Daily Breaking True Crime Briefing
As of: September 1, 2026, evening ET
Scope: Last 24 hours, stretched only where a court record or affidavit moved. Georgia, Los Angeles, Charlotte, Texas, Ohio. No tabloid-only facts.
Newton County closed the remaining trial track in the Morgan Bauer killing: a jury convicted Katelyn Goble on Monday, and on Tuesday a judge gave her life without parole. In Los Angeles, singer David Anthony Burke, known as D4vd, pleaded not guilty after his retained lawyers withdrew; the DA still has not said whether he will seek death. The same office unsealed a second murder indictment against former LAPD officer Clifford Proctor in the 2015 shooting of Brendon Glenn. Charlotte’s cold-case unit arrested a man in a 2001 east-side killing. A Bexar County affidavit put beer-can DNA and a hospital confession into the 1981 Yolanda Herrera case. DeKalb police say a Florida arrest has been made in the shooting of caregiver Tanjaka Elder. In Cleveland, lawyers argued Bionca Ellis’s appeal of her life sentence for killing 3-year-old Julian Wood; no ruling by nightfall.
Goble Gets Life in Bauer Killing
A Newton County jury convicted Katelyn Goble, 30, on Monday of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, tampering with evidence, and concealing the death of another in the 2016 killing of Morgan Bauer, 19, of Aberdeen, South Dakota. Jurors were polled one by one. On Tuesday, Sept. 1, a judge sentenced Goble to life without parole.
Prosecutors said Goble and Jonathan Alexander Warren lured Bauer to a Porterdale home, where she was strangled, then dismembered and burned. Bauer had moved to metro Atlanta on Feb. 12, 2016. She was last active on social media through Feb. 29. Remains were found in Porterdale in 2023, according to coverage citing the FBI. Arrests came in 2023; a Newton County indictment followed in October. The defense argued Warren killed Bauer and that Goble was present but not a principal. Warren previously pleaded guilty to malice murder, tampering, concealing a death, and necrophilia, and was sentenced in January 2024 to life without parole.
Decade-old missing-person case, two convictions, both life without parole.
Sources:
- Atlanta News First — Woman convicted in murder of Morgan Bauer sentenced to life in prison
- FOX 5 Atlanta — Morgan Bauer case: Katelyn Goble found guilty in 2016 killing
D4vd Not Guilty Plea in Celeste Case
Singer David Anthony Burke, 21, known as D4vd, pleaded not guilty Monday in downtown Los Angeles after his retained lawyers withdrew and public defenders were appointed. The new lawyers asked to postpone the plea. The judge said no. Next status conference is Oct. 19. No trial date. District Attorney Nathan Hochman said his office is still deciding whether to seek death if Burke is convicted.
Celeste Rivas Hernandez, 14, of Lake Elsinore, was reported missing in spring 2025. Authorities have said her remains were found Sept. 8, 2025, in the front trunk of a Tesla at a Los Angeles tow yard. Burke is charged with first-degree murder with special-circumstance allegations, continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14, and mutilation of human remains. Held without bail. A judge in July found sufficient evidence to hold him to answer. He is presumed innocent.
Child-homicide case, counsel change, capital decision still open.
Sources:
- NBC Los Angeles — Singer D4vd appointed new attorney, pleads not guilty in murder of teen
- CBS Los Angeles — D4vd pleads not guilty in Celeste Rivas Hernandez murder case as defense team withdraws
Proctor Re-Indicted in Brendon Glenn Killing
A Los Angeles County grand jury again indicted former LAPD officer Clifford Proctor, 61, on second-degree murder with a firearm allegation in the 2015 on-duty shooting of Brendon Glenn, 29, near the Venice Beach boardwalk. The new indictment was returned Aug. 18 and unsealed Monday, Aug. 31. Proctor pleaded not guilty the same day. He is free on bond. Expected back around Sept. 4 for a pretrial hearing.
Glenn has been described as unarmed and experiencing homelessness. Then-Chief Charlie Beck publicly called for a criminal filing; then-DA Jackie Lacey declined to charge. A 2024 indictment under former DA George Gascón was dismissed in June 2026 by Judge Ronald S. Coen, who said the special prosecutor had not presented required evidence of malice and had omitted exculpatory material. DA Nathan Hochman assigned special prosecutor Michael Gennaco to the refiling. Proctor’s attorney has said the shooting was justified. Proctor has claimed Glenn reached for his partner’s gun. He is presumed innocent.
Eleven-year-old on-duty killing back in criminal court after the first indictment collapsed.
Sources:
- Los Angeles Times — Ex-LAPD officer indicted again on murder charge for 2015 killing of homeless man
Charlotte Arrest in 2001 Gudino Case
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police arrested Alan Marquis Phifer, 43, on Monday and charged him with first-degree murder and robbery with a dangerous weapon in the March 24, 2001 shooting death of Cesar Gudino Gonzalez, 21, on the 3700 block of North Sharon Amity Road. Four other people were shot or assaulted in the same incident, police said. Phifer is also charged as a habitual felon on separate 2025 felony drug counts. Held without bond. Arraignment tied to the 2025 drug case is set Thursday, Sept. 3. He is presumed innocent.
CMPD said the Cold Case Unit picked the homicide up on Jan. 29, 2026. Detectives later received a lab report that, police said, implicated Phifer. Warrants last week; arrest Monday. CMPD put the 2001 homicide clearance rate at 66 percent. The 2001 investigation is described as active and ongoing.
Twenty-five years unsolved, then a named defendant off a 2026 lab report.
Sources:
Beer-Can DNA in Herrera Cold Case
An affidavit reported Aug. 31 adds discarded-beer-can DNA and a hospital-bedside confession to the capital-murder case against Kelly Lee Brower, 68, of Cottonwood, Arizona, in the 1981 killing of Yolanda Herrera, 23. Texas DPS said children found her body April 13, 1981, in a field near the 500 block of East Aviation Drive in Universal City / Bexar County. She had been sexually assaulted and beaten to death after last being seen walking home from a local bar.
DPS announced Aug. 28 that the case was revived through the state’s Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, Bode and Othram testing, and forensic investigative genetic genealogy. Universal City police and Texas Rangers interviewed Brower in Arizona; DPS said he confessed and a capital-murder warrant followed. Arrested Aug. 19 in Cottonwood. A KSAT account of the Bexar County affidavit says DNA from a Coors Light can collected outside Brower’s residence in October 2025 matched DNA from Herrera’s right-hand fingernail clippings, with a reported random-match probability of 1 in 31 billion, and that Brower confessed during an Aug. 18 hospital interview. He has been extradited to Bexar County and remains in custody on $1 million bail. He is presumed innocent on the Texas charge.
Forty-five years later: a named defendant, a published forensic match, and a reported confession in the warrant.
Sources:
- Texas DPS — Texas Rangers, Universal City Police Solve 1981 Murder
- KSAT — DNA from discarded beer can cracked 1981 Universal City cold case, affidavit states
Florida Arrest in Tanjaka Elder Killing
DeKalb County police say Neico Lane, 38, was arrested in Florida and charged with murder in the Aug. 28 shooting of Tanjaka Elder, 51, who was caring for her father. Officers found Elder dead of a gunshot wound outside the home on West Starmount Way. The DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office identified her. Relatives described her as a caregiver for Willie Elder, 85, who has dementia. He told Atlanta News First he heard a shot while asleep and did not at first realize his daughter was the victim.
Lane is in custody in Florida awaiting extradition. Police have not released a motive or said whether Lane and Elder knew each other. He is presumed innocent.
Named arrest, interstate extradition, motive still open.
Sources:
- Atlanta News First — Suspect arrested in murder of DeKalb County woman killed while caring for elderly father
- FOX 5 Atlanta — Caregiver killed outside DeKalb home, suspect caught in Florida
Ellis Appeal Argued in Julian Wood Case
Oral arguments in Bionca Ellis’s appeal of her life-without-parole sentence for the 2024 killing of 3-year-old Julian Wood were set for 10:30 a.m. Tuesday in Cleveland. No ruling had been reported by the afternoon update. Ellis, 34, was convicted in October 2025 of aggravated murder and other counts. The jury rejected an insanity defense. Sentence: Oct. 27, 2025, life without parole.
Julian and his mother, Margot Wood, were attacked June 3, 2024, in the parking lot of the North Olmsted Giant Eagle while she tried to pull him from a grocery cart. North Olmsted police arrested Ellis minutes after the stabbing. Counsel argues the state’s expert misstated Ohio’s legal standard for insanity; the trial court failed to give a curative instruction after the state framed an insanity verdict as the absence of “accountability”; and trial counsel was ineffective. The appeal attacks the conviction. It does not rewrite the trial facts.
Maximum sentence already in. The live question is whether the insanity instructions survive.
Sources:
- Cleveland 19 / WOIO — Bionca Ellis, woman convicted of killing toddler at Giant Eagle, back in court for appeal
Also watching
USA Today ran an Aug. 31 explainer on Philadelphia’s Olney house investigation around Eugene Horsch, 44, and a West Chew Avenue property. Police have said digital evidence appears to show Maribel Fresses (missing 2018) and Gabrielle Amarando (missing 2012) deceased. The medical examiner has said manner of death cannot be declared until remains are recovered. Horsch is in federal custody on firearms and related charges and has not been charged with homicide. Tabloid “snuff movie” framing is not treated as confirmed.
Mercer County prosecutors identified Tyasiah West, 33, and Anthony Howlett, 42, as the two people killed early Sunday at an unauthorized gathering on Locust Street in Trenton; eight others wounded; no arrests as of Aug. 31. A separate Sunday gathering in Chicago’s Washington Park left one man dead. Significant violence, no named defendant, no distinctive turn — off the main stack.
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