The Murder of Celeste Rivas Hernandez: The Case of David Anthony Burke, or D4vd: The Autopsy

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_01] I'm Anya, and today we're going to be talking about the murder of a young girl, specifically her autopsy.

[00:00:06] [SPEAKER_00] Before we get started, I just want to jump in really quickly to say we've had for a while a Patreon where we offer ad-free shows, early release, extra content. We're going to be offering those same features on Apple for through an Apple subscription. So if you're interested in extra episodes, ad-free episodes, sign up at either Apple or Patreon.

[00:00:30] [SPEAKER_01] Yes, and those are about $5 a month. So it's a lot of fun. It's a great way to build community. And if you really like the Murder Sheet, it's some extra content for you, early episodes and ad-free episodes. So it's a cool listening experience. Content warning. This episode contains discussion of the murder and sexual abuse of a young girl.

[00:00:56] [SPEAKER_01] So today is May 11th, 2026. This is one of those cases that I think has gripped a lot of people, upset a lot of people, understandably. We're going to be talking about the murder of Celeste Abigail Rivas Hernandez. This was a young girl in California. She was murdered. She went missing.

[00:01:21] [SPEAKER_01] And what's happened since then is she was from Lake Elsinore, California, and she was 15 years old. Now, she was connected to a man named David Anthony Burke. He was 20.

[00:01:38] [SPEAKER_01] And he was a popular, you know, increasingly popular sort of alternative R&B musician and Twitch streamer who went by the sort of nom de plume David, which is D4VD. And his real name again is David Anthony Burke. And recently he was charged with the murder of Celeste.

[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_01] They were connected together. You know, there was police say that there's evidence that they were in a sexual relationship, despite the fact that that is illegal because he was an adult and she was not. And this is a case. It's just I just want to give everyone like a bit of a sense, like we're going to be talking about the autopsy today. This is going to be pretty graphic and upsetting.

[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_01] So if that's not something you want to hear about, I understand. I think it could be something that is good for everybody else to know who's following the case because it sort of gets into maybe some maybe raises some questions or give some answers about what happened to this young girl. So with that, let's get started. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist.

[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_00] And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney. And this is The Murder Sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_01] And this is The Murder of Celeste Rivas Hernandez, the case of David Anthony Burke or David, the autopsy.

[00:03:59] [SPEAKER_01] Before we get started, let's talk about the concept of an autopsy. What an autopsy means is some form of medical examination of a person's body after their death. So it's post-mortem or after death. And it really typically what we associate with it is physicians trying to determine the cause of a person's death, maybe and also the manner.

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. And obviously, this is a pretty clear point, but it's worth stating that when you're looking at proceedings in court, especially in a criminal court, I guess any court, it's very important to be able to prove every element of whatever crime a person is being charged with.

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_00] And if you're going to charge a person with a crime of murder, then the court needs to hear exactly how the victim was murdered. It's not just enough that they are deceased. What exactly caused the murder? And can you put the cause of that murder at the feet of the accused?

[00:05:13] [SPEAKER_01] That's exactly right. So when we talk about cause of death specifically, that is what I mean, it is what it sounds like. It's what causes the person to die, whether that's a disease, whether that's an injury. If someone stabs a person and they bleed to death, you know, the cause of death was was that stab wound or sharp edged weapon wounds.

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_01] And the manner of death is more it's broader. So that's a classification that gets into how do we look at this death from a legal and medical perspective. So that can be a natural death accident. It can be a suicide homicide, which includes murder, but not all homicides are murder. You can have justifiable homicide.

[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_01] Like if someone kills somebody in self-defense when they're being attacked by that person, that's homicide, but it's not murder. Or in some instances, you can have undetermined when it can't be known. So autopsies can tell us a lot. They don't always tell us everything, though. There can be issues around a body and how it's preserved and how much of the body is recovered. So there can be gaps in terms of what we can understand from an autopsy.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_01] It's not the end all be all, but it's definitely a pretty big, important step. So today we're going to be just literally going through the entire autopsy and trying to glean what we can from it and trying to see what questions remain for us. Maybe we could ask some experts about and what we can be looking forward to going forward. As a bit of a scene setting thing, this case does have a preliminary hearing that has been scheduled for May 26th.

[00:07:03] [SPEAKER_01] And that is going to go into whether this case goes forward to trial. Has the prosecution, has the have the investigators put forward enough evidence in order to warrant a trial here? And this is going to be where the prosecution really puts on its strongest pieces of evidence to say this young girl was indeed murdered and we believe she was murdered by Mr. Burke.

[00:07:31] [SPEAKER_01] So, you know, and meanwhile, I think there's been some, you know, there's been some indications in the press. I don't think I've seen anything official around this yet, but some indication in the press that maybe one strategy for Burke's defense team would be saying, hey, this isn't a murder at all. She overdosed or something like that.

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_01] Or there was an accident or there was something where it's not murder despite despite the circumstances. So let's look at this autopsy. So we start off. This is the Department of Medical Examiner from the county of Los Angeles. The initial page summarizes some important facts with the death investigation summary. And they talk about the decedent's name. This is Celeste Abigail Rivas Hernandez.

[00:08:26] [SPEAKER_01] It lists her date of injury unknown and place of injury as unknown. You know, when you're dealing with with the medical examiner's office, I imagine there's like an element where they don't want to say anything if they're not sure. Leave that to the police to determine that and present that through the prosecution. They list her pronounced date and time of death as 11 a.m. on September 8th, 2025.

[00:08:54] [SPEAKER_01] And the date of examination took place on September 10th, 2025. So this has taken a while to come out. But that's not really surprising because I think the police have been putting together a pretty big case against Burke. And obviously, we all want to know about important cases that are happening. But if they do anything to jeopardize the sanctity of the investigation, then the whole case could fall apart. So, you know, I think it's important for the public to kind of understand that.

[00:09:22] [SPEAKER_01] But the medical examiner's investigator is listed as Karen Tapia and the deputy medical examiner is Dr. Ansel Nam. And the supervisor deputy medical examiner is listed as Dr. Grant Ho, the forensic technician being Daniel Garcia. They list her cause of death as multiple penetrating injuries and her manner of death as a homicide and how the injury occurred as with objects.

[00:09:49] [SPEAKER_01] So they are very forcefully stating homicide. It sounds like penetrating injuries would include stab wounds. And they're, you know, it's not ambivalent as far as the medical examiner's office is concerned that this was indeed a murder. So I think that's something to note. Now, again, so Celeste was only 15.

[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_01] And if you want more information about some of the evidence that's been listed so far against Burke, I would recommend that you go back and listen to our episode, which was on the preliminary hearing evidence. This is what they list in the medical report summary.

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_01] So what I've learned is, I believe when they're talking about severe post-mortem changes, and they'll get more into this later, they're talking about dismemberment. Unfortunately, we did learn in that preliminary report that Celeste had been dismembered post-mortem.

[00:11:16] [SPEAKER_01] So this is the summary and opinion narrative listed in the autopsy. Actually, Kevin, do you want to go ahead and read this, if you don't mind? Sure.

[00:11:26] [SPEAKER_00] And I'm quoting from this document, quote,

[00:11:59] [SPEAKER_00] The wound on the left chest penetrates one of the left intercostal spaces with disruption of the adjacent ribs cortical surfaces. The left lung appears intact. The bilateral upper and lower extremities show full thickness dismemberment. Multiple other skin and soft tissue defects are present without apparent associated internal injuries.

[00:12:28] [SPEAKER_00] The etiology of these defects is not clearly apparent due to severe post-mortem changes. Post-mortem toxicology performed on liver tissue shows the presence of a low level of ethanol, which may be due to post-mortem changes or ingestion and does not appear to be contributory to the cause of death. Given the history and circumstances is currently known by me in the setting of the findings by examination,

[00:12:57] [SPEAKER_00] ancillary studies, and in the absence of other definitive causes of death, the cause of death is multiple penetrating injuries. The manner of death is classified as homicide. Refresh your wardrobe as the temperatures warm up without overheating your wallet. Shop our wonderful sponsor, Quince, and get premium luxury for less.

[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_01] Quince is our favorite clothing brand for many reasons. The clothes look great. They feel great. None of that fancy expensive stuff that stays in the back of your closet because you hate wearing it on some level. These are clothes you'll be excited to put on again and again. Quince's clothing is high quality and enduring. All of our Quince pieces are crafted to last. And perhaps most importantly, you can actually afford these pieces. They're a great price and they never go out of fashion.

[00:13:44] [SPEAKER_00] Quince doesn't do markups or middlemen. All their products are 50 to 80 percent less expensive than what you'd find at competitors. So they're affordable without sacrificing quality.

[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_01] This spring and summer, you're going to love wearing their 100 percent European linen shorts and shirts from $34.

[00:14:03] [SPEAKER_00] I love Quince's work shirts. I wear my 100 percent European linen utility shirt in Martini Olive all the time. It's comfortable. It's an elevated version of my usual style, but it looks crisper and more put together. Plus, it's very comfortable as the temperatures heat up. Most importantly of all, Anya loves the way I look in it.

[00:14:25] [SPEAKER_01] Refresh your every day with luxury you'll actually use. Head to Quince.com slash M-Sheet for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada, too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash M-Sheet for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash M-Sheet.

[00:14:47] [SPEAKER_01] So when we're looking at this, you know, you might be hearing, OK, they're saying it may be this and there's a lack of other evidence of other causes of death. You know, you know, it might almost sound a little bit like, OK, they're kind of hedging. But I think what's really important here is noting that there's confirmed dismemberment from this autopsy of the extremities of the body. And there are two penetrating wounds of the torso.

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_01] And, you know, one was a stab to the liver and, you know, one was a stab to the chest. So I think that's something that's going to be very important later on of how does the defense for Burke explain the presence of these sharp force injuries? Is that right, Kevin?

[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_00] That is correct.

[00:15:43] [SPEAKER_01] Now we get into a kind of section where they're going to maybe kind of say some of the things they're going to go into. An autopsy is, you know, supposed to be comprehensive. It's supposed to be, you know, detailed. So they talk about all of the various areas where they're going to be looking at the body and all the kind of systems of the body that are going to be looked at.

[00:16:04] [SPEAKER_01] So there's going to be the they're going to start in terms of this report with the information about the decedent, about Celeste, about prior postmortem procedures, the external examination. That's when it's just more of like they're like looking on the outside and kind of before they start cutting open anything. The evidence of traumatic injury, obviously important for a homicide investigation. The internal examination. That is what you kind of picture when you think of an autopsy. The cardiovascular system.

[00:16:34] [SPEAKER_01] So her heart, her respiratory system, lungs, digestive system, stomach and, you know, urinary tract, female reproductive tract, endocrine system. And others. So we're not going to go into all of these because they didn't really find certain things. There's the lympho reticular system, the musculoskeletal system, head and central nervous system, special senses, examination procedures and ancillary testing.

[00:17:03] [SPEAKER_01] We learned that the exam began at 8.57 on September 10th, 2025. Before they did it says prior postmortem procedures, they list that as radiology reviewed CAT scans or CT scans rather. Interpretation CT scan are reviewed and is consistent with autopsy examination.

[00:17:29] [SPEAKER_01] There was no organ or tissue donation and there was no mortuary preparation. For the external examination, they found that Celeste was a female. Her race was Hispanic and she was appropriately developed for her age. She the body was weighed at 71 pounds, although I mean, it's horrible to contemplate. But considering the decomposition and dismemberment, I'm sure that affects the weight.

[00:17:57] [SPEAKER_01] Height was listed as 62 inches and. And they talk about how her her skin and extremities showed evidence of traumatic injury. She had a tattoo on her second medial finger and the text was SHH dot dot dot. Her hair was listed as long and black.

[00:18:23] [SPEAKER_01] And due to severe postmortem changes, they could not assess her eye color. And for that same reason, they could not look into sclerae or conjunctivital petechiae. I'm saying that wrong for sure. I'm sorry. I'm just going through and reading this. So, you know, again, there's certain things they were just not going to know about because of the way the body, you know, came into them.

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_01] They found orthodontic hardware in place on her upper and lower teeth. That can mean something like a permanent retainer, braces. It just kind of shows how normal, how young she was. They list her neck, chest and abdomen as normal. And it talks about postmortem changes for liver mortis indiscernible. Rigor mortis is absent. Rigor mortis is something that kind of happens in phases.

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_01] And after a certain point, it's no longer present. And unfortunately, there was insect activity on the body with multiple insect larvae present. And a foul odor, a drying of her body as well as a skin color change to dark brown. Her head was listed as, quote, partially skeletonized with an absent left eye. There is liquefaction of the soft tissues.

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_01] So, you know, very disturbing stuff. So now let's get into something that's going to be very important for this homicide case. We're going to get into the evidence of traumatic injury found on the body. So I'll read these. And it says, you know, disclaimer for labeling measuring wounds. The order in which the injuries are described is for descriptive purposes only and is not intended to imply the sequence of injuries.

[00:20:14] [SPEAKER_01] All medical examiner diagrams are not intended to be facsimiles, nor are they drawn to scale. So skin defect, three quarters of an inch. Entrance involving the right abdomen, 21 inches below the top of the head and one inch right of the midline is a three quarter inch length penetrating wound with smooth edges. The wound is oriented in the three o'clock and nine o'clock directions path.

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_01] The wound track sequentially perforates the skin and soft tissue of the right abdomen and the liver. One and a half by one quarter. Avoid defect. Depth. The wound track has an approximate depth of one, one and a half inches. Direction front to back. Next one is skin defect. Nine sixteenths of an inch.

[00:21:05] [SPEAKER_01] Entrance involving the lateral left lower chest by 15 inches below the top of the head and six inches left of the midline is a nine sixteenth inch penetrating wound with smooth edges. Path. The wound track sequentially perforates the skin and soft tissue of the lateral left lower chest. Left intercostal space. And enters the left chest cavity. Depth. The wound track is a depth of at least two inches. Direction left to right. Associated findings.

[00:21:33] [SPEAKER_01] The adjacent ribs showed disruption of the cortical bone. End quote. So there you're seeing they're really going into a lot of detail to describe these two apparent sharp edge wounds. Now they're going to talk about some other findings they had. Quote. Multiple skin defects are also present over the torso with many perforating the skin and soft tissue without identifiable soft tissue hemorrhage or associated internal organ injuries.

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_01] They range from five sixteenths of an inch to one and three quarters inches in greatest dimension. Multiple superficial linear abrasions are also noted on the right dorsal hand. End quote. I'm speculating here. I wonder if that could be looked at as defensive wounds if they're talking about abrasions on on her hand.

[00:22:21] [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_01] I mean, I'm not a medical expert, so I'm just I'm just a journalist. Quote. The upper and lower extremities show full thickness dismemberment with relatively flat cut surfaces through soft tissue and bone. No discernible hemorrhage is identified at these sites. Multiple fragments of blue plastic material are found embedded in the cut surfaces. Representative fragments are collected by medical examiner criminalists and submitted to the evidence department on September 8th, 2025.

[00:22:52] [SPEAKER_01] The upper the right upper extremity is dismembered nine inches from the top of the shoulder. The left upper extremity is dismembered six inches from the top of the shoulder. The left fourth and fifth fingers are amputated. The right lower extremity is dismembered in two places. One site is 12 inches from the top of the leg. The other is 10 inches from the bottom of the heel. The left lower extremity is dismembered in two places. One site nine inches from the top of the leg and the other 15 inches from the bottom of the heel. End quote.

[00:23:19] [SPEAKER_01] So they're getting really into the nature of this dismemberment. Now, if you remember our previous episode, we got into what what is this blue plastic? Well, there was some indication that at least police believe that this was associated, I think, with like some kind of plastic pool that was linked to Burke and his purchases and that that was used to essentially.

[00:23:49] [SPEAKER_01] You know, dismember her in this inflatable pool and they were they felt there was a match there. So as far as the further internal examination, her organs are listed in their normal anatomic positions and nothing really jumped out at me there. Talked about how her heart shape was usual, that everything was OK with the pericardium, epicardium, whatnot. So her heart was OK.

[00:24:19] [SPEAKER_01] From from what I saw. And in addition to that, you know, so they're like, you know, imagine parts of this with the systems is, you know, if there's some kind of I mean, not that a 14 year old and 15 year old girl would be having a heart attack. But like if there's some indication that. You know, that could throw a murder charge into disarray if there was some indication of some kind of massive attack or disease that were not, you know, violence necessarily.

[00:24:50] [SPEAKER_01] They go into the respiratory system, which they described her epiglottis, larrance and trachea is absent of lesions, unobstructed. But the lungs were affected by severe postmortem changes, presumably the dismemberment. Her digestive system, her tongue was absent of trauma and lesions. Her stomach, they said the contents of that were absent.

[00:25:18] [SPEAKER_01] Pill fragments, absent. They talk about, you know, just her small and large intestines had no significant pathological findings. And, you know, no cirrhosis of the liver. And they indicated, you know, yeah, they went into the urinary tract.

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_01] And found there were some severe postmortem changes noted. And, you know, in terms of her female reproductive tract, appropriate for age development in terms of her ovaries and fallopian tubes. And, you know, no real issues there except with the breast tissue as far as the postmortem changes noted, which was the dismemberment.

[00:26:13] [SPEAKER_01] In terms of her endocrine system, didn't really, nothing jumped out to me there. Although they did say her pituitary glands was not identified due to severe postmortem changes. Her lymphoreticular system, again, nothing really going, nothing really jumping out there. And same with the musculoskeletal system. With the head and nervous system.

[00:26:42] [SPEAKER_01] It also kind of didn't really note anything except for the severe postmortem changes issue around a couple of things like the brainstem, the cerebellum. The base of the brain, things like that. Her eyes and middle ears were not dissected. And now we're going to get into a section where they're kind of explaining, like, here's what we've what we did, if that makes sense. Kind of breaking that down. And that is the examination procedures and ancillary testing.

[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_01] They noted that photography was taken of this autopsy prior and to and during the examination. They did a layer wise interior neck dissection. They did not find evidence of trauma. No strap muscle hemorrhage. No carotid sheath hemorrhage. No thyroid cartilage injury. No hyoid bone fracture. And no cervical neck injury. So I imagine a lot of that would point away from something like strangulation.

[00:27:44] [SPEAKER_01] They did not have any clothing reviewed. They kept two stock jars of tissue for tissue retention. And they took additional samples from her finger in terms of nails. They took liver, jawbone samples, things like that.

[00:28:12] [SPEAKER_01] And they also did ancillary testing with radiology. We already discussed that toxicology and histology. Now, in terms of that, histology is something that I had to look up because I was not super familiar. You hear about toxicology, like looking into, like, whether someone consumed drugs or whatnot beforehand. Right.

[00:28:33] [SPEAKER_00] So what does it mean?

[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_01] So in terms of histology, that is when you basically you're looking at microscopic. Under a microscope, tissues, organs, you're taking like a thin section of tissue and putting it on a microscope. And it's a it's a big part of things like pathology. So it lets you it lets the physicians, it lets the experts look at the cells and tissue patterns, essentially.

[00:29:04] [SPEAKER_01] So.

[00:29:06] So.

[00:29:06] [SPEAKER_01] In terms of the detectives working in this case, it's listed as the Los Angeles Police Department Robbery Homicide Division and Detective Byers and Detective Farrell are listed. They didn't really go into, you know, first names there. And then we get to the drug screening. So this is kind of where they're almost listing.

[00:29:33] [SPEAKER_01] You know, they're kind of screening stuff, different substances, and they are indicating whether it is present or not. So at this point, the autopsy gets into some terminology that at first I didn't understand. It has a it has like a specimen service drug result analyst kind of like list. And for results, it's either PP or ND.

[00:29:59] [SPEAKER_01] So my understanding is that ND is not detected or not determined and that the other one is presumptive positive or preliminary positive. So essentially saying. It's not certain, but it's like possible that it's positive. It's not like Nestle, the final confirmation. So for her liver, they looked up benzodiazepines.

[00:30:27] [SPEAKER_01] That was that was a, you know, presumptive positive cocaine and metabolites. That was not that was a not detected. Fentanyl was not detected. Methamphetamine and MDMA was opiates, codeine and morphine. No opiates, hydrocodone and hydromorphone. No. No. Fenscyclodine. No. So I don't.

[00:30:54] [SPEAKER_01] I'm kind of thinking from what I looked up with with autopsies and toxicology. These are not necessarily definitive, but yeah. They also looked into things like. In addition to that, basic drugs and more benzodiazepines. They said no for both. Designer opioids. Antioxidants. Amphetamine. No. Ephedrine. No.

[00:31:24] [SPEAKER_01] Methamphetamine. It just lists as I and C. And a number of other things. So they were looking at at all of this and trying to kind of. Kind of deal with like what does the toxicology say and could that be important later for alcohol with ethanol? They found that was present. So that's another thing.

[00:31:52] [SPEAKER_01] Next they included some diagrams of a human body. And these are sort of like have handwriting on them to indicate where the medical examiners felt that there were injuries. So.

[00:32:07] So.

[00:32:08] [SPEAKER_01] On the side of the body where it's like the faces face up, they like list under on the torso on the right side, kind of in the chest, kind of almost in the center point between, you know, like above the belly button. And that there is a three quarter inch defect, three to nine o'clock. And they're kind of like talking about the depth of that and whatnot, sort of what we discussed later.

[00:32:36] [SPEAKER_01] But this gives you more of a visual look at what we're talking about. And then the other one is like on the left side, almost like towards the armpit, really far on the side. So. That is kind of what what they're looking at there. And then there's another sheet where it's even more detailed. They list her hair as long and black. Her head is partially skeletonized.

[00:33:07] [SPEAKER_01] They talked about her hardware in her mouth as far as her like orthodontic work done.

[00:33:14] [SPEAKER_01] And they kind of show with these lines drawn across the arms and legs where exactly the where exactly essentially the dismemberment took place and where she had linear abrasions on her arm and, you know, different defects.

[00:33:39] [SPEAKER_01] I mean, it's just very troubling when we're thinking about this as a little girl, you know, and it's horrifying. But. Yeah, that kind of is informative as far as like what they think happened to her. The next kind of interesting sheet of note within this is the investigative summary report that was listed.

[00:34:01] [SPEAKER_01] They talk about how the apparent mode of death is homicide and they talk about how they list her mother and father on this sheet, but they do black out their names. They talked about how she was identified via dental x-rays. And was identified by a person named Kathy Law. That she was found in a vehicle on North Mansfield Avenue in Los Angeles.

[00:34:30] [SPEAKER_01] And that the LAPD robbery homicide division was digging into this. Now, now we get to a part of the document where I think this will be interesting to read is some of this synopsis. And I was wondering, Kevin, if you could read part of this.

[00:34:52] [SPEAKER_00] Sure. Quote. Two hour autopsy notification request by LAPD robbery homicide detective Byers. The information is preliminary and subject to change due to the ongoing investigation. According to the reported information, on 8-26-2025, a passerby reported an abandoned black Tesla that was parked on the street to the Los Angeles Department of Transportation.

[00:35:20] [SPEAKER_00] LADOT employees sighted the vehicle on September 3, 2025, impounded it on 9-5-2025, and towed it. On 9-8-2025, a manager noticed a foul smell emanating from the vehicle and reported it to auto detective Klor. Detective Klor inspected the vehicle's front trunk and found a large black zippered body bag with handles.

[00:35:48] [SPEAKER_00] He partially unzipped the bag, revealing a human torso in the back of a head. He pronounced death on scene at 1,100 hours without medical intervention. There is no person of interest in custody at this time, and charges are pending. No weapon recovered.

[00:36:07] [SPEAKER_01] Here's an additional piece of this that gets into the investigator's narrative. This is what it says. Quote,

[00:36:50] [SPEAKER_01] And then we get into informant and witness statements. Quote,

[00:37:31] [SPEAKER_01] LADOT employees sighted the vehicle on September 3, 2025, impounded it on September 5, 2025, and towed it. On September 8, 2025, a manager noticed a foul odor emanating from the vehicle and reported it to auto detective Klor. Detective Klor inspected the car's front trunk and discovered a large black zippered body bag with handles. He partially opened the bag to reveal a human torso in the back of a head.

[00:38:00] [SPEAKER_01] Due to the obvious signs of death, he pronounced death on scene at 1,100 hours without medical intervention. There's no person of interest in custody at the time, and charges are pending. No weapon recovered. Decident's identity is unknown. And then following, there's a scene description. This gives us a better sense of where this is all taking place.

[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_01] The location was on the second story of a police garage impound lot situated on the northwest corner of North Mansfield Avenue and Romaine Street. There are multiple miscellaneous vehicles parked throughout the lot. The decedent was lying inside the front trunk of a Tesla. The Tesla was parked on the southeast quadrant of the lot facing east. The front door trunk was open. The front trunk was open and yellow police tape surrounded the nearest vehicles, including the Tesla.

[00:38:50] [SPEAKER_01] From a distance, the body bag was visible and exposed inside the front trunk of the car. I did not observe any illicit drugs, drug paraphernalia, or alcohol on scene. No weapons were located during my scene examination. Up next, they get into the body examination. Quote, I observed the decedent's posterior head and torso lying prone in a body bag inside the front trunk of a Tesla.

[00:39:20] [SPEAKER_01] Her head was oriented towards the north. She appeared of indeterminate age and ethnicity with dark hair and natural teeth. She was wearing a tube top, underwear, leggings, and socks. I observed multiple holes in the front and the back of the tube top. She was missing both arms above the elbows and both legs above the knees. Underneath the body bag was a black trash bag that contained the decedent's apparent compiled bilateral arms and legs. They appeared to have been dismembered into several fragments.

[00:39:49] [SPEAKER_01] The decedent was in an advanced stage of decomposition demonstrated by foul odor, discoloration, liquefaction, insect activity, partial skeletonization, and skin slippage. I noted an approximate one-inch linear defect on her abdomen and a circular defect on her left flank. The left ring and pinky fingers appeared to have been mutilated, and I did not locate them during my scene examination. She has a tattoo that reads, shh, on the inside of her ring index finger.

[00:40:19] [SPEAKER_01] I did not observe any other discernible scars or tattoos. And then they get into identification. They noted that, quote, the decedent was not ID viewable due to decomposition of the face and was not live scanned due to waterlogged fingers. She was assigned Jane Doe number 550. Per investigator Magdaleno, on September 16, 2025, at 8.15 hours,

[00:40:47] [SPEAKER_01] Dr. Law positively identified the decedent as Celeste Abigail Rivas Hernandez via dental radiograph comparison. Per investigator Magdaleno, Detective Joshua Byers, notified the decedent's parents of the death via telephone on September 16, 2025. Autopsy notification. Detective Byers requested a two-hour autopsy notification. Evidence. Leggings collected on September 8,

[00:41:15] [SPEAKER_01] 2025 at approximately 18.06 hours. Underwear collected that same day, and then they also list other evidence. Two socks collected that day, shirt collected that day, body bag collected that day, body bag handles, and body bag side handles. Those were taken by criminalist Oscar Plites. So that gets into this.

[00:41:43] [SPEAKER_01] Then they also got into some more evidence that was collected as far as, I mean, this is stuff I think that's important because we may be seeing it in the trial. A hair kit, a hair kit, swab of the handle from the Tesla, I believe, or perhaps the bag maybe more likely, swabs of the zipper, a toenail for DNA reference,

[00:42:11] [SPEAKER_01] traces of the plastic pieces found on Celeste's right leg, as well as on her legs and arms, the trash bag, and the zipper of the bottom and the top. The investigator is listed as Karen Tapia, and Kelsey Weber reviewed. So, next is the Forensic Science Laboratory's criminalist report. And,

[00:42:41] [SPEAKER_01] this is the timeline that they give for what happened. Timeline. On September 8th, 2025, at 1352 hours, I received the request from medical examiner M.E., senior criminalist A. Martinez for evidence collection at a scene. At 1458 hours, I departed the Forensic Science Center for the scene with senior criminalist A. Martinez. At 1527 hours, we arrived at the scene. At 1604 hours, I began processing evidence. At 1840 hours, we departed the scene.

[00:43:11] [SPEAKER_01] At 1916 hours, we arrived back at the FSC. At 1943 hours, I completed evidence collection. End quote. They talk about the medical examiner personnel on the scene, in addition to the ones we discussed. So, investigator K. Tapia collected personal property, examined the body, photographed the clothing. Senior criminalist A. Martinez took most of the notes. Senior forensic attendant M. Aparicio transported the decedent to the FSC.

[00:43:41] [SPEAKER_01] The photographer there for the LAPD was M.C. Salaberry, and then the detective was Detective Joshua Byers. They talk again about the scene. We discussed this parking structure at North Mansfield Avenue. It's the second floor. It's a black Tesla Model X with a Texas license plate. Now, mind you, Burke is originally from, he, I think he was born in Queens, New York, but he, I think, spent a lot of time growing up in Houston, Texas.

[00:44:10] [SPEAKER_01] The Tesla was parked facing east. There were a lot of cars nearby. And, we're talking about an enclosed storage compartment located under the hood of the front. It's sometimes known as the frunk or front trunk. So, this is what the investigator for the medical examiner's office writes. Prior to my arrival, the frunk was open and the body bag was unwrapped and open to view the decedent. The decedent was dismembered and was inside a black body bag and a black trash bag.

[00:44:39] [SPEAKER_01] The decedent was severely decomposed and there was decomposition fluid on the outside and inside of the bags. The decedent was female and had dark hair with decomposition fluid and insect activity. Also, insect activity was observed on the body and the body bag. The body bag had a double zipper, three handles on each length side and a handle on the top and bottom with end. The body bag took most of the frunk space inside the frunk. The body bag contained the decedent's head and torso in a prone position.

[00:45:08] [SPEAKER_01] The decedent's head pointed north and her thighs pointed south. The trash bag was at the south end of the frunk beneath the body bag. The trash bag was tied and contained the decedent's dismembered limbs, arms with hands and legs with feet. The decedent's arms were cut and removed at the bicep and the legs were cut and removed above and below the knee. Before removing the body bag, the handles and zippers were swabbed. The body bag and trash bag were removed from the frunk and placed on a plastic sheet. The decedent was then removed

[00:45:38] [SPEAKER_01] from the bags and put on another plastic sheet. The decedent's left hand was missing the ring and pinky fingers. The decedent was wearing a discolored tube top shirt, discolored underwear, black leggings and black socks. The shirt appeared to have been cut three cut artifacts. The leggings were cut around the knees with the upper portion of the torso and the lower portions rolled down to both ankles and the feet. At the cut side of the right leg attached to the torso, there were small blue plastic pieces. Also, the legs and arms

[00:46:08] [SPEAKER_01] from the trash bag had small blue plastic pieces at the cut sides. End quote. They talk about how they released the items of evidence to custodian A. Gonzalez in terms of, you know, I think they kept the insects a little bit longer but they also talked about the hair kit. The insects which were collected in a plastic container with 70% alcohol packaged and sealed into a brown paper bag.

[00:46:38] [SPEAKER_01] And then all the swabs. So swabs of the side handles of the body bag, top handle of the body bag, top zipper of the body bag, and bottom zipper. They talked about these were cut from the body bag packaged and sealed individually. That's to preserve even more evidence. And what was cut off was the body bag top and bottom handles wrapped together in butcher paper, body bag side handles wrapped together in butcher paper. The zipper at the top of the body bag placed in a coin envelope, the zipper at the bottom also placed in the same.

[00:47:09] [SPEAKER_01] And they did they were each quote collected. These are for these following ones. The following items were collected wrapped in separate white paper bindles and sealed individually into a PE envelope. The PE envelopes were then placed and sealed in the same black biohazard bag. Trace one, blue plastic pieces on the right leg attached to the torso. Trace two, blue plastic pieces on the legs and arms. And then these were all placed into the same

[00:47:38] [SPEAKER_01] black biohazard bag. put into a brown paper bag and then sealed in yet another black biohazard bag. And those were three pieces of the leggings, the underwear, the shirt, and two socks. And these were put in the same black biohazard double bag, the body bag, and the trash bag. The clothing was photographed by investigator Kay Tapia during the scene processing. The criminalist

[00:48:08] [SPEAKER_01] is listed as O. Plites. And, um, yeah, that is the conclusion of the autopsy. This has given us a better indication of some of the physical evidence in this case. What we can imagine is going to come up at the preliminary hearing and the trial and gives more of a sense of the horror of this scene where they are finding a child dismembered in this state. It's really, truly horrifying.

[00:48:34] [SPEAKER_00] It really is. It's the stuff of nightmares. It sounds like they did a terrific job documenting the evidence collected and that it sounds like the defense is going to have a lot of things to try to answer for or to explain away.

[00:48:51] [SPEAKER_01] Absolutely, and we'll be curious to see what happens next. So there is a hearing May 26th. If there's things that happened before then, we'll certainly be covering it as well. But I know this was a hard one to listen to, but hopefully it gives you a better sense of how autopsies work, how scene processing can work. Maybe it has some questions that linger for both the defense and the prosecution and hopefully, yeah, hopefully you find it interesting, albeit absolutely horrific. But thank you very much for listening.

[00:49:18] [SPEAKER_00] Thanks so much for listening to The Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheet at gmail dot com. If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.

[00:49:39] [SPEAKER_01] If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com slash murdersheet. If you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com slash murdersheet. We very much appreciate any support.

[00:50:02] [SPEAKER_00] Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for The Murder Sheet, and who you can find on the web at kevintg.com.

[00:50:12] [SPEAKER_01] If you're looking to talk with other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join The Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening.