September 24, 2025 • 30 mins
In this episode of Zone 7, Sheryl McCollum is joined by attorney Joshua Schiffer to examine the case of 15-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez. Celeste, a runaway, was found decomposing in the trunk of an abandoned Tesla registered to a rising star named David. They review what is currently known about the investigation and discuss the disturbing connections between Celeste and David, including their matching “shhh” tattoos and a song released on her birthday that now carries chilling significance. They also question how a 13-year-old could vanish for nearly two years, raising concerns about communal responsibility and the protection of vulnerable youth.
Joshua Schiffer is a veteran attorney and one of the Southeast’s most respected legal voices. He is a founder at ChancoSchiffer P.C., where he has litigated high-stakes criminal, civil rights, and personal injury cases for over two decades. Known for his bold courtroom presence and ability to clearly explain complex legal issues, Schiffer is a frequent contributor to Zone 7 and a fearless advocate for accountability.
Highlights:
- (0:00) Sheryl welcomes Joshua Schiffer and introduces the case of Celeste Rivas Hernandez
- (1:45) The discovery of the body in the abandoned Tesla and the first red flags
- (3:00) Tesla technology, surveillance footage, and how modern cars track everything
- (7:15) Celeste's background: How does a 13-year-old vanish without support or detection?
- (9:30) Fan culture and the personal connection between Celeste and the singer
- (11:30) The silence of family, neighbors, schools, and systems that failed her
- (19:30) "You’ve got a head and a torso of a 15-year-old in a Tesla.” Examining decomposition, concealment, and the physical evidence left behind
- (21:30) Third-party defense strategies and future courtroom challenges
- (28:15) A tribute to Celeste, a plea for societal change, and a closing quote from “Romantic Homicide”
Enjoying Zone 7? Leave a rating and review. Your feedback helps others find the show and supports our mission to educate and investigate.
---
Sheryl “Mac” McCollum is an Emmy Award-winning CSI, a writer for CrimeOnline, forensic and crime scene expert for Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, and co-author of the textbook, "Cold Case: Pathways to Justice."
She is the founder and director of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute, a national collaboration that advances techniques for solving cold cases and assists families and law enforcement with unsolved homicides, missing persons, and kidnappings.
Social Links:
- Email: coldcase2004@gmail.com
- Twitter: @ColdCaseTips
- Facebook: @sheryl.mccollum
- Instagram: @officialzone7podcast
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Y'all, this is a special Wednesday episode. This case requires
not a crime roundup, but a full fledged Zone seven episode.
So I welcome my buddy and my partner, Joshua Schiffer
to Zone seven.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hey, what a story for us to cover? And if
there's one that just has so many of the issue
and it's one that's just starting and the discussions.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Just happening, and they've got to happen, and they've got
to happen at every level of this thing. Because one
of the first things I thought about is this singer
songwriter who goes by David. Most people I think that
are going to hear this episode were unfamiliar with him
until this case started. But you know, as a defense attorney,
(00:58):
you have a pr problem.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Oh a big one. And this guy's got enough fame
that as soon as this kind of percolated up into
my network, I was like, well, hold on, who's this guy?
And his fan base is Rabbit. It only took a
couple of clicks before I found, you know, full on
heart Throbby. This is my crooner. I love him, He's
(01:22):
the best, he will do nothing wrong. He's completely innocent
at and which you know that's the heart of fandom.
It's a classic trope. You know, pin ups and pop
stars have been popular for a long time. But I
was wholly unfamiliar with this gentleman.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Likewise, the first thing that I heard was a fifteen
year old girl was found in the trunk of a
car that had been abandoned. And then the next thing
I read was that car had not been reported stolen. Well,
I got a problem off the rip because you got
to in your name that you have not reported stolen.
(02:05):
But there's a dead juvenile in that trunk. That's that's
bad all day. There's nothing I'm going to be able
to spend. There's nothing I'm going to be able to say, Hey,
you know, maybe this happened, maybe that happened, because y'all,
in my world, coincidence they don't exist. They just don't.
(02:28):
And if I've got enough things that you know, kind
of resonate that some people might call, well that's just
a coincidence. That's not fact. No, that's a fact. And
the more that came out, Joshua, you've got a fifteen
year old girl. She has been identified. What we learned
from that identification is that she ran away at thirteen.
(02:51):
Now I want to stop right there and you and
I just talk about runaways for a minute.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
There's a couple of things. I also just want to
add a little bit of association. Cheryl's not talking about
some burnout JELOPPI that this was a tesla. I don't.
I don't know anybody that really abandons newsh What the
oldest tesla's what five ten years old? Highly automated, expensive,
(03:19):
A lot of them are least you can track them
all over the place. I think if they break down,
they connect to their own whatever roadside assisted that that
car didn't just end up.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
There, no, sir, And let me tell y'all, I had
a crime scene my department. We are real near Delta Airlines.
Oh boys, there was a pilot that parked his tesla.
I didn't know anything about that car except I couldn't
get one.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
It's a mystery. When they first came out, Oh, they
were so beautiful now their planet woo.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
I mean the entire roof was glass. I mean it's
gorgeous car. Well, these folks we're in the parking lot,
not associated with the pilot or his car. One of
the subjects robbed a man, beat him and ran off
the establishment had no cameras. A day or so goes by.
(04:15):
This man comes to the police department as for the
crime scene investigator. I go to the lobby. He said, ma'am,
I wanted to give something to you regarding the incident
that occurred the other day in the parking lot. I said, okay,
and he hands me this tiny I mean super tiny,
looks like a looks like something you would put into
(04:35):
a computer, but super little. And he said, my car
got the whole thing on tape, like on camera. Oh my,
it's the clearest, most beautiful. You can't imagine how perfect
that video is.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
The availability of these in vehicle cameras, the latest versions
of the rings and the blinks and the other cameras.
I'm just setting some up here. I've got a trail
cam now on my lamp. I saw that to the
Internet and although the picture I post is not particularly sharp,
(05:16):
in fact, it may be bigfoot out there. But really
it's amazing to see how effective this this latent surveillance
universe has become. And I know people freak out about product. Listen,
it's public space as far as I'm concerned. Put cameras
everywhere you want to go get privacy, go into a
private spot.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
And to your point, nobody just ditches that car.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
No, come on, now, you gotta be nuts, gotta be nuts.
And they record everything. And you know, this comes back
to the first round of when we started communicating with
vehicles through manufacturers. There was that whole line of cases
from on Star, which I think was a Chevy or
Cadillac product, something like that, and there was a series
(06:01):
of cases where the FEDS figured out, you just turn
on the microphone if you got a warrant.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
That's right, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
There are a couple of sporty cases that in that line.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
That car's got a black box. They're gonna know what
door was open, when the trunk was open, when it moved,
when it moved forward or backwards in real time. So
they're going to be able to go to correspond and
you know, ring cameras on neighbors.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Oh, they're gonna find out how that little girl ended
up it there now the pathway to there. There may
be some questions, but you'll have the ability to track
where that car may have begun, may have spent time,
where it last was. It's one of the dumber tools
you could use as a criminal because it's gonna tell
(06:52):
the police, Hey, we were just here and then we
were here, and this is where we were, and we
might have some pictures of it. And here's some other
if there was another tesla nearby, I think that they
can talk to each other. Kate, there's all kinds of
different ways that that car registers on things.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Yeah, the flot camera, that'll get a good picture of
the driver. And here I want to go back now
to the runaway because it's the core and nobody's talking
about it.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
You and I at the same time, kind of earlier
this week both go hey, did you hear what's up
with this story? Like the True Crime Universe, we see
headlines upon headlines upon headlines, and so many of them
are you can tell there's a really compelling issue behind it.
But this sticks out like a sore thumb because the
(07:41):
fact that thirteen year olds don't disappear and this one didn't.
People looked This wasn't a child that was unloved or abandoned.
This was a child that had a deep connection to
community and for all intents and purposes, from this pon
now she was almost hiding in playing sight.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
A thirteen year old with no parents. She's not going
to school, so no teachers, no principles, no pediatrician, nobody
knows where she's at. Got food, got clothing, got shelter,
got jewelry, got tattoos, at least one that we know of.
She possibly got drugs and other things. How how does
(08:28):
a thirteen year old do that without a job and
without a home base, y'all? The answer ain't good. It's
not good.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
It's really going to throw a lot of tough questions
that don't have good answers out there because you've got
a thirteen year old that goes missing. Okay, so where's
the community? How do you track her down? It's now
turned out that clearly she knew this David guy in
some way, whether as a fan or whether someone that
(08:58):
was eventually it looks to be very closely associated with
him at such a young age, and then just to
disappear with all the people that love her not being
able to find her. Other people saw this child the community.
You don't just disappear. You're still out there in the community.
(09:20):
Where was the see something, say something? Universe? Right?
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And Mama knew she had a boyfriend named David. Mama
has come forward and said that, so, what are the
odds it ain't this David.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
And now we're hearing all the rest of the keys
to this story that connect and allegedly, ostensibly this David
gentleman is cooperating in some sort of limited manner with
law enforcement. He is apparently on tour, because this gentleman
has some sort of hit or two or three and
(09:56):
is quite the beloved entertainer for a certain group. He's
been coming, certainly not a national name, but here we are.
He's on tour and an abandoned tesla with the body
of a no longer thirteen because it's been way over
almost two years since this child disappeared, and here is
(10:24):
her body popping up in a tesla owned by him
that does not appear to have been moved or seen
much or or messed with. It looks abandoned. Her body's
inside it. And now we're finding out there are songs
connecting them.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
A song title is her name. They have matching tattoos
with s ajjh like sh like Rayhanna has on their
pointer finger. I noticed in her runaway poster they said
she was wearing Hello Kitty, shoes. In one of the
(11:06):
images where he's singing, he's wearing Hello Kitty earrings again.
She's in his car in the trunk, decomposed. He's the
number one suspect right this minute. There ain't nobody else
you should be concentrating on right now. And I want
to go back to something because I want to be
(11:26):
super clear. Any teacher that's listening, any detective, any police officer,
any parole or probation officer, y'all know I'm telling the truth.
A thirteen year old cannot sustain themselves for years without
actively being in prostitution, being trafficked, having some type of
(11:50):
underworld where they're in the drug game and they sell
a little and use a little, or in some type
of domestic violence relationship. If this started when she first
ran away. How does a thirteen year old meet an
eighteen year old? How does a fifteen year old meet
a twenty year old? A thirteen or fifteen year old
(12:12):
that's on the street, They don't meet them in any
situation that's not a bad one.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
When you see that kind of relationship in public, you
notice it. And wherever they were staying, whoever they were with,
where were they shopping, like, how does that not catch
the attention of the people who are supposed to be watching?
And that's what gets us back. And it's a discussion
(12:42):
that I think is really valid. And I never like
to beat up on parents or to criticize parents, because
I don't know the journey their child has put them through.
I know that children are all different, and I have
had parents as clients and just seeing what they have
to I don't have that skill set, I don't have
(13:04):
that tools. I would need help. But at the same time,
parents allowing things so far out of acceptable, when do
we start really questioning and holding them responsible. If your
child is of a substantial age difference, you kind of
(13:27):
got to say something thirteen year olds and eighteen and
twenty year old No, no, it just doesn't work. And
we see that in this case, But then it brings
up all these other cases of this kind of the
arena where we have young women being winked and nodded
(13:51):
into the private presence of predators.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
I hear people say, oh, you know, I only date
girls that the dad's not in the house. I have
literally heard people say that, can you think of anybody
more vulnerable than her? She has no parents. She has
no teachers, no coaches, no preachers, no neighbors. Like when
(14:20):
you and I grew up, our neighbors would correct us,
don't you get in that car with that fool boy.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
It was the community that we relied on because we
were so interacting with each other. And it's yet again
of spin off of the dehumanization of modern society that
you may not even know your neighbors, let alone know
them well enough that they'd be comfortable grabbing your kid
in protecting them, acting as a substitute. You know, community
(14:48):
parent where I was raised in the eighties in the
burbs of Atlanta, and even then in the subdivision, and
none of the parents had a problem grabbing all the
kids running in a pack, and that's what it was.
And lord knows if you did that now, probably some
be knocking on my door, going, Josh, I want to
sue this parent he yelled at my kid. And you
(15:11):
wouldn't believe the number of cases where we get nice
citizens who believe they have been wronged or aggrieved in
some way that even peels my eyes back. Who thinks
he's hurt everything because they're coming up with new stuff
and it's just how sensitive people are. And it's the
decline of that connected community that as America I believe
(15:34):
we've just lost. I think that's the cost of growth.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
And it's said, well, you know one other thing, I
want to just cut off at the past. If anybody's
going to say, well, you know, she has run away before,
she's been living on the street. She's mature, She's more
grown than most people. My sister Sharon taught sixth grade
for thirty four years, and I remember one day I
(16:00):
went to her class to visit her, and you know,
all the kids in there looked like sixth graders, and
then this one student walked in. She had on a
cheerleading uniform. She was a beautiful child. Okay, like some
of them were embraces, you know that, you.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Know those years I just have one enter in high school.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Okay, Well, this child walked in. You couldn't ignore that
she was striking. And I think I made some statement
about man, she could go up to the high school
right now and blend in or something to that effect
and sharing whit nay talk to her for five minutes.
There is no way a twenty year old man doesn't
(16:45):
know he's talking to a fifteen year old girl.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
It's one of those It's one of those things where
in all those you know, to catch a predator style
cases and you hear why you never make statements because
you're gonna you're gonna swear you think you're making sense.
You don't, you don't, don't. No cop doesn't employ any
super special interrogation tools to get you to sound like
(17:08):
a just.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Fool, right, and especially when every other man is going, yeah,
not a shot, no chance.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Who's worse on that jurney? The dads are the moms
like at some point it's like, nope, sorry, I've heard
the lines. You sir, are not being honest for right
and are trying.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
To look because here's the reality. Men, no other.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Men, Oh well that's the that's the issue.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
We may go. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
All sex related cases.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Is absolutely but women we can we can be fooled.
You get somebody smile at you, right, bring you some flowers.
You're a sucker. Where you may go, Cheryl, you don't
need to be around him. He ain't right for you,
he ain't right for nobody. He's only in it for himself.
And I'll be like, oh Josh, you don't understand we're
in love because he brought me flowers once in seven
(18:03):
years and he's still looking for a job. But he's gonna.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Find all the self justification acrobatics that you see. And
here's the thing that I'll just and I'm sorry, I
rip this band aid off for all of the listeners.
Men are little monsters when they're being developed and growing
because some of the stops on the station between child
(18:26):
and adult male involved dealing with some fundamentally heavy duty
evolution creation based stuff. And even the best men have
at some point been exposed, laughed at, had the thought
themself some pretty wild stuff, so that when we see
(18:47):
it in the world, we know exactly what we're looking at.
And every man, you know, knows a guy that they'd
never let hang out with their loved one if it's
a woman. Everyone one of us, every one of us
knows at least one guy where it's like nope, never,
never be like guy like that. And every one of
(19:08):
us sees these men and we're like, man, it's gonna
take someone else special to marry that one. And it's
shocking because we've seen the behind the scenes, and we
believe in the goodness of change and how you know,
people are different in different settings, but uh, we know
the uglies out there. So when we see these FORCCTA situations, Man,
(19:33):
don't bullshit, don't bs me. Don't you got you got
a head and a torso of a fifteen year old
in a tesla in a plastic bin. She's been gone
for almost two years, with her whole universe looking for.
There's a lot more than a simple runaway.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Going on, and photographs have already come out of the
two of them. There's the song that's already come out,
that it in an official song, the fact that the
song was released on her birthday. Mama just happens to
know your name. These are not things. I don't think
that he's going to be able to wiggle out up
(20:12):
and you know we can use allegedly, we can say
right now he hasn't been named as a suspect. All
of those things are true. But in my world, I
am single focused. I want the trunk of that car.
I want the plastic bag, the ben I want to
know what's outside. Is there any fingerprints? Can I swallow
(20:34):
for DNA? Anything inside the knots where it was tied?
And I want to know what's inside. People think, oh,
I can throw everything in this bag and nothing's gonna
come back on me. You are wrong. Even if something
is being decomposed and there's fluid and there's heat, trust me,
(20:58):
there's evidence inside that bag. Again, we already know the tattoo.
We know she was not well. Let me just say
it this way. We believe, we already know she was decapitated.
So that tells you she was killed somewhere else, placed
in the plastic, placed in the band, and put in
the trunk of that car where that car was disposed.
(21:21):
So we have another primary crime scene. You can't clean.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
That up, Cheryl. Do you hear that noise in the distance.
That's the door opening and it's the closet. I'm gonna
have to take out my criminal defense hat and put
it on now because here comes the record skip, and
everybody turn around and go hold on, because everything Cheryl's
talking about makes so much sense. And it does, and
(21:47):
it makes me believe that this guy was absolutely at
the heart of this crime. But when I put on
the criminal defense hat, let's talk about what you just mentioned. Decapitated,
killed somewhere else, stuffed in a box, putting a car deposited.
You think that's one person, I don't. Do you think
(22:10):
that there's another crime scene. I'm pretty certain there is.
I agree with you, there's another crime scene with an
unknown number of people that could have had access to
this vehicle. For all we know, this dude owns thirty cars.
We've got some celebrities around here where thirty cars doesn't
even get you past the front row in the garage.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
We know you and I both know some celebrities that
have entourages that have a variety of mandates. And those
entourages can be involved in the legitimate running of businesses
and selling merchant planning concerts, or they can also sell
dope work sex workers do all kinds of nefarious things,
(22:54):
and it's the whole gamut. Body men get dope for people.
Body man can acquire lots of people. And so what
happened with this relationship with this girl and who else
was there? And that brings up the unfortunate third party defense,
which is super effective. And this guy gets charged and
(23:16):
it's just him standing there by himself in front of
a jury, and he turns around and goes, Nope, yeah,
I knew her. I was in love with her, but
then we broke up and I never saw her again. Yeah,
last time I saw her she was with you know,
security guard, Steve.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
And Steve knows where the keys are to the tesla.
He knew I was going to be out of town
on tour.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Saying that that's an innocence defense, because it ain't. But
it sure as heck stops beyond a reasonable doubt with
a murder. And that's going to be part of this investigation,
which is why I think, and I think share. I'll
speak for you too. This case is just the tip
right now. We have not even seen this hit the
(24:01):
main news wire yet, but this is going to be
a big fascination because there's too many questions.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
I preach this all the time. Patterns, patterns, patterns, pattern jaw.
If he did know her and they were in a relationship,
which is what I believe to be true from what
I know now, they had a rhythm of Texan and calling,
sharing pictures, I bet it stopped. I bet he ain't
(24:35):
been trying to get in touch with her while he's
been on tour, because she was found September eighth, his
first tour date. I believe from what I can find
online with Seattle September seventeenth, he has now canceled the
whole tour. Well, that tells me he doesn't believe he's
(24:55):
going to be able to be on tour September, October
or November. That to me is beyond cooperating with the police.
If I was going to cooperate, I don't think it's
going to take me three months and tell them what
I know.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
And that'll be interesting because all right, so now we
get into how much can you plan a defense if
you're guilty? And this is of course completely hypothetical, but
we see it all the time. Something awful happens. Oh,
I hit it. No one's gonna know. Whoops, it got discovered.
Good thing. I've got my cover story already worked out
and it's perfect. Share. There's no way they're going to
(25:32):
be able to bust through this cover story. That cover
up is always the best pathway towards culpability, because the
cover up is so much harder than you think it is.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
The cover up's the first lie.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Yeah, the loosening that you don't even understand, or flapping
in the wind.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
And let's just say, whoever killed her? The killer maybe
didn't planet and then in a panic, how do I
get her out of the house? How do I get
her out of the hotel? How do I get her
out of the woods. You got to chop her up
because she's too heavy.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Absolutely, because you're talking about a headless torso with no.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
And now you've left a lot of evidence.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
How that happens is just like Cheryl said, Wow, I
got a problem on my hands. I'm going to fix
it the way. Hold on, what do the movies tell
you to do? Okay, I'm gonna do that.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Right, Which is the reason I tell people all the time,
you're gonna find somebody in a shallow grave because they
don't know how much work it takes to dig a
sixt grave. Yeah, never in my life have I responded
anything more than a shallow grave.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
No, no, And if you ever see an actual grave digger,
they use huge, heavy machinery because six feet is a
couple of yards of sort. Man, you spend all day
doing that, and really, people are coburger. Not to bring
up a name that I'm sick of here and uh
so many of these individuals, when a crime has occurred,
(27:06):
feel that they can wrap it up, even the Tyler
Robinson from his texts his mistake. I had to leave
the rifle. Remember, had he not left that rifle, there
would be virtually no physical evidence for the for the
FEDS to investigate and absent his parents doing the right thing.
(27:31):
It was a it was a gold star week for
parents and true crime. We wouldn't know anything.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
I agree with you that there's going to be more
and more and more that comes out. There's gonna be
some people that have been around both of them. Some
will talk and they're going to be able to tell it.
They're going to have photographs on their phone, They're going
to have text messages from her, They're gonna have videos
of the two of them. This is not going to
(28:01):
be a one way street for David Joshua as a father. Well,
you just close this episode out and talk about the
fifteen year old girl.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Well, I really want everybody to know her name and
remember it because that's the only way we change things.
And Celeste Reevas Hernandez is unfortunately going to be a
famous and well known name in the crime universe because
of the egregiousness of this crime. Due to the common
(28:36):
themes of losing control of teenagers and children, and how
we as a community raise our kids, especially when kids
are coming out of tough situations. We don't need to
worry about the kids with both parents in a four
to oh one k and a college scholarship and a trust.
Those kids, sure they may have issues, but I don't
worry about them. It's those kids that were on the
(28:58):
fringe that fall through crack where a thirteen year old
can disappear for almost two years, show up tattooed, decapitated,
stuffed in a trunk in an abandoned tesla owned by
a celebrity. You're gonna tell me that our society is
(29:19):
functioning well when that can have no And these are
the messages and the lessons that we all need to
think about when it comes to law and or and
crime and justice and how we raise and take care
of our communities. Because all it would have taken is
some adult who cared in the right way to get involved.
(29:40):
And I hope that you're that adult. I try to
be that adult. It's hard to be the person doing
the right thing, but it's really the way we heal
the world and fulfill our promise as part of creation.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
I'm going to end Zone seven the way that I
always do, with a quote in the back of my mind.
I killed you and I didn't even regret it. I
can't believe I said it, but it's true. I hate you,
David from Romantic Homicide. I'm Cheryl McCollum and this is
(30:20):
Zone Saven.
Y'all, this is a special Wednesday episode. This case requires
not a crime roundup, but a full fledged Zone seven episode.
So I welcome my buddy and my partner, Joshua Schiffer
to Zone seven.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hey, what a story for us to cover? And if
there's one that just has so many of the issue
and it's one that's just starting and the discussions.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Just happening, and they've got to happen, and they've got
to happen at every level of this thing. Because one
of the first things I thought about is this singer
songwriter who goes by David. Most people I think that
are going to hear this episode were unfamiliar with him
until this case started. But you know, as a defense attorney,
(00:58):
you have a pr problem.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Oh a big one. And this guy's got enough fame
that as soon as this kind of percolated up into
my network, I was like, well, hold on, who's this guy?
And his fan base is Rabbit. It only took a
couple of clicks before I found, you know, full on
heart Throbby. This is my crooner. I love him, He's
(01:22):
the best, he will do nothing wrong. He's completely innocent
at and which you know that's the heart of fandom.
It's a classic trope. You know, pin ups and pop
stars have been popular for a long time. But I
was wholly unfamiliar with this gentleman.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Likewise, the first thing that I heard was a fifteen
year old girl was found in the trunk of a
car that had been abandoned. And then the next thing
I read was that car had not been reported stolen. Well,
I got a problem off the rip because you got
to in your name that you have not reported stolen.
(02:05):
But there's a dead juvenile in that trunk. That's that's
bad all day. There's nothing I'm going to be able
to spend. There's nothing I'm going to be able to say, Hey,
you know, maybe this happened, maybe that happened, because y'all,
in my world, coincidence they don't exist. They just don't.
(02:28):
And if I've got enough things that you know, kind
of resonate that some people might call, well that's just
a coincidence. That's not fact. No, that's a fact. And
the more that came out, Joshua, you've got a fifteen
year old girl. She has been identified. What we learned
from that identification is that she ran away at thirteen.
(02:51):
Now I want to stop right there and you and
I just talk about runaways for a minute.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
There's a couple of things. I also just want to
add a little bit of association. Cheryl's not talking about
some burnout JELOPPI that this was a tesla. I don't.
I don't know anybody that really abandons newsh What the
oldest tesla's what five ten years old? Highly automated, expensive,
(03:19):
A lot of them are least you can track them
all over the place. I think if they break down,
they connect to their own whatever roadside assisted that that
car didn't just end up.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
There, no, sir, And let me tell y'all, I had
a crime scene my department. We are real near Delta Airlines.
Oh boys, there was a pilot that parked his tesla.
I didn't know anything about that car except I couldn't
get one.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
It's a mystery. When they first came out, Oh, they
were so beautiful now their planet woo.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
I mean the entire roof was glass. I mean it's
gorgeous car. Well, these folks we're in the parking lot,
not associated with the pilot or his car. One of
the subjects robbed a man, beat him and ran off
the establishment had no cameras. A day or so goes by.
(04:15):
This man comes to the police department as for the
crime scene investigator. I go to the lobby. He said, ma'am,
I wanted to give something to you regarding the incident
that occurred the other day in the parking lot. I said, okay,
and he hands me this tiny I mean super tiny,
looks like a looks like something you would put into
(04:35):
a computer, but super little. And he said, my car
got the whole thing on tape, like on camera. Oh my,
it's the clearest, most beautiful. You can't imagine how perfect
that video is.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
The availability of these in vehicle cameras, the latest versions
of the rings and the blinks and the other cameras.
I'm just setting some up here. I've got a trail
cam now on my lamp. I saw that to the
Internet and although the picture I post is not particularly sharp,
(05:16):
in fact, it may be bigfoot out there. But really
it's amazing to see how effective this this latent surveillance
universe has become. And I know people freak out about product. Listen,
it's public space as far as I'm concerned. Put cameras
everywhere you want to go get privacy, go into a
private spot.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
And to your point, nobody just ditches that car.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
No, come on, now, you gotta be nuts, gotta be nuts.
And they record everything. And you know, this comes back
to the first round of when we started communicating with
vehicles through manufacturers. There was that whole line of cases
from on Star, which I think was a Chevy or
Cadillac product, something like that, and there was a series
(06:01):
of cases where the FEDS figured out, you just turn
on the microphone if you got a warrant.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
That's right, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
There are a couple of sporty cases that in that line.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
That car's got a black box. They're gonna know what
door was open, when the trunk was open, when it moved,
when it moved forward or backwards in real time. So
they're going to be able to go to correspond and
you know, ring cameras on neighbors.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Oh, they're gonna find out how that little girl ended
up it there now the pathway to there. There may
be some questions, but you'll have the ability to track
where that car may have begun, may have spent time,
where it last was. It's one of the dumber tools
you could use as a criminal because it's gonna tell
(06:52):
the police, Hey, we were just here and then we
were here, and this is where we were, and we
might have some pictures of it. And here's some other
if there was another tesla nearby, I think that they
can talk to each other. Kate, there's all kinds of
different ways that that car registers on things.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Yeah, the flot camera, that'll get a good picture of
the driver. And here I want to go back now
to the runaway because it's the core and nobody's talking
about it.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
You and I at the same time, kind of earlier
this week both go hey, did you hear what's up
with this story? Like the True Crime Universe, we see
headlines upon headlines upon headlines, and so many of them
are you can tell there's a really compelling issue behind it.
But this sticks out like a sore thumb because the
(07:41):
fact that thirteen year olds don't disappear and this one didn't.
People looked This wasn't a child that was unloved or abandoned.
This was a child that had a deep connection to
community and for all intents and purposes, from this pon
now she was almost hiding in playing sight.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
A thirteen year old with no parents. She's not going
to school, so no teachers, no principles, no pediatrician, nobody
knows where she's at. Got food, got clothing, got shelter,
got jewelry, got tattoos, at least one that we know of.
She possibly got drugs and other things. How how does
(08:28):
a thirteen year old do that without a job and
without a home base, y'all? The answer ain't good. It's
not good.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
It's really going to throw a lot of tough questions
that don't have good answers out there because you've got
a thirteen year old that goes missing. Okay, so where's
the community? How do you track her down? It's now
turned out that clearly she knew this David guy in
some way, whether as a fan or whether someone that
(08:58):
was eventually it looks to be very closely associated with
him at such a young age, and then just to
disappear with all the people that love her not being
able to find her. Other people saw this child the community.
You don't just disappear. You're still out there in the community.
(09:20):
Where was the see something, say something? Universe? Right?
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And Mama knew she had a boyfriend named David. Mama
has come forward and said that, so, what are the
odds it ain't this David.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
And now we're hearing all the rest of the keys
to this story that connect and allegedly, ostensibly this David
gentleman is cooperating in some sort of limited manner with
law enforcement. He is apparently on tour, because this gentleman
has some sort of hit or two or three and
(09:56):
is quite the beloved entertainer for a certain group. He's
been coming, certainly not a national name, but here we are.
He's on tour and an abandoned tesla with the body
of a no longer thirteen because it's been way over
almost two years since this child disappeared, and here is
(10:24):
her body popping up in a tesla owned by him
that does not appear to have been moved or seen
much or or messed with. It looks abandoned. Her body's
inside it. And now we're finding out there are songs
connecting them.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
A song title is her name. They have matching tattoos
with s ajjh like sh like Rayhanna has on their
pointer finger. I noticed in her runaway poster they said
she was wearing Hello Kitty, shoes. In one of the
(11:06):
images where he's singing, he's wearing Hello Kitty earrings again.
She's in his car in the trunk, decomposed. He's the
number one suspect right this minute. There ain't nobody else
you should be concentrating on right now. And I want
to go back to something because I want to be
(11:26):
super clear. Any teacher that's listening, any detective, any police officer,
any parole or probation officer, y'all know I'm telling the truth.
A thirteen year old cannot sustain themselves for years without
actively being in prostitution, being trafficked, having some type of
(11:50):
underworld where they're in the drug game and they sell
a little and use a little, or in some type
of domestic violence relationship. If this started when she first
ran away. How does a thirteen year old meet an
eighteen year old? How does a fifteen year old meet
a twenty year old? A thirteen or fifteen year old
(12:12):
that's on the street, They don't meet them in any
situation that's not a bad one.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
When you see that kind of relationship in public, you
notice it. And wherever they were staying, whoever they were with,
where were they shopping, like, how does that not catch
the attention of the people who are supposed to be watching?
And that's what gets us back. And it's a discussion
(12:42):
that I think is really valid. And I never like
to beat up on parents or to criticize parents, because
I don't know the journey their child has put them through.
I know that children are all different, and I have
had parents as clients and just seeing what they have
to I don't have that skill set, I don't have
(13:04):
that tools. I would need help. But at the same time,
parents allowing things so far out of acceptable, when do
we start really questioning and holding them responsible. If your
child is of a substantial age difference, you kind of
(13:27):
got to say something thirteen year olds and eighteen and
twenty year old No, no, it just doesn't work. And
we see that in this case, But then it brings
up all these other cases of this kind of the
arena where we have young women being winked and nodded
(13:51):
into the private presence of predators.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
I hear people say, oh, you know, I only date
girls that the dad's not in the house. I have
literally heard people say that, can you think of anybody
more vulnerable than her? She has no parents. She has
no teachers, no coaches, no preachers, no neighbors. Like when
(14:20):
you and I grew up, our neighbors would correct us,
don't you get in that car with that fool boy.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
It was the community that we relied on because we
were so interacting with each other. And it's yet again
of spin off of the dehumanization of modern society that
you may not even know your neighbors, let alone know
them well enough that they'd be comfortable grabbing your kid
in protecting them, acting as a substitute. You know, community
(14:48):
parent where I was raised in the eighties in the
burbs of Atlanta, and even then in the subdivision, and
none of the parents had a problem grabbing all the
kids running in a pack, and that's what it was.
And lord knows if you did that now, probably some
be knocking on my door, going, Josh, I want to
sue this parent he yelled at my kid. And you
(15:11):
wouldn't believe the number of cases where we get nice
citizens who believe they have been wronged or aggrieved in
some way that even peels my eyes back. Who thinks
he's hurt everything because they're coming up with new stuff
and it's just how sensitive people are. And it's the
decline of that connected community that as America I believe
(15:34):
we've just lost. I think that's the cost of growth.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
And it's said, well, you know one other thing, I
want to just cut off at the past. If anybody's
going to say, well, you know, she has run away before,
she's been living on the street. She's mature, She's more
grown than most people. My sister Sharon taught sixth grade
for thirty four years, and I remember one day I
(16:00):
went to her class to visit her, and you know,
all the kids in there looked like sixth graders, and
then this one student walked in. She had on a
cheerleading uniform. She was a beautiful child. Okay, like some
of them were embraces, you know that, you.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Know those years I just have one enter in high school.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Okay, Well, this child walked in. You couldn't ignore that
she was striking. And I think I made some statement
about man, she could go up to the high school
right now and blend in or something to that effect
and sharing whit nay talk to her for five minutes.
There is no way a twenty year old man doesn't
(16:45):
know he's talking to a fifteen year old girl.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
It's one of those It's one of those things where
in all those you know, to catch a predator style
cases and you hear why you never make statements because
you're gonna you're gonna swear you think you're making sense.
You don't, you don't, don't. No cop doesn't employ any
super special interrogation tools to get you to sound like
(17:08):
a just.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Fool, right, and especially when every other man is going, yeah,
not a shot, no chance.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Who's worse on that jurney? The dads are the moms
like at some point it's like, nope, sorry, I've heard
the lines. You sir, are not being honest for right
and are trying.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
To look because here's the reality. Men, no other.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Men, Oh well that's the that's the issue.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
We may go. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
All sex related cases.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Is absolutely but women we can we can be fooled.
You get somebody smile at you, right, bring you some flowers.
You're a sucker. Where you may go, Cheryl, you don't
need to be around him. He ain't right for you,
he ain't right for nobody. He's only in it for himself.
And I'll be like, oh Josh, you don't understand we're
in love because he brought me flowers once in seven
(18:03):
years and he's still looking for a job. But he's gonna.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Find all the self justification acrobatics that you see. And
here's the thing that I'll just and I'm sorry, I
rip this band aid off for all of the listeners.
Men are little monsters when they're being developed and growing
because some of the stops on the station between child
(18:26):
and adult male involved dealing with some fundamentally heavy duty
evolution creation based stuff. And even the best men have
at some point been exposed, laughed at, had the thought
themself some pretty wild stuff, so that when we see
(18:47):
it in the world, we know exactly what we're looking at.
And every man, you know, knows a guy that they'd
never let hang out with their loved one if it's
a woman. Everyone one of us, every one of us
knows at least one guy where it's like nope, never,
never be like guy like that. And every one of
(19:08):
us sees these men and we're like, man, it's gonna
take someone else special to marry that one. And it's
shocking because we've seen the behind the scenes, and we
believe in the goodness of change and how you know,
people are different in different settings, but uh, we know
the uglies out there. So when we see these FORCCTA situations, Man,
(19:33):
don't bullshit, don't bs me. Don't you got you got
a head and a torso of a fifteen year old
in a tesla in a plastic bin. She's been gone
for almost two years, with her whole universe looking for.
There's a lot more than a simple runaway.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Going on, and photographs have already come out of the
two of them. There's the song that's already come out,
that it in an official song, the fact that the
song was released on her birthday. Mama just happens to
know your name. These are not things. I don't think
that he's going to be able to wiggle out up
(20:12):
and you know we can use allegedly, we can say
right now he hasn't been named as a suspect. All
of those things are true. But in my world, I
am single focused. I want the trunk of that car.
I want the plastic bag, the ben I want to
know what's outside. Is there any fingerprints? Can I swallow
(20:34):
for DNA? Anything inside the knots where it was tied?
And I want to know what's inside. People think, oh,
I can throw everything in this bag and nothing's gonna
come back on me. You are wrong. Even if something
is being decomposed and there's fluid and there's heat, trust me,
(20:58):
there's evidence inside that bag. Again, we already know the tattoo.
We know she was not well. Let me just say
it this way. We believe, we already know she was decapitated.
So that tells you she was killed somewhere else, placed
in the plastic, placed in the band, and put in
the trunk of that car where that car was disposed.
(21:21):
So we have another primary crime scene. You can't clean.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
That up, Cheryl. Do you hear that noise in the distance.
That's the door opening and it's the closet. I'm gonna
have to take out my criminal defense hat and put
it on now because here comes the record skip, and
everybody turn around and go hold on, because everything Cheryl's
talking about makes so much sense. And it does, and
(21:47):
it makes me believe that this guy was absolutely at
the heart of this crime. But when I put on
the criminal defense hat, let's talk about what you just mentioned. Decapitated,
killed somewhere else, stuffed in a box, putting a car deposited.
You think that's one person, I don't. Do you think
(22:10):
that there's another crime scene. I'm pretty certain there is.
I agree with you, there's another crime scene with an
unknown number of people that could have had access to
this vehicle. For all we know, this dude owns thirty cars.
We've got some celebrities around here where thirty cars doesn't
even get you past the front row in the garage.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
We know you and I both know some celebrities that
have entourages that have a variety of mandates. And those
entourages can be involved in the legitimate running of businesses
and selling merchant planning concerts, or they can also sell
dope work sex workers do all kinds of nefarious things,
(22:54):
and it's the whole gamut. Body men get dope for people.
Body man can acquire lots of people. And so what
happened with this relationship with this girl and who else
was there? And that brings up the unfortunate third party defense,
which is super effective. And this guy gets charged and
(23:16):
it's just him standing there by himself in front of
a jury, and he turns around and goes, Nope, yeah,
I knew her. I was in love with her, but
then we broke up and I never saw her again. Yeah,
last time I saw her she was with you know,
security guard, Steve.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
And Steve knows where the keys are to the tesla.
He knew I was going to be out of town
on tour.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Saying that that's an innocence defense, because it ain't. But
it sure as heck stops beyond a reasonable doubt with
a murder. And that's going to be part of this investigation,
which is why I think, and I think share. I'll
speak for you too. This case is just the tip
right now. We have not even seen this hit the
(24:01):
main news wire yet, but this is going to be
a big fascination because there's too many questions.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
I preach this all the time. Patterns, patterns, patterns, pattern jaw.
If he did know her and they were in a relationship,
which is what I believe to be true from what
I know now, they had a rhythm of Texan and calling,
sharing pictures, I bet it stopped. I bet he ain't
(24:35):
been trying to get in touch with her while he's
been on tour, because she was found September eighth, his
first tour date. I believe from what I can find
online with Seattle September seventeenth, he has now canceled the
whole tour. Well, that tells me he doesn't believe he's
(24:55):
going to be able to be on tour September, October
or November. That to me is beyond cooperating with the police.
If I was going to cooperate, I don't think it's
going to take me three months and tell them what
I know.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
And that'll be interesting because all right, so now we
get into how much can you plan a defense if
you're guilty? And this is of course completely hypothetical, but
we see it all the time. Something awful happens. Oh,
I hit it. No one's gonna know. Whoops, it got discovered.
Good thing. I've got my cover story already worked out
and it's perfect. Share. There's no way they're going to
(25:32):
be able to bust through this cover story. That cover
up is always the best pathway towards culpability, because the
cover up is so much harder than you think it is.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
The cover up's the first lie.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Yeah, the loosening that you don't even understand, or flapping
in the wind.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
And let's just say, whoever killed her? The killer maybe
didn't planet and then in a panic, how do I
get her out of the house? How do I get
her out of the hotel? How do I get her
out of the woods. You got to chop her up
because she's too heavy.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Absolutely, because you're talking about a headless torso with no.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
And now you've left a lot of evidence.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
How that happens is just like Cheryl said, Wow, I
got a problem on my hands. I'm going to fix
it the way. Hold on, what do the movies tell
you to do? Okay, I'm gonna do that.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Right, Which is the reason I tell people all the time,
you're gonna find somebody in a shallow grave because they
don't know how much work it takes to dig a
sixt grave. Yeah, never in my life have I responded
anything more than a shallow grave.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
No, no, And if you ever see an actual grave digger,
they use huge, heavy machinery because six feet is a
couple of yards of sort. Man, you spend all day
doing that, and really, people are coburger. Not to bring
up a name that I'm sick of here and uh
so many of these individuals, when a crime has occurred,
(27:06):
feel that they can wrap it up, even the Tyler
Robinson from his texts his mistake. I had to leave
the rifle. Remember, had he not left that rifle, there
would be virtually no physical evidence for the for the
FEDS to investigate and absent his parents doing the right thing.
(27:31):
It was a it was a gold star week for
parents and true crime. We wouldn't know anything.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
I agree with you that there's going to be more
and more and more that comes out. There's gonna be
some people that have been around both of them. Some
will talk and they're going to be able to tell it.
They're going to have photographs on their phone, They're going
to have text messages from her, They're gonna have videos
of the two of them. This is not going to
(28:01):
be a one way street for David Joshua as a father. Well,
you just close this episode out and talk about the
fifteen year old girl.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Well, I really want everybody to know her name and
remember it because that's the only way we change things.
And Celeste Reevas Hernandez is unfortunately going to be a
famous and well known name in the crime universe because
of the egregiousness of this crime. Due to the common
(28:36):
themes of losing control of teenagers and children, and how
we as a community raise our kids, especially when kids
are coming out of tough situations. We don't need to
worry about the kids with both parents in a four
to oh one k and a college scholarship and a trust.
Those kids, sure they may have issues, but I don't
worry about them. It's those kids that were on the
(28:58):
fringe that fall through crack where a thirteen year old
can disappear for almost two years, show up tattooed, decapitated,
stuffed in a trunk in an abandoned tesla owned by
a celebrity. You're gonna tell me that our society is
(29:19):
functioning well when that can have no And these are
the messages and the lessons that we all need to
think about when it comes to law and or and
crime and justice and how we raise and take care
of our communities. Because all it would have taken is
some adult who cared in the right way to get involved.
(29:40):
And I hope that you're that adult. I try to
be that adult. It's hard to be the person doing
the right thing, but it's really the way we heal
the world and fulfill our promise as part of creation.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
I'm going to end Zone seven the way that I
always do, with a quote in the back of my mind.
I killed you and I didn't even regret it. I
can't believe I said it, but it's true. I hate you,
David from Romantic Homicide. I'm Cheryl McCollum and this is
(30:20):
Zone Saven.
Host
Sheryl McCollum
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