Why Celeste's Parents Can't Explain The London Form

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This is HiddenKillers With Tony Brueski. Here now, Tony Brueski.

**Tony Brueski** (0:06)
Well, I hate to say it, but we've been saying this all along. Celeste Rivas Hernandez parents allegedly signed a notarized travel consent form allowing their daughter to fly to London for a week with a grown man. No other family member on the trip, no adult sister, not an uncle, not a cousin, just a girl who hadn't started high school, and a platinum-selling musician five years older than her on a private trip. The form did sign itself. Somebody walked into an office, put her name on a legal document, and sent their kid across the ocean alone with David Anthony Burke allegedly. And that's our starting point today. Because everything that follows makes it worse. Your thoughts in the comment section on Substack and YouTube. Links are in the description. If you want to take our podcast with you wherever you go, there's the QR code on the screen if you're watching us on YouTube right now. That'll take you to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you're listening. And you can hit subscribe and take us with you there. So I'll leave that up for a few minutes and you can check that out. So we've been saying for a long time, that Celeste Rivas Hernandez was failed by basically every adult in her life. And it turns out to be quite true.
Celeste's father would later tell reporters through his attorney that he'd never had any contact with Burke. We'll come back to that. We'll revisit that little factoid.
It's such an angering case.
And here's the other thing the parents already knew by the time they signed that form. Deputies had been to Burke's store about Celeste in February 24, told them face to face that their daughter was a 13-year-old runaway. Law enforcement drew the line in ink. And the parents, they signed the permission slip anyway.
July 27 marked the fifth and final day of Burke's preliminary hearing in Los Angeles. Judge Charlene Olmedo ruled that prosecutors met their burden on all counts. Burke, the singer who goes by David, D4vd, was held to answer for first-degree murder with special circumstances, including lying in wait, financial gain and killing a witness. He was also held on charge as related to continuous illegal conduct with Celeste, who was under 14, and unlawful mutilation of her remains. No bail. Arrayment, August 31st. The DA's office says he's eligible for the death penalty and they haven't decided whether to pursue it. The DA, Nathan Hockman, told reporters that what they'd presented over those five days was in his words, a small but illustrative fraction of the evidence they have. A small but illustrative fraction. But the ruling isn't what landed hardest on day five. What landed hardest was the testimony about Celeste's family. And how catastrophically they failed their daughter. LAPD Detective Corey Farrell under cross-examination by Defense Attorney Blair Berk testified that the parents of both Berk and Celeste knew about the relationship. Berk's argument to the court was blunt. The family had multiple opportunities to intervene and didn't. The relationship, Berk said, was no secret.
Obviously, it doesn't justify anything that David did.
It just puts people that want to be viewed in one category over here as grieving parents. Oh my gosh, how could this possibly have happened to our little girl? Well, you should have given a shit about her while she was alive and not let her go around the world with an adult that clearly isn't having slumber parties, watching reruns of Nancy Drew and eating cookies at night.
I'm just, I have a daughter this exact same age and there is no planet, there is no human being on this world who will ever come into my home. I don't care how friendly they are, how close she thinks she is to somebody that will ever be like, oh yeah, let's go take a trip around the world together. You and this, this other young adult.
Let me sign that paper so that can happen. That seems like a great idea.
No, no, no.
She was a runaway, bullshit. You were a runaway from parenting. You ran away from that job. Why was she running away from you? Why was she finding so much comfort and peace over with David outside of your own home?
That's a question I'd love to have answered. Because the evidence is starting to stack up and it's looking pretty shitty in my opinion. Celeste's own sister traveled with them to one of Burke's shows in Las Vegas. Text messages indicated the group planned to stay together at a hotel. Celeste was filmed sitting with Burke's family in a VIP section at a concert at the Fonda Theater in Hollywood. Burke attended church with family members of Celeste's family on at least one occasion.