What we lose in the Shadows (A father and daughter True Crime Podcast)
What we lose in the Shadows (A father and daughter True Crime Podcast)
When A Missing Teen Is Found in a Tesla.
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A Tesla sits parked for too long in the Hollywood Hills, collecting parking tickets as neighbors grow concerned. Then, a strange smell changes everything. When police pop the trunk, they discover human remains so decomposed it takes weeks to identify victim: 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, who had been reported missing months earlier. We take a closer look at who she was and where the evidence leads.
Contact us at: whatweloseintheshadows@gmail.com
Background music by Michael Shuller Music
Welcome And Global Listener Milestone
SPEAKER_00Good morning and welcome to What We Lose in the Shadows.
SPEAKER_03A father-daughter true crime podcast.
SPEAKER_00My name is Jamison Keys.
SPEAKER_03I'm Caroline. Hello. Good morning.
SPEAKER_01Hi Caroline. How are you?
SPEAKER_03Good. Happy Pride.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much, so much. And also, do you anything else you want to happy, for example?
SPEAKER_03Father's Day.
SPEAKER_01Yes, there we go. That's what I was reaching for. So, anyways, yeah, it's great. Um, happy for Pride Month. Um, happy for Father's Day for that matter. And Juneteenth. And Juneteenth, and the American soccer team. Two wins so far. So it we're uh we're getting good reception from folks that are coming from across the world.
SPEAKER_03Um yeah, it's been interesting to see the um the different teams, the different countries, fans uh interacting with Americans. They actually like it more than they thought they would, I think.
SPEAKER_01Well, people people look at the news and think Americans are a certain way, maybe that's not always the case.
SPEAKER_03It's just the government. We're under bad management. It's not us. Well, it's some of us, but not me.
SPEAKER_01Right, and not me. So um, you know, you mentioned international and and that sort of thing. So I thought I'd catch you up. Do you know, Caroline, how many countries that uh what we lose in the shadows is currently listened to, Ben?
SPEAKER_0330.
SPEAKER_01Would you believe 95?
SPEAKER_03No, that's crazy. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_0195 countries, uh over 5,000 listeners, and um, we're in over 1,281 cities across the globe.
SPEAKER_03That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01It is incredible, it's cool, and it's kind of crazy from something you and I do at my dining room table. So um, I understand that you bumped
BACA Bikers Protect Abused Kids
SPEAKER_01into something this week. Now you know on the show, and if you've ever listened to the show, you folks out there, that we are very, very serious about protecting children, protecting women, protecting people, generally speaking. But we take a special um notice to cases about you know trafficking and stuff like that. And we're very there's gonna be an announcement in the next couple weeks about that. But uh you also found a great organization that I didn't know anything about.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yes, it's called Baca, and it is Bikers Against Child Abuse Incorporated, and they are a nonprofit organization in a few different countries and cities across the U.S. Uh and cities international as well. Um, and they it's I'm taking this from their page, and it says they exist to provide aid, comfort, safety, and support for children who have been abused, whether that's sexually, physically, or emotionally abused. And so basically they're these bikers that go and meet with um children and they are extensively um background checked um and have training on how to interact with children and how to provide comfort for children. And so they um they go and support the kids and just kind of get them a little bit more comfortable because after abuse, a lot of these kids are are like petrified to like leave their house to do anything, or like even like triggered in specific situations, can't sleep. And so apparently they've been known to stay at um a child's house like overnight, just waiting outside. Yeah. Um so the child feels more comfortable, like they're protected.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and we saw one story where a child was actually uh testifying against their abuser.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And they showed up in force. And let me tell you something, these aren't accountants that come there in suits and sit outside. These are real bikers. Yeah, they look like that. They looked big, they look tattooed, and they looked incredibly scary. So um the one thing about an abuser, and one thing about someone trying to dominate a child, is they feel like they're a presence and they can scare the kid. But when you look out and you see 20 bikers in full gear sitting out there, I'm sure that the the little kid feels better. And I think that's a great organization.
SPEAKER_03So once again, it's what's again, it's Baca Bikers Against Child Abuse. And they work primarily off of um donations from the public, and they are like in contact with different counselors. Um so you can, you know, reach out to a counselor if you know a child that maybe would benefit from this. Um, and there are different chapters all over all over the country and all over the globe. So something to look into or something to donate.
SPEAKER_01Something to look into, something to donate to. Uh, we'll be talking a bit more about that in the next few weeks. But um, yeah, that's worthy. That's a great thing, man. I mean, just just being having um, you know, a child's back to let them know that they're safe. Huh. Get me all checked up. Shoot.
SPEAKER_03No, I know it was so beautiful, so sweet. Um, yeah, I think, you know, when we do these, we typically will focus on, you know, negative aspects of life. When we look at true crime, when we look at like, you know, different true crime podcasts, true crime Netflix shows and TV shows, movies, whatever. We're often focused on negative things, right, in the true crime space. So I think it's nice when um we find organizations that are working to make the world a better place. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So and all too often we're we're also we uh kind of focus on the aftermath of something.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_01So you're right, it is nice to focus on something that is uh
Trigger Warnings And Series Roadmap
SPEAKER_01preemptive and can be you know soothing and healing and that sort of thing. That's wonderful.
SPEAKER_03Today's trigger warnings are domestic violence, grooming slash child abuse, and murder.
SPEAKER_01Right. And Kara, we um you and I have been watching this story for quite some time, and we're gonna get into it here in a second, but um, we wanted to talk to it, and there are a couple of cases that have happened recently. Uh, this case we're gonna talk about today, and then of course the Nancy Guthrie case. And there's so much information and it's so elongated in terms of a time frame that instead of um trying to squeeze everything into one episode, we're gonna break this up into three, and we're gonna do uh an update on Nancy Guthrie later on, and it's gonna be done in three episodes as well because there's just such a you know girth of information that it's uh it's hard to get through. And it's frankly, we want to make sure that you can listen to something and it's not drudgery to listen to something that's 45 minutes long. Yeah. So uh we're gonna deal with it in in multiple episodes.
SPEAKER_03But yeah, and our goal with these podcasts is to discuss true crime in like an access an accessible and digestible way. Right. So we don't want them to be like overly long. Although I will say I do enjoy listening to very long podcasts as well. But I typically like to try and have it match the drive that I'm doing. So, you know, we can always add more, right? But if you have an hour-long drive and your drive is only or you have an hour-long podcast and your drive's only 45 minutes, it's like, oh, now I have to sit in the car and listen to this because I can't switch. So we want you to be able to um listen to these when you see them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but you know, the the other way to get I mean, I listen to Crime Junkies, of course, and uh Yes, me too. However long those episodes are, I'm I'm I'm listening to. Do they switch to a shorter episode?
SPEAKER_03No, no, no. They um it just depends on the the um the subject matter. Yes, yeah, it depends on each episode, is a little bit different.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, but Kara, you know, um, have you ever seen something or heard something that it just didn't feel right, right? Maybe it's too many times. Maybe it's someone uh you knew that was acting differently,
The Abandoned Tesla In Hollywood
SPEAKER_01or maybe it's a strange sound in the middle of the night, or maybe it's uh just a quiet voice inside you that says, Hey, something's wrong.
SPEAKER_02Women's intuition.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, September 8th, uh, 2025, residents of Los Angeles is uh one of its most exclusive neighborhoods had that feeling. An unfamiliar Tesla had been sitting on Doheny Drive just north of Sunset Boulevard and near the Hollywood Hills uh for days. Parked there, tickets were beginning to accumulate, and neighbors complained, and some wondered if the car had been stolen. Uh, others assumed that it belonged to someone who was traveling and out of town. And then they noticed something else a smell. But no one could have imagined what investigators would eventually find or the discovery that would lead to detectives uh to one of the fastest rising uh music stars in the country. So on that day, on the discovery, the Testa the Testa sat for long enough for authorities to impound it. And a few days later, an employee of the towing company, though it was towed to noticed a foul smell in the vehicle. When police arrived and opened the trunk, they discovered human remains, and the body had been severely decomposed. So the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner uh later stated that the remains had been inside the trunk of the vehicle for an extended period of time. It took uh a few more weeks for the authorities to identify the victim. Uh, and her name was Celeste Rivas Hernandez. She was only 14 years old.
SPEAKER_03So sad.
SPEAKER_01And uh she had been reported missing months earlier. Almost immediately the investigators faced uh uh you know more questions than they had answers. Um, like for example, how had a 14-year-old girl from Riverside County ended up inside a Tesla abandoned in the Hollywood Hills? And who placed her there? How long has she been dead? And perhaps most troubling of all, why has no one noticed that she was gone?
SPEAKER_03Yes. So she wasn't reported missing.
SPEAKER_01Well, she had been reported missing multiple times. Oh. Um, she had run away. We'll talk about this in a couple minutes. But yeah, she had been reported missing, but it had been quite a while since she had been reported missing. It would be months and months.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01So to understand the mystery investigators, you know, first needed to understand Celeste. So friends and neighbors remembered the young girl with big curly hair and a backpack slung over her shoulder. Her neighborhood, uh Kaylee Cortez, had recalled seeing her walking to school and remembered first seeing uh her face on missing person sign way back in February of 2024.
SPEAKER_02Wow. When did they find how long? What was the time frame again?
SPEAKER_01Uh, this was it at the end of last year they found the body.
SPEAKER_03So Oh wow. A year and a half.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but according to the family, um, you know, disappearing wasn't entirely new. Celeste had been, you know, reported running away several times. Her mother told reporters early in 2023
Celeste’s Disappearance And “Shh” Tattoo
SPEAKER_01when Celeste was just 13 years old that she had been leaving home to be with an older boyfriend in Los Angeles. His name, she said, was David. The family also describes something unusual. Both Celeste and her boyfriend reportedly had matching tattoos on their inside ring fingers that simply said SHHH or shh. That in and of itself is awful and terrifying, right? Yeah. But um, you know, at that time, you know, few few people thought it was significant uh significant detail, but investigators would soon look into someone who possessed the exact same tattoo. So that's where we enter this singer. Uh his name is David, spelled D4 V D.
SPEAKER_03His stage name.
SPEAKER_01His stage name. Uh the Benitesta belonged to the 20-year-old recording artist David Anthony Burke, who was known as David, spelled with a four. He was born in Houston. Uh Burke had become one of music's fastest rising stars. His songs had hundreds of thousands of streams.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they were really popular on TikTok there for a second.
SPEAKER_01Right. I think that's where uh that is to correct me if I'm wrong, but a lot of folks who don't have a recording track, they'll contract, they'll go in to do something like that and have their music heard, and TikTok being a great instrument for passing information around quickly, yeah. Quickly. So yeah. But he had also colla uh collaborated with major artists and recently released an album called Withered.
SPEAKER_03Scary.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Everything, I mean, it's easy to like once you know what has gone on, to put like a different lens on it. But it's just it already is creepy to begin with.
SPEAKER_01Well, it it's especially creepy when Withered and some of the videos and so on that he had done prior to were really macabre, they were really dark in in nature. So um, but uh authorities stressed at that point that Burke was cooperating with the investigation and uh at no point had he been charged with the crime. In fact, investigators had not even officially ruled Celeste's death a homicide, which honest to God, what are you talking about? She's in fr in the front trunk of a car and her body has been.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think that's really weird. Maybe they were just waiting to label it, I guess, but I mean it seems clear to me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You know, so so you know, you people were thought, well, why had the vehicle been abandoned less than a block from Burke's house?
SPEAKER_02Oh my god.
SPEAKER_01That he was renting in Hollywood Hills. So stupid. Um, what connection, if any, existed between the singer and the missing 14-year-old girl? So two law enforcement sources later told the Los Angeles Times that there were also photographs, social media posts, electronic evidence, and in an effort to reconstruct uh Celeste's final days, search warrants were finally executed, computers and electronics were seized, security footage was also collected, and detectives uh began to search for timelines.
SPEAKER_03And I remember when this was going on, like at the beginning when um when the um the the little girl's remains were found. I remember people on TikTok like speculating, like everyone pretty much agreed, like yeah, it's it was obviously him because it was his car. Right. Um, but there were some people, and I don't know how these people get to be where they are, where when they're like, no, he's innocent, he's innocent. And it's just it's so strange. Like, no matter what a person does, like there will always be someone saying that they're innocent. And I think that's a really weird stance
D4VD Connection Evidence And Fan Denial
SPEAKER_03to take when there's so much evidence against people.
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, okay, so presumed innocent obviously is one of the credos of the of the um you know the your constitutional rights and so on, right?
SPEAKER_03Um but still You don't talk about like serial killers, like there will always be typically women too that are like he's innocent, he's in and I'm like, what are you talking about? Are you seeing the same thing I'm seeing? I'm confused where you're getting this, you know? It's just it's interesting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for sure, for sure. So the detectives, you know, were trying to figure out exactly that. You know, between the 14-year-old's disappearance from Riverside County and the decomposing body found in the Tesla in Hollywood Hills, something had happened, but the question was, what was that? So at this point in the investigation, um people knew almost nothing. There was no cause of death, there was no arrest, there was no murder charges, there was no suspect, although he was considered a person of interest, obviously, and they only found, you know, the abandoned Tesla, a missing girl, and a growing list of questions. But detectives dug deeper and they would begin to uncover connections that many found impossible to ignore, including the photographs, the social media contact, the matching tattoos, and so on. And evidence suggested that the path that Celeste uh Hernandez and David Anthony Burke may have crossed some kind of a line long before their names were linked. And the question would turn into a mystery and into an obsession. But we will cover more of that on the next episode. Yeah, you're right. I mean, it's like, okay, uh you wonder about, you know, the the parents obviously there's only so much you can do, right, as a parent. Um, you can you can you know be very, very connected with your children, you can be very protective of your children, but sometimes children do things that you would never want them to do, have them do, or even suggested that they never do, right? But children are children, they're exploring the world, they gotta figure things out for themselves. And Celeste apparently she had known this guy for a while. Yeah, and uh she was 14 years old when they found her.
SPEAKER_03Right. So they were dating what? So it said she was 12, so he was probably 18 and she's 12. Like Yeah. And it's like six years when you're older is much different than six years when one of you is underage.
SPEAKER_01For sure.
SPEAKER_03It's creepy. It's like she's 12 years old. She's what pre pube pubescent.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, possibly. Yeah, I would think so.
SPEAKER_03It's too, it's so scary.
SPEAKER_01It's absolutely terrifying. And it's another case where, you know, you you it's easy to look in and say, Wow, my gosh, those parents. But who knows? Oh no. Who knows what who knows what was going on? I know that uh some of uh Celeste's uh relatives and said it was always a turbulent household, right? There's a lot of things going on. She had run away from home multiple times. They found her in Los Angeles County at least one other time and had taken her back home to her parents, but um she would at some point decide that she was going back to see David. I find the the tattoos with the shh, you know, what tattooed on the index finger damning and weird and it's very um scary for sure.
Why We Don’t Blame Kids
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think looking back knowing what we know now. It's well yeah.
SPEAKER_01What do you what are you trying to keep quiet? What does that mean, right?
SPEAKER_03Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_01But uh but yeah, I mean, and uh it's it's it was it's such a weird case.
SPEAKER_03And yeah, um I think it's important that we don't and I've seen this online too. I've uh we don't blame Celeste because she is a child. Right and children, myself included, when you're growing up, you think you're invincible because you haven't had a lot of um hopefully you haven't had a lot of um like exposure to extremely dark things, right? And so you're like, well, everything's worked out for me so far. And it's like, you know, it's why would they know any better? It's hard. It's hard for them to like understand the gravity of the decisions that they're making. And that's why, like you said, parents can only do the best that they can do. And I'm not saying if if they said that she had volatile home life, I'm not saying that that didn't cause any problems. I'm sure it did if that's the case. Um, but at the same time, uh, young children or uh preteens, teenagers, like they could be really, really stubborn on what they want, what they want to do. They think they're grown up. And it's hard. It's it's a hard stage in life because you're figuring out like your identity, your independence, and at the same time, what life is really like. Like, you know, like they think it's different than what it actually is. And uh that's by design, so they don't like understand how intense the world can be because if they I mean they'd probably be scared to death. They're children, you know. So it's I don't know. I d I definitely think it's important not to blame her.
SPEAKER_01For sure. And and you know, I mean, someone you know, someone can act as like a Lothario, like a like a romantic kind of a figure and so on, and and they're exotic and they're a singer and they're older, right? When you're a young, young girl, I would imagine there's something intoxicating about that whole mixture. And so I can easily see why she would be uh drawn to that. Um, but you have to ask something about this David dude. Like, what are you thinking? It's all his fault. It's entirely his fault, for sure. No, we don't know, uh we don't know the exact uh we'll talk about other things later on, but we don't know the exact nature of how everything came to be and so on. But the fact that uh he was arrested, I think, is is yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but it's it's his car.
SPEAKER_01But but the the some of the absurdities of the whole case were the fact that they're like, well, we don't know if it was a murder yet. What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_03They probably I'm assuming that they did that so they could like maybe later switch it to like um to see if he would like uh comply or
Charges Interrogations And Closing
SPEAKER_03like uh accept a charge of like manslaughter or something, you know what I mean? Like even like maybe if they convince him to accept like manslaughter with um uh what do they call it? When you're when you're messing with a body, like you're oh right, right, with unlawfully, you know, buried. Yeah, a corpse, yeah. Yeah. So I think that's that what probably what they were waiting to see if he would uh would accept anything or what he would say. That's I'm guessing what happened. Right. Um and because they couldn't prove it was homicide, manslaughter, you know, whatever, over it could have been an accidental death, you know, like whatever. And they I think they wanted to see where where the person fell in. Because some people are like, yes, it was an accident, you know, even if it may not be that way, but if they're willing to take that and then get 20, 25, you know what it is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, a conviction, yeah, for sure. And and you know, so uh funny, interestingly, a lot of times you'll see this in in um movies and courtroom dramas and things like that. Um they take the the subject into you know the the interrogation room and and they turn off the ventilation or the air conditioning in it so it's hot, so the people already feel uncomfortable. And they come in and police can lie to you in an interrogation, which I never knew. Um and a lot of times, a lot of times, in fact, I think the majority of times, crimes are solved by people just admitting that they did it. And they don't realize that you know the police bring them in and say, well, you know, we he just won't talk, right? You know, a smart criminal will immediately go liar.
SPEAKER_03Or an innocent person will an innocent person lawyer, liar.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because so I think they realize with David because he had means, yes, and because he had access, and apparently that particular house that the guy that he was living in um was like an eight million dollar house in the Hollywood Hills. So he had access through his agent through to um to Capitol, and uh he did get a very, very good defense lawyer. So I think the police maybe realize that they've got one you know shot at this. Yeah. So they want to make the best of it. But you gotta keep him kind of calm too, because with means like that, he could flee the country, we assume.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh and we'll cover more of that next time. But until then, take care of yourself and take care of each other.
SPEAKER_03And have a good week, and we'll see you back here.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03Follow the show on whatever streaming site you're listening on.
SPEAKER_01And remember, all of the source material will be available in the show notes.
SPEAKER_03And follow us on Instagram at WhatWeLose in the shadows, and let us know if you want to hear a specific case.
SPEAKER_01Or if you just want to give us some feedback.
SPEAKER_02Okay, join us in the shadows next Tuesday. Bye.
