D4vd Was In High School And Celeste Was WHAT?!

**Tony Brueski** (0:01)
This is HiddenKillers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Drake.

**Tony Brueski** (0:07)
Let's go to our next piece of our conversation here. Before the charges, before the fame, before anyone outside a Fortnite lobby knew his name, because that's what he did early on, he played Fortnite and became famous playing Fortnite. Amazing what you can do these days. David Burke was a homeschooled kid from a church going family, recording songs on an iPhone in his sister's closet. Four years later, he had a record deal, a billion streams, and prosecutors allege a 14-year-old girl's body in the trunk of his Tesla. Robin Drake is with us as we continue to trace the line, the retired FBI Special Agency for the Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program. Gospel music only until the age of 13, homeschooled after seventh grade. The whole social world was online, gaming lobbies and streams when a kid grows up that isolated from real world consequences.
What doesn't get built in a person when that happens?

**Robin Drake** (1:08)
I think just all we can do is have some conjecture on it, because I'm interactive with a lot of people like this, and I wouldn't say they're super well adjusted, but who actually is super well adjusted, but adjust well enough to not do this kind of stupid shit. Again, I just think it's a lack of their own personal moral compass, because a moral and ethical compass, I think, because that upbringing was imposed on them, but there obviously wasn't any buy-in to it. So I still think this is a balance in him of genetics, as well as nature and nurture together, because it's hard.
There's knowledge is put in there. I think it was the old adage, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. But all you can do is hope to make the horse thirsty to make them interested to want to drink. I think that's what was lacking here. He just wasn't interested in healthy boundaries, healthy lifestyle, healthy relationships. It wasn't ever demonstrated in some way, or maybe it was because I don't want to bash the parents. I don't know much really about them, except that they...

**Tony Brueski** (2:16)
The decision-making abilities. Their demonstrated choices is what we know.

**Robin Drake** (2:21)
Yeah. And so, what...
I guess the question is, how far does the apple fall from the tree on that one? And I just don't know because he is very broken on very many levels, obviously.

**Tony Brueski** (2:33)
I mean, there's a lot of, you know, obviously different types of, you know, art out there, dark, melancholic, ironic, you know, and his music kind of hit that tone of sad person music, if you will, sad R&B, dark R&B. He even invented an alter ego called Itami, pain in Japanese, an agent of chaos who commits murders. His other self investigates, hoo, how deep.
I mean, obviously people are young, they're creative, creative types are gonna create all different sort of things. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with doing that.
But again, I guess what makes it creepy is all the signs we're here, the fact that he had created a alter ego that's an agent of chaos then commits murders as the alter ego and then self-investigates. He does it through art in his music videos, literally bodies in trunks, a bloody knife, playing a killer and a victim. I mean, what is the line here between dark art and rehearsal? And do you think he went into, I guess it's this chicken before the egg I'm trying to get to. Was this a world where he thought this is the path he's gonna go down and actually kill somebody or did the art inspire him to do something like this? It's like, well, I've done this in a video. I guess maybe I could do it in real life. Where do you think the line was crossed here of this is the best choice for me at this moment in time is to remove this other person from the planet, allegedly, if he did it, versus just to do art that is very macabre and dark. I mean, there's people, many people do macabre art and never murder anybody.

**Robin Drake** (4:37)
Yeah, but it definitely gives you a pause when there's a wobble from what you typically expect from someone at a certain age level, the way they're interacting with the world, the type of relationships they're having. And so when you see a wobble from what you're expecting a normal healthy behavior to have, you kind of zero in on it, and then you explore it. You know, I'm saying the parents in his life, the responsible adults in his life, and you kind of see if there's more there. In cases like this, again, from the outside looking in, from the limited data we have, although we have a lot more on this case in most cases, you're seeing someone who is fantasizing about dark things, dark art, dark murders, you know, court, I mean, just the whole genre is very, very dark and violent. And so when you start seeing fantasies about that, because obviously you have to have a fantasy if you're going to create art about it, because you're thinking about it, you're imagining it. I can only imagine it desensitize you. I know it doesn't. I don't have to imagine it. It does desensitize you towards those things. Then when you consume more data, you consume more information, you consume more art around the same genre, because that could be inspiring to you. It just completely flattens out any affect you have when you see these types of things. So, when you have a problem arise, like the girlfriend who's going to report you about dating and doing more horrendous things to someone who's underage, your mind can naturally go to the problem-solving that you've been desensitized to. Well, I'll just do this, because why not? Because this is what I've seen work before in this fantasy world I'm living.