Singer D4vd has been charged with murder in the death of a missing 14-year-old girl whose decomposed body was found in the trunk of a Tesla registered to him last year, prosecutors said Monday.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said D4vd, whose legal name is David Burke, was charged with first-degree murder, lewd and lascivious acts with an individual under 14 and mutilating a body in the killing of Celeste Rivas Hernandez. She was reported missing by her family in 2024, when she was 13. Authorities say she was 14 when she died.
The murder charges included special circumstances — lying in wait, committing crime for financial gain and murdering the witness in an investigation — that could carry the death penalty. Prosecutors haven’t announced whether they will seek it.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said that on April 23, 2025, Rivas went to Burke’s home in the Hollywood Hills and “she was never heard from again.”
“A parent’s nightmare is a situation where your daughter goes out one night and never comes back,” Hochman said.
Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Chief Jim McDonnell acknowledged the criticism his department has faced during the news conference.
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“I want to be clear about something. My duty is not to fuel speculation. It’s to deliver justice, and that requires patience and discipline on everybody’s part,” McDonnell said.
“This investigation was driven by a single purpose to secure justice for Celeste Rivas and for those who loved her. We had to be certain that nothing we did or said would ever jeopardize this case,” he added.
Global News has reached out to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office for further comment.
Burke’s defence lawyers, Blair Berk, Marilyn Bednarski and Regina Peter, said he was innocent in a statement after homicide detectives arrested him on April 16.
“Let us be clear — the actual evidence in this case will show that David Burke did not murder Celeste Rivas Hernandez and he was not the cause of her death,” his lawyers said at the time. “We will vigorously defend David’s innocence.”
Authorities did not publicly name Burke as a suspect until his arrest. He was being held in jail without bond.
In February, Burke was named the target of a Los Angeles County grand jury investigation into the killing of Rivas, according to court documents.
Prosecutors described the 21-year-old Houston-born singer as the target of the investigation in grand jury subpoenas issued Jan. 15 seeking to have three of his relatives testify.
The documents, obtained and viewed by Global News, were sealed in California, where the grand jury investigation had been kept secret. They were later made public by an appeal of the subpoenas in Texas from Burke’s mother, father and brother, who were ordered to appear before a Los Angeles grand jury on Feb. 11.
The Tesla in which the body of Hernandez was found was registered in his name at the address of his subpoenaed family members, the court filings say.
Rivas’ body was found on Sept. 8, a day after she would have turned 15. She was a 13-year-old seventh grader when her family reported her missing in 2024 from her hometown of Lake Elsinore, about 112 kilometres southeast of Los Angeles.
The filing states that Rivas “may have been the victim of foul play.”
Her body was “severely decomposed,” stuffed inside a bag in the trunk of the Tesla. The car was originally impounded after it had been parked on a Hollywood Hills street for more than 72 hours.
The subpoena says police investigators searching the 2023 Tesla Model Y in a tow yard found a cadaver bag “covered with insects and a strong odor of decay.”
“Detectives approached the vehicle which was parked on the upper deck of the impound lot and immediately noticed a smell of decaying biological material consistent with a decomposing corpse coming from the front storage compartment of the vehicle,” the documents say.
“Detectives partially unzipped the bag and observed a decomposed head and torso,” the subpoena says.
“Upon removing the cadaver bag from the front storage compartment, it was discovered the arms and legs had been severed from the body,” the document says. “A second black bag was discovered underneath the cadaver bag. Upon opening the second bag, the dismembered body parts were discovered.”
A representative for the Romantic Homicide singer released a statement in September 2025 saying that Burke had “been informed about what’s happened” and that he was “fully cooperating with the authorities.”
Burke was on the North American leg of his international tour at the time of the body’s discovery. He cancelled the remaining dates of his U.S. tour amid the investigation.
— With files from The Associated Press
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