The murder case involving singer D4vd began Tuesday with a preliminary hearing during which prosecutors claimed he ordered a body bag, chainsaws, an inflatable pool and a shovel online days after the death of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez.
The 21-year-old singer has been charged with murder in the killing of Rivas Hernandez, whose decomposed body was found in the trunk of a Tesla registered to him last year.
Prosecutors said the Romantic Homicide singer, whose legal name is David Burke, used the items to dismember Rivas Hernandez’s body after he had allegedly stabbed her to death for threatening to reveal their relationship and ruin his music career, according to The Associated Press.
On the first day of the preliminary hearing, homicide detective Joshua Byers testified that Burke used the alias Trayvion Davis to order the items but purchased them with his own credit cards and had them delivered to his Hollywood home.
Burke has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, continuous sexual abuse of a child under the age of 14 and unlawful mutilation of human remains in April and is being held without bond ahead of his trial.
Byers said most of the items, including two of the three chainsaws and a blue pool, were found in Burke’s garage when a warrant was served.
Prosecutors also said that a blood stain in the garage matched Rivas Hernandez’s DNA.
Byers told the court that the body bag Burke ordered matched the one that contained the head and torso of Rivas Hernandez in the trunk of the Tesla registered to Burke.
Burke’s lawyer, Blair Berk, pressed Byers about whether the body bag was tested to tie it to the defendant.
Byers said the medical examiner at the scene told him the bag could not be taken into evidence because the body was so decomposed it could not be removed from it.
Rolling Stone reports that Burke showed no emotion Tuesday as he stared at photos of Rivas Hernandez’s decomposed remains.
Lead prosecutor Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman shared the photos on a large screen in the Los Angeles courtroom during the hearing and showed Rivas Hernandez’s limbless torso in a black plastic bag. Her dismembered arms and legs were shown in another image, the outlet reports.
Another image showed Rivas Hernandez’s right knee with flecks of blue plastic that prosecutors said came from the inflatable pool that Burke allegedly used to collect blood while dismembering her body.
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A picture of the victim’s right index finger with a “Shhh…” tattoo was also shown in court. Burke has the same tattoo on his index finger as well.
Byers also testified that Burke “had a tattoo of the name Celeste on his left right finger.”
Rivas Hernandez’s mother, Mercedes Martínez, was present in the courtroom and reportedly bowed her head and looked away as the images were shown.
Her father, Jesus Rivas, reportedly looked at the screen and repeatedly checked on Martínez as the images were displayed.
Prosecutors shared a body camera video from February 2024 with Burke speaking to officers who were investigating after Rivas Hernandez was reported missing.
Burke told the officers that he had only met Rivas Hernandez once in person and claimed that he didn’t know she was a minor.
“She told me she was 18,” Burke said in the video. “Everybody’s telling me she was 13.”
In a court filing, viewed and obtained by The Associated Press, it alleges that Burke began a sexual relationship with her when she was 13 and he was 18, and killed her when she threatened to reveal their inappropriate relationship.
Global News has not independently viewed the court filing.
“Knowing he had to silence the victim before she ruined his music career as she had threatened, very soon after her arrival at his home, defendant stabbed the victim to death multiple times and stood by while she bled out,” the filings allege.
During Tuesday’s hearing, the body camera footage showed Burke saying that he met the girl as a fan online on Discord and Instagram in 2020 or 2021.
LA County Sheriff’s Deputy Juan Gonzalez, whose body camera video was shown, testified that Burke had been extremely co-operative and allowed him and his partner to search the house.
Tuesday’s preliminary hearing was the first public presentation of evidence against Burke.
A judge is expected to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to allow the case to proceed to trial following the hearing, which is expected to last three to five days.
“We believe we will more than accomplish the evidentiary burden of probable cause at this point to hold D4vd to answer on these three felony charges,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said outside the courthouse on Tuesday.
“When — we do not predict if — when he is convicted, we will then be seeking the sentence that we are allowed to seek by order of the law and we will let you know at a future date whether or not that sentence will also include the death penalty,” Hochman added.
Hochman noted that his team is not obligated to present all the evidence that they will be sharing at the trial during the preliminary hearing.
“At the preliminary hearing we will call a number of officers. We estimate there will be over 10 different witnesses. Both officer testimony, coroner testimony and there will be individual witnesses as well,” he added.
Last month, a preliminary hearing for the murder case was postponed until the end of July during a court proceeding in Los Angeles.
Burke appeared in court for a status hearing on June 17, when the decision to delay the hearing until July 21 was announced after his defence team asked for more time.
In May, the preliminary hearing for the murder case was delayed until the end of June due to the amount of new evidence in the case and was set to begin on June 29.
Deputy District Attorney Silverman told the court that prosecutors have already turned over more than 10 terabytes of digital evidence, including materials found as part of a series of search warrants executed on the singer’s phone and iCloud account.
Silverman said prosecutors were continuing to upload evidence and added that the overall discovery could exceed 40 terabytes.
Burke’s preliminary hearing was also previously rescheduled for May 26 after it had originally been set to begin on May 1.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office previously announced that Burke was charged with first-degree murder, lewd and lascivious acts with an individual under 14 and mutilating a body in the killing of 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 a 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.
—With files from The Associated Press