David Anthony Burke, an American singer better known by his stage name “D4vd”, has been arrested in Los Angeles on charges of murdering a 14-year-old girl. The young woman’s body, dismembered and in an advanced state of decomposition, was found last year, in September, in the trunk of an apparently abandoned Tesla, registered to him. Celeste Rivas Hernandez has not been heard from since April 2024.
D4vd and Celeste Rivas Hernandez
In a brief statement, the Los Angeles police said that the Houston, Texas-born singer, an idol of Generation Z for his ability to blend indie rock, R&B and lo-fi pop, “was held without the possibility of bail.” “The evidence will show that David Burke did not kill the girl, and is not the cause of her death,” the singer’s lawyers wrote in an email to the Associated Press agency.
D4vd had been under investigation since last September by a Los Angeles County grand jury looking into the death of Celeste Rivas Hernandez.
The car removed with a tow truck
The case began on September 8 last year, when a 2023 Tesla Model Y, apparently abandoned in a residential neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills, was towed away and taken to a court yard. During the search of the car, horror: a black bag wrapped in insects was found in the trunk. Inside, investigators discovered the victim’s torso and head in an advanced state of decomposition. A second bag, hidden under the first, contained the girl’s dismembered limbs.
Celeste Rivas Hernandez was reported missing last year, and was last seen in April 2024 in Lake Elsinore, about 96 kilometers southeast of Los Angeles, CNN reported. The investigation was officially secret, but its existence – and the identification of D4vd as the suspect – emerged after an appeal filed in Texas by the singer’s parents and brother. The three family members received subpoenas on January 15 to testify before the grand jury, but they reportedly refused to cooperate.
In legal documents seen by The Associated Press, prosecutors explicitly name David Burke as the “primary target” of the investigation.