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.

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.

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, you have a pr problem.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Now I want to stop right there and you and I just talk about runaways for a minute.

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, 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.

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.

It's a mystery.

When they first came out, Oh, they were so beautiful now their planet woo.

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.

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 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.

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, 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.

And to your point, nobody just ditches that car.

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 of cases where the FEDS figured out, you just turn on the microphone if you got a warrant.

That's right, that's right, that's right.

There are a couple of sporty cases that in that line.

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.

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 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.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

Where was the see something, say something?

Universe?

Right?

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.

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 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 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.

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 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 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 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 that's on the street, They don't meet them in any situation that's not a bad one.

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 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 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 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 into the private presence of predators.

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 you and I grew up, our neighbors would correct us, don't you get in that car with that fool boy.

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 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 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 we've just lost.

I think that's the cost of growth.

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 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.

Know those years I just have one enter in high school.

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 know he's talking to a fifteen year old girl.

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 a just.

Fool, right, and especially when every other man is going, yeah, not a shot, no chance.

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.

To look because here's the reality.

Men, no other.

Men, Oh well that's the that's the issue.

We may go.

Oh my gosh.

All sex related cases.

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 years and he's still looking for a job.

But he's gonna.

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 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 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 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, 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.

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 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 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, 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.

So we have another primary crime scene.

You can't clean.

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 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 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.

That's true.

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, 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 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.

And Steve knows where the keys are to the tesla.

He knew I was going to be out of town on tour.

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 main news wire yet, but this is going to be a big fascination because there's too many questions.

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 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 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.

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 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.

The cover up's the first lie.

Yeah, the loosening that you don't even understand, or flapping in the wind.

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.

Absolutely, because you're talking about a headless torso with no.

And now you've left a lot of evidence.

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.

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.

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, 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.

It was a it was a gold star week for parents and true crime.

We wouldn't know anything.

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 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.

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 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 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 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.

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.

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 Zone Saven.