The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner said in November 2025 that all medical records for Celeste Rivas, including the cause and manner of death, have been sealed by court order. The decision keeps public and media access blocked in a case that has gone unresolved seven months after her severely decomposed remains were found in a black 2023 Tesla Model tied to singer David Anthony Burke, known professionally as D4vd.
Rivas was 15 years old at the time the case was being discussed. She had reportedly gone missing from Lake Elsinore, California, in February 2024, when she was 14. Her body was found on 8 September 2025 inside the front trunk of the Tesla at a Los Angeles impound lot after employees raised the alarm over a foul smell coming from the vehicle, which had been abandoned on the streets of the Hollywood Hills for weeks before it was towed.
The withheld records matter because they include the basic medical findings that often anchor a death investigation. Instead, the case remains stuck in secrecy, and the car’s registration to D4vd has placed the singer in the middle of a still-unanswered inquiry.
Steve Fischer called the case a “complete failure” and said a sworn affidavit used to justify sealing the records claimed that LAPD only wanted to ensure they received the report before the public. “Yet the report, which should be public, remains sealed,” he wrote. Fischer added that he believes the records are still sealed because their contents would “spark public outrage and a demand for answers, answers that law enforcement and prosecutors have failed to provide.”
What remains most consequential is not the silence around the records but the fact that the investigation is still unresolved months after Rivas was found. With the cause and manner of death still hidden, the public record has stopped where the inquiry should have begun.
