he was in a sexual relationship with. He is facing charges of sex abuse as well, So that brings us now preliminary hearing. They're trying to figure out there's enough evidence to go to trial. Certainly seems overwhelming. But yesterday robes before we even got started. In what in God's name this is when we watched trials live, we live for some of the drama and some of the personalities. Sometimes in the courtroom, it seems like we got some developing even though we can't see them. We're reading about it.
00:03:06
Speaker 2: Yes, I actually this would have been one I would have loved to have witnessed, because they it was described as ten six changes. Look, this prosecutor, her name is Beth Silverman, and from what we've been reading, she sounds like she does not play. She is she has a mission and she doesn't want anyone getting in her way of completing that mission. That that was my takeaway from everything I read in the courtroom that was going on between her and a couple folks.
00:03:36
Speaker 1: So yeah, so let's go through a couple folks. We'll start first robes with a reporter who got kicked out. Now robes, when they say no cameras in the courtroom, there are oftentimes other restrictions put on it. There are some courts that do allow reporters to give live updates. You could be sitting there on your phone listening to what's happening, send it to somebody else, they can get it posted. This ain't that they have rules in place that nothing is supposed to be coming out of that courtroom live right.
00:04:03
Speaker 2: And they found out that someone was in real time transcribing basically what was happening in the courtroom and then yes, publishing it for everyone to read in real time. And look, we, as you point out, we have seen that and we've lived for it. It's been amazing. During Diddy writ it, Actually we would just we we didn't have a life during that trial. That we sat by our computers with the New York Times and NBC News and CNN, and we had all the live updates just coming in and it felt like we were in the courtroom with the journalists and the folks in there watching it as it or at least listening to it as it happened. But yeah, that's not what has been allowed in this case. And a reporter was trying to get away with doing that and got busted and kicked out just for the day though.
00:04:49
Speaker 1: Busted and boot it. Yes, I was surprise it wasn't Harsher Pilm than us Lesson learned. But maybe this is something tells us something about the judge as well. Want to be fair even though you're getting a message across. So that was one of the first things that happened. This other thing, Rob was a prosecutor put it on the record. I'm not sure what this was, but said someone who was previously in the gallery, a woman came up to her, the prosecutor, and made inappropriate comments. That is all that was said at the time. They said a person that was previously in the gallery, so it seemed like they weren't in there anymore, so don't exactly know what that was about. And then there was a back and forth rope. Somebody else got kicked out for now, but after again some back and forth between the prosecutor was complaining about somebody being in the room.
00:05:33
Speaker 3: It is a private investigator.
00:05:34
Speaker 2: His name is Steve Fisher, and actually some of the information that was coming out in the months leading up to David's arrest came from this man because he was working with the family attorney, the family I should say Celestrievus Hernandez's family attorney, and he was the one, like if you ever read before the police arrested David, some of the things that were being taken out of his house, a burn box was mentioned. We didn't even report on it because we didn't know how legit this guy was. But she sees the attorney for Celestrievas Hernandez's family talking to this private investigator and goes crazy.
00:06:08
Speaker 3: I love this though.
00:06:09
Speaker 2: The private investigator went out to talk to reporters afterwards and said, she hates me. I don't know what her problem is with me, but yeah, there was real drama and she wanted him out because he was a grand jury witness, and so she doesn't want and this makes sense. A grand jury witness someone who could testify in the trial later. He shouldn't be sitting in court listening to the testimony, and he certainly shouldn't be interacting with the family's attorneys because that could create some sort of just an appearance of I don't know, wrongdoing or just inappropriateness.
00:06:43
Speaker 1: If he has to testify later in possible trial, he shouldn't be sitting in there.
00:06:47
Speaker 2: She doesn't want anyone or anything to screw her case up, have any sort of misconduct mistrial, any notion of anything being untoward. And so she meant business, can I read what I This is my favorite part. So someone who said she could hear in the courtroom, this prosecutor. She was so upset. But she basically told the attorney for the family, don't mess with me. Do not mess with me, like she basically made a threat to him and said, I will have your badge if you don't stop.
00:07:21
Speaker 1: Look, this is high stakes in yes, because of what's at stake of the young man's life is at steak, literally not just behind bars, but the death penalties on the table ropes all the eyes of the country in the world. No, she does not. I can see why they'd be on the edge not want to have a misstep of any kind.
00:07:38
Speaker 2: I have for direct quote, push me. You'll see how far that goes. I'll pull your badge. I just snickered reading that.
00:07:45
Speaker 1: So, yeah, that's what we are getting. Okay, this is the best we can do. We have to read about the tension, and even just seeing the words on the screen, still you can feel the tension. Now we finally, I guess Robes and the tension between these two. It was yesterday the day they day two. The judge noted the tension between the attorneys actually, and actually noted that the two had been in a previous trial. They had just gone head to head in another trial. So here they are good and wound up. Now, so this might be interesting. I shouldn't say fun, but some of the tension rose we live for, some of the drama. We know they don't necessarily hate each other, but just some of the gamesmanship and just some of the egos sometimes.
00:08:29
Speaker 2: Oh, when this is about as big of a case as a district attorney is going to get, and so there's a lot of pressure from the public internally as well, and she does not want to get things wrong, and she wants to win this and Obviously defense attorneys have their reputations at stake as well, So yes, this is personal almost certainly, probably for both.
00:08:53
Speaker 1: And yeah, by the way, there was some testimony yesterday as well, witnesses they got on the stand. You did mention Rose, two criminalists with LAPD, and then the medical examiner, Grant Ho who we were expected to spend maybe more time up there, only spent a short amount of time, but it was significant. He's going to be back on the stand today. But the evidence robes, they kind of went through a lot of the crime scene and some of the DNA, but the bottom line, the stains they found in the house that they believe are blood stains they say are a strong DNA match to Celestevas Hernandez. That came out and again in robes they mentioned the other things they found in the house. We mentioned the fake blood. I don't know, it was just mentioned, but it wasn't mentioned necessarily it seems as anything relevant to the case. It's just I think we've seen, didn't he have he was selling shirts or something for a while that had blood stains.
00:09:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think they're trying to establish just this darkness about this young man.
00:09:53
Speaker 1: Was established that.
00:09:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, again, not having ever walked into anyone's home and said, oh, what are these and they respond, just some jugs of fake blood. I mean, yes, it's bizarre, it's dark. It's again my favorite word, macabre. It is it's just setting up a scene.
00:10:13
Speaker 1: Perhaps ill twenty years old in eighteen seventeen. We've heard about all the money he had been making over the past several years, where he was a teenager sixteen seventeen whatever. First year he made not own a fifty grand, and the next year he made almost four million. In the next year he made almost three million. He's a teenager, like this is fascinating to what in God's name was go? Who is this kid?
00:10:38
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:10:39
Speaker 3: And where were his parents?
00:10:40
Speaker 2: You know what?
00:10:41
Speaker 1: They were apparently supporting him and supporting his taking care of his money.
00:10:46
Speaker 3: This is I've thought about them. They have not been in the courtroom.
00:10:48
Speaker 2: I actually went and tried to find any reporting about that, and by all accounts, they are not in the courtroom because as awful and hard as it is for Celest's parents to be there, they want to know what happened to their daughter. I imagine his parents probably don't want to hear the details because they don't want to think the worst of their son. Reports are that they are supporting him. They believe he's innocent. But still that is what the latest reports are.
00:11:15
Speaker 1: But what did he tell his parents?
00:11:17
Speaker 2: How they asked? I cannot imagine what he would have said to them, and I cannot imagine what it would feel like to think that you raise someone who would have been capable of what he's being accused of.
00:11:27
Speaker 1: Ah, And we heard more about what he's accused of. We heard more about how he's believed to have killed so let's freeous Hernandez, and we heard more about the condition of her body. The much anticipated testimony of the medical examiner got underway, and a couple of particular details will pull at your heart, including how much she weighed and something in particular he said she was wearing. Stay here.
00:12:00
Speaker 2: And welcome back everyone as we discuss day three of singer David's preliminary hearing, and we talked about so much of the drama in the courtroom leading up to the testimony, but the testimony itself was incredibly powerful and moving and shocking as it has been, but hearing from what we've anticipated as one of the star witnesses of this hearing, just in terms of learning about what happened to Celeste Revus Hernandez, what happened to her body, how she died. Yes, the medical examiner has begun or at least began as testimony on Thursday. He'll continue it on Friday. But we did learn some just chilling, I guess it is the best way to describe it. Details about celest and You mentioned before the break how much she weighed.
00:12:58
Speaker 1: Was this seventy one pounds? They say the remains weighed seventy one pounds. He also mentioned his original autopsy. It was limited in what they say they could do because of extensive post mortem changes. You're limited and how much you can examine the body. But they do say ropes two penetrating wounds that they say were made with a smooth edge something of the other, but a torso a wound and an abdomen wound. So that's what he's probably going to get questioned pretty hard by the defense if he can say definitively what caused those wounds.
00:13:33
Speaker 2: Yes, because if you remember when the prosecution back in April had its eight page evidence file that they submitted to the court, they actually used the words that he stabbed Celestre Hernandez multiple times and watched her bleed out. So not sure how they could say that if they were taking some creative license or a dramatic license by saying that. But if there were just two stab wounds and one to the stomach. I just had that image that they were painting in their court filing, just by hearing only two stab wounds but one to the stomach. Just it's it's hard to imagine what she must have suffered.
00:14:14
Speaker 1: And this medical examiner's name is Grant Ho, and this is the guy who has been out there and been fairly public robes because we are learning a lot of information now. We got some from the autopsy official one that came out April a few months ago. Yes it was way after the event. He wanted to put this thing out a long time.
00:14:33
Speaker 2: We remember they wouldn't even classify her death as a homicide, which we thought, that's ridiculous. How could she end up in pieces in someone's trunk if no one killed her, so they wouldn't even acknowledge it. And yes, I told Grant Ho went out and made a couple of public statements saying I think this is a travesty. I think I should be able to tell the public what happened to this young girl. I think there's public interest. I think transparency is important, and I don't think that it changes the investigation if I release some but I have basically been barred. There was a seal placed on her autopsy in any reports he made about her condition. So he's finally getting his day in court.
00:15:11
Speaker 1: You know, he's one I would love to hear from because he has details. But I think he's going to take a moment. I wouldn't be surprised if he takes a moment up there on the stand and calls out the rules of the prosecution in some way when the defense talks to him, I wouldn't be surprised.
00:15:25
Speaker 2: He was not shy in voicing his disdain for the process, or at least what he was limited by or who he was limited by.
00:15:34
Speaker 1: Now you're trying to balance and respect that the police don't want certain things out, maybe a part of their investigation. They don't want him in the public. But this guy made a very good and compelling argument for the public needing to know what's going on. And the one detail rose that was stuff along the way that we hear about with celestiriebus Hernandez. That had to give us a reminder that she's a baby, right, she's a child. She's a kid, she's eleven. Well if she's thirteen, she's fourteen, and people talk about and you hear the report she's in a sexual relationship with somebody. We got to remember this was a baby. And I guess the medical examiner Robes, I don't know. This is one of those things, one of those little details that brings tears to your eyes and makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck. It's just he added this, Robes, and I just thought it.
00:16:23
Speaker 2: I know. He added that they found her braces, that she was wearing braces at the time of her murder, at the time of her death, and it's just said she was a young girl. She was trying to straighten her teeth that time in life where you're just in that maybe even a little awkward phase where you're going through puberty or just having gotten through it. Yeah, I had braces when I was fourteen. I got mine off right before I turned fifteen. That's exactly when I had braces, and I was in eighth grade.
00:16:52
Speaker 1: You have been here the whole time when Sabine got her braces or in VIZI line now, I guess, but you were, and she's just wrapping that up because this is the age that they do it, and I don't know the summer out found it in the remains, found the braces.
00:17:06
Speaker 2: And that was the way it was put Actually also stood out as if they weren't intact with her head, with her mouth, with her jaw, because of all the decomposition and the trauma the body had suffered with the I mean, she was decapitated, she was dismembered.
00:17:23
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just the whole thing. It's just so awful.
00:17:26
Speaker 2: And you're right just to know that he said he found her braces in her remains just speaks volumes.
00:17:34
Speaker 1: Should mention the defense right now, Robes. It's maybe it's the only option they have. They haven't given us I guess their defense, what their line of defense might be, but it's it's clear right now they are going after the police, the criminalists, the investigators, the forensics folks, and just how they collected DNA and collected this evidence. Nothing's landing that hard necessarily yet, but that's yeah, we're getting some insight to what direction they could possibly go.
00:18:04
Speaker 3: Yes, they're just trying to point to the process somehow not being thorough enough and okay, still doesn't change the evidence they collected in that process.
00:18:14
Speaker 1: They don't have a lot to work with here. But yes, as of this recording, they haven't started up yet nine o'clock nine thirty LA time.
00:18:21
Speaker 3: Yes, a little bit later today LA time.
00:18:23
Speaker 2: So yes, just after lunch twelve thirty here in on the East Coast, and they will. Yes, this will be another big day because we'll have the medical examiner back up on the stand and we'll be getting more details about what he went through to determine cause of death. But we will of course keep you updated on all the developments. We always appreciate you listening to us. I'm Amy Roboch alongside TJ.
00:18:45
Speaker 3: Holmes. We'll talk soon.
Speaker 1: Hey folks, it is Friday, July twenty fourth, and jugs of fake blood. That was one of a number of new and disturbing details coming out of Day three of the preliminary hearing for singer David with that welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Day four expected to get underwag ropes and just a little bit from this recording, but it was another day in rows we are we're learning so much more about this case in details big and small. But that was a weird one that I don't know how relevant it is, but it was just another bizarre detail from this.
00:00:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know that I've ever heard of anyone that police have raided their home and they've come away with jugs of fake blood. Unclear? And what is this about making his music videos? Because he's got some dark and twisted lyric and a lot of his songs that have been certainly pointed out and have some eerie similarities in terms of just even the title of romantic homicide.
00:01:10
Speaker 3: That's disturbing in and of itself.
00:01:12
Speaker 2: And yes, some of his videos they've got some anime to them right like as well, and it's they've been violent. There's stabbings, there's deaths and so yes, I guess maybe he needed fake blood to make videos.
00:01:24
Speaker 1: But that was, you know, of all the stuff they found in there, that was probably the least terrifying of what they described. When you talk about chainsaws, when you talk about bloods, it's batter all over the place. But yes, day four is today, but day three rapped yesterday. So we want to hop on and let you know what happened in court and ropes once again, how many criminalists does the LAPD have. They've had at least four or five testify just in this case alone. I'm shocked at how many criminalists, criminalists, how many that they had. I don't know why that stood out to me.
00:01:55
Speaker 3: I know, and I was impressed in at least on day two they were both women. I was like, okay, we're present.
00:02:00
Speaker 1: Wait the day before, I think it was both women.
00:02:02
Speaker 3: I was surprised because look, we always kind of go on default. He said. I was like, oh wait, no, her name is Chelsea. Yeah it was.
00:02:10
Speaker 2: I was kind of impressed, Like, way to go. I love seeing women in those types of positions.
00:02:14
Speaker 1: Well, these women are in very important positions right now because they processed a lot of the evidence and processed a lot of the scene having to do with this murder. Again, folks know by now singer David twenty one years old now but was twenty years old when he was arrested, but accused of the killing and dismemberment of the body of fourteen year olds ce Les reeveas Hernandez, a girl that police say he was in a sexual relationship with. He is facing charges of sex abuse as well, So that brings us now preliminary hearing. They're trying to figure out there's enough evidence to go to trial. Certainly seems overwhelming. But yesterday robes before we even got started. In what in God's name this is when we watched trials live, we live for some of the drama and some of the personalities. Sometimes in the courtroom, it seems like we got some developing even though we can't see them. We're reading about it.
00:03:06
Speaker 2: Yes, I actually this would have been one I would have loved to have witnessed, because they it was described as ten six changes. Look, this prosecutor, her name is Beth Silverman, and from what we've been reading, she sounds like she does not play. She is she has a mission and she doesn't want anyone getting in her way of completing that mission. That that was my takeaway from everything I read in the courtroom that was going on between her and a couple folks.
00:03:36
Speaker 1: So yeah, so let's go through a couple folks. We'll start first robes with a reporter who got kicked out. Now robes, when they say no cameras in the courtroom, there are oftentimes other restrictions put on it. There are some courts that do allow reporters to give live updates. You could be sitting there on your phone listening to what's happening, send it to somebody else, they can get it posted. This ain't that they have rules in place that nothing is supposed to be coming out of that courtroom live right.
00:04:03
Speaker 2: And they found out that someone was in real time transcribing basically what was happening in the courtroom and then yes, publishing it for everyone to read in real time. And look, we, as you point out, we have seen that and we've lived for it. It's been amazing. During Diddy writ it, Actually we would just we we didn't have a life during that trial. That we sat by our computers with the New York Times and NBC News and CNN, and we had all the live updates just coming in and it felt like we were in the courtroom with the journalists and the folks in there watching it as it or at least listening to it as it happened. But yeah, that's not what has been allowed in this case. And a reporter was trying to get away with doing that and got busted and kicked out just for the day though.
00:04:49
Speaker 1: Busted and boot it. Yes, I was surprise it wasn't Harsher Pilm than us Lesson learned. But maybe this is something tells us something about the judge as well. Want to be fair even though you're getting a message across. So that was one of the first things that happened. This other thing, Rob was a prosecutor put it on the record. I'm not sure what this was, but said someone who was previously in the gallery, a woman came up to her, the prosecutor, and made inappropriate comments. That is all that was said at the time. They said a person that was previously in the gallery, so it seemed like they weren't in there anymore, so don't exactly know what that was about. And then there was a back and forth rope. Somebody else got kicked out for now, but after again some back and forth between the prosecutor was complaining about somebody being in the room.
00:05:33
Speaker 3: It is a private investigator.
00:05:34
Speaker 2: His name is Steve Fisher, and actually some of the information that was coming out in the months leading up to David's arrest came from this man because he was working with the family attorney, the family I should say Celestrievus Hernandez's family attorney, and he was the one, like if you ever read before the police arrested David, some of the things that were being taken out of his house, a burn box was mentioned. We didn't even report on it because we didn't know how legit this guy was. But she sees the attorney for Celestrievas Hernandez's family talking to this private investigator and goes crazy.
00:06:08
Speaker 3: I love this though.
00:06:09
Speaker 2: The private investigator went out to talk to reporters afterwards and said, she hates me. I don't know what her problem is with me, but yeah, there was real drama and she wanted him out because he was a grand jury witness, and so she doesn't want and this makes sense. A grand jury witness someone who could testify in the trial later. He shouldn't be sitting in court listening to the testimony, and he certainly shouldn't be interacting with the family's attorneys because that could create some sort of just an appearance of I don't know, wrongdoing or just inappropriateness.
00:06:43
Speaker 1: If he has to testify later in possible trial, he shouldn't be sitting in there.
00:06:47
Speaker 2: She doesn't want anyone or anything to screw her case up, have any sort of misconduct mistrial, any notion of anything being untoward. And so she meant business, can I read what I This is my favorite part. So someone who said she could hear in the courtroom, this prosecutor. She was so upset. But she basically told the attorney for the family, don't mess with me. Do not mess with me, like she basically made a threat to him and said, I will have your badge if you don't stop.
00:07:21
Speaker 1: Look, this is high stakes in yes, because of what's at stake of the young man's life is at steak, literally not just behind bars, but the death penalties on the table ropes all the eyes of the country in the world. No, she does not. I can see why they'd be on the edge not want to have a misstep of any kind.
00:07:38
Speaker 2: I have for direct quote, push me. You'll see how far that goes. I'll pull your badge. I just snickered reading that.
00:07:45
Speaker 1: So, yeah, that's what we are getting. Okay, this is the best we can do. We have to read about the tension, and even just seeing the words on the screen, still you can feel the tension. Now we finally, I guess Robes and the tension between these two. It was yesterday the day they day two. The judge noted the tension between the attorneys actually, and actually noted that the two had been in a previous trial. They had just gone head to head in another trial. So here they are good and wound up. Now, so this might be interesting. I shouldn't say fun, but some of the tension rose we live for, some of the drama. We know they don't necessarily hate each other, but just some of the gamesmanship and just some of the egos sometimes.
00:08:29
Speaker 2: Oh, when this is about as big of a case as a district attorney is going to get, and so there's a lot of pressure from the public internally as well, and she does not want to get things wrong, and she wants to win this and Obviously defense attorneys have their reputations at stake as well, So yes, this is personal almost certainly, probably for both.
00:08:53
Speaker 1: And yeah, by the way, there was some testimony yesterday as well, witnesses they got on the stand. You did mention Rose, two criminalists with LAPD, and then the medical examiner, Grant Ho who we were expected to spend maybe more time up there, only spent a short amount of time, but it was significant. He's going to be back on the stand today. But the evidence robes, they kind of went through a lot of the crime scene and some of the DNA, but the bottom line, the stains they found in the house that they believe are blood stains they say are a strong DNA match to Celestevas Hernandez. That came out and again in robes they mentioned the other things they found in the house. We mentioned the fake blood. I don't know, it was just mentioned, but it wasn't mentioned necessarily it seems as anything relevant to the case. It's just I think we've seen, didn't he have he was selling shirts or something for a while that had blood stains.
00:09:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think they're trying to establish just this darkness about this young man.
00:09:53
Speaker 1: Was established that.
00:09:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, again, not having ever walked into anyone's home and said, oh, what are these and they respond, just some jugs of fake blood. I mean, yes, it's bizarre, it's dark. It's again my favorite word, macabre. It is it's just setting up a scene.
00:10:13
Speaker 1: Perhaps ill twenty years old in eighteen seventeen. We've heard about all the money he had been making over the past several years, where he was a teenager sixteen seventeen whatever. First year he made not own a fifty grand, and the next year he made almost four million. In the next year he made almost three million. He's a teenager, like this is fascinating to what in God's name was go? Who is this kid?
00:10:38
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:10:39
Speaker 3: And where were his parents?
00:10:40
Speaker 2: You know what?
00:10:41
Speaker 1: They were apparently supporting him and supporting his taking care of his money.
00:10:46
Speaker 3: This is I've thought about them. They have not been in the courtroom.
00:10:48
Speaker 2: I actually went and tried to find any reporting about that, and by all accounts, they are not in the courtroom because as awful and hard as it is for Celest's parents to be there, they want to know what happened to their daughter. I imagine his parents probably don't want to hear the details because they don't want to think the worst of their son. Reports are that they are supporting him. They believe he's innocent. But still that is what the latest reports are.
00:11:15
Speaker 1: But what did he tell his parents?
00:11:17
Speaker 2: How they asked? I cannot imagine what he would have said to them, and I cannot imagine what it would feel like to think that you raise someone who would have been capable of what he's being accused of.
00:11:27
Speaker 1: Ah, And we heard more about what he's accused of. We heard more about how he's believed to have killed so let's freeous Hernandez, and we heard more about the condition of her body. The much anticipated testimony of the medical examiner got underway, and a couple of particular details will pull at your heart, including how much she weighed and something in particular he said she was wearing. Stay here.
00:12:00
Speaker 2: And welcome back everyone as we discuss day three of singer David's preliminary hearing, and we talked about so much of the drama in the courtroom leading up to the testimony, but the testimony itself was incredibly powerful and moving and shocking as it has been, but hearing from what we've anticipated as one of the star witnesses of this hearing, just in terms of learning about what happened to Celeste Revus Hernandez, what happened to her body, how she died. Yes, the medical examiner has begun or at least began as testimony on Thursday. He'll continue it on Friday. But we did learn some just chilling, I guess it is the best way to describe it. Details about celest and You mentioned before the break how much she weighed.
00:12:58
Speaker 1: Was this seventy one pounds? They say the remains weighed seventy one pounds. He also mentioned his original autopsy. It was limited in what they say they could do because of extensive post mortem changes. You're limited and how much you can examine the body. But they do say ropes two penetrating wounds that they say were made with a smooth edge something of the other, but a torso a wound and an abdomen wound. So that's what he's probably going to get questioned pretty hard by the defense if he can say definitively what caused those wounds.
00:13:33
Speaker 2: Yes, because if you remember when the prosecution back in April had its eight page evidence file that they submitted to the court, they actually used the words that he stabbed Celestre Hernandez multiple times and watched her bleed out. So not sure how they could say that if they were taking some creative license or a dramatic license by saying that. But if there were just two stab wounds and one to the stomach. I just had that image that they were painting in their court filing, just by hearing only two stab wounds but one to the stomach. Just it's it's hard to imagine what she must have suffered.
00:14:14
Speaker 1: And this medical examiner's name is Grant Ho, and this is the guy who has been out there and been fairly public robes because we are learning a lot of information now. We got some from the autopsy official one that came out April a few months ago. Yes it was way after the event. He wanted to put this thing out a long time.
00:14:33
Speaker 2: We remember they wouldn't even classify her death as a homicide, which we thought, that's ridiculous. How could she end up in pieces in someone's trunk if no one killed her, so they wouldn't even acknowledge it. And yes, I told Grant Ho went out and made a couple of public statements saying I think this is a travesty. I think I should be able to tell the public what happened to this young girl. I think there's public interest. I think transparency is important, and I don't think that it changes the investigation if I release some but I have basically been barred. There was a seal placed on her autopsy in any reports he made about her condition. So he's finally getting his day in court.
00:15:11
Speaker 1: You know, he's one I would love to hear from because he has details. But I think he's going to take a moment. I wouldn't be surprised if he takes a moment up there on the stand and calls out the rules of the prosecution in some way when the defense talks to him, I wouldn't be surprised.
00:15:25
Speaker 2: He was not shy in voicing his disdain for the process, or at least what he was limited by or who he was limited by.
00:15:34
Speaker 1: Now you're trying to balance and respect that the police don't want certain things out, maybe a part of their investigation. They don't want him in the public. But this guy made a very good and compelling argument for the public needing to know what's going on. And the one detail rose that was stuff along the way that we hear about with celestiriebus Hernandez. That had to give us a reminder that she's a baby, right, she's a child. She's a kid, she's eleven. Well if she's thirteen, she's fourteen, and people talk about and you hear the report she's in a sexual relationship with somebody. We got to remember this was a baby. And I guess the medical examiner Robes, I don't know. This is one of those things, one of those little details that brings tears to your eyes and makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck. It's just he added this, Robes, and I just thought it.
00:16:23
Speaker 2: I know. He added that they found her braces, that she was wearing braces at the time of her murder, at the time of her death, and it's just said she was a young girl. She was trying to straighten her teeth that time in life where you're just in that maybe even a little awkward phase where you're going through puberty or just having gotten through it. Yeah, I had braces when I was fourteen. I got mine off right before I turned fifteen. That's exactly when I had braces, and I was in eighth grade.
00:16:52
Speaker 1: You have been here the whole time when Sabine got her braces or in VIZI line now, I guess, but you were, and she's just wrapping that up because this is the age that they do it, and I don't know the summer out found it in the remains, found the braces.
00:17:06
Speaker 2: And that was the way it was put Actually also stood out as if they weren't intact with her head, with her mouth, with her jaw, because of all the decomposition and the trauma the body had suffered with the I mean, she was decapitated, she was dismembered.
00:17:23
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just the whole thing. It's just so awful.
00:17:26
Speaker 2: And you're right just to know that he said he found her braces in her remains just speaks volumes.
00:17:34
Speaker 1: Should mention the defense right now, Robes. It's maybe it's the only option they have. They haven't given us I guess their defense, what their line of defense might be, but it's it's clear right now they are going after the police, the criminalists, the investigators, the forensics folks, and just how they collected DNA and collected this evidence. Nothing's landing that hard necessarily yet, but that's yeah, we're getting some insight to what direction they could possibly go.
00:18:04
Speaker 3: Yes, they're just trying to point to the process somehow not being thorough enough and okay, still doesn't change the evidence they collected in that process.
00:18:14
Speaker 1: They don't have a lot to work with here. But yes, as of this recording, they haven't started up yet nine o'clock nine thirty LA time.
00:18:21
Speaker 3: Yes, a little bit later today LA time.
00:18:23
Speaker 2: So yes, just after lunch twelve thirty here in on the East Coast, and they will. Yes, this will be another big day because we'll have the medical examiner back up on the stand and we'll be getting more details about what he went through to determine cause of death. But we will of course keep you updated on all the developments. We always appreciate you listening to us. I'm Amy Roboch alongside TJ.
00:18:45
Speaker 3: Holmes. We'll talk soon.