Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Singer D4vd Is a Suspect In Death of 15-Year-Old Found In Trunk, LAPD Source Says

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Singer D4vd Is a Suspect In Death of 15-Year-Old Found In Trunk, LAPD Source Says · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: So for this deep dive, we're not starting on a
0:02
red carpet or at some glamorous premiere. We're actually in
0:05
the heart of industrial Hollywood.
0:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, a place where you know, all that glamour really
0:10
gets stripped away exactly.
0:12
Speaker 1: And on September eight, twenty twenty five, that reality became, well,
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it became truly gruesome. The scene was just a standard
0:22
Hollywood tow yard, you know, a dusty lot filled with
0:25
abandoned cars and broken dreams. Really, but the focus very
0:29
quickly centered on one specific vehicle, a sleek black twenty
0:34
twenty three Tesla Model three.
0:36
Speaker 2: It's just I mean, it's such a stark collision of cultures,
0:39
isn't it.
0:40
Speaker 1: It really is.
0:40
Speaker 2: You have this symbol of futuristic affluent, you know, cutting edge,
0:45
la celebrity, this sil little extra car, and inside it
0:48
is a crime that feels almost medieval, so primitive.
0:51
Speaker 1: And the car it had been impounded for illegal parking.
0:54
It was just sitting in that lot untouched for what
0:55
investigators now think was several weeks weeks so well, and
0:59
the only reason it was fun I only discovered was
1:00
this overwhelming persistent stench. Employees at the towyard they were
1:05
basically forced to investigate where the order was coming from.
1:08
So they popped open the front trunk that the front
1:11
and inside just chillingly wrapped in these heavy duty black
1:15
trash bags and layers of plastic sheeting, they found the
1:19
decomposed and dismembered human remains of a child.
1:22
Speaker 2: And that child was later identified through dental records in
1:26
DNA as fifteen year old Celeste Revas Hernandez.
1:30
Speaker 1: She'd been missing for well over a year from her
1:32
home in Lake Elsinore in Riverside County, and the registration
1:36
for that tesla it led investigators immediately directly to twenty
1:40
year old David Anthony Burke, better.
1:42
Speaker 2: Known to millions of listeners around the world as the
1:45
rising R and B star D four Via.
1:47
Speaker 1: And that right there is our mission today. We're going
1:50
to unpack the meteoric, dizzying and just deeply disturbing trajectory
1:55
of D four Visa's fame, a rise built entirely on
1:58
these lo fi demos and intimate, vulnerable lyrics.
2:01
Speaker 2: And we have to honor the tragic life and stolen
2:03
future of Celestrevas Hernandez, who is so tragically pulled into
2:07
this orbit.
2:07
Speaker 1: We absolutely do, and then we're going to dedicate a
2:09
lot of time to analyzing the mounting digital and forensic
2:14
evidence that move DFOURVD from just a person of interest
2:18
to the official primary suspect in this homicide case. It
2:22
really explores the chilling dark side of gen Z stardom
2:25
and its power imbalances.
2:27
Speaker 2: You know, the D fort y D case is really
2:29
becoming a defining tragedy of this specific cultural moment. It's
2:33
this intersection of instant digital fame, the clear power imbalance
2:37
you see in predatory dynamics, and this whole information ecosystem TikTok, discord,
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Instagram right that both build him up and is now
2:45
just ruthlessly amplifying every single detail of his alleged fall.
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I mean, these platforms give you no distance from the horror,
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not for us, and certainly not for the victim's family exactly.
2:54
Speaker 1: And the central, just haunting question for anyone who listened
2:57
to his music, who felt that connection to his vulnerability,
3:00
is this, How did a star whose whole brand, whose
3:03
anthems dissected toxic love and heartbreak, how did he become
3:06
so chillingly entangled in a real life tragedy that seems
3:09
to echo those very themes in the most literal, devastating way.
3:12
Speaker 2: It's a story of fleeting, unsupervised youth and the unforgiving
3:17
scrutiny that follows when that line between art and atrocity
3:21
just completely vanishes.
3:22
Speaker 1: Okay, So to really get the weight of this whole scandal,
3:25
I think we first have to understand just how high
3:27
he flew, the height.
3:28
Speaker 2: From which he's falling exactly, and his origin story, David
3:31
Anthony Burke's story is I mean, it's almost a cliche
3:35
for the modern indie star.
3:36
Speaker 1: Right, Raised in Houston, Texas by a single mom, always
3:39
kind of chasing stability, and.
3:40
Speaker 2: The sources paint this really crucial early picture of a
3:44
life that was defined by seeking refuge, by escape. He
3:49
was homeschooled, specifically because he was bullied pretty badly in
3:53
his early adolescence, which pushed him into this world of isolation.
3:56
And that isn't just a biographical detail, it's fundamental to
3:59
his own That isolation pushed him inward, and he found
4:02
solace first in video games and then profoundly in making music,
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and he became.
4:07
Speaker 1: A text bookcase of a self taught prodigy just leveraging
4:10
the power of the Internet. He learned guitar and production
4:13
entirely from YouTube tutorials yeah, and started uploading these raw,
4:18
really compressed, low fi demos to SoundCloud, often using pseudonyms.
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At first, it was that pure diy ethos, something gen
4:26
Z really really respects, and.
4:28
Speaker 2: We should linger on that diy ethos for a second,
4:30
because that was his cultural capital. The audience wasn't buying
4:33
polish pop. They were buying what they saw is authenticity,
4:37
perceived vulnerability totally. He wasn't relying on huge studio budgets
4:42
or major labels in the beginning, and that made him relatable,
4:45
you know, was like a friend sharing a really personal
4:47
diary entry with you.
4:49
Speaker 1: And then came the moment that changed absolutely everything, the
4:51
TikTok Catapult in twenty twenty two.
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Speaker 2: He was just eighteen years old, and that moment was
4:57
all about the release of Romantic Homicide, the signature elements
5:01
of his sound that brooding altar and b vibe, heavy
5:04
autotune and lyrics that were intensely confessional about destructive relationships.
5:09
Speaker 1: The core line that just resonated across millions of feeds
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was I don't need no one to hold me. I'd
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rather sleep alone. It just captured the specific kind of melancholy,
5:18
that feeling of being burned out on toxic love and
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just retreating into yourself, and.
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Speaker 2: That vulnerability was such potent currency. The song didn't just
5:25
go viral. It became like a cultural shorthand for breakup videos,
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for isolation montages. It was featured in half a million
5:32
user created videos almost overnight.
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Speaker 1: The algorithm just cheated it like rocket fuel. He was
5:37
inescapable on the platform. He really was, And the numbers
5:40
that followed are just staggering, and they show the speed
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of modern fame. Romantic Homicide cracked the Billboard Hot one
5:48
hundred at number thirty three, and it racks up nine
5:51
point four million on demand streams in a single.
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Speaker 2: Week, single week, and the industry reacted just as fast.
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Interscope Record signed him almost immediately, and we have to
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note his follow up here with Me, just cemented his status.
6:05
That song pushed past one billion combined Spotify streams, a billion.
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The transformation was complete. He went from an isolated, homeschooled
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kid in Houston to a global R and B phenomenon
6:15
in less than a year.
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Speaker 1: So we have this rapid rise built on this perceived authenticity.
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By early twenty twenty five, D four VD is enjoying
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peak fame, thirty three million monthly Spotify listeners, that superstar level,
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three point six million TikTok followers. He's touring arenas, he's
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walking runaways at Paris Fashion Week. He was the product
6:34
of a digital pipeline that demands constant output and personal confession.
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But this is where the story takes a really, really
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unsettling turn. Yeah, because even during his ascent there was
6:45
this dark, persistent theme in his art that now just
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feels like horrifying foreshadowing.
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Speaker 2: You're talking about his twenty twenty four EP Pedals to
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Thorns exactly, and specifically the music video for the track
6:58
One More Dance. We have to dwell on this because
7:01
is it a coincidence or is it a piece of
7:04
self exposure.
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Speaker 1: Well, the video, which has now been scrutinized by millions
7:07
of people since the story broke it graphically shows a
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bloodied Burke dragging a body into a car trunk.
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Speaker 2: Right at the time, everyone just dismissed it as edgy art,
7:15
a visual metaphor for toxic love.
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Speaker 1: But when the remains of a young girl are found
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dismembered inside the fronk of your car, that artistic metaphor
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becomes something else entirely. It haunts the narrative. It turns
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the art into a potential roadmap for the crime.
7:29
Speaker 2: Itself, and the online rumors, the whispers they started long
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before September twenty twenty five, tell us about the ecosystem
7:37
where those first red flags started to pop up. They
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popped up largely within his own communities, specifically his official discord.
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Speaker 1: Server ah Discord.
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Speaker 2: And Discord is so critical here because it offers this
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more intimate, less public space than TikTok It lets artists
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cultivate these intensely loyal, highly parasocial relationships with fans, many
7:57
of whom are underage, And we.
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Speaker 1: Saw greenshots dating back to twenty twenty three alleging he
8:02
was dating a teenager named Celeste. How explicit were those
8:06
interactions on the server?
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Speaker 2: They were deeply concerning, the sources, detail, possessive language, the
8:11
creation of specific roles or channels that facilitate these intimate
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fan interactions, sometimes bordering on roleplay involving his muses, and
8:19
when he.
8:19
Speaker 1: Gave interviews he fed into this whole mystiques right. He
8:22
talked vaguely about his complicated love life and the young
8:26
muses who inspired his darkest songs all the time. I
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remember his March twenty twenty five tweet art is Pain.
8:32
At the time, it was just another piece of moody
8:35
gen Z philosophizing. Now people are dissecting every syllable, searching
8:39
for hidden meanings. That suggests the pain he was capturing
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wasn't just heartbreak, but something far more deslective.
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Speaker 2: And let's not forget the controversial tweets his management rushed
8:47
to scrub from the Internet. The twenty twenty four backlash
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centered on a tweet where he joked about ghosting XS permanently.
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Speaker 1: Wow.
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Speaker 2: That's the danger of high speed fame. Every casual comment
8:57
is preserved, and when tragedy strikes, the public reads those
9:01
past comments not as jokes, but as premeditated signals of
9:04
dangerous intent. His professional team, they knew they were managing
9:09
a tightrope walk between edgy vulnerability and actual predatory behavior
9:13
long before that car was opened.
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Speaker 1: So D four Vido was built on this ethos of
9:17
relatability and intimacy, but that intimacy cultivated in these private
9:21
digital spaces like discord seems to be exactly where the
9:25
predatory dynamic with Celestrevus Hernandez was allegedly allowed to flourish.
9:29
Speaker 2: Which brings us to the victim herself.
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Speaker 1: Now we need to pivot and focus entirely on Celestrivas Hernandez,
9:34
a young life just tragically reduced to a headline. She
9:37
was born September seven, twenty ten, in Lake Elsinore, California,
9:41
and by all accounts, she was a bright, aspiring teenager
9:43
who had immense promise.
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Speaker 2: Her mother, Maria Hernandez, has spoken publicly she described Celeste
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as my little firecracker. We know she was a straighty
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student at Elsinore High School and her ambitions were so
9:55
far from the la celebrity scene. She had these concrete
9:58
goals of becoming a marine biology. She volunteered at animal shelters.
10:02
She posted these educational conservation reels on Instagram.
10:05
Speaker 1: And that dual identity is just heartbreaking. On one hand,
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you have this dedicated student and conservationist, and then you
10:10
have this private world of adolescent purbulence and a secret
10:14
passion for music, specifically dfour vds. She would cover his
10:18
songs on a private TikTok account.
10:20
Speaker 2: It was a way of engaging with her idol that
10:22
felt personal and hidden right, and the source material is
10:28
clear Celeste was struggling with that universal teenage desire to
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be seen. Her friends told investigators she was utterly obsessed
10:35
with certain TikTok influencers, and D four video is at
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the absolute apex of that obsession.
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Speaker 1: And his lyrics, which romanticized emotional pain. They offered a
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mirror to her own budding heartbreaks. It must have made
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the connection feel so profound to her, so necessary.
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Speaker 2: And this desire for connection, which was fueled by what
10:53
we now call a highly parasocial relationship with her idol,
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tragically led her away from home. She was reported missing
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on April five, twenty twenty.
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Speaker 1: Four, and this was right after a big family argument,
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wasn't it over her new friends in Los Angeles. She
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had apparently run away to the city, actively chasing this
11:11
idea of connecting with and maybe even becoming part of
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that celebrity culture.
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Speaker 2: And when a miner runs away, the initial law enforcement
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response often lacks that immediate urgency of say, an abduction case.
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So Maria Hernandez, her mother, had to take matters into
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her own hands. She immediately started searching, putting up posters,
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trying to trace her daughter's steps.
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Speaker 1: Then there's that devastating, fleeting moment of contact. In May
11:33
twenty twenty four, Celeste called home.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. Marie said her voice was shaky, that she just
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insisted she was safe with friends, and then she abruptly
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hung up. This single brief call, it provided this temporary relief,
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but it was also a powerful warning sign that something
11:47
was deeply, deeply wrong.
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Speaker 1: And Maria Hernandez was already focused on who those friends were.
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In a really raw interview with TMZ, she confirmed her
11:56
deep suspicion. She said she had warned Celest to be
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cared because, and this is a quote, she mentioned a
12:03
boy named David. She was only fourteen and.
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Speaker 2: He was nineteen. The age gap nineteen and fourteen, and
12:08
the dynamic of a massive star preying on a fan,
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it just created the perfect storm for grooming.
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Speaker 1: Investigators later confirmed this dynamic by piecing together the Onli
12:17
trail The resurface photos are They're damning. You see Celeste
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beaming at a twenty twenty four Coachella after party, standing
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right next to a figure confirmed.
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Speaker 2: To be d four VD, and she left an online
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trail of breadcrumbs herself. Didn't she these cryptic captions like
12:32
chasing dreams, ignoring red flags. Yeah, the suggests she was
12:34
aware on some level of the danger of the toxicity,
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but she was prioritizing that intoxicating proximity to fame over
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her own safety.
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Speaker 1: And then there's the truly disturbing physical evidence of their
12:44
alleged shared secrecy, the matching tattoos on their index fingers.
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This supposedly originated from a kind of internal code within
12:51
his discord server.
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Speaker 2: I want to focus on the meaning of that tattoo,
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because it's not just inc Criminologist Angelo Brown analyzed this detail,
13:00
and he noted that markers like that, especially ones that
13:02
demand silence or secrecy, often signify possessive or coercive.
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Speaker 1: Relationships, particularly when there's a massive age and power differential.
13:11
Speaker 2: Exactly, it establishes complicity, even if that complicity is born
13:15
from manipulation. It speaks to a shared secret that binds
13:19
the victim to the perpetrator, often overwriting logic or the
13:22
impulse to seek help.
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Speaker 1: She was a fourteen year old girl desperate to be
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seen by her idol, and this shared mark it validated
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her in the most dangerous way possible.
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Speaker 2: We also have reports of a noted shift in her
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behavior leading up to April twenty twenty four. Her school
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friends reported seeing bruises on Celeste, that she just kept
13:39
dismissing his clumsiness.
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Speaker 1: And the final tragic digital message her deleted Instagram story
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from March twenty twenty four, reading love hurts, but Silence kills.
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Speaker 2: Wow. When you layer all these details, the bruises, the
13:52
cryptic warning, the secretive tattoo, it becomes so difficult to
13:56
maintain the narrative that she was just a runaway chasing.
14:01
By April, she was likely trapped, and shortly thereafter she
14:05
was gone, swallowed by a system that prioritizes celebrity protection
14:09
over minor safety.
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Speaker 1: Okay, so the narrative accelerates violently. On September eight, twenty
14:14
twenty five, the missing person's case officially converts into a
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homicide investigation. Right there at the Hollywood tow yard.
14:20
Speaker 2: The car was just sitting there, a black twenty twenty
14:23
three Tesla Model three impounded for parking violations just days earlier,
14:28
but it was likely abandoned on the street for weeks
14:31
before it even got towed.
14:32
Speaker 1: The smell was the critical trigger. It's hard to overstate
14:35
the importance of that odor in prompting the investigation. I mean,
14:38
if that car had been parked legally in a private garage.
14:41
Speaker 2: This discovery might have been delayed indefinitely or never happened.
14:44
Speaker 1: Right, But the persistent foul odor forced the employees to act, so.
14:48
Speaker 2: They made the gruesome discovery inside the vehicle's unique front
14:52
storage compartment. The front. The remains were inside a heavy
14:56
duty black trash bag meticulously wrapped in layers of plastic shit.
15:00
Speaker 1: The initial identification process was arduous, I mean, the decomposition
15:04
was so advanced. But on September seventeenth, twenty twenty five,
15:08
the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office confirmed the victim
15:12
was Celestry of Us Hernandez and.
15:14
Speaker 2: The unbearable irony. September seventeenth would have been her fifteenth birthday.
15:19
The remains had been dead, according to initial reports, for
15:22
an extended period, a time frame investigators believe aligns perfectly
15:26
with her disappearance in the spring of twenty twenty four.
15:29
Speaker 1: So the LPD homicide detectives were on the scene immediately.
15:32
They traced the vehicle's registration back to David Anthony Burke.
15:36
And this is the point where the investigation transforms from
15:38
a cold case into a high profile celebrity scandal, placing
15:42
just unprecedented pressure on law enforcement.
15:45
Speaker 2: And the initial response from Deforvid's team was very carefully
15:48
crafted to create distance. They were cooperative at first, you know,
15:52
granting access to the vehicle and claiming that Tesla had
15:55
been loaned out to associates during his extensive East Coast
15:59
tour that.
15:59
Speaker 1: Previous classic celebrity damage control.
16:02
Speaker 2: Totally cooperate, just enough to appear innocent while shifting the
16:06
blame to these unnamed intermediaries.
16:08
Speaker 1: But the story it freyed pretty quickly. Sources reported D
16:12
four VID's narrative shifted multiple times. First he claimed total
16:17
ignorance of the car's whereabouts for months. Then he pivoted
16:20
to citing a stolen keyfob that allowed others to access it.
16:23
Speaker 2: And this is where investigative procedure becomes so critical. Detectives
16:27
and forensic teams, they're not just looking at physical evidence,
16:30
they're looking at patterns of denial. These quick successive changes
16:33
in the story are instant red flags. It suggests the
16:36
suspect is desperately trying to create plausible deniability.
16:39
Speaker 1: An alternative explanation for why his car contained a body recisel.
16:43
What about the Tesla itself, I mean it's a highly
16:45
computerized piece of technology. Did that immediately become a crucial
16:48
piece of evidence?
16:49
Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely, The Tesla is a digital crime scene. Investigators
16:53
immediately sought warrants for the vehicle's operational data, GPS logs,
16:57
autopilot usage, battery charging history, all of.
17:00
Speaker 1: It, so that data can pinpoint exactly where the car
17:03
was when it was driven.
17:04
Speaker 2: And potentially who was driving at a key times, especially
17:07
around April twenty twenty four and leading up to its
17:10
abandonment in August twenty twenty five. This digital footput can
17:14
either confirm or completely destroy that loan to associates narrative
17:19
much more accurately than any witness statement.
17:21
Speaker 1: So while the police were collecting digital evidence, the tow
17:23
yard itself just became the epicenter of this media firestorm.
17:27
Yellow tape, satellite trucks, the whole circus, and.
17:31
Speaker 2: Right in the middle of it, Maria Hernandez arrived, demonstrating
17:34
this profound, raw grief her appearance demanding justice for Celeste
17:38
and sharing her sorrow so publicly it ensured this wasn't
17:41
just some clinical police report. She gave a face to
17:44
the victims.
17:44
Speaker 1: She forced the public and the LAPD to confront the
17:47
devastating human cost of this alleged predatory behavior. Her grief
17:52
was immediately amplified by the same social media ecosystem that
17:55
had propelled DFOURVD to stardom. The period where DFOURVD was
17:59
just a person of interest was very brief. By mid
18:02
November twenty twenty five, leaked details confirmed his status had
18:06
been elevated to that of a primary suspect, and.
18:09
Speaker 2: That signifies that investigators found direct, compelling ties that go
18:12
way beyond just owning the vehicle.
18:14
Speaker 1: Crucially, sources were indicating that insiders alleged D four VD
18:18
most likely had helped dismembering and disposing of the body.
18:21
Speaker 2: And that's not just a sensational detail, it's a major
18:24
investigative strategy point. It suggests the crime wasn't spontaneous. It
18:28
suggests premeditation, a cover up plan, and potentially an accomplice
18:31
who helped with the complex task of concealment and disposal.
18:35
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's unpack the digital evidence that solidified this
18:38
change in status. The cornerstone seems to be the recovered
18:41
evidence from Celeste's cell phone.
18:42
Speaker 2: Yes, despite attempts to delete data, forensic specialists were able
18:47
to pull back crucial communications. The most damning piece is
18:51
a deleted text dated March thirty, front twenty twenty four,
18:54
just five days before she vanished, and the text it
18:57
was short, terrifying, and direct to D four BD. It
19:01
read David, please don't hurt me again.
19:03
Speaker 1: Wow. That one text is incredibly powerful for the prosecution.
19:07
It serves multiple purposes, doesn't it absolutely?
19:10
Speaker 2: It establishes a pattern of physical abuse or harm that
19:13
predates her disappearance. It refuses any claim that the relationship
19:17
was just platonic or consensual in a healthy way. It
19:20
instantly sets the stage for a coercive and potentially violent dynamic.
19:24
Speaker 1: It makes it very difficult for the defense to claim
19:26
an accidental or innocent death very.
19:28
Speaker 2: And then you pair that text with the resurface discord
19:31
league the screenshots from his server referencing Celeste in those
19:34
possessive fan role plays.
19:35
Speaker 1: It creates a consistent pattern of control.
19:38
Speaker 2: Exactly he was allegedly grooming her in private while publicly
19:41
fueling this culture of devotion among his young fan base,
19:45
and the narrative was made explicitly clear by Maria Hernandez
19:48
to ABC News. She called him her boyfriend. He was nineteen,
19:52
she was fourteen. I begged her to end it.
19:54
Speaker 1: That confirms the fundamental predatory age gap and the power
19:58
dynamic that investigators have to prove it existed.
20:00
Speaker 2: And let's go back to the physical marker, that sh tattoo.
20:04
We know Celeste had it inked weeks before she vanished,
20:06
and D four VD sported a matching one in a
20:09
September twenty twenty four Instagram photo.
20:11
Speaker 1: It's circumstantial, but it's psychologically potent. It's like a nonverbal
20:15
confession of a shared secret relationship.
20:17
Speaker 2: A good defense attorney might argue coincidence, but the totality
20:20
of evidence the discord references the age gap, the text messages,
20:23
and the shared tattoos. It paints this picture of deliberate
20:27
secrecy designed to facilitate this inappropriate relationship away from any
20:31
parental or legal scrutiny.
20:32
Speaker 1: So if we look at the timeline now, everything points
20:35
toward D four vd's West Hollywood rental April five, twenty
20:38
twenty four, Celeste vanishes after a weekend spent with dfour
20:42
VDS entourage, likely tied to a Coachella after party.
20:46
Speaker 2: And critically, April twenty twenty four, phone records place Celeste's
20:50
final pings near D four D's rental property. This puts
20:54
her in his physical proximity at the exact moment she
20:57
dropped off the grid.
20:58
Speaker 1: It completely undermine and any claim that he hadn't seen
21:01
her in months right.
21:02
Speaker 2: And meanwhile, D forty is publicly thriving throughout the summer
21:07
of twenty twenty four. He is touring the East Coast
21:10
posting these care free selfies while his tesla, the rolling
21:13
crime scene, remained somewhere in Los Angeles.
21:15
Speaker 1: The narrative suggests that the disposal and concealment happened around
21:18
the time of the disappearance or shortly after, while he
21:21
was able to maintain his public image and distance himself geographically.
21:25
Speaker 2: Then we jump forward over a year to August twenty five,
21:28
twenty twenty five. Surveillance footage captures the tesla arriving abandoned
21:32
at the location where it would later be impounded, and
21:35
this is vital. It was driven by an unidentified mail.
21:38
Speaker 1: So that footage strongly corroborates the source information about an
21:41
alleged accomplice.
21:42
Speaker 2: It does the police need to know if this individual
21:45
was involved in the crime the dismemberment, or was simply
21:48
paid to drop the car off after a long period
21:50
of storage. This person is a crucial missing piece of the.
21:54
Speaker 1: Puzzle and finally, the self incriminating action. September eighteenth, twenty
21:59
twenty five, the day after celeste remains were positively identified,
22:03
D four VD cancels his remaining US tour dates, citing
22:07
personal reasons.
22:08
Speaker 2: The timing is just too precise to be a coincidence.
22:11
Speaker 1: In the eyes of the public and the prosecution, it
22:13
absolutely suggests guilt. It implies a direct correlation between the
22:17
official confirmation of the victim's identity and D four vd's
22:21
immediate professional retreat. He realized the cover up was collapsing
22:25
and was scrambling to regain control.
22:28
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the complexity of the forensic evidence, because
22:30
this is where the prosecution faces its biggest hurdle. The
22:33
details are gruesome. The remains were severely decomposed, dismembered at
22:38
the torso and decapitated post.
22:40
Speaker 1: Mortem, and the advanced state of the remains. That complicates everything.
22:43
Speaker 2: Everything the source material suggests the body was likely frozen
22:47
for an extended period. Now, if the body was frozen,
22:49
that suggest sophisticated concealment designed to mask the time of
22:52
death and severely degrade any trace evidence like DNA or fibers.
22:56
Speaker 1: Wait, how does freezing specifically complicate proving the crime.
22:59
Speaker 2: Well, if a body is kept of freezing temperatures, it
23:02
halts decomposition. This means the medical examiner can't accurately determine
23:06
the time of death based on decomposition rates. More critically,
23:10
the official cause of death remains deferred.
23:13
Speaker 1: Deferred cause of death? Can you elaborate on that? For us?
23:16
Speaker 2: It means that while homicide is strongly suspected, the medical
23:20
examiner cannot definitively rule out every other possibility, like a
23:24
severe accident or a natural death because the decomposition has
23:27
eliminated definitive evidence of strangulation, blunt force trauma, or a
23:32
fatal overdose.
23:33
Speaker 1: So they know she was killed, but they can't.
23:35
Speaker 2: Prove how exactly. As criminologist doctor Brown noted, proving manner
23:39
is hell. In this state. You can prove the identity
23:41
and the car connection, but proving how celestide becomes extraordinarily difficult,
23:46
which is crucial for securing a murder conviction versus lesser charges.
23:49
Speaker 1: So if they can't prove the specific cause of death,
23:52
what is the investigation hinging on now?
23:55
Speaker 2: Trace evidence? They are aggressively seeking warrants for defour Ye's residences,
24:00
looking for any biological evidence lead, hair, or tool marks
24:04
that match the dismemberment. They need to find celest DNA
24:08
inside his property or his DNA mixed with the crime
24:11
scene materials inside that front.
24:13
Speaker 1: If they can do that, then charges leg tampering with
24:16
evidence or manslaughter become much easier to secure.
24:19
Speaker 2: Much easier even without a definitive.
24:21
Speaker 1: Cause of death, and the high profile nature and wealth
24:24
involved here are impossible to ignore. Sources have explicitly used
24:27
the phrase OJ Simpson's ghost looms. What does that mean
24:31
in the context of this investigation.
24:33
Speaker 2: It means we have to anticipate a defense strategy defined
24:36
by endless challenges, appeals and the sheer financial power to
24:41
hire the best forensic and legal minds in the country.
24:43
D four V's high profile Beverly Hills lawyer isn't just
24:46
there to argue innocence. They're there to overwhelm the prosecution's resources.
24:50
Speaker 1: So they attack the chain of custody.
24:52
Speaker 2: They attack the chain of custody. They hire independent pathologists
24:55
to contradict the state's findings on decomposition. They challenge the
24:59
digital for ends, arguing the tessel logs were tampered with.
25:03
The defense doesn't need to prove Deovervd is innocent. They
25:07
just need to introduce reasonable doubt on every single piece
25:10
of evidence. This is going to be a lengthy, highly
25:13
watched trial.
25:14
Speaker 1: Speaking of DEFORVD, he's reportedly holed up in Houston. His
25:18
lawyer claims full cooperation, yet sources contradict this, saying he's
25:22
gone dark.
25:23
Speaker 2: That contradiction is purely strategic. The lawyer's performing for the media,
25:27
signaling cooperation to mitigate negative press. In reality, the moment
25:31
Devervid was elevated to suspect, his cooperation likely ceased that
25:36
standard legal advice. He is preparing for a massive legal battle,
25:39
relying on his wealth to distance himself physically and legally
25:42
from the horror found in his car.
25:44
Speaker 1: The moment the investigation leaks confirmed Defervid was the primary suspect.
25:48
In mid November, the internet didn't just react, it combusted.
25:51
It was a digital firestorm of outrage, fueled by the
25:54
speed and reach of platforms like TikTok and Twitter.
25:57
Speaker 2: The scale of it was instantaneous and just Beryl hashtag
26:01
arrest D four ved trended globally within hours, accumulating two
26:05
point five million posts. You had a global audience weighing in,
26:09
not waiting for charges, but immediately demanding accountability, and.
26:13
Speaker 1: Instantly the public's attention turned back to his art, creating
26:16
this morbid feedback loop. The music video for One More Dance,
26:20
the one with the trunk scene, was viewed fifty million
26:23
times after the story broke.
26:24
Speaker 2: It's the public collectively becoming its own investigative body. TikTok
26:28
duets just exploded, with users dissecting his old videos, his lyrics,
26:32
his stage banter, hunting for any clues or hints that
26:35
he had exposed his true nature. All along, the art
26:38
became evidence in the court of public.
26:39
Speaker 1: Opinion, which feeds directly into the predatory artist trope, a
26:42
phenomenon that feminist critiques immediately seized upon linking D four
26:46
VD to previous horrifying cases.
26:48
Speaker 2: The comparisons to high profile cases like r Kelly or
26:52
even xxxtentation figures whose art was also inextricably linked to
26:56
serious allegations of abuse and violence, were immediate in fee.
27:01
The core sentiment was captured by an activist tweet that
27:03
resonated deeply. Fame doesn't absolve you from accountability, It just
27:08
amplifies your crimes.
27:09
Speaker 1: It's a demand for a cultural reckoning, not just a
27:12
legal one exactly, and the fracture within D four vd's
27:15
massive fan base was profound. Stan accounts which had defended
27:19
him so fiercely started going dark almost instantly. But in
27:23
this bizarre cynical twist, the intense morbid curiosity surrounding the
27:28
tragedy led to a massive surge in his streaming numbers.
27:31
Speaker 2: It's the moral paradox of modern consumption. His UF on
27:34
demand plays doubled his previous weekly numbers in the days
27:37
following the identification of Celeste. The public claims outrage, but
27:41
the click is still revenue. People can't look away, even
27:43
when the viewing validates the person they claimed to despise.
27:46
Speaker 1: Amidst all that digital noise, we see the rise of
27:49
Maria Hernandez as a reluctant but incredibly powerful advocate. She
27:53
immediately partnered with anti trafficking organizations to turn her personal
27:57
devastation into a warning against online grooming.
28:01
Speaker 2: Her advocacy is so crucial. Her rally statement, these stars
28:05
lure our girls with likes and lyrics is a direct
28:08
indictment of the music industry's business model, which relies on
28:11
generating intimacy between star and fan without any accompanying safeguards.
28:16
Speaker 1: She's transforming her grief into actionable warnings for parents and policymakers.
28:20
Speaker 2: She is and the professional fallout in the industry was swift,
28:24
highlighting how fast the music machine retreats when profits turn toxic.
28:28
Celebrities were quick to distance themselves.
28:30
Speaker 1: The distancing often comes through subtle but very visible cues.
28:34
Billie Eilish posting rip Celeste was a public condemnation an.
28:38
Speaker 2: Sea quietly unfollowing D four VD on social media that
28:42
speaks volumes in the celebrity ecosystem. Silence or removal is
28:46
the industry's way of saying, we recognize the toxicity and
28:50
we are protecting our own brand.
28:51
Speaker 1: Innerscope Records was forced to immediately pause promotional efforts for
28:55
his upcoming album Echoes of You, which is rumored to
28:58
contain tracks directly inspired by his relationship with Celeste.
29:01
Speaker 2: And that detail just highlights the ethical horror here. The
29:05
very art that was meant to generate profit may have
29:08
been directly fueled by the tragic relationship that led to
29:11
this alleged homicide.
29:12
Speaker 1: Spotify, facing intense boycott calls, began scrubbing his presence from
29:17
prominent curated playlist.
29:19
Speaker 2: And the cancelation of his remaining tour dates was officially
29:21
framed as safety concerns by promoters, but it's clearly an
29:26
attempt to stem the massive financial liability in brand toxicity
29:29
associated with him.
29:30
Speaker 1: Now, this is the industry's accountability failure. They profited massively
29:35
from his rapid, unsupervised rise, capitalizing on his low five vulnerability,
29:40
but the second the legal and ethical liability becomes too great,
29:43
they just cut him loose.
29:45
Speaker 2: Celeste's story exposes the fact that a fourteen year old
29:48
girl blurring lines while dming her idol is not a safe,
29:51
harmless interaction. It is, in fact, incredibly dangerous.
29:55
Speaker 1: And regardless of the specific charges the LAPD ultimately files,
29:58
whether it's murder or manslaughter or just tampering with evidence,
30:02
the legal case is set to become a defining, lengthy
30:05
spectacle Because of the sheer amount of money and celebrity
30:08
power involved, The scrutiny on the Los Angeles justice system
30:11
will be intense.
30:13
Speaker 2: And that high profile defense will ensure that every single
30:15
step of the forensic and digital investigation is challenged. This
30:19
case will not be about quick justice. It will be
30:22
a long, painful and very public battle for accountability, forcing
30:26
the world to confront the moral cost of instant, unsupervised stardom.
30:30
Speaker 1: If there's one central tragedy we must hold onto from
30:33
this deep dive, it is the profound, senseless loss of
30:36
Celestrie Veus Hernandez. She was a teenager who deserved prom
30:40
dresses and college acceptances, a future dedicated to marine biology,
30:44
and a life lived fully, not the horrific reality of
30:47
being found dismembered in a trash bag inside a car trunk.
30:50
Speaker 2: The final bitter irony is that D four vd's lyrics
30:54
songs like Don't let Me Drown in Your Love, which
30:56
once provided this shared empathy and connection for millions of listeners,
31:00
now stand as a chilling self written indictment of his
31:03
alleged actions. The art and the horror are now inextricably linked,
31:08
perhaps forever.
31:10
Speaker 1: This case forces a systemic reckoning, not just for the
31:12
individual star, but for the entire industry that grants instant,
31:16
unsupervised power to young artists, often ignoring the predatory dynamics
31:20
that flourish when access, wealth, and fame collide with vulnerable fans.
31:24
Accountability is due for defor Veed, but also for the
31:27
machine that enabled his rise and allowed this tragedy to unfold.
31:31
Speaker 2: The path to legal justice hinges on incredibly complex forensics,
31:35
the deferred cause of death, the evidence of dismemberment, the
31:38
challenge of proving intent after presume freezing. But as engage
31:41
consumers of this culture, we are left with a final
31:43
provocative thought to consider, what is the moral weight of
31:46
continuing to consume and profit off of art that may
31:48
be directly and inextricably linked to real life atrocity.
31:51
Speaker 1: Is turning off the AutoPlay on his tracks, scrubbing the playlists,
31:54
and demanding industry reform. The only form of true public
31:57
accountability we have left in this shadowy interception of celebrity
32:02
and criminality. Perhaps the only good that can emerge is
32:05
that celests stolen light. As heartbreaking as it is will
32:08
illuminate the shadows of celebrity culture and demand fundamental change.