The investigation into the brutal death of 13-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez is a case where methodical police work meets modern-day digital chaos. It is a heartbreaking saga that has captivated the public, spurred amateur online detectives into action, and brought to light the sophisticated, yet difficult, strategies prosecutors must now employ to build an unassailable case.

Though the public’s thirst for immediate justice is intense, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has, according to legal experts, been exercising a critical degree of patience. Matt Murphy, a former Senior Deputy District Attorney in Orange County, has repeatedly affirmed that the police are “taking their time… crossing their T’s and dotting their I’s,” a methodical approach necessary to counter potential future “insane defense theories” that juries in LA have sometimes entertained. The stakes are immense: the life of a young girl was violently and brutally cut short, her body later found dismembered, and the evidence must be airtight to overcome the legal gauntlet ahead.

This is not simply a murder investigation; it is a complex, multi-layered case involving the most sensitive issues of sexual abuse, digital crime, and the difficulties of forensic identification.

The Digital Crime Scene and the Chilling Law

The first seismic crack in the suspect’s presumed innocence is entirely digital. Following the recovery of the victim and the identification of a primary suspect—a male who had an alleged “close relationship, perhaps romantic” with the 13-year-old—investigators moved swiftly to seize electronic evidence, including computers and tablets. This action, experts argue, is the foundation of a parallel and equally devastating case: child molestation.

Under California law, the distinction between a 13-year-old and a 14-year-old is a “big line” with profound legal consequences. The most severe charge, 288a of the California Penal Code, deals with lewd contact with a minor aged 13 or under. Crucially, as former DA Matt Murphy points out, this charge can be fully prosecuted based on online behavior alone.

In the modern era, digital interactions can constitute a completed child molestation case even if the adult and child have never met and there was “no physical contact.” This means if the adult was “sexting” with the 13-year-old, or “directing a child to perform certain acts online,” the act is prosecutable as a completed child molestation. The seizure of these tablets and computers is therefore one of the most vital steps in the entire investigation, placing a tremendous burden on the often “overworked, underpaid forensic technologist” currently sifting through phones and data for any evidence of that relationship.

This digital trail is the prosecution’s first line of attack, ensuring that even if the evidence on the homicide charge presents obstacles, the suspect can still face the full force of the law for the crimes of digital grooming and sexual abuse.

The Problem of Homicide: Prosecuting Without a Cause of Death

The investigation faces one immediate, brutal obstacle: the difficulty in determining an official cause of death (COD). With a dismembered, heavily decomposed body, traditional forensic pathways are severely challenged. While the act of dismemberment itself confirms that a crime occurred, the specific cause of death remains elusive, and experts suggest it will be “tough to tell.” This uncertainty opens the door to numerous defense theories, including the possibility that the victim died by suicide or an accidental drug overdose, as has been seen in other cases.

However, the lack of a definitive cause of death does not preclude a murder prosecution. Experienced prosecutors have successfully navigated “nobody cases”—homicides prosecuted without a recovered body or a clear COD. In the case of Celeste Hernandez, the forensic team would focus on more resilient evidence.

Key to this strategy is the examination of certain bones. For instance, the hyoid bone in the neck, which is consistent with strangulation, is a crucial piece of evidence that “doesn’t go away with decomposition.” Furthermore, if the head has been recovered, the medical examiner can search for petechial hemorrhaging in the eyes, which also strongly indicates strangulation. Any marks on the recovered bone fragments would be scrutinized for signs consistent with stabbing. In short, the LAPD and the LA County coroner are dedicating resources to these specialized forensic paths to ensure that the circumstances of her death—and the intent of the killer—can be established even if a toxicology report is inconclusive or a traditional COD is not found.

The Suspect’s Fatal, Amateur Mistakes

The case is also rife with devastating circumstantial evidence, much of it pointing to a chilling lack of planning and a deep sense of personal entitlement on the part of the suspect.

One of the most profound pieces of evidence is the existence of a song the suspect allegedly wrote, titled “A Romantic Homicide,” which was created long before the victim’s death. This chilling detail, publicly surfaced by the online community, suggests a fixation that may be interpreted by a jury as a prophetic intention or a disturbing confession.

Furthermore, the physical disposal of the body was marked by colossal errors. The car allegedly used to transport the dismembered remains was found parked only “one minute away” from the suspect’s home. This act, experts argue, speaks to the inexperience and panic of the perpetrator. As Mr. Murphy notes, when discussing the common question of who would be “stupid enough to put the dead body in the trunk of their own car,” the answer is often “most murderers,” especially when they kill for the first time—they “make a million mistakes.” The proximity of the vehicle is such a fundamental error that investigators have focused on the possibility of seizing data from the car itself. Given the prevalence of high-tech vehicles with cameras, like Teslas, investigators are highly curious to see if a “video on the data recorder of that car” could show the driver’s identity, providing yet another definitive piece of evidence.

Gumshoe Policing and the Online Vortex

The investigation represents a perfect intersection of classic “gumshoe police work” and modern digital forensics. While the LAPD’s specialized units are forensically working up the house, looking for the victim’s DNA and any instruments used for the dismemberment, detectives are simultaneously executing old-school strategies. They are dedicating their time to “interviewing every single person they can find that was in his orbit”—friends, family, and acquaintances who knew about the relationship, its circumstances, and any potential conflict.

Coexisting with the official investigation is the volatile, yet sometimes useful, world of online sleuthing. With the chilling precedent of cases like the one chronicled in the documentary Don’t F**k with Cats, the online community has been actively running down every possible theory: that Celeste was pregnant, that she had overdosed, or that the tragedy was orchestrated by someone in the entertainment industry. While some of these theories are baseless, the LAPD is compelled to run down all credible leads. The scrutiny is constant, and the immense public pressure demands transparency and swift action.

For the LAPD, the resources are being devoted and the timeline, though slow for the grieving public, is dictated by the painstaking process of accumulating irrefutable evidence. With circumstantial evidence already pointing to a “close relationship” and the forensic evidence being aggressively pursued—from the digital trail to the hyoid bone—legal experts anticipate that the final pieces will “fit together here pretty soon.” The killer, making one amateur mistake after another, has likely trapped himself with a trail of digital and physical evidence that will ultimately lead to his long-awaited arrest.