Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Celeste Rivas Not Pregnant When Found Dead in D4vd's Tesla: Report
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Okay, let's get into this. We're doing a deep dive
- 0:02today into well, a really disturbing story that's caught so
- 0:07much attention. It mixes that sort of high gloss world
- 0:11of viral fame with frankly, the darkest possible reality of
- 0:15a death investigation.
- 0:16Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the tragic and incredibly complicated case of Celestrivus
- 0:21Fernandez exactly. And our job here really is to try
- 0:24and cut through the noise because this case, more than many,
- 0:28has been just swamped by social media speculation, a lot
- 0:33of misinformation. Frankly, we need to look at the difference
- 0:36between how fast rumors fly online, you know, almost instantly
- 0:39and often destructively, versus the actual, slow, careful work of
- 0:43a police investigation.
- 0:44Speaker 1: Especially when you've got a minor involved, a vulnerable one,
- 0:47and the car where she's found belongs to this massive
- 0:50global music star.
- 0:51Speaker 2: That's the crux of it. David Anthony Burke knows D
- 0:54four VD. And we should be clear for anyone listening
- 0:56who maybe doesn't follow the music scene that closely.
- 0:58Speaker 1: It wasn't just some up and comer, no.
- 1:00Speaker 2: Not at all. By twenty twenty five, this guy, only
- 1:02twenty years old, had huge numbers, hits like romantic homicide
- 1:06here with me, really introspective, kind of vulnerable stuff that
- 1:09resonated massively.
- 1:10Speaker 1: Which makes the initial facts back in September twenty twenty
- 1:13five just staggering. It really shook things up.
- 1:16Speaker 2: It did. The facts are shocking. And it all started
- 1:18not somewhere glamorous, but at a Hollywood impound lot September eighth,
- 1:22twenty twenty five. Workers there noticed this overwhelming smell, a
- 1:27really foul odor, you know, the kind that immediately signals
- 1:31something biological, something badly decomposed.
- 1:33Speaker 1: It was coming from one specific car.
- 1:35Speaker 2: One specific car, and what they found inside was just
- 1:39beyond gruesome. It led to the discovery of a body
- 1:42severely decomposed, dismembered, a fifteen year old girl.
- 1:45Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
- 1:46Speaker 2: She was wrapped in a black plastic bag and hidden.
- 1:48This detail is important.
- 1:50Speaker 1: In the front, the front trunk, right on a Tesla
- 1:52where the engine normally isn't exactly.
- 1:53Speaker 2: A sleek white twenty twenty three Tesla Model X and
- 1:57putting the body there in the front, I mean that
- 2:00suggests calculation, doesn't it.
- 2:01Speaker 1: It does. It's not like throwing something in the back seat.
- 2:04It's hidden compact space designed to look empty, chilling.
- 2:09Speaker 2: And then the registration that's what blew this wide open
- 2:13registered to David Anthony Burke D four VD, twenty years old.
- 2:17Speaker 1: And boom, the celebrity connection just lights everything on fire instantly,
- 2:22an absolute firescone.
- 2:23Speaker 2: You got this music icon, huge fan base, songs about
- 2:26tragic love, I mean, romantic homicide is a title.
- 2:29Speaker 1: Yeah, the irony is just awful.
- 2:31Speaker 2: And now he's linked to this real life, gruesome death,
- 2:35a concealed body in his car. The speculation, especially among
- 2:39his gen Z audience, started like immediately before they even
- 2:43knew who the victim was for sure.
- 2:44Speaker 1: It felt like judgment first facts slator, totally.
- 2:47Speaker 2: Morbid fascination, prejudgment. It was a perfect storm for theories
- 2:52to just spread like crazy, which is why we really
- 2:53need to stick to the confirmed facts here, you know,
- 2:56separate that from the noise.
- 2:57Speaker 1: Okay, so before we get deeper into the investige itself,
- 3:00let's focus on Celeste. We need to understand who she was.
- 3:03Speaker 2: Absolutely critical Celeste Revas Hernandez. She's just fifteen, and she
- 3:08wasn't from La not part of that Hollywood scene. She
- 3:10was from Lake Elsinore.
- 3:11Speaker 1: Which is what about seventy seventy five miles outside La
- 3:15kind of a quiet suburb.
- 3:16Speaker 2: Yeah, about seventy six miles southeast. A big jump from
- 3:19there to the whole Hollywood music world, especially for a
- 3:21teenager who seems to have been going through some things.
- 3:23Speaker 1: Friends and family described her as like really vibrant, outgoing, creative,
- 3:29wavy black hair, and she had that tattoo right the
- 3:33on her finger.
- 3:34Speaker 2: Yes, that became tragically important for identifying her later, but
- 3:38it's clear her life had a lot of turbulence leading
- 3:41up to her disappearance.
- 3:42Speaker 1: The record show she'd run away before multiple times.
- 3:44Speaker 2: Yeah. The Riverside County Sheriff's office confirmed she was reported
- 3:47missing and found at least three times in twenty twenty
- 3:50four alone. Wow, that shows a pattern. You know, ongoing
- 3:54distress running away from home makes someone incredibly vulnerable. Her
- 3:58final disappearance was reported April fifth, twenty twenty four.
- 4:01Speaker 1: And this is where that connection or potential connection starts
- 4:04to form early on, right.
- 4:05Speaker 2: Her mother, Yes, her mother, Maria Hernandez. She later told
- 4:10people that before Celeste vanished, that last time she had
- 4:13mentioned she was dating someone named David.
- 4:15Speaker 1: But the mother had never met him, never met him.
- 4:18Speaker 2: But that name David given who owned the tesla. You
- 4:22can see how that piece of information just fueled everything online.
- 4:25Speaker 1: Instantly connecting David Burke D four VD, even if it
- 4:28was just a name.
- 4:29Speaker 2: At that point exactly. But then investigators found something that
- 4:33really complicated the official timeline.
- 4:35Speaker 1: Okay, what was that the last.
- 4:37Speaker 2: Confirmed sighting of Celeste. It's weird because it happened after
- 4:40she was officially reported missing. How long after five months
- 4:45September twenty fourth, twenty twenty four, she was caught on
- 4:48a neighbor's nest camera back at her own home doing
- 4:51what apparently arguing with the neighbor. So this really throws
- 4:55into question when she actually left Lake Elsinor for good.
- 4:58Maybe she was back and forth hiding things.
- 5:01Speaker 1: That makes tracing her movements so much harder, doesn't it.
- 5:04If she's reported missing in April but seen at home
- 5:06in September, the troll goes cold, then hot, then cold again.
- 5:11Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's a common problem in runaway cases, no clear
- 5:14point of departure. And then when her body was discovered
- 5:17in September twenty twenty five, physical evidence it told a
- 5:22really grim story about her last month's or year.
- 5:25Speaker 1: She was found to be severely underweight.
- 5:27Speaker 2: Tragically so only seventy one pounds. That kind of weighed
- 5:31on a fifteen year old suggests possible severe malnutrition, prolonged distress,
- 5:37just hardship over a long period before she died.
- 5:39Speaker 1: Just awful points to extreme vulnerability, and friends speculated she
- 5:43was drawn to La to the music scene, yeah.
- 5:46Speaker 2: The allure of Hollywood, only trying to get close to
- 5:48the fame, the excitement. Friends suggested she might have ended
- 5:51up living on the streets or in really unstable situations,
- 5:54which is a terrifying reality for so many runaways drawn
- 5:57to big cities.
- 5:58Speaker 1: They see it as an escape, but the reality is
- 6:00often predatory.
- 6:01Speaker 2: Precisely, especially if they're connecting with people online seeking shelter
- 6:05or belonging. It's incredibly dangerous.
- 6:07Speaker 1: Okay, let's shift to the car itself, the Tesla, because
- 6:10the timeline where it was is crucial to this mystery,
- 6:12especially the concealment part. We're fast forwarding now to summer
- 6:15twenty twenty five, right, So.
- 6:18Speaker 2: D four VDS Tesla Model X registered way over in Hempstead, Texas.
- 6:22When there is another kind of odd detail turns up
- 6:25abandoned where on a residential street in the Hollywood Hills,
- 6:28and importantly, very close to where Dforvide himself was renting
- 6:32a property at the time.
- 6:33Speaker 1: Okay, so not just some random street close to his place.
- 6:36Speaker 2: And the neighbors were key witnesses here. Initially they remembered
- 6:40the car just sitting there for over a month.
- 6:43Speaker 1: And they complained. But not just because it was parked
- 6:45there for a long time, right, there was something else.
- 6:47Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the really bizarre, creepy detail. Neighbors said
- 6:50the car was intermittently blasting eerie music at odd hours.
- 6:54Speaker 1: Eerie music. That's weird and potentially significant.
- 6:58Speaker 2: Investigators certainly thought so. Was it just a glitch or
- 7:02was it deliberate, maybe meant to keep people away, deter
- 7:05thieves or anyone who might get close enough to.
- 7:08Speaker 1: Notice well, to notice a smell developing.
- 7:10Speaker 2: Because decomposition would have started fairly quickly in a closed
- 7:13space like that funk exactly. Even if it wasn't overwhelming
- 7:16at first, the smell would become noticeable over time, especially
- 7:20in warm weather. Maybe the music was a mask or
- 7:23a deterrent.
- 7:24Speaker 1: So this leads to the official process, the complaints, the ticketing,
- 7:29the slow wheels of bureaucracy.
- 7:31Speaker 2: Painfully slow when you think about what was inside. August
- 7:34twenty sixth, a formal complaint is filed abandoned vehicle and
- 7:39note this no mention of an odor in that initial complaint.
- 7:43Speaker 1: Interesting, So maybe the body wasn't in the most advanced
- 7:45state of decomposition yet, or maybe it wasn't even.
- 7:47Speaker 2: There yet or placed there later. It's a key question.
- 7:50Then the process rolls. On August twenty seventh, Parking enforcement
- 7:53marks the tires. September third, they issue a citation seventy
- 7:56two hour rule violation.
- 7:58Speaker 1: And finally it gets towed.
- 8:00Speaker 2: Uber fifth towed to an impound lot near Mansfield.
- 8:02Speaker 1: In Romain, and it sits there for a few days.
- 8:05Speaker 2: Until September eighth. That's when the lot workers can't ignore
- 8:07the stench anymore. It's overwhelming. They call LAPD around twelve
- 8:11twenty pm.
- 8:12Speaker 1: And September eighth. That date is significant too, isn't it?
- 8:15Speaker 2: Heartbreakingly so? It was the day after what would have
- 8:18been Celest's fifteenth birthday, God.
- 8:20Speaker 1: And identification wasn't immediate because of the decomposition.
- 8:23Speaker 2: No impossible through usual means, The La County Medical Examiner
- 8:28had to use dental records confirmation finally came on September sixteenth,
- 8:32and they noted, yeah, the body had likely been in
- 8:34that front for an extended period weeks, maybe.
- 8:37Speaker 1: Longer, which as you said, makes the forensic work incredibly challenging.
- 8:41So what was the official police stance at this point?
- 8:44Who is handling it?
- 8:45Speaker 2: The case was immediately handed over to the Robbery Homicide
- 8:48Division RhD.
- 8:49Speaker 1: Which is LAPD's elite unit, right usually for major complex.
- 8:53Speaker 2: Cases, exactly serial crimes, high profile homicides. The fact that
- 8:57URHD took it from the start, even before it was
- 8:59a fish ruled a homicide, tells you how seriously LAPD
- 9:03view the circumstances, the concealment, the dismemberment, the celebrity connection.
- 9:08It screamed major foul play.
- 9:10Speaker 1: But technically it wasn't classified as a homicide yet, correct.
- 9:14Speaker 2: LAPD Captain Scott Williams was very careful in this public statement.
- 9:17He said, we know for sure that CELESTRII ofus Fernandez
- 9:20died and someone placed her body in the front trunk
- 9:22area of David Burke's tesla. That's the known fact.
- 9:25Speaker 1: So the focus is on the death and the concealment.
- 9:28Speaker 2: Yes, the official cause of death was and as far
- 9:31as we know, still is listed as deferred.
- 9:34Speaker 1: And deferred means.
- 9:35Speaker 2: It means the medical examiner needs more information before making
- 9:38a final ruling. They're waiting on toxicology results, histology examining
- 9:43tissues under a microscope, other lab tests. Decomposition destroys so
- 9:48much evidence, especially soft tissue, making it hard to determine
- 9:52things like strangulation or blunt force trauma right away.
- 9:55Speaker 1: So they know someone died and someone hid the body
- 9:58in a horrific way, but the how of the death
- 10:01is still pending those tests exactly.
- 10:03Speaker 2: There's certain about the concealment, which is a felony itself,
- 10:06but they need the lab work to catch up to
- 10:08the horror of the situation to determine the coins of
- 10:10death and potential homicide charges.
- 10:12Speaker 1: And while all this slow methodical work was happening behind
- 10:15the scenes, yeah, the Internet was doing its thing.
- 10:17Speaker 2: Oh yeah, in that vacuum of official information. In the
- 10:20first few weeks, social media just exploded x TikTok. They
- 10:25filled the void with theories, wild theories. Damaging theories is
- 10:29where you see the algorithms rewarding shock value and speed
- 10:33over accuracy, and.
- 10:34Speaker 1: The biggest one, the one that really took hold was
- 10:35about pregnancy, Wasn't it?
- 10:37Speaker 2: That was the most specific, the most explosive claim that
- 10:40Celeste was pregnant with D four VID's child and that
- 10:44he killed her.
- 10:45Speaker 1: To cover it up, which is an incredibly serious accusation.
- 10:48Speaker 2: Huge, and it spread like wildfire. You had hashtags hashtag
- 10:53justice forcelest trending globally. People were directly connecting it to
- 10:57his song Romantic Homicide, saying art was imitating life in
- 11:01the most awful way.
- 11:02Speaker 1: What made that particular rumor stick so strongly?
- 11:05Speaker 2: Do you think it seemed to have these little hooks,
- 11:08these bits of circumstantial information that people lashed onto. You
- 11:12had the mother mentioning a boyfriend named David, right. Then
- 11:15there were these alleged leak discord messages floating around supposedly
- 11:18between Celeste and D four to v resurface photos of
- 11:22them together at events. There was even a leaked demo
- 11:24track reportedly titled Celeste. And then you add in the
- 11:27fact that authorities weren't saying much initially.
- 11:29Speaker 1: Which the media was questioning the quote silence from authorities.
- 11:33Speaker 2: Right, So you combine all that, the celebrity link, the
- 11:36lack of official news, these scattered pieces of evidence, and
- 11:39the algorithm just ran with it. It created this whole
- 11:42narrative Young Star secret pregnancy, deadly cover up. The outrage
- 11:47was intense.
- 11:47Speaker 1: But then reality caught up, or rather documentation.
- 11:50Speaker 2: Finally on September twenty nine, so about three weeks after discovery. Yeah,
- 11:54this was the turning point, the aha moment where fact
- 11:57checked fiction what happened? ABC News, And significantly, TMZ managed
- 12:02to obtain Celeste's official death certificate.
- 12:05Speaker 1: A legal document, not a rumor.
- 12:06Speaker 2: Exactly, signed by the medical examiner, okay, and it contained
- 12:09one explicit, definitive line that just shut down the biggest theory,
- 12:14which was it stated unequivocally that Celeste was not pregnant,
- 12:17nor had she been in the last year.
- 12:19Speaker 1: Wow, so just completely debunked this central claim fueling all
- 12:23that online rage completely.
- 12:25Speaker 2: The impact was immediate. TMZ flat out said it shuts
- 12:29down the theory that D four VD killed her because
- 12:32she was pregnant. You saw it ripple across social media,
- 12:36people posting, Okay, the pregnancy rumor is false, a massive pivot, but.
- 12:40Speaker 1: The damage was already done in many.
- 12:42Speaker 2: Ways, huge damage. And this is where we get into
- 12:44the broader issue of mythinformation experts point out these unverified claims,
- 12:49they don't just mislead people, they actively re traumatize the victim's.
- 12:53Speaker 1: Family having to deal with lies on top of their.
- 12:56Speaker 2: Grief, exactly grieving this horrific loss while also fighting off
- 13:00these vile false stories about their daughter, and it wastes
- 13:03investigative time too, right police having to chase down leads
- 13:06based on a.
- 13:06Speaker 1: False premise, Yeah, chasing digital ghosts instead of focusing on
- 13:10the actual evidence of concealment and death.
- 13:12Speaker 2: It really highlighted that power imbalance. As some outlets noted,
- 13:15the rumors spreads instantly gets amplified by algorithms. The verified
- 13:19truth locked in the legal document takes weeks or months to.
- 13:22Speaker 1: Emerge, So while toxicology and the final cause of death
- 13:25are still pending, that pregnancy angle, the most inflammatory part
- 13:29is definitively off the table, legally closed.
- 13:32Speaker 2: Closed, Which brings us back to D four v himself,
- 13:35the person at the center of all this scrutiny. We
- 13:37need to understand just how big he.
- 13:39Speaker 1: Was at this moment, because his fame is what made
- 13:42this a global story.
- 13:43Speaker 2: Absolutely, David Anthony Burke Houston. Ray's kid apparently taught himself guitar.
- 13:48He just exploded in twenty twenty two. Bedroom pop, R
- 13:51and b indie electronic vibes kind of blended at all,
- 13:55and the numbers were huge, massive by twenty twenty five,
- 13:59well over ten million monthly listeners on Spotify alone. Collaborating
- 14:02with major artist Caliucci's twenty one savage Levee Wow. His
- 14:06debut album, Withered, came out April twenty twenty five, went
- 14:09straight to number one on Billboard's Alternative New Artist chart.
- 14:12Even did an anthem for Fortnite.
- 14:14Speaker 1: He was everywhere integrated into the mainstream totally.
- 14:16Speaker 2: And the dark irony, as we mentioned, is his whole
- 14:18brand was built on these introspective lyrics about love, loss, youth, vulnerability.
- 14:23Speaker 1: The exact themes now playing out in this horrific real
- 14:27life context. And the alleged connection to Celeste. Yeah, what's
- 14:32the substance there beyond the name.
- 14:33Speaker 2: David Well friends told TMZ they believe the two were
- 14:36romantically involved. But here's a crucial, complicating layer. Celeste. Remember
- 14:40was fifteen, right, but she was reportedly telling people she
- 14:44was older, posing as a nineteen year old USC student.
- 14:47Speaker 1: Okay, that's a huge difference legally, especially for D four VD,
- 14:50who is twenty.
- 14:51Speaker 2: Immense the legal implications between dating someone believed to be
- 14:55nineteen versus someone who is actually fifteen, especially a known runaway,
- 15:00it's a minefield.
- 15:01Speaker 1: So what actual evidence connects them beyond hearsay from friends?
- 15:04This is where the digital footprint comes in.
- 15:06Speaker 2: Exactly investigator sees electronics for a reason. We know there
- 15:09are resurface photos showing them together at events that establish
- 15:12his proximity association. Okay, but more concerning is the digital
- 15:16trail that TikTok comment from February twenty twenty four, over
- 15:19a year before the body was found, that specifically accused
- 15:22D four b D of inappropriate involvement with a minor.
- 15:25That's a red flag that predates the main event.
- 15:27Speaker 1: That alone would get law enforcement's attention, you'd think.
- 15:30Speaker 2: So, then you have the alleged discord leaks, if those
- 15:34are real, in show contact going back years, possibly to
- 15:37when Celeste was only twelve. That paints a very disturbing
- 15:42picture of grooming potentially.
- 15:44Speaker 1: Twelve years old.
- 15:44Speaker 2: And then there are tiny almost forensic visual links things
- 15:49linking Celeste belongings to dfour BD's known locations or videos
- 15:53like what like her Hello Katy Sandals. Investigators apparently found
- 15:57a visual match between those sandals and pans seen in
- 16:00one of D four vd's videos. It sounds small, but
- 16:04those details build.
- 16:05Speaker 1: A case connecting her physically to his world.
- 16:07Speaker 2: Yes, one of her former teachers even saw a video
- 16:10clip of Celeste with DFOURVD and reportedly called it a
- 16:13potential smoking gun, suggesting it was clear proof of their association.
- 16:17Speaker 1: Yet, despite all the swirling around Defoorvit himself has said
- 16:20nothing publicly.
- 16:21Speaker 2: Complete public silence, which is his right legally, but in
- 16:24the court of public opinion, silence often reads his guilt,
- 16:27fairly or unfairly.
- 16:29Speaker 1: His team put out a statement, though.
- 16:30Speaker 2: His spokesperson told NBC News he is fully cooperating with
- 16:34authorities now. Fully cooperating is standard legal pr means his
- 16:40lawyers are managing the process responding to warrant subpoenas. It
- 16:44doesn't necessarily mean he's sitting down for voluntary interviews.
- 16:47Speaker 1: Without counsel understood, and the career impact was immediate and
- 16:51severe catastrophic.
- 16:53Speaker 2: He canceled his entire Withered World tour right after the
- 16:56body was found. Major venues like the Greek Theater in
- 16:59La scrapped huge financial and reputational hit.
- 17:03Speaker 1: And the police moved quickly on his residence too.
- 17:05Speaker 2: September seventeenth, they searched his rented place in the Hollywood Hills,
- 17:09seized electronics, computers, phones crucial for tracing communications, and reports
- 17:15say he broke his lease and moved out right after
- 17:18that search.
- 17:18Speaker 1: The optics of that aren't great running away, some might say.
- 17:21Speaker 2: It certainly looks that way to the public. And then
- 17:23there's that detail about the day the body was found.
- 17:25Speaker 1: Right the primeate investigator pointed this out.
- 17:27Speaker 2: Steve Fisher. Yeah, he noted on X that D fourtyd
- 17:31actually performed a scheduled concert on September eighth, the very
- 17:34day LAPD was recovering Celeste's remains from his car.
- 17:37Speaker 1: Wow, So while police are at the impound lot dealing
- 17:41with this horror, he's on stage.
- 17:44Speaker 2: That's the timeline. Now, maybe he didn't know the full
- 17:47details yet. News was just breaking locally, but the image
- 17:51artist performs while police find a body in his car.
- 17:55It's incredibly damaging from a pr perspective.
- 17:58Speaker 1: And the fans, how did they act?
- 18:00Speaker 2: A noticeable backlash? She saw fans online saying they were
- 18:03deleting his music unfollowing him. Calls for accountability grew louder
- 18:07even while waiting for official charges or explanations about the
- 18:10body concealment.
- 18:11Speaker 1: So the investigation continues, but it's facing hurdles. RhD is
- 18:14leading it, yes.
- 18:15Speaker 2: And the main hurdles are tracing Celeste's final movements, who's runaway,
- 18:19potentially moving around la which is vast and the decomposition.
- 18:23It really limits what forensic examiners can determine about the
- 18:25cause of death, hence deferred.
- 18:28Speaker 1: So if the how is still unclear, the focus remains
- 18:30on the who and why of the concealment exactly.
- 18:33Speaker 2: Captain Williams stressed that they know she died and someone
- 18:36put her body in that trunk dismembered it. That act
- 18:39itself is the current focus. Who had access to the tesla,
- 18:43where was it before it was abandoned on that street?
- 18:46Who was involved in that gruesome concealment.
- 18:48Speaker 1: That's a crime they can investigate even without the final
- 18:50cause of death nailed down.
- 18:52Speaker 2: Correct and the dismemberment, even separate from the cause of death,
- 18:57it points strongly to foul playcation and effort to hide
- 19:01identity and evidence.
- 19:03Speaker 1: It suggest someone went to great lengths, extreme.
- 19:05Speaker 2: Lengths, and investigators have to consider if the person responsible
- 19:09for her death is the same person responsible for the
- 19:11concealment and dismemberment. It's not always the same individual or group.
- 19:16Speaker 1: Let's go back to that Tesla timeline again, the impound
- 19:19report saying no odor initially on August twenty sixth. That
- 19:22seems really significant for timing the concealment.
- 19:25Speaker 2: It really does. It suggests either the body wasn't there
- 19:28when the car was first parked, or it was placed
- 19:30there relatively shortly before that complaint, or the decomposition hadn't
- 19:33reached the overwhelming.
- 19:34Speaker 1: Stage yet, which brings us back to the eerie music.
- 19:37Speaker 2: It makes that theory more compelling, doesn't it. If the
- 19:39body was placed there later, or the smell became critical
- 19:42after it was parked. Maybe the music was a desperate
- 19:44attempt to keep people away until the car got towed.
- 19:47Move the problem somewhere else. The impound lot.
- 19:50Speaker 1: A deliberate distraction. Chilling if true, Okay, zooming out now.
- 19:55This whole story is just devastating, but it also shines
- 19:57a light on some really dark societal issues.
- 20:01Speaker 2: It absolutely does. Beyond the celebrity angle. It's a stark
- 20:04reminder of the vulnerability of young people, especially runaways, in
- 20:08the age of social media.
- 20:09Speaker 1: How easily they can be drawn in yeah.
- 20:12Speaker 2: The allure of fame or just connection with someone who
- 20:15seems important online. These kids are often seeking community, stability, excitement,
- 20:20and they find idols online who feel accessible, maybe even
- 20:22safe through their phones. But that perceived closeness is an
- 20:26illusion and a dangerous one.
- 20:28Speaker 1: Is there data on this runaways connecting with adults online?
- 20:32Speaker 2: Sadly yes that twenty twenty four NCMEC study National Center
- 20:36for Missing and Exploited Children found one in five runaways
- 20:39connect with adults through social media. That's a huge number,
- 20:42indicating a massive risk vector.
- 20:44Speaker 1: One in five.
- 20:45Speaker 2: Wow. For a fifteen year old girl like Celeste, possibly
- 20:49feeling lost or seeking escape a famous artist interacting with
- 20:53her online, it represents a potentially catastrophic danger and.
- 20:57Speaker 1: The potential parallels being drawn. You mentioned Groomy earlier.
- 21:00Speaker 2: It's uncomfortable but necessary to discuss. If the alleged pattern
- 21:05of contact, especially starting when she was much younger, is confirmed,
- 21:08this case could become a landmark example of grooming and
- 21:11exploitation within the music industry in the digital age.
- 21:14Speaker 1: Like a modern version of the r Kelly scandals, but
- 21:17facilitated by dms and social platforms.
- 21:19Speaker 2: Potentially, the dynamics are similar power imbalanced manipulation targeting vulnerablegety,
- 21:24but the tools are new. Social media offers direct, seemingly
- 21:28private access to vulnerable fans on an unprecedented scale. It
- 21:32forces us to ask how digital fane could be weaponized.
- 21:35Speaker 1: It also raises questions about accountability for celebrities. Their digital
- 21:38interactions leave a.
- 21:39Speaker 2: Trail, a permanent trail, and D four E silence while
- 21:43is right allowed speculation to run rampant, and you could argue,
- 21:46further damage Celest's memory by letting false narratives dominate, like.
- 21:50Speaker 1: That devastating pregnancy rumor.
- 21:51Speaker 2: Which caused real harm. It eroded trust, grassed the family,
- 21:55wasted resources, and it's led to louder calls for better
- 21:58platform moderation, maybe even a eye tools to curb the
- 22:01spread of this kind of instantly viral, damaging misinformation that,
- 22:05as experts say, retraumatizes victim's families.
- 22:08Speaker 1: Amidst all the noise and speculation. Though the community around
- 22:11the last focused on her on remembering her.
- 22:14Speaker 2: Yes. Thankfully, her body was released to her family on
- 22:17September twenty fourth, allowing them to finally begin the grieving process,
- 22:21and there was a vigil in Lake elsin Or, her
- 22:23home count Yes, a really powerful community response. On September
- 22:27twenty eighth, over two hundred people gathered chanting justice for Celeste.
- 22:31Her family started to GoFundMe for funeral costs and it
- 22:34raised over fifty thousand dollars. Shows how much the local
- 22:37community felt this loss.
- 22:38Speaker 1: And online that hashtag hashtag justice Force the List, it.
- 22:41Speaker 2: Got millions of views. It became a rallying cry, not
- 22:44just for her case, but it also seemed to spark
- 22:45renewed searches and awareness for other missing teens in that
- 22:49Inland Empire area. Sometimes, tragically, it takes one high profile
- 22:53case to shine a light on others.
- 22:55Speaker 1: As her friend said, she was our light.
- 22:57Speaker 2: A heartbreaking sentiment. Her story is just it's a wake
- 23:01up call, protect vulnerable youth. Question online narratives, demand accountability,
- 23:06and the investigation with that deferred cause of death is
- 23:10very much ongoing. Lapd insists their working tirelessly.
- 23:13Speaker 1: So to wrap up this deep dive. It's incredibly heavy
- 23:17We've seen how the most viral explosive rumor, the pregnancy,
- 23:20was officially debunked. That part is closed, but.
- 23:23Speaker 2: The core tragedy, the central mystery, remains wide open and
- 23:26deeply disturbing. A vulnerable teenager dead, dismembered and hidden in
- 23:31a celebrities car. Why she died and who is responsible
- 23:35for her death? And the concealment Those answers are still missing.
- 23:38Speaker 1: Which leaves us and you the listener, with a final thought,
- 23:42It's about truth in this digital age we live in.
- 23:44Speaker 2: Think about this case. A simple explosive but false rumor
- 23:48spreads like lightning online, fueled by algorithms, capturing global attention
- 23:52and outrage.
- 23:53Speaker 1: While the complex, nuanced, official truth, the kind found on
- 23:56a death certificate after weeks of forensic work, takes so
- 23:59much longer rumor and often gets less attention by the
- 24:01time it does so.
- 24:02Speaker 2: The question is which version holds more power in our
- 24:06collective memory, the instant viral falsehood or the slow verified fact.
- 24:11Speaker 1: And maybe more importantly, what can you do and how
- 24:14you consume information, how you share it to make sure
- 24:16that the truth, however slow or complicated it might be,
- 24:19is the version that ultimately sticks something to think about,