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LOS ANGELES () — It was seven months ago that the body of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez was found in gruesome condition in the trunk of D4vd’s Tesla in a Hollywood tow yard. So why is the singer now behind bars?
Eyewitness News has learned the Medical Examiner has ruled Celeste Rivas Hernandez’s death a homicide. Here are details on the investigation that led up to D4vd’s arrest on Thursday.
Capt. Scot Williams, who was on scene as the department’s elite Robbery-Homicide division swarmed a Hollywood Hills home and took him into custody, tells 7 that the LAPD did its best to “keep tabs” on the singer, whose legal name is David Burke, and that his arrest is the result of an “airtight” investigation.
Meanwhile, the singer’s legal team says: “David has only been detained under suspicion. We will vigorously defend David’s innocence.”
The singer D4vd has been arrested in connection with the death of a teenage girl whose decomposing, dismembered body was discovered last year in the trunk of his towed Tesla, the Los Angeles Police Department said.
What’s interesting about D4vd’s arrest is that the LAPD cuffed him on probable cause, and not an indictment from a grand jury investigation that was being led by the Los Angeles County District Attorney.
“I would say on a case like this, it’s a little out of the norm for the police to have gone out on their own and arrested him without the D.A.’s office having made the decision to file formal charges,” said R.J. Dreiling, criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor.
Dreiling added it’s possible that the LAPD did it to push prosecutors to charge.
But we do know from unsealed court documents that prosecutors referred to D4vd as a “target” in their investigation, and that the “target may be involved in having committed… one count of murder.”
Those unsealed court papers go on to say: “It is alleged in this case that the target may be involved in the death of 14-year-old victim Celeste Rivas Hernandez, who may have been a victim of foul play.”
Prosecutors in these papers then go on to describe horrific details of what police found in D4vd’s Tesla after it was found abandoned and then moved to a tow yard.
They say the teen’s severely decomposing body parts were found in two cadaver bags in a front trunk.
7 asked former crime laboratory director Barry Fisher about the significance of going from death unknown to the medical examiner ruling her death as a homicide.
“It changes the course of the police investigation,” Fisher said.
Los Angeles police said the case will be presented to the district attorney’s office on Monday for filing consideration.
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