Transcript
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Hello and welcome back to Fame Under Fire from BBC Sounds with me, Anushka Mutanda Doughty I just want to say that this episode might not be for everybody. We are going to be discussing the apparent murder. I'm saying apparent because we don't have all the details of Celeste Rivas Hernandez, who was a child when she died. The details are graphic and some listeners might find them upsetting. So you can head to halfway through the episode for our analysis. Or we have an Epstein Fact or Fiction on a question about Michael Jackson, Madeleine McCann and Epstein that we're doing later in the podcast. But we're going to start with this unfolding case in la. Some of you would have heard of it, some of you will have no idea what I'm talking about. So I'm going to walk it all the way back to the beginning. On the 24th of May 2024, a 13 year old girl is reported missing by her family who live in Lake Elsinore. That's a city in California. The last known sighting of her, according to a missing person flyer cited by CBS News, was in April 2024. Her name is Celeste Rivas Hernandez. Now it's not the first time she'd gone missing. The LA Times reported that the Riverside County Sheriff's Office said that she was reported missing three times before she went missing again in April. Over a year later, on 27 August 2025, a Tesla parked in the Hollywood Hills caught the eye of a parking enforcement officer. It had overstayed the three day parking limit there. The officer gave it a ticket on the 3rd of September and it was then towed to a local lot two days later. I'm going to read directly from the court documents now, but I want to reiterate the warning because it contains graphic detail that some of you might find upsetting. So it says on September 8, 2025 at approximately 10:30 hours, LAPD detectives received a phone call from the manager of Hollywood area official police garage. The manager stated a black Tesla Model X had been impounded as an abandoned vehicle by the Department of Transportation on September 5, 2025. The manager told police there was a strong smell of decay coming from the vehicle which was attracting flies. LAPD detectives responded to the Hollywood tow yard to investigate. Detectives approached the vehicle, which was parked on the upper deck of the impound lot, and immediately noticed a smell of decaying biological material consistent with the decomposing corpse coming from the front storage compartment of the vehicle. Detectives obtained a search warrant for the vehicle. And when the front storage compartment was opened, detectives observed a black cadaver bag covered with insects and a strong odor of decay. Utilizing black latex gloves, detectives partially unzipped the bag and observed a decomposed head and torso. Investigators and criminalists from the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiners responded to the tow yard to process the decomposed body. Upon removing the cadaver bag from the front storage compartment, it was discovered the arms and legs had been severed from the body. A second black bag was discovered underneath the cadaver bag. Upon opening the second bag, the dismembered body parts were discovered. So that is directly what it says in the court documents. On 16 September, the police confirmed that the body was that of Celeste Rivas Hernandez. Her body was discovered a day before what would have been her 15th birthday. Authorities say because of the level of decay, it appeared she had been dead for a few weeks. Now, family friends say that Celeste was a studious hard worker and intelligent. That she was always so quiet, shy and just a sweet child. But the question everybody has is what happened to Celeste?
