What Was On Celeste's Fingers Before They Vanished

**Tony Brueski** (0:00)
This is The Big Breakdown, a long look back at some of the biggest stories we're covering for you at the Hidden Killers Podcast and True Crime Today. This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Dre.

**Tony Brueski** (0:18)
Lots of things have happened in the last handful of days in the David case, and we're going to be breaking them all down, and you are welcome to give us your questions and your thoughts in the comment section as we do so, wherever you are watching us. Please do drop them. Happy Monday, everybody. Four days of preliminary hearing testimony against David Burke, the singer known as David, have put a mound of evidence into a Los Angeles court record, and a fourth day was the worst of it.
Yeah, we learned so many new things, including about a baby that never came about. Robin, Drake is here, retired FBI Special Agency for the Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program to help us break down some of the big questions here, and how the defense explains any of it away, because Blair Burke is one of the best defense attorneys in the country, and she needs an answer for every single one of these questions. So let's get into it. One of the big things, the detective read Burke's own message in court, and one of the text messages said, when you go and get it done, when, W-E-N, you gonna get it done, as he's talking about her ending the pregnancy that she had. At the age of 13, and he's an adult, when you, you know, because you can't, heaven forbid, David be troubled to use full words in a text.
It's like, when you're gonna order Arby's.
Like, when you're like, really, really? I mean, does the defense concede, you know, all of these things and just fight the killing? He's a horrible person. He's, you know, completely a little narcissistic monster, which he appears to be. Everything's about him and his image and his money, and he's protecting it at every cost along the way. He's that, but he's not a killer. Is that what you do in a case like this? What do you make of the pregnancy information that's now come to light in this case?

**Robin Dre** (2:37)
I mean, this is such a broken individual in every aspect. It's been really interesting and terrifying and tragic that defense isn't even covering this aspect of it. The child abuse, the sexual, the S abuse of a 13-year-old girl.
They're lightly, seemingly trying to cover and saying he wasn't responsible or the reason for her death, but it's like they're totally ignoring the other side of which it's just as equal bad. I mean, it's just, there's two sides of him. It's like, I mean, he was brought up, it seems, with zero guardrails. Granted, he seems to be like a five-year-old problem solver.
With zero guardrails, accountability, and have we seen in so many cases, he's got this sadistic tinge to him. What is it with human beings that we're the only species on this planet that seems to like sadism, some of us? And he's one of them.

**Tony Brueski** (3:43)
Well, he was brought up in a very religious household. I don't know all the details of it. It's something I do want to dig into deeper, but very religious. Okay, so we're talking, I don't know if it's to the level of IBLP-ish, but it seems kind of in that family, maybe a cousin of it.
That sort of extreme religiosity, very rigid thinking, very not attuned to the outside world, until suddenly he starts making music and starts becoming a cash cow. Then it seems mom and dad, you know, maybe some of the extreme religiosity goes out of the way because, well, I mean, your son became a slot machine. Now, that's my conjecture, that's my opinion as I'm looking at this from the outside. Obviously, the inside is very, very different. And I'm telling you now, I don't know all the details of how this all went, but just on the outside looking in, which could be wrong, it looks like some of the very strict guardrails went away very quickly. And we know something about human beings when they're held back and they're restrained over here and not shown what's behind door number two or the outside world. And suddenly they're there. That can be a very jarring thing. I'm not trying to make any excuses for David here. I'm trying to figure out the recipe for David here.
And I'm wondering, and I'm curious to get your thoughts of how much an upbringing, an extremely sheltered upbringing that went from that to this. I mean, it does seem like there was some sort of, you know, very traumatic shift very quickly. And that might have just been fame. That might have, the trauma in David's world might have been fame. Of suddenly going from very sheltered to suddenly you're this artist that's making all this macabre music that probably does not necessarily adhere to your family's religious testimonies of everything that you've known. So very jarring, very different. But that also throws people's compasses, I would say, very off balance as well, because they don't know how to act. What are your thoughts on that, that whole premise, Robin?