Los Angeles police have reportedly identified a second suspect in connection with the apparent murder of Celeste Rivas Hernandez, the runaway teen whose dismembered remains were found stuffed in the trunk of singer D4vd’s impounded Tesla in September.
Queens-born D4vd, real name David Anthony Burke, is also considered a suspect.
The latest update was revealed on Saturday’s episode of the “2 Angry Men” podcast, hosted by TMZ founder and lawyer Harvey Levin and criminal defense attorney Mark Geragos. The two said the second suspect is not believed to have killed the 15-year-old, but likely assisted in the dismemberment of her remains.
The attorneys said they were informed by sources of a trip D4vd took “to a very remote area of Santa Barbara County, in the middle of the night,” per Levin, who believes “that Santa Barbara trip is the key to this case.”
Geragos said he’s received the name of someone police are looking at in relation to what happened before, during and after the teen’s death — though he didn’t want to make that name public at present.
A combination of cellphone and Tesla data, along with location data from social media, appears to have led law enforcement to identifying the new suspect. The way Geragos interpreted his intel was as a confirmation that person is “connected to one of the last times that car was moved.”
D4vd (main) and Celeste Rivas (inset). (Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images; LAPD)
Rivas was just 13 when she was last seen by her family in the spring of 2024, after multiple attempts at running away from her home in Lake Elsinore, about 75 miles southeast of where her remains were found in L.A. on Sept. 8.
The status of 20-year-old D4vd’s relationship with the teen remains unconfirmed, though people who knew the pair have said they believed they were a couple. Rivas’ mother also told TMZ her daughter had a boyfriend named David.
Contrary to longstanding reports, D4vd has not been cooperating with authorities, nor has he ever in the investigation, a police source told People.
The insider confirmed that police are still unsure of Rivas’ exact time of death and the circumstances surrounding it, though they’ve determined she likely died in the spring of 2025, “not before then.”
The L.A. County Medical Examiner has yet to determine an official cause of death. Once that happens, arrests and charges could soon follow, sources told ABC News.