Law&Crime Sidebar - Cops 'Not Close' to Making Arrest in D4vd Tesla Death Investigation: Report

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

As conflicting updates emerge in the Celeste Rivas Hernandez case, questions are growing about why no arrests have been made — even after the 14-year-old’s body was found in a Tesla registered to singer D4vd and investigators collected materials from a rental property linked to where he had been staying. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber breaks down what these developments mean for where the investigation stands and why authorities have yet to release toxicology findings or identify any suspects, with Retired Detective Matt Irvine.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Grow your own audience today – go to https://www.opus.pro/sidebar and get 65% off an annual Opus Pro plan for the month of November. HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea, Alex Ciccarone, & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. TMZ has just come out with a report that after speaking with the LAPD, they are no closer to making an arrest in connection with the death of 14-year-old Celeste Revis Hernandez, whose body was found in singer David's car. How is that possible? Is the LAPD telling the truth? What is happening behind the scenes?

We're going to break down every aspect of what this could mean with a retired detective. Welcome to Sidebar. Presented by Law and Crime, I'm Jesse Weber. By the way, if you're in the content creation game on social media, have you ever wondered how we're able to share so many clips from all of these stories so quickly? I'll give you a secret. It's called Opus clip, okay? This is an all-in-one AI editor that makes it so easy to cut, create, and upload videos across any platform.

Through AI, Opus clip generates B-roll, it reframes footage, and it even cleanses. up audio. It is easy. You just visit opus.pro slash sidebar. You sign up, you upload, and in minutes, you will have perfectly edited clips ready to go. For TikTok, shorts, reels, opus clip is your one-stop shop. Having a tool like opus clip means that our producers can get you viral courtroom updates instantly. This is the most powerful tool there is to help you share ideas and edit like a pro. So go to opus.pro slash sidebar to create your videos today. And for November only, you can get 65% off of an annual plan. According to TMZ, they just got this update. In the Celeste Rivas-Hernandez case, the David case.

That is surprising. That is probably frustrating for a lot of people. That is confusing, but also can maybe be interpreted in a number of ways. The question that we have been asking is, will there be any arrests and when will there be any arrests? After all, if I were to tell you that a 14-year-old girl, her dead body was found in the trunk of a car back in September out in L.A., after the car was sent to a tow yard, you would think there would be an arrest, right? What happens if I told you that there's alleged

evidence identifying somebody who moved that car? What happens if I were to tell you that according to a private investigator who's on the ground in L.A., that that Tesla was found near a rental property where David had apparently been staying, that the house was searched by authorities and materials were taken out, that David moved out of that house, and that P.I. indicates that there is evidence in that house that suggests there was a plan possibly to dispose of a body. you would think there would be an arrest, right? There is no arrest. To be clear, no one, and that includes David.

No one has been named a suspect, nor a person of interest, nor officially implicated in any criminal activity. Let me say it again. David has not been named a suspect. He has not been named a person of interest, and he's not been officially implicated in any crime. There's been no arrests. And then we go to what came out yesterday.

TMZ's Harvey Levin posted a video to social media. Now, this is what he said, okay? Quote, we've spoken with people at LAPD, today. So he's talking about November 17. We are told it is nowhere imminent that an arrest will be made. That doesn't mean there won't be one, but there's a chance there won't be one in the sense that we don't even know if this was a homicide. We pushed today to find out and could not get answers whether the medical examiner has weighed in and whether toxicology findings are in. And he noted that while it could take several months for those results to come in, they have to have the results in by now,

particularly in this case, right? Speculated that perhaps she had died from an overdose, even There's no direct evidence to suggest that. That is something that has come up. If we're talking about, if there's no homicide, if she wasn't killed, what are the circumstances surrounding her death? He said, quote, we pushed and we cannot get an answer, that they are close to making an arrest, that they have a suspect. All we are told is it is not imminent.

If they got video of somebody putting the body in the Tesla on Doheny Drive, that doesn't mean that person is responsible for the death of Celeste. After having this conversation with LAPD, it does not feel like we are going to find out today or this week or anytime soon that somebody is responsible for her death. Now, before I bring on a retired detective to talk about this, his perspective, whether the LAPD is in fact being honest with TMZ, if this is all true, let me tell you if this is all true why this is so surprising. Aside from how long this has been going on, how long the investigation has been going on and the potential evidence that was collected at the home, I mentioned that

private investigator, right? Steve Fisher. Now, we've interviewed him a number of times, here on Sidebar. He is the PI who was hired by the owner of that rental property that David was staying at to look into this to see what role that house may have played in any of this, if any. He has been on the ground in LA investigating. And when hearing this announcement from the LAPD and taking it as true that they're not close to an arrest, this is why this can be so confusing. First of all, we knew that the results of Celeste autopsy have been deferred pending further investigation and reportedly the toxicology results coming in. But But listen to what Steve told us recently about why he believed the results may be coming in sooner.

Now, you've also been tracking the medical examiner timeline, the LAPD's timelines, actively, very closely. Have there been any developments there that you can give a better sense of when we might maybe even see an official determination about the cause of death, the manner of death, anything like that? I think it could be in the next week to 10 days. And that's because, you know, what I've been doing is tracking, you know, her. you know, she was discovered on the 8th, on September 8th. So I've been tracking the deaths for the months, weeks before that date, and the ones that were in deferred status. Those are usually the ones that are pending toxicology.

And then I'm seeing that they're showing up as they're not deferred anymore, and they're showing, you know, acute fentanyl intoxication or whatever. So they have, that shows. In other cases, yes, yes. So they've, yeah, in other cases. So it shows that the toxicology has come back on those and they're making determinations. And I've seen those as recent as September 3rd right now. So we could be, you know, just days away from. Now, it doesn't mean the autopsy report is done in total,

but it does show, it does mean that on the website, we could see a determination of the cause and manner of death, which will, which will then should free up LAPD to do what they're going to do. That was back on November 3rd. This is also what Steve said about knowing who moved the Tesla. Again, if we're trying to figure out what LAPD allegedly just told TMZ about not being close to an arrest, an arrest of any kind, does this make sense? We now have a much better understanding of when that Tesla arrived at that final parking spot. I'll tell you I do have surveillance from different houses in the neighborhood showing Tesla being moved. And so things like that, and I'm not even saying that LAPD didn't have that, but I'm sure they did. But we wanted to make sure.

And we did some work on the up-reshing the footage to find out who was driving the vehicle. Do you know who was driving that car, that Tesla? You don't have to tell me, do you know the identity? You know, as far as going to the final, what we believe is the final parking spot to where it was towed from, yes. And that information's been communicated to law enforcement. So it's been given to law enforcement. They don't, they're not going to tell us if they're confirming if that's a person or not.

Robbery, the homicide, the way they work is we'll take your information. We're not going to speak on it, you know, so I don't know. But listen, it's very clear that that neighborhood is filled with surveillance cameras. And the timelines, once we learn those dates and we can see other things that were happening, that were even public on Instagram and whatnot or going on in those people's lives, that makes a lot of sense. So let me ask you this.

If you see when the car was parked there, have you seen anything to indicate that Celeste's body was transferred into that car after the car was parked there? Or in other words, do you believe that her body was in that car the minute it was parked in the location it was ultimately towed from?

So I'll say I have no evidence of a body being transferred before or after. There's no evidence of that at all. But I will say, when it was moved to that position, it was already like that. So that car had not been used in a very long time. It was super dirty, caked on dirt. I'll tell you this was in late July.

So it's bizarre because we also got media that car was used a lot. David even spoke about it in Instagram videos. He took it to a detail shop and stuff like that. And then all of a sudden, the very beginning of the year, that car something happens you know and the car's not done show up anymore it's not used it seems to disappear and then that red Tesla learned which we didn't know until the search form was served that there's a red test on the garage which I can tell you was at least on February 1st again if they knew who moved the car there's not enough to arrest that person and we're going to discuss what

the charge could be and we go back to that rental property which was rented out by david's manager by the way david's manager was on the lease David was purportedly staying there listen to what Steve Fisher had to say. But I will say this, there are some things that, and I'm talking physical evidence that was at that house that is, there could have been greater plans as far as getting rid of her, and it's scary sadistic stuff. And that's why we're trying to learn more about that. I wish I could say more, but for obvious reasons I can't.

But it doesn't have to do with how she died, but maybe how they were planning on ultimately getting rid of her and how maybe that Tesla was just a holding spot of time and things just, you know, their timing was just off as far as getting this done. But there's some, there's a few things that we're just like, will blow your mind. But TMZ is now reporting that according to their conversation with LAPD, LAPD, is no closer to an arrest. And yes, that is fairly consistent with what we reported on a recent episode of Sidebar, where the LAPD confirmed with KTLA that its prior news release, quote, stands on its own, essentially meaning this is what they're referring to in the past, their prior statement where they said there's currently no crime other than concealment of a body

that may have occurred with no case being sent over to the LA County District Attorney's Office for review or potential prosecution. But again, they talked about concealment of a death, but still no arrest is imminent. Okay, so I want to try to make sense of this. I want to bring on once again Matt Irvine, retired detective, law enforcement instructor. Matt, thank you so much for coming on. You were on with us last time. This is significant. And I am curious whether or not we can believe what LAPD presumably told TMZ. But just your overall reaction to that, if that is true, that they are not, there is no arrest that's imminent right now. Well, I think we can believe that they are being straight with TMZ. I don't think there's any reason for LAPD to be

deceptive here. They're not required to reveal everything, but I think they're, they've got no good reason to lie. Just push you back on that. Are they concerned about revealing any information to the media that would tip any potential suspect off? I mean, why make the announcement if it could jeopardize the investigation? I mean, we'll talk about whether it's true. If it's 100% true, they don't have an arrest imminent. We'll talk about that. But is it possible that they're not being so straightforward, not telling TMZ exactly what's going on? Well, I think that's absolutely likely. They certainly are not going to show their hand in the midst of an investigation. They're not going to reveal anything that might jeopardize that investigation. But for them to say that there's nothing imminent, there's no arrest on the horizon, that's still not a very hopeful statement.

It doesn't summarize the entirety of the investigation, but it's got to be disappointing for Celeste family that deserves answers to what happened to their child and for the millions of folks who've come to care about this child and have every reason to be disappointed at this moment. in the investigation. But if that is true, if that is true that there is no arrest imminent, I laid it out, there's a number of potential crimes here. There's the idea of moving the body in California, even if you move a body in an accidental death, that's a lower level crime. It's a misdemeanor, but it's a misdemeanor. If we're talking about whether or not the toxicology results came back, and potentially, as we heard Harvey Levin said, that you might be dealing with an overdose,

You do wonder, do they have evidence whether anyone furnished drugs, narcotics, to a minor. You do wonder if there is evidence in the house that there was a plan to dispose of a body. There seems to be potentially something that they could arrest someone on. And I guess the question is, even if there are lower level offenses, why not make an arrest? Well, and we spoke about this a little bit last time, that there are certainly some lower level crimes, misdemeanors, and some felonies that are implicated in what may be the circumstances around Celeste's death. There is, and I disagree with Mr. Levin on this, there is a theory of homicide as well if somebody furnished drugs to her that caused her death. So there's certainly reason to believe that people will be held criminally accountable in this case. The tricky thing

when you're investigating something like this is before you move on somebody, you need to know the universe of crimes that they may have been involved in and kind of where they are in the food chain of criminal culpability so that you move on the right people at the right time and don't jeopardize the most liable, the most culpable suspects in the case like this. It occurred to me. If they make an announcement like this, and it couples with the announcement that we reported on our previous sidebar that, you know, we stand by our prior recording. We can't, you know, definitively say that a homicide occurred. You know, they had previously indicated that there might not be any crime here, even beyond, you know, beyond concealing of a body.

has law enforcement in the past, in your experience, ever made a public statement like this where the goal is to get a subject, to get a suspect, to let their guard down and do something and say something that may implicate them in some way? Is that a possibility or am I really grasping at straws here? No, I think you're actually right on the money there. So it is very common in an investigation like this when you've got somebody under surveillance or you're otherwise monitoring their communications, that you will do something to try to, if you've got a wire tap, it's called tickling the wire. And basically what that means is you try to induce somebody, to communicate with somebody, to go someplace, to do something in response to the information that

you've put out there. You can put that out there in the press. You can say something to one involved party in hopes that they will communicate that to another involved party. So there's a lot of ways in which law enforcement can try to induce people to take an action that will, further the investigation. Now, going to the idea that really, we have nobody to arrest right now. There's nothing imminent. I did wonder, let's say, for example, drugs are involved. By the way, no evidence to suggest that's actually what happened.

That's what contributed to Celeste death. But if we are talking about that and we are talking maybe potentially an overdose, that there's no homicide here, no one killed her, is it possible they may have difficulty trying to establish that someone gave her the narcotics, whereas if she just obtained them on her own. So let's say it was nobody as part of that house. Nobody connected to David. And again, just to be clear, neither David nor anybody in his camp has been charged or has been named a suspect or a person of interest. But maybe they're having trouble actually determining, again, assuming this is what happens, assuming where those drugs might have come from. Is that a possibility

too? Because I agree with you. We've seen cases before where drug dealers get charged in connection with somebody's death if they furnish, you know, poison's drugs to somebody and they die. But could that be what's going on to? They just can't determine if she had them herself. That's absolutely possible. And it's something that's going to have to be figured out probably by communications either among the parties involved or somebody involved talking directly to law enforcement. That's really the only way they're likely to figure out, again, if this was a drug overdose, the circumstances that led to her ingesting those drugs.

But how is it possible that there's no medical examiner findings at this point? Why would it take this long? put aside the idea of a theory of drugs. If she was killed, if she was murdered, there would be some sort of evidence. Yes, we have to talk about the condition of the body. But you would think after all this time, it's November. I mean, the body was discovered in September. Wouldn't they know, wouldn't there be some sort of indication that she was killed? Or is that still, I mean, is it strange to you? We still don't have an answer to that. Is it still strange that the medical examiner's findings haven't been released yet? What do you think is going on?

there? So obviously I'm not a medical examiner. I'm just a former sort of end user of their expertise. So I can't speak to all the science involved. But it does seem to me based on my experience that they likely know now all that they're going to know about the circumstances around her death. And if they don't know at this point, it is likely due to the amount of time and the conditions under which her body languished before it was discovered. As we talked about last time, drugs are only going to stay in the body of a deceased person for days, maybe weeks. And depending on the mechanism of death, even in a homicide, with a certain amount of decomposition, you just may not be able to tell.

I had a case years ago where somebody languished for four months before we found them, and we were unable to establish a cause of death specifically because of the amount of decomposition that occurred before we were able to have that person examined. There are times, though, when law enforcement and authorities and prosecutors, they'll release details of how someone was killed before there's an arrest. If there was evidence that she was stabbed or shot or strangled or there was blunt force trauma, do you think that they, because otherwise everybody's speculating. Everybody's speculating.

They might not care what people online or the media cares or is saying. But what would be the risk of coming out and saying, listen, I know there's a lot of speculation. This is what we're able to determine at this time, X, Y, and Z. why not just come out and say that? Well, if you have a case that at this point seems to be dependent on people talking, people communicating, either with each other or directly with the police, the last thing you want to do is to raise the kind of psychological temperature, the level of anxiety around talking.

So if you put out there a lot of really dangerous information, information that's going to make people be very apprehensive about talking, you potentially undermine your investigation. But do you feel at this point it is becoming less likely that she was killed, that this is a homicide investigation, that we may just be dealing with concealing the body? I mean, does it seem to you that that's the reality of the situation at this point it could change? But do you think it's becoming more and more likely that we are not dealing with a homicide? I think it's becoming more and more likely, at least based on what is being publicly reported, that we may not know who,

if anybody, took Celeste Revis Hernandez's life. It doesn't mean it didn't happen. It just may mean that there's not sufficient evidence based on the facts that we've discussed to show that anybody took her life. But maybe this is also then a moment where we need to have a different kind of conversation around this and stop with the speculation about how she died and who may have been responsible for that death and talk about what we do know, which is. is we may not know who took her life, but it seems really clear from what is being publicly

reported that David Burke and perhaps others in his circle took her childhood. And I'm not saying that she was an angel. We don't know that. But she was a child. And the circumstances that led to her losing her life and ending up abandoned in the front trunk of his Tesla are not uncommon or not unfamiliar. There's a lot of ways in which the dynamic of this relationship that she seems to have had with David Burke is very reminiscent of what we see in child sex trafficking cases. And I'm not saying that David Burke trafficked her. There's no evidence of that. But what I am saying is this dynamic where a older man, but still young enough to be attractive, to seem like boyfriend material, seems to offer this life of glamour, of wealth, of fame, of excitement, maybe even of love,

and lures a child from a background that may be disadvantaged or abusive or just bored, that is not a story that is unique to Celeste, that is a story that is very common when children are trafficked and exploited, and it leads to a lot of kids, not just Celeste, dying way too young under horrific circumstances. And if we can start talking about that and not kind of just stay in this loop of speculation, maybe we can keep some other kids from ending up like this. Now, I appreciate that. I appreciate that point, and it's an important point to make. not just about Celeste story, but like you said, stories around the country, there could be a situation where they just don't have definitive proof about what this relationship was.

You know, they came out that they have, when they did an autopsy, initial findings, that Celeste wasn't pregnant at the time. She hadn't been pregnant in the year prior. They may not have physical evidence of whatever kind of relationship she may or may not have had with David. But this does go to a larger point. Is there an advantage to arrest somebody, even on on a lower level of fence. You get them in, maybe you can obtain a search warrant of some kind, maybe you can question them a bit, that can lead to further evidence.

Because again, if I go back to my interview with Steve Fisher, where there's surveillance footage of someone moving the car purportedly, and you can ID that person. Now, we don't know when the body was exactly put in the car, but it looks like it was already in there. Why not just make an arrest on that point? Unless they can't establish that that person knew

the body was in there or not. I mean, again, going back to this point, going back to this point, if there's an opportunity to arrest somebody, even on a lower level offense, I've seen it before in other cases. That could lead to more evidence. That could lead to more serious charges. You get them on something at first. Absolutely. Absolutely. Whether you're arresting them or just talking to them and trying to cooperate them and kind of work your way up the culpability food chain, that is absolutely an important strategy in a case like this. You know, you mentioned that there may not be physical evidence that speaks to the relationship that

David Burke had with Celeste, and I grant you that. But there is an electronic footprint that shows he was communicating with her years ago, maybe when she was as young as 11 years old, and he was 17, but he's a 17-year-old with a multimillion-dollar contract with Interscope Records and millions of fans online. So it's a profoundly unequal and, I would say, potentially exploitative power dynamic. And until this case blew up, David was a very public figure. And he had a whole lot of people around him, and his time was other people's money. So there's going to be a lot of people that knew where David was, what he was doing, and who he was doing it with for a lengthy period of time, a lengthy period of time that coincides with a lengthy relationship of some

sort with Celeste. And again, to your point that we don't have physical evidence to establish their relationship, we do have information that she was being held out to people as being 19 years old, that she allegedly had fake IDs showing she was 19 years old. If his relationship with Celeste were appropriate, none of that would be necessary. The reason you hold a 13 or 14 year old child out as being 19 is because the relationship you're having is one that would be appropriate if she were 19. It's absolutely inappropriate with a child. He hasn't spoken out about this. So it's not like he's come out and said, hey, I thought she was 19. This is kind of what, like TMZ has got sources who know David in his camp said that there was a in that camp

the thought she was 19. He hasn't come out and directly said it. But I hear you. I hear you. By the way, talking about David, when it first came out, it was reported, I believe by his spokesperson that he had been cooperating with authorities. Now, if that is true, does that mean that he has been 100% honest with law enforcement if they've interviewed him? Because if he had provided false information in any way, we're talking two, three months, right? You would think that they could have arrested him for providing false information to law enforcement. So would it be fair to say that if he spoke to them, assuming he spoke to them, what he told him right now has been verified, or again, does it go back to this question, that they're waiting on a fuller

picture to understand everything that happened? Because that's something I was wondering about as well. And we don't know 100% if he spoke to law enforcement and what cooperation means, but that was something I was thinking about as well. So providing false information to law enforcement in California is under most circumstances just a misdemeanor. So it's a fairly low-level crime. And it doesn't apply to suspects. And again, I'm not saying that David is a suspect. But if he were a suspect, he is under no obligation to be truthful or to cooperate in any way because he's got a Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. So there's really no way to know what a

if anything, David said to law enforcement and how cooperative or honesty was in those communications. But given that he seems to be circumstantially, at least a person of interest in the case, there's no reason to think that he would be arrested on a misdemeanor charge in the midst of a potential homicide investigation. And by the way, if they had proof that someone committed a homicide here, that someone committed a murder or there's manslaughter, wouldn't they immediately pick that person up? Because wouldn't that person be a danger to the public? Wouldn't they immediately make arrests. So if they haven't made an arrest, then we take it back to the full circle what Harvey Levin had reported that there's no arrest imminent. It seems again that they may not

believe that she was killed. That's certainly possible, but particularly on a homicide, you don't make an arrest until you feel like you've got a pretty airtight case. As soon as you arrest somebody, you start a clock with the courts, and you've got 48 hours basically to get this person in front of a judge with charges filed. And you don't want to do that unless you feel like this case is basically trial ready because the clock after that in California is 10 days before preliminary hearing and then a very short time after that potentially a jury trial where you've got to convince 12 people beyond a reasonable doubt that you got the right person for the charges that you arrested them for. So there's no statute of limitations in murder. And most murderers, to be quite frank,

in my experience, are not necessarily a danger to the general public. They killed the person that they killed for the reasons that were very personal. And it does not mean that they are serial killers that pose a danger to the public at large. And so in most cases of homicide, you wait to make an arrest until you feel like you've got a case that is pretty much trial ready. Prosecutors would disagree with you during a bail analysis that one of the factors they would say is this person's a danger to the public. I mean, they're charged with murder. They shouldn't be out. But that's a separate point. Okay. Let me just ask you this. LAPD making this statement, apparently making this statement to TMZ, is it possible that

what LAPD tells the media is not the same thing that they are telling the victim's family? Absolutely. Absolutely. They may make a strategic decision to release one set of facts and one kind of information to one party and something very different to another. I would hope they're sharing anything with the family, that they're being honest in what they're sharing. I think families deserve that when they've lost a loved one, but the media doesn't deserve that. The general public, with all due respect, doesn't deserve that. If misdirection or the withholding of information is a strategic choice to further the investigation, that's absolutely appropriate. I don't think you lie to loved ones, but everybody else is fair game. Matt Irvine, thank you so much for taking

the time. Really appreciate it. Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you about this. And that's all we have for you right now here on sidebar. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. You can follow me on X or Instagram. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. Thank you.