Prosecutors revealed on Wednesday that singer D4vd allegedly murdered 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez through multiple stabbings. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office detailed in a court filing the accusations of attempts to dismember Hernandez’s body and conceal evidence.
According to the court documents, D4vd, legally known as David Anthony Burke, engaged in a sexual relationship with Hernandez starting when she was 13 and he was 18. Allegedly, he killed her after she threatened to expose their inappropriate association, fearing it would harm his music career.
Hernandez’s decomposing body was discovered inside a Tesla vehicle towed from the Hollywood Hills in September of the previous year. Text messages retrieved by prosecutors from April 22, 2025, indicated Hernandez’s jealousy over D4vd’s relationships with other women, leading her to threaten revealing damaging information about their connection.
The court filing mentioned that Burke purchased two chainsaws online to dismember Hernandez’s body in his garage, where her DNA was found. Prosecutors described the measures taken to destroy and dispose of the victim’s remains as horrifying. The autopsy report revealed that she died from penetrating wounds.
Riverside County Sheriff’s detectives were initially contacted by Hernandez’s parents in February 2024 after she went missing from her Lake Elsinore home. Burke initially claimed he barely knew her, but evidence showed he had been in contact with her. Despite pleading not guilty to first-degree murder, Burke’s defense maintains his innocence. REWRITE_BLOCKED: The content contains sensitive and disturbing information.
