THE DEATH OF CELESTE RIVAS HERNANDEZ
A missing 15-year-old girl. A famous musician. A Tesla left on a quiet street, hiding a body that had been cut apart and left to thaw. And a family still begging for the truth.
A young girl disappears, and the danger isn’t taken seriously enough
By the time anyone knew what had happened to Celeste Rivas Hernandez, it was far too late.
Celeste was first treated as a “runaway.” She went missing from her home in Lake Elsinore, California, multiple times in 2024. Each time, her family worried. Each time, she eventually came back—until the last one.
In early April 2024, when she was just 13, Celeste disappeared again and didn’t return. Her family reported her missing. They posted flyers, begged for information, and held onto every rumor and possible sighting. Neighbors said they sometimes thought they saw her around town, but nothing solid stuck. The systems that were supposed to protect her—family, school, law enforcement, child welfare—never managed to pull her fully back into safety.
To most of the world, she didn’t exist yet. She was just “another runaway.” To her family and community, she was a daughter, a sister, a familiar face walking to the corner store with long curly black hair and a backpack on her shoulders.
The Tesla on the hill that no one questioned
In the summer of 2025, a white Tesla showed up on a street in the Hollywood Hills. It sat there for days. Then weeks. Neighbors walked past it. Someone complained about the car sitting too long. A parking ticket was written and left on the windshield.
Still, nobody opened the trunk.
After the car violated the 72-hour parking rule, it was towed to a Hollywood tow yard. It sat again, now behind a fence instead of on a hillside street. Workers went about their routine—until the smell started. It was strong, rotting, and unmistakable. They called the police.
Officers opened the front trunk and found a large plastic-wrapped bundle. Inside was Celeste. Her body had been dismembered. Parts of her had been cut away. Investigators later said they believed her remains had been at least partially frozen or refrigerated before being placed in the car, and were thawing when she was discovered.
The Tesla was registered to a 20-year-old recording artist who the world knew simply as d4vd.
Who Celeste was before the headlines
It’s easy to lose the real person behind a case like this. Celeste was more than a victim in a trunk.
She was a 15-year-old girl, small in height but big in presence. She grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Lake Elsinore with parents who immigrated from El Salvador. Spanish and English mixed in her home. Her family loved her and fought for her, even when things got complicated.
People who knew her talk about:
- Her daily walks to the local store for snacks and drinks.
- Her long, curly black hair and soft features.
- A “Shhh…” tattoo on her right index finger—something that later became a haunting detail.
In the months before she vanished for good, Celeste told her mother she had a boyfriend. His name, she said, was “David.” She was a 13-year-old girl talking about a relationship that, looking back, feels like a huge red flag.
Her family filed missing-person reports. They begged for help. They pleaded publicly for her to come home. But as time passed and she stayed gone, their fear turned into something heavier: the feeling that no one in power was truly moving fast enough to find her.
A famous name at the center of a nightmare
When the body found in the Tesla was identified as Celeste, attention snapped toward the owner of the car: singer and songwriter David Anthony Burke, known as d4vd.
He wasn’t just some random car owner. There were signs of a deeper connection:
- Celeste had said she was dating someone named “David.”
- Both she and the musician had the same “Shhh…” tattoo on their right index finger.
- Fans pointed to an unreleased track with the name “Celeste” and online photos and videos that seemed to link them.
Soon, major brands cut ties. Tour dates were canceled. His public image flipped overnight from rising star to the man whose Tesla held a mutilated girl’s body.
Investigators have said he is now considered a suspect in Celeste’s death. They believe he is connected not only to where her remains were found, but to what happened after she died. Despite that, he has not been charged with any crime related to her death as of now.
Reports say he has hired a high-profile criminal defense attorney and has refused to sit for a full, voluntary interview with detectives. His team has suggested he is cooperating. Law enforcement sources say otherwise.
What investigators believe happened to Celeste
Investigators have been careful with what they share publicly, but key points have been made clear:
- They believe Celeste was dead before her body was placed in the Tesla.
- They believe her body was dismembered with tools and likely stored in a location where it could be kept cold—possibly frozen or refrigerated—before being moved.
- They believe more than one person was involved in dismembering and disposing of her remains.
- They are treating the case as a homicide investigation, even though the official cause and manner of death remain “deferred.”
Forensic tests have been complicated by the condition of Celeste’s remains. Decomposition, freezing, and thawing can radically change what a medical examiner can see. There is a real fear that, in the end, science may not be able to clearly show exactly how she died—even though it is obvious that what happened to her body was deliberate and violent.
Digital evidence has also become a huge focus. Investigators have seized phones, computers, and other devices. They are trying to reconstruct:
- Where Celeste was in the months before her death.
- Who she was talking to, both online and in person.
- Who moved around the Hollywood Hills house and the Tesla during key windows of time.
Unanswered questions that still hang over this case
Even with all of that, the biggest questions are still sitting there, heavy and unresolved:
- When did she actually die? The official date of death is listed as the day she was found, but investigators believe she had been dead for weeks—maybe longer.
- Where did she die? Was it in the Hollywood Hills home linked to the musician? Somewhere else in Los Angeles? Another city entirely?
- Who dismembered her body? This wasn’t a simple act. It required time, tools, privacy, and planning. Investigators believe at least one other person helped, but that person hasn’t been publicly named.
- What was her real relationship with the musician? How young was she when they first had contact? How did they meet? Who knew about it? How much did the adults around them see and ignore?
- Why wasn’t she found sooner? Multiple missing-person reports. A worried family. A pattern of disappearances. Somehow, Celeste still slipped away and stayed gone until she was found in a trunk.
- Why was her body frozen? Was someone trying to hide time of death? Cover injuries? Delay decomposition? Or buy time to figure out what to do with her remains?
There have also been rumors online about pregnancy and whether she lied about her age. At this point, those claims are not backed by anything official. What is real, and what matters, is this: she was fifteen. She ended up dismembered in a car owned by an adult man. Everything beyond that needs real evidence, not gossip.
The people entangled in this case
This case is not just about one victim and one suspect. There is a web of people around them whose actions, choices, and silence matter.
Celeste’s family
Her parents and siblings live with the nightmare that they did everything they could—filed reports, made calls, walked neighborhoods, begged for help—and it still wasn’t enough. They organized vigils, cried into cameras, and finally buried their daughter after more than a year of not knowing if she was alive.
The community of Lake Elsinore
Her classmates, neighbors, and local shop owners watched her grow up and then vanish. They held candlelight vigils when she was identified. They showed up with posters, candles, and signs demanding justice. For them, Celeste is not a headline. She’s the girl they used to see on their sidewalks.
David Anthony Burke (“d4vd”)
A 20-year-old musician whose career went international fast—hit songs, brand deals, tours. Now he’s the man whose Tesla was used as a storage place for a murdered child’s body. He has legal representation, resources, and the ability to stay quiet. His choices, before and after Celeste’s death, are now under a microscope.
His manager and the landlord
The Hollywood Hills home near where the Tesla was parked was rented by his manager. The property’s owner later hired private investigator Steve Fischer to find out whether their house was used as part of the crime. That home may be one of the key locations in the timeline—where investigators believe tools, signs of cleanup, or other evidence could exist.
Private Investigator Steve Fischer
Brought in by the homeowner, Fischer has publicly shared details about what he’s learned—pointing to possible tools, questions about where Celeste was stored, and hints that phone data may tie multiple people to the movements of her body. He is not running the official case, but he is a voice pushing for accountability, especially for the property owner whose house may have been used without their knowledge.
Law enforcement and forensic teams
Detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department’s homicide division, the Los Angeles County medical examiner, and the Riverside County agency that handled the original missing-person reports are all involved. They are trying to take a body that was dismembered, frozen, moved, and left to rot, and still pull out enough truth to hold the right people responsible.
Unidentified accomplice(s)
Investigators have made it clear: they don’t believe only one person handled Celeste’s body. Digital evidence places at least one other person near key locations at critical times. Whoever that person is, they haven’t been publicly identified, and they haven’t faced the public consequences that Celeste’s family faces every single day.
Where this case stands now
Right now, the official record still says the cause of Celeste’s death is “undetermined.” That doesn’t mean nothing happened. It means science is struggling to recover evidence from the damage that was done to her body.
What we do know is that a 15-year-old girl went missing, ended up cut apart, and was hidden in the front trunk of a famous musician’s car. Investigators believe this was a homicide. They believe more than one person helped. They believe the story is far from simple.
Celeste’s family doesn’t get to walk away from this. Neither should the people who know what happened to her.