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Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary

How Did D4VD Build a Life Nobody Could See Through?

Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary

True Crime Today

True Crime, News Commentary, News

3.3907 Ratings

🗓️ 28 May 2026

⏱️ 26 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

David Anthony Burke spent his entire childhood learning to perform emotions from behind a screen — and according to prosecutors, he allegedly spent his early adulthood applying that skill to maintaining a reality nobody around him could detect.

This episode goes somewhere different. We’re not walking through charges or court dates. We’re going inside the person. Burke grew up homeschooled, isolated, recording music in his sister’s closet. He told interviewers openly that he’d never experienced the feelings in his songs — that he manufactured them from observation, from the internet, from imagined scenarios. He said the first concert he ever attended was his own. That’s the foundation. And according to prosecutors, what allegedly grew on top of it was an entire parallel existence that ran undetected for over a year.

We break down three layers of psychology sourced from Burke’s own pre-arrest interviews and the People’s Brief: the career built on manufactured authenticity, the operating system of secrecy prosecutors allege surrounded the alleged relationship with Celeste Rivas Hernandez, and the parallel worlds prosecutors say Burke allegedly maintained while touring with SZA and performing at Coachella. We examine the welfare check where deputies told Burke that Celeste was thirteen — and the yearbook photo he allegedly showed them while denying he knew her. We trace the alleged thousand-dollar phone delivered through a classmate, the matching “Shhh” tattoos, and the alleged infrastructure of concealment that prosecutors say held it all together.

Then the alleged forty-eight hours: the radio interview, the album release, and the tools prosecutors allege were ordered under a fake name. Burke’s biggest song is called “Romantic Homicide.” His album is called Withered. According to prosecutors, it reportedly dropped two days after Celeste was allegedly killed inside his house.

Burke has pleaded not guilty to all charges. His defense maintains he is innocent and was not the cause of Celeste’s death.

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#D4VD #DavidAnthonyBurke #CelesteRivasHernandez #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime #JusticeForCeleste #TrueCrimePodcast #MurderCase #TrueCrimeCommunity #CrimePsychology

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This is Hidden Killers with Tony Brewski.

0:03.3

Here now, Tony Brewski.

0:07.0

David Anthony Burke, D4VD, built a career on a skill.

0:12.6

Most people don't think of as a skill.

0:14.3

He could make you believe he'd lived something he hadn't.

0:21.2

Over a billion streams, Coachella, a tour with Siza.

0:25.7

The whole time Burke was telling interviewers on the record in his own words

0:31.0

that most of what he wrote about had never actually happened to him.

0:35.8

He told days he created fake scenarios in his head and turned them into songs.

0:41.3

He told N.E. His earlier music was him living vicariously through so many different people.

0:49.3

He told People magazine he used to base his personality off the next game he played.

0:57.1

His breakthrough song, Romantic Homicide, wasn't about a real relationship.

1:01.9

It was invented, performed, and millions of people believed it was real because the performance was that convincing.

1:10.7

I mean, a lot of music does that.

1:13.4

Artists do that.

1:14.6

I'm not saying it's anything that's strange.

1:17.4

It certainly happens.

1:19.1

It's just when we get into the context of where David is sitting today

1:23.2

and the charge is against him and the content of said songs,

1:26.9

it makes it feel a little bit different.

1:29.7

As we go through this, your thoughts in the comment section on Substack and YouTube,

1:33.5

because we're going to try and dig here into who David is and who he isn't.

...

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