The Los Angeles Police Department have said for the first time that the investigation into the discovery of a dead teenage girl in a car belonging to D4vd is being treated as an “investigation into murder”.
In a new update from the LA Times, which reportedly saw court records, the medical examiner’s office has said that the findings in the autopsy will not be released in order to prevent jeopardising the investigation.
Detective Joshua Byers filed the declaration at the end of last week, and described their probe as an “investigation into murder”. Superior Court Judge Craig Richman granted the request made by the LAPD, and the medical examiner’s findings will now be sealed to prevent any interference into the investigation.
The body of 15-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez was found severely decomposed in the front boot of a Tesla registered to the singer (real name David Anthony Burke) back in September. She was first reported missing when she was 13-years-old in April 2024, and the Tesla was found after it had been moved to an impound lot in Los Angeles.
Up until now, investigators repeatedly declined to say whether or not they were treating it as a homicide, and shared that they were awaiting a conclusion from the medical examiner.
Earlier this month, the victim’s exact cause of death was listed as “deferred”, and a statement later shared by police to NBC4 Investigates suggested that she may have died in the spring.
It was recently reported that D4vd is being considered as a suspect and, while he was initially “cooperating” with the authorities, he is allegedly now being less cooperative. NME has reached out to D4vd’s management team for comment, but has yet to hear back. Neither D4vd nor his team have publicly spoken about the latest developments.
Before it was confirmed that he was being considered a suspect, it came to light that the singer had been given a parking ticket in the Hollywood Hills just under two weeks before the body was found, and residents in the area alleged that the Tesla under his name had been left in their neighbourhood for over a month.
Earlier this month, it emerged that investigators were exploring the possibility that Celeste Rivas’ body was “frozen” before being moved to a Tesla registered to D4vd.
According to the LA Times, Byers’ court documents claimed that making autopsy findings public “will reveal or tend to reveal the ongoing investigation and the integrity of the investigation as well as the identity of witnesses and/or informants who are cooperating with law enforcement and the content of the information they have provided, which could endanger the lives of witnesses and/or compromise the investigation.”
It also alleges that the LAPD initially requested a security hold on the case a week after the body was found in September, but this was “denied due to insufficient justification to warrant the hold”.
In the wake of the investigation, the ‘Romantic Homicide’ singer cancelled his US tour and shelved plans to release a deluxe edition of his debut album ‘Withered’. His headline tour dates in Europe and the UK have since been cancelled too.
His manager, Josh Marshall, spoke out for the first time about the investigation and denied accusations made by someone on TikTok that he was involved in the case.
