The Los Angeles Police Department has shot down claims that the body of a teen girl found in the back of singer D4vd’s Tesla was decapitated and frozen when found.
A TMZ report, citing police sources, emerged over the weekend that the remains of Celeste Rivas-Hernandez, 15, were frozen, decapitated and cut into pieces.
Insiders told the outlet that the parts were still ‘partially frozen’ when her body was found inside the Tesla, which had been sitting in an impound lot for over 48 hours.
On Tuesday, an LAPD captain told ABC7 that her body was partially dismembered but not decapitated.
Captain and commanding officer of the department’s Robbery-Homicide Division Scott Williams also spoke out to deny the report.
He told PEOPLE: ‘Celeste’s body was not frozen. She was not decapitated. The whole frozen thing doesn’t even make sense. Her body was in the car for weeks.
‘Even if she had been frozen solid when she was put in the car (which there is NO evidence to suggest she was), five or more weeks in the trunk of a car in sweltering heat in the middle of summer would not have resulted in a partially frozen body being discovered on September 8th.’
Rivas vanished after running away from her Lake Elsinore home in April 2024. She was found dead on September 8 inside an impounded Tesla registered to D4vd, real name David Anthony Burke.
Celeste Rivas vanished after running away from her Lake Elsinore home in April 2024. She was found dead on September 8 inside an impounded Tesla
The vehicle was registered to singer D4vd, pictured here, for months the LAPD has declined to publicly name the singer – or anyone else – as a suspect in the case
In the days that followed, detectives raided Burke’s $4.1 million Hollywood Hills rental property and seized ‘several items of evidence’, but released no further details.
TMZ reported that a freezer inside Burke’s home was large enough to ‘store a body’, and speculated how it may have been possible Rivas’s remains were stashed there.
Steve Fischer, a private investigator hired by the singer’s landlord to independently review the case, told the Daily Mail he found no evidence to support such a claim.
‘The freezer still had its shelves installed, along with food and beverage items that had clearly been there for months,’ said Fischer.
‘I [also] tested key areas of interest in and around the home with Luminol and BlueStar [to look] for blood evidence and did not get any positive results.’
Fischer added that he uncovered no evidence to suggest a violent crime had taken place at the rental home, though he previously said he found a series of strange items that could be used to dispose of a body.
For months, the LAPD has declined to publicly name the singer – or anyone else – as a suspect in the case, suggesting they are unsure whether any crime had taken place beyond concealment of a body.
Authorities are still waiting on an official cause of death from the medical examiner.
The remains of the teen were found inside the Tesla which was impounded at the time
The singer, pictured in June 2025, has not issued any public statements about Rivas’s death
Sources close to the investigation told TMZ that Burke is being viewed as a suspect by investigators however there is no official paperwork identifying him as such. People also reported he has been uncooperative with police since the outset.
The singer has not issued any public statements about Rivas’s death, nor has his prominent criminal defense attorney, Blair Berk.
A police source told PEOPLE that Burke has not yet been interviewed by detectives, and there is still some uncertainty about what crimes he and any potential accomplices may have committed.
It emerged earlier this week that a grand jury was presented with evidence connected with the death.
The LA Times reported that the LA County district attorney’s office seated an ‘investigative grand jury’ in mid-November.
The in camera or ‘secret’ proceedings of a grand jury are designed to protect the integrity of an investigation and the identity of witnesses called to share testimony.
Meanwhile, a court petition also obtained by the LA Times indicates that LAPD Det. Joshua Byers of the Robbery Homicide Division convinced a judge to stop the L.A. County Medical Examiner from revealing the results of Rivas-Hernandez’s autopsy.
It also asked for further information related to her death not be made public at this time.
A law enforcement source told The Times that several witnesses have been called in front of the grand jury by Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman.
In a statement, the district’s attorney’s office told the LA Times that they could not ‘disclose any information about grand jury proceedings.’
