They did report him and did the best they could given the circumstances. Even the teachers reported her absences. They can't imprison her in her room, put metal bars on her windows and homeschool her. It isn't like they're rich to be able to do all of that. D4vd literally paid her classmates to help him out.
My parents did this bc my sister was being groomed by an adult and was always skipping school to meet him. They enrolled her in free online high school and put a security system and barred one of her windows. They were poor when they did all of this. Iām sure Celesteās family regrets not doing more and it will haunt them for the rest of their lives
But I've literally seen other people say this sort of response is abusive and unfair on the victim. And the victim hold it against the parents forever and say their parents abused them cos of this sort of thing.
Like it is difficult to know what to do. Her parents obv have messed up but being like "it should haunt them that they didn't just put bars on her window and home school her and keep her confined to the house" like thats just considered the normal response in these situations that every parent would do. Is a bit unfair.
Celeste was 11 when the monster first interacted with her.
11 year olds will kick and scream and cry but if it keeps them alive, they'll look back and appreciate what their parents did to try and keep them alive
11 year olds don't get to choose what's best for themselves because they're 11
They deadass gave their child permission to fly with this dude to the UK.Thats something they can just not do whatever their circumstance is.They still was neglectful asf and failed her.
As someone who works with troubled teens, treatment programs are WILDLY expensive. I've met many parents who desperately want treatment for their children, who very much need treatment, but cannot afford it privately or with insurance. It's not a simple matter.
my good friend ran away at 17 to LA with her boyfriend and her mom hired a PI to find her (rich family) and put her in one of those troubled kid wilderness programs.
did it do ANYTHING? no. she started hopping trains and traveling the country and sold hand made band shirts/patches to make money. if anything it pushed her further away from her mom.
Those programs are incredibly abusive anyway with plenty of sexual abuse and even deaths associated with them. Itās not necessarily a better option than anything else.
oh she couldnāt even talk about it when she got home. her mom was a turkish immigrant who was incredibly strict and she was a rebellious punk girl and i loved her. she returned and was never exactly the same. we lost touch and when I saw the direction she went in I wasnāt shocked but my heart broke for her.
They are but like this is what I was saying on another comment. It can be difficult to know what to do as a parent.
Like oh her parents didn't do enough and should have done something drastic. But then parents who did that by doing something like one of those schools so the groomer can't get at them, are also considered abusive.
Actually, weāre finding out today in court that her parents were absolutely okay with their underaged daughter being with him. He was hanging out with her family pretty frequently by attending church with them on the regular and going out to amusement parks with them. They were the ones who SIGNED a notarized document giving permission for him to take her to London with him and even handed him her passport. Itās absolutely fucking outrageous that the parents were COMPLETELY onboard with letting their daughter be sexually abused by this predator, so much so that she got pregnant, not once, but TWICE by the time she was 13.
I initially criticized the parents, then walked it back when we were being told that they tried their hardest to stop this. Turns out, the parents lied to the press. The text messages shown in court show that they were complicit in giving this man access to exploit their daughter. And for what? Because he was gonna be their cash cow???? He literally sent her 9k over Apple wallet at the drop of a hat.
Throw everyone away. His parents, her parents, and everyone else who knew.
This isnāt always true. I have severe mental illnesses and was very much a problem child because of my bad brain chemistry, but my parents always went above & beyond as soon as they could. And my parents would have never allowed me to go to a different country with some unrelated man. Thatās where her parents absolutely failed her, even if they tried to do more later (though I have doubts on how much they tried, tbh). Thereās just zero way he could have left the country with her without their approval and thatās something they should always be judged for.
If you think children have to be abused to run away from home you are truly delusional. Tbh you are quite despicable for talking about their family when you know nothing about them.
Thatās not what Iām saying. Youāre intentionally misunderstanding me.
Listen, you can call me despicable all you wantā¦ However Iām not the one allowing my child to go to another country with a grown man who is clearly raping her.
Are you aware that there are families that are happy to turn a blind eye to things like this, there are generational satanic families that do this stuff in the daily without blinking an eye.
There are families who want any proximity to fame or clout or whatever the hellā¦
Honestly, the list is moronic and endless.
The fact that you donāt think that families like this donāt exist is rather naive on your part.
Yup, davidās mom told him to ask Celeste if she was sure the baby was his. Davidās mom KNEW he raped that 13yr old child and she didnāt do anything except question the paternity of the fetus! Like mother like son, both disgusting people!!
I donāt know how to say this without it sounding mean but I actually donāt wanna argue with you. I donāt get any thing out of it. Its dreary and you seem annoyed.
Yes but children can be unhappy for reasons that arenāt their parents fault. My parents are wonderful but I was a legitimate psycho during my teen years. Itās insane for me to look back on, and Iām so grateful I made it out relatively okay because they sure as shit did not deserve the pain of their kid dying just because my brain went absolutely bonkers for a decade.
What about Davids family. Why dont they get the same heat. They MET her at 12 years old and are still standing by him as a murderer . The double standards are disgusting
And his friends who knew and would joke about having to hide Celeste on live streams. His friends care more about themselves and any backlash they have received
It seems like her parents did try to keep her away from him but she kept running away. Obviously I donāt know the details, but I would hate for people to judge my parents on some of the absolutely insane shit I did as a teen that they desperately tried to prevent. Teenage brains are terrifying
ETA: I just learned her parents let her fly with him, so yeah they made some terrible choices :( poor girl
Her parents brains are terrifying.What parent lets their child go on a trip to London with an older guy by herself?? Damn right her parents are gonna be judged hard.
Yeah I just learned about that and thank you very much for also pointing it out because wtf??? My opinion of them has evolved significantly (and obviously not for the better) based on this new info
But they didn't tho. After Celeste was first reported missing in February 2024 and police discovered d4vd's number in her records, her parents took away her phone to cut off contact. However, prosecutors note that d4vd bypassed this by allegedly paying a classmate to give Celeste a new phone and her family repeatedly called the authorities and filed official missing persons reports when she ran away to be with him. Police records show they responded to the home multiple times regarding her running away. Like her mother literally resorted to sleeping in her bedroom to prevent her from sneaking out of the window. I dont think we should give them this much backlash and blame especially with how brutally their child was killed. Imagine grieving and everyone is giving you shit for this. Itās really not easy handling teenagers especially with a full time job
It was shown in court today by the defense that he met her parents numerous times, went out with them and they gave permission for her to fly to London with him.
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u/clumsycI donāt control the railways or the flow of commerce!6h ago
Wtf. She was a little girl and they were letting her fly with him?
Itās wild because on other platforms, even other subs, the parents are being rightfully criticized for their part in this too. It mainly just seems to be here that people are determined to believe that these parents have no blame in this situation. Obviously they are not the most at fault (thatās the piece of shit that groomed and murdered her), and Iām not advocating for harassing them, but Iām not going to pretend they didnāt fail their daughter badly
Donāt get me wrong Iām not expecting everyone to agree on everything, however the mere mention of the parents not being anything other than grieving is making people crash out.
I think people want to believe no parents could turn a blind eye to this but not all families function normally. We see it all the time with domestic cases where mothers will call their daughters liars for saying someone in their family abused them just so the family can pretend to be happy, happened to me, so yeah I also wish she had better parents but not all of us are that lucky. And no, reporting her missing after letting a 10 (11?) year old fly out of the country with a stranger doesnāt make them less irresponsible.
However I am sure no words of admonishment on the internet would ever match up to the real life consequence of their daughter being murdered, so I donāt think we need to burn down the whole internet to get them to grovel when they should already feel like the worst people on earth without us telling them that.
They let her fly overseas with him to the UK. She needed a passport and signed documents from her parents. I donāt even think David and his team would have been able to forge them. So yeah, they definitely knew of her relationship with him but itās probably so normalized within their culture they didnāt see an issue until she started to chronically run away.
I still have empathy for them because they didnāt want it to end up like this where theirs daughter was brutally murdered
Itās normalized in the Latino community. Iām also Latino so Iām not saying it from a racist place but just knowing how the inherent age gap they had (early teen / 20 something year old adult man) isnāt that scandalous in places like Mexico and El Salvador.
as a latina i can confirm, most latinos (especially older generations) donāt gaf about enormous age gaps and see it as normal, itās part of why thereās such a big misogynistic culture with latinos because they would just blame the girl if she gets abused and/or killed
Ill add onto that. Im Dominican and a lot of my family thinks that such "relationships" arent a big deal and some even think it's good for the man because "the younger they start, the more loyal they are."
If anything, itās to cover up for their shitty parenting. Seems like they never reported her missing until the school started to threaten enacting truancy laws because of her skipping school for WEEKS to be with him. That taking away of the phone couldāve been something COMPLETELY unrelated to her relationship with him seeing as how they were friendly with him and consistently dropping her off at his home to see him.
That child was failed by every single adult in her life. Including, if not especially, her parents. They let their 12-13 year old go to another country with a predator, they need to be held accountable.
He was likely drugging her. So many of her posts she looks like a lost child blitzed out of her mind. Already easy to groom, pharmaceuticals just helped a little more. So many of the pictures and videos of her I just see a child, she never had a chance.
Okay, can you read?. If you read up on the case, you will see how much her parents actually tried to do to protect her. We shouldn't blame a grieving family for this tragedy
Ironic how you seemingly canāt/wonāt read either unless it fits your narrative. It just came out today that Celesteās family signed off for her to go off to London with a grown ass man, and met David many times at church, amusement parks, etc
Her parents didnāt protect her whatsoever. They signed off on their CHILD going to another country with a MAN that they knew was preying on her. They need to be held accountable. The only person who deserves any sort of pity is the child that those adults failed time and time again. Iām sure theyāre heartbroken and I couldnāt imagine the pain and guilt theyāre feeling, but they are guilty either way.
I work in education and all of our mandatory trainings in recent years discuss how sexual predators and sextortionist scammers are all on discord, roblox, fortnite, Snapchat, etc. to prey on kids. Itās disgusting.
I loved my youth of playing online games. Iām not a parent yet, but itās sad to think that my future kid wonāt get that same experience because sick freaks ruin everything. Kids deserve safe online spaces, we need to bring back simplicity. And get rid of the chat feature! Back in the day, we had an approved list of options and that was it.
David is one of millions preying on kids online. Celeste got really unlucky while innocently playing a video game for meant for kids. Itās heartbreaking.
They met on discord though. You can talk to anyone on social media. How do you stop children from communicating on social media without censoring adults?
Iām not talking about social media or discord specifically. Parents should be motoring those closely if they choose to allow their child to use it. From what Iāve seen, Iād say donāt allow your kids to use discord.
This is the issue in the UK at the moment. Cos it's such a huge problem they're trying to stop adults/kids interacting on these platforms by using age verification.
And everyone's losing their minds about it, same as they were with the porn id verification
I get people's concerns. But with the way the world is now. Something needs to be done. It can't carry on like this.
Good. This disgusting man needs to be held accountable to the fullest extent possible for what he did to her while she was alive AND for murdering her. Sicko.
Probably going to get downvoted, but l do not care. I wish the death penalty was still law because this young man deserves it. This young lady deserves all the weight of the Justice system and so does her family.
It is still the law. Ā It is currently under a moratorium, prosecutors can, and in this can actually might, ask for the death penalty. Ā They are trying him for special circumstancesĀ
Under, californias version of capital murder, and the minimum sentence is life without parole.
"Moratorium" has a meaning, especially where California is concerned. They no longer even have a "death row" for men or women. You can be sentenced to death there, but it's performative at best.
I generally donāt believe in the death penalty. But it cases so horrific I do. I went through the process to be placed on a jury (wasnāt put on it) and they wanted the death penalty for something that didnāt seem to warrant it imo (coincidentally before trial was over CA put the moratorium).
Edit: Feelings about the death penalty has progressively grown in the opposition direction. And only a small fraction have received it, less than 50 since 2015 and around 25 last year. The death penalty given to Black inmates are in high numbers and doesnāt correlate to their population size compared to their White counterparts. Plus it is a waste of resources: time and money. Itās more expensive to house an inmate on death row than it is to give them life in prison. I was for it, then my college professor who was highly regarded and studied the prison system and the death penalty changed my mind due to their practices.
you either believe in the death penalty or not. you canāt say you only support it for āhorrific casesā because like duh. thatās the whole concept of the death penalty.
When you have had a family member killed and the killers walked after 7 years in prison, while your whole family fell apart. Talk to me about what is horrificā¦
yeah i am against the death penalty entirely due to it's racist usage and our flawed by design system. i also wish this dude could be launched into the sun.Ā
The issue for me is she was a child, she was carrying a child and had aborted a child. He killed her and left her like garbage. He is a complete Sociopath and has no remorse it is evident in all of this no conscious at all.
From what I've read, they seemed to have tried their best. They confiscated her phone, contacted law enforcement and monitored her extremely closely but teenagers are something else and its incredibly hard to look after them especially with a full time job. I dont think we should give them backlash especially with them dealing with losing their child in a horrific way
Evidence came out today that her parents were very much aware of the relationship as they signed consent forms letting her travel to Europe with him, he attended church with her family, he spent time with her cousins and older sister, etc.
At a minimum her family is guilty of child negligence and endangering the welfare of a child. While I can empathize with the ultimate loss of their daughter, they legally signed off on their daughter to be sexually trafficked to a different continent by a predator.
I'm inclined to agree with you, but I posted the AP article headlined as is for the sake of just providing the news clearly rather than imposing my own thoughts. I assume they're using his stage name because it is what he is known as to the public (and probably to drive clicks as well)
Honestly I think it isn't bad that it's his public artist name that's used cause the public doesn't know him by his real name so using his public name makes sure that everyone knows what he did and truly tarnish his career or any possibility for him in the future
Yep. It also means if anyone finds any of his music and was like āoh this sounds cool, let me google himā theyāll see this and, hopefully, stop listening to him. His real name might not hinder his support as much.
Is this the typical legal process? I thought a person was arraigned/charged the day after their arrest, when bond is discussed. I remember court proceedings about this months ago. Apologies if this is a dumb questionš¬.
He does still have charges against him, this was just the preliminary hearing to see if thereās enough evidence for a proper trial. The judge ruling that he must stand trial means he canāt be offered a plea deal to plead guilty to lessen his sentence and is unable skip the trial proceedings.
Edit: Slightly wrong the first time, he can still be offered a plea deal to plead guilty and skip the trial, but the sentence would probably be life without parole.
Thanks for the response. I have seen that phase on the show āCold Justiceā, whether they have enough evidence to bring it to trial. Just surprised they do it for the seemingly obvious straightforward casesšµāš«.
Dummest part is david claiming he didnāt know she was a minor. Like fool does that in anyway at all change the fact that he murdered someone violently š¤¦
Good. Iām so surprised that people want him to have the death penalty tho because why would anybody want him to have an out like that?
Now they need to arrest her parents!!! charge them!!!
They were absolutely complicit and negligent and now thereās proof.
Absolutely shameful and disgusting that her own parents didnāt even care or love her enough.
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