A decomposed body found inside an impounded Tesla that reportedly belonged to the singer d4vd has been identified as that of a teenage girl who went missing more than a year ago.
The Los Angeles county medical examiner’s office confirmed that the body found inside the vehicle at a tow lot in Hollywood on 8 September was that of Celeste Rivas, 15.
Rivas was last seen in April 2024 in Lake Elsinore, about 60 miles (95km) south-east of downtown Los Angeles. She was 13 at the time.
Officials have not determined her cause of death, but the LAPD is considering the death a homicide.
The body was discovered after someone noticed a stench coming from the Tesla, police said, according to news outlets.
Several local news outlets reported the vehicle was registered to d4vd, whose real name is David Anthony Burke, 20. Authorities have not implicated d4vd in her death. Los Angeles police told the Guardian that it would not officially verify Rivas’s identity, the cause of death, or the owner of the black Tesla.
Neither his representatives nor police responded to requests for comment. An unnamed representative for d4vd told NBC Los Angeles the singer has been cooperating with authorities since the body was found. It was not clear why the car had been impounded.
Police told the Los Angeles Times that the car was towed from the upscale Bird Streets neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills, where it was abandoned earlier in September.
LAPD executed a search warrant at the Hollywood Hills home where the singer had been staying, LAist reported.
In its statement on Wednesday, the medical examiner’s office said Rivas “appears to have been deceased inside the vehicle for an extended period of time before being found,” officials said.
D4vd (pronounced “David”) is a Houston-born singer-songwriter who went from recording music in his sister’s closet to becoming one of gen Z’s most buzzed-about artists.
D4vd broke through in 2022 with the hit Romantic Homicide, which went viral on TikTok. He then followed with Here With Me. Both songs have racked up more than 1.5bn streams on Spotify.
D4vd has since signed with Darkroom and Interscope.
