Watch: D4vd Case: Celeste Rivas Hernandez’s Cause of Death Revealed
Content warning: This story includes graphic details about a murder.
More details about Celeste Rivas Hernandez‘s murder are coming to light.
As D4vd—who pleaded not guilty to killing the 14-year-old and mutilating her body—remains in police custody in connection to her death, officials released Rivas Hernandez’s autopsy report, determining that she died from “multiple penetrating injuries.”
Investigators with the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner said Rivas Hernandez was missing two fingers when her remains were discovered inside an impounded Tesla last year.
“The left ring and pinky fingers appear to have been mutilated,” the coroner wrote in the report, obtained by E! News April 22, “and I did not locate them during my scene examination.”
The investigator also stated that Rivas Hernandez’s left eye was “not present,” while her right eye showed “extensive postmortem changes.”
Police were called to a Hollywood tow yard on Sept. 8—the day after what would’ve been Rivas Hernandez’s 15th birthday—over a report of a “foul smell emanating” from a Tesla that had been impounded earlier in the week, per the report. Upon arrival, officers found Rivas Hernandez’s “severely decomposed” and dismembered body in the car’s front trunk.
The Tesla belonged to D4vd (real name David Anthony Burke), who was on a national tour at the time. Prosecutors in his case alleged that Rivas Hernandez’s body “sat for over four months” inside the vehicle before it was reported abandoned and towed.
Swan Gallet/WWD via Getty Images; GoFundMe
In addition to one count each of murder and unlawful mutilation of human remains, D4vd is also facing a charge of continuous sexual abuse of a child under the age of 14, to which he also pleaded not guilty.
“The actual evidence in this case will show that David Burke did not murder Celeste Rivas Hernandez and he was not the cause of her death,” his attorneys Blair Berk, Marilyn Bednarski and Regina Peter told E! News in an April 20 statement. “We will vigorously defend David’s innocence.”
For more on the case against D4vd, read on.
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Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for Made on YouTube 2024
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