Steinfeld said Celeste’s mother, Mercedes, had been warned in advance that graphic images would be shown.<\/p>\n
“I told her she didn’t have to be in the courtroom for this part of the hearing,” he said.<\/p>\n
“But she said, ‘I want to be here to show support for Celeste.’ She just put her head down and started crying.”<\/p>\n
He said he had advised both parents that once they saw the images, they would never be able to “unsee” them.<\/p>\n
“I encouraged them to step out for a short period of time, and they decided no – they wanted to be here to show they’re supporting their daughter.”<\/p>\n
“They’re an extremely private family,” he added. “It’s a parent’s worst nightmare.”<\/p>\n
The small downtown Los Angeles courtroom was packed long before Tuesday’s hearing began.<\/p>\n
Journalists, YouTubers, TikTok creators and members of the public had entered a lottery for one of the limited number of seats to watch the proceedings.<\/p>\n
There was a palpable sense of anticipation in the room.<\/p>\n
The constant chatter stopped when Burke was brought in.<\/p>\n
Wearing an orange jail uniform, he was shackled at the wrists and ankles.<\/p>\n
His handcuffs were removed, but he remained chained to his chair throughout the hearing.<\/p>\n
He briefly smiled at members of his defence team before quietly responding to the judge with “Good morning, Your Honour”, and “Yes, Your Honour”.<\/p>\n
The atmosphere shifted dramatically once Detective Joshua Byers began his testimony.<\/p>\n
Before displaying each graphic image, prosecutor Beth Silverman repeatedly turned to Celeste’s parents, warning them about what they were about to see and checking whether they wanted to look away.<\/p>\n
At one point, Celeste’s mother was comforted by supporters seated beside her.<\/p>\n
The girl’s body was discovered inside the trunk of a Tesla in September 2025 in a Hollywood tow yard.<\/p>\n
Detective Byers described opening a cadaver bag inside the car and finding decomposing human remains, including a torso and a head, with another black refuse bag underneath containing severed limbs.<\/p>\n
He told the court Celeste’s body had decomposed so severely her face was no longer recognisable.<\/p>\n
The court also heard evidence showing purchases delivered to Burke’s address under an alias after Celeste’s death, including chainsaws, body bags and an inflatable pool.<\/p>\n
Investigators allege the items were used to dismember and conceal Celeste’s body.<\/p>\n
The court heard about tattoos prosecutors say connected Burke and Celeste.<\/p>\n
The judge was shown photographs of a red-ink tattoo reading “Celeste” on Burke’s left ring finger, as well as a “Shhh…” tattoo on his right index finger.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors showed a photograph of Celeste with a similar “Shhh…” tattoo on her right index finger and another picture of a hand where the ring and little finger were cut off.<\/p>\n
The preliminary hearing is expected to last several days, with prosecutors planning to call additional witnesses as they seek to establish enough evidence for the case to move to a jury trial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steinfeld said Celeste’s mother, Mercedes, had been warned in advance that graphic images would be shown. “I told…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":704830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-704829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=704829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/704830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}