“After several months, I am grateful this information can now be released, not only to the public but also to the grieving family enduring loss,” the chief medical examiner, Dr. Odey Ukpo, said in a statement. “It is unfathomable they have had to wait this long to learn what happened to their daughter.”
Some elements of the report were redacted, but the release did include an investigator’s observation that the dismembered body had been found inside a “large, black, zippered body bag with handles.”
At Monday’s court proceeding, Mr. Burke’s lawyers pushed for a preliminary hearing to be held soon and urged prosecutors to turn over documents, including the medical examiner’s report. That led the judge to order the report’s release.
An initial status hearing in the case is scheduled for Thursday.
The first-degree murder charge against Mr. Burke includes the special circumstances of lying in wait, committing the crime for financial gain and murdering a witness to an investigation. Those factors mean that Mr. Burke faces a maximum sentence of life without the possibility of parole, or the death penalty. The office of the Los Angeles County district attorney has said it has not decided whether it will pursue the death penalty.
In a felony complaint, prosecutors said Mr. Burke engaged in three or more acts of “substantial sexual conduct” with Celeste in the year between Sept. 7, 2023, and Sept. 7, 2024. At the time, she was 13 years old.
On April 23, 2025, when Celeste was 14, she went to Mr. Burke’s house in the Hollywood Hills at his invitation, according to the district attorney, Nathan J. Hochman, and “was not heard from again.” The complaint said the mutilation of human remains occurred on May 5, 2025.
