Singer D4vd has been charged with homicide within the loss of life of a lacking 14-year-old woman whose decomposed physique was discovered within the trunk of a Tesla registered to him final 12 months, prosecutors mentioned Monday.
The Los Angeles County District Legal professional’s Workplace mentioned D4vd, whose authorized title is David Burke, was charged with first-degree homicide, lewd and lascivious acts with a person underneath 14 and mutilating a physique within the killing of Celeste Rivas Hernandez. She was reported lacking by her household in 2024, when she was 13. Authorities say she was 14 when she died.
The homicide prices included particular circumstances — mendacity in wait, committing crime for monetary achieve and murdering the witness in an investigation — that would carry the loss of life penalty. Prosecutors haven’t introduced whether or not they’ll search it.
Los Angeles County District Legal professional Nathan Hochman mentioned Rivas was final heard from on April 23, 2025 after she went to Burke’s house within the Hollywood Hills and “she was by no means heard from once more.”
“A mother or father’s nightmare is a scenario the place your daughter goes out one night time and by no means comes again,” Hochman mentioned.
Los Angeles district legal professional Nathan Hochman solutions questions Monday, April 20, 2026, in Los Angeles concerning the case of singer D4vd, who was charged on suspicion of killing a 14-year-old woman whose dismembered physique was present in his automotive.
AP Picture/Damian Dovarganes
“Celeste was only a baby, underneath 14 years outdated, when David Burke allegedly engaged in repeated lewd and lascivious sexual relations together with her,” Hochman continued. “However Burke’s actions didn’t allegedly cease there. When she threatened to show his legal conduct and devastate his musical profession, Burke allegedly murdered her, reduce up her physique and stuffed her physique in two luggage that had been positioned within the entrance trunk of his automotive.”
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“There the dismembered physique sat for over 4 months decomposing till it was discovered at a tow yard on Sept. 8, 2025. This horrific and grotesque homicide dedicated by the charged sexual predator is stunning and appalling. To Celeste’s family members, we are going to get the justice you search and deserve,” Hochman added.
Los Angeles Police Division (LAPD) Chief Jim McDonnell acknowledged the criticism his division has confronted for not releasing particulars of the investigation sooner through the information convention.
“I need to be clear about one thing. My obligation is to not gas hypothesis. It’s to ship justice, and that requires persistence and self-discipline on all people’s half,” McDonnell mentioned.
“This investigation was pushed by a single function to safe justice for Celeste Rivas and for many who beloved her. We had to make sure that nothing we did or mentioned would ever jeopardize this case,” he added.
World Information has reached out to the Los Angeles County District Legal professional’s Workplace for additional remark.
A mugshot of David Anthony Burke, whose stage title is D4vd, is displayed Monday, April 20, 2026, in Los Angeles at a press convention concerning the case of D4vd, who was arrested on suspicion of killing a 14-year-old woman whose dismembered physique was present in his automotive.
AP Picture/Damian Dovarganes
Burke’s defence attorneys, Blair Berk, Marilyn Bednarski and Regina Peter, mentioned he was harmless in a press release after murder detectives arrested him on April 16.
“Allow us to be clear — the precise proof on this case will present that David Burke didn’t homicide Celeste Rivas Hernandez and he was not the reason for her loss of life,” his attorneys mentioned on the time. “We are going to vigorously defend David’s innocence.”
Authorities didn’t publicly title Burke as a suspect till his arrest. He was being held in jail with out bond.
In February, Burke was named the goal of a Los Angeles County grand jury investigation into the killing of Rivas, in response to court docket paperwork.
Prosecutors described the 21-year-old Houston-born singer because the goal of the investigation in grand jury subpoenas issued Jan. 15 looking for to have three of his kinfolk testify.
The paperwork, obtained and seen by World Information, had been sealed in California, the place the grand jury investigation had been stored secret. They had been later made public by an enchantment of the subpoenas in Texas from Burke’s mom, father and brother, who had been ordered to look earlier than a Los Angeles grand jury on Feb. 11.
The Tesla through which the physique of Hernandez was discovered was registered in his title on the deal with of his subpoenaed members of the family, the court docket filings say.
Rivas’ physique was discovered on Sept. 8, a day after she would have turned 15. She was a 13-year-old seventh grader when her household reported her lacking in 2024 from her hometown of Lake Elsinore, about 112 kilometres southeast of Los Angeles.
The submitting states that Rivas “could have been the sufferer of foul play.”
Her physique was “severely decomposed,” stuffed inside a bag within the trunk of the Tesla. The automotive was initially impounded after it had been parked on a Hollywood Hills road for greater than 72 hours.
The subpoena says police investigators looking out the 2023 Tesla Mannequin Y in a tow yard discovered a cadaver bag “lined with bugs and a robust odor of decay.”
“Detectives approached the car which was parked on the higher deck of the impound lot and instantly observed a odor of decaying organic materials according to a decomposing corpse coming from the entrance storage compartment of the car,” the paperwork say.
“Detectives partially unzipped the bag and noticed a decomposed head and torso,” the subpoena says.
“Upon eradicating the cadaver bag from the entrance storage compartment, it was found the legs and arms had been severed from the physique,” the doc says. “A second black bag was found beneath the cadaver bag. Upon opening the second bag, the dismembered physique components had been found.”
A consultant for the Romantic Murder singer launched a press release in September 2025 saying that Burke had “been knowledgeable about what’s occurred” and that he was “totally cooperating with the authorities.”
Burke was on the North American leg of his worldwide tour on the time of the physique’s discovery. He cancelled the remaining dates of his U.S. tour amid the investigation.
— With recordsdata from The Related Press
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