With D4vd now set to stand trial, prosecutors are confident that a jury will agree with their assessment of the Withered singer as being guilty of killing and dismembering 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez.
In a new interview for NewsNation’s Jesse Weber Live, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman pointed to “a tremendous amount of circumstantial evidence” in the case.
“As you’re aware, circumstantial evidence is as powerful, and the jury will be instructed to this, as direct evidence,” he said. “That’s how we’re going to convict David [Anthony Burke, a.k.a. D4vd].”
Asked about the arguments put forth by D4vd’s legal team during the recently concluded five-day preliminary hearing phase, Hochman restated highlights from what prosecutors have said about their evidence thus far, plus noted that he and his team are expecting “all different types of defenses” in the coming months.
“When you basically have done the crime, your lawyers are gonna come up with all different possibilities of what could have occurred other than what the evidence will show beyond a reasonable doubt as to what did occur,” he said.
As Hochman sees it, core elements of the defense’s arguments thus far have fallen short.
“You certainly wouldn’t order a shovel. … You wouldn’t order different types of chainsaws,” he said. “You wouldn’t order an inflatable pool, and you wouldn’t order cadaver bags.”
Jurors, Hochman asserted, will ultimately see things the same way.
“We don’t have to prove at trial the standard of beyond all possible doubt,” he told Jesse Weber Live. “That’s not the standard, as you’re aware. It’s beyond a reasonable doubt. We think when a jury uses its common sense and reason, and hears the overwhelming timeline that we have put together that points in only one direction, which is to guilt on his first-degree murder, we think a jury will then eventually come to that resolution.”
All told, D4vd is facing the following charges: murder, continuous sexual abuse of a child under the age of 14, and unlawful mutilation of human remains. He has pleaded not guilty. If convicted as charged, he could be sentenced to life in prison without parole, or face the death penalty. The latter option, Hochman previously told reporters, is on the table for now, though a final decision on whether or not to seek it will be made later.
