Reports that Celeste Rivas Hernandez’s body was frozen and decapitated when found in D4vd’s Tesla are untrue, the Los Angeles Police Department said Tuesday.
A Los Angeles police captain told ABC Los Angeles affiliate KABC that her body was partially dismembered but not his head.
D4vd, whose real name is David Anthony Burke, reportedly traveled to the Santa Barbara area sometime during the spring of this year, months before Rivas Hernandez’s body was discovered in his Tesla.
The reason for the flight is still under investigation, including whether it is related to the case.
A source told KABC last week that D4vd is considered a suspect in the investigation into the teen girl’s death.
A security hold has been imposed on Rivas Hernandez’s case
On Friday, the Medical Examiner’s Department received a court order, at the initiative of the Los Angeles Police Department, to place a security hold on the teen’s case, officials said.
The detention means that no records or details related to the case, including the cause and manner of death and the coroner’s report, can be released until the detention is lifted.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner spoke out Monday against the practice of placing security holds on cases,
The Department of Medical Examiners’ mission “is to achieve full transparency with the community by providing information about our cases to empower people to make life-saving changes,” Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Odi Okpo said in a statement.
“The practice of security detention is virtually unheard of in other provinces and has not been proven to improve outcomes in the legal system,” Okpo added. “We are committed to serving our community with complete transparency, but the law prevents us from doing so as long as the court order stands in this case.”
The LAPD said in a statement that it “sought to seal the records of the Los Angeles County Coroner’s investigation into the death of Celeste Rivas only to ensure that investigators from the Robbery-Homicide Division were aware of the important information surrounding her death to the media and public. The order was not intended to undermine transparency.”
What do we know about the case?
Rivas Hernandez was reported missing from Lake Elsinore in early 2024. She had escaped several times and returned before her most recent escape in April 2024, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office. She reportedly called home at the end of May 2024 and has not been heard from since.
Authorities discovered her body on September 8 after responding to a tow yard near Mansfield Avenue and Romaine Avenue in Hollywood.
Officers went to investigate a foul odor coming from the impounded Tesla, which police sources say had been sitting there for two days after it was found abandoned on a public street in Hollywood.
Los Angeles Police sources said that the police found the body inside a bag placed in the front trunk of the Tesla car. Sources told ABC News that the body was dismembered and in a state of decomposition.
The car was registered to the 20-year-old D4vd, who has more than 33 million monthly listeners on Spotify and more than 3.6 million followers on TikTok, where his songs “Here with Me” and “Romantic Homicide” have gone viral.
D4vd was on tour when the body was discovered and was scheduled to make a stop in Los Angeles on September 20. The remainder of the tour was abruptly canceled before that tour was halted amid the investigation.
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