Body in Tesla now a murder case

LAPD steps up probe involving singer's car and asks for autopsy details to be sealed.

- BY RICHARD WINTON

For the first time since Los Angeles police began investigating the gruesome discovery of a girl's body in the trunk of singer D4vd's Tesla, a detective has characterized the probe as an "investigation into murder," according to court documents.

Seeking to prevent the release of autopsy findings, a Los Angeles Police Department detective told a court recently that the publication of details surrounding the death of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez could jeopardize the investigation, according to court documents.

LAPD Det. Joshua Byers, a veteran of the elite Robbery-Homicide Division, filed a declaration on Friday that described their case as a murder investigation, according to court documents reviewed by The Times.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Craig Richman granted the LAPD’s request and ordered that the medical examiner's findings be sealed.

Up until recently, investigators have repeatedly declined to say whether they are calling the girl’s death a homicide and have said they were awaiting the conclusion of the Los Angeles County medical examiner.

[See Murder, B5]

Detectives discovered the girl’s badly decomposed remains at a Hollywood tow yard on Sept. 8.

The performer’s Tesla had been towed from a street in the Hollywood Hills after having been abandoned there for weeks.

In his court declaration, Byers said that making autopsy findings public “will reveal or tend to reveal the ongoing investigation and the integrity of the investigation as well as the identity of witnesses and/or informants who are cooperating with law enforcement and the content of the information they have provided, which could endanger the lives of witnesses and/or compromise the investigation.”