Los Angeles police have found human remains in two different vehicles inside local tow yards this week, law enforcement sources have told The Times.
One set of remains were discovered about 12:20 p.m. Monday, when police responded to Hollywood Tow on Mansfield Avenue, according to LAPD Officer Charles Miller. Someone had smelled a foul odor coming from the front trunk of a vehicle, and detectives were sent to investigate the possible presence of human remains.
The car, a Tesla with a Texas license plate, was towed from the tony Bird Streets neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills, according to police sources. The vehicle was abandoned five days earlier.
On Tuesday, a body was found partially burned inside a Honda Civic that was logged as towed on Aug. 25, according to two law enforcement sources not authorized to speak about the investigation. The Civic is connected to a missing person report and is considered a separate incident from the one in Hollywood Hills. Detectives found the body at a different tow yard.
The Hollywood Hills case has been classified as a death investigation, according to Miller.
The remains in that vehicle were described as a “head and torso” and were contained in a bag within the trunk, according to the law enforcement source.
KTLA5 also reported that the L.A. County Medical Examiner’s Office responded to the scene but couldn’t determine the gender of the person due to the level of decomposition.
The L.A. County Medical Examiner’s Office didn’t immediately respond to a request for more information.
The vehicle was registered to David Anthony Burke, a musician whose stage name is D4vd, according to a law enforcement source who was not authorized to discuss the investigation. The singer is alive and is expected to perform in Minneapolis on Tuesday for his world tour.
D4vd, pronounced “David,” first entered the public eye trough TikTok, where he has 3.6 million followers.
Times staff writers Summer Lin and Christopher Buchanan contributed to this report.