Decaying and dismembered corpse found in US singer D4vd’s Tesla identified as missing teen girl
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US singer D4vd at the Variety Power of Young Hollywood event in Hollywood, California, in August.
PHOTO: AFP
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LOS ANGELES – A dismembered corpse found rotting in an impounded Tesla registered to rising American music star D4vd was that of a teenage girl, an American medical examiner has said.
Los Angeles police discovered the body in the car’s trunk on Sept 8
When officers arrived, they found a badly decomposed body that multiple reports said was in pieces, wrapped in a plastic sheet in the electric vehicle’s front luggage compartment.
The Los Angeles County medical examiner said the body was that of Celeste Rivas, who would be 15 years old if she were still alive.
Entertainment outlet TMZ said on Wednesday that its reporters had spoken to Celeste’s mother, who said her daughter had a boyfriend named David. D4vd’s real name is David Anthony Burke.
The outlet carried a missing person poster published by Riverside County Sheriff seeking the whereabouts of Celeste, who was 13 when she went missing in Lake Elsinore, south-east of Los Angeles, in April 2024.
The medical examiner’s office had earlier described the dead person as a woman of unknown age with wavy black hair.
“The decedent was found severely decomposed inside a vehicle,” the statement said. “She appears to have been deceased inside the vehicle for an extended period of time before being found.”
Los Angeles Police Department investigators said the Tesla had been parked in the Hollywood Hills area for nearly a month before being towed.
TMZ reported that the car, registered in Texas to David Anthony Burke, had never been reported stolen.
A representative for the singer-songwriter said he had been informed of the discovery and was fully cooperating with investigators.
The 20-year-old, who released his debut album Withered in April, has continued a world tour since the grisly discovery, and is due to play at The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on Sept 20.
D4vd shot to internet fame in 2022 when his song Romantic Homicide became a breakout hit on TikTok. AFP
