LOS ANGELES (CNS) -- A police criminalist testified Thursday that testing on evidence seized from singer D4vd's rented Hollywood Hills home showed a DNA profile consistent with that of a 14-year-old girl whose dismembered remains were found in the front trunk of the entertainer's Tesla.
In the third day of a hearing to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to require the 21-year-old singer to stand trial on murder and other charges, Los Angeles Police Department criminalist Samantha Tosch told Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo that DNA collected from apparent blood stains on evidence, including a rowing machine, a green tarp, and a Tesla charger plug discovered in the home's garage were one septillion times—meaning one followed by 24 zeroes—more likely to occur if the DNA was from Celeste Rivas Hernandez than an unknown individual.
The singer—whose real name is David Anthony Burke—was charged April 20 with capital murder in the teen's death.
The murder charge includes the special circumstance allegations of lying in wait, murder for financial gain, and killing a witness in a criminal investigation. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office is expected to decide later whether to seek the death penalty against Burke, who remains jailed without bail.
District Attorney Nathan Hochman has said the lying-in-wait allegation stems from D4vd's invitation to the teen to come to his Hollywood Hills home on April 23, 2025, while the financial gain allegation stems from the singer's effort to maintain his lucrative music career, which was being threatened by his alleged sexual relationship with the underage girl, Hochman said.
The teen was considered the key witness in that investigation, leading to the allegation of murdering a witness, the district attorney said.
Burke is also charged with one count each of continuous sexual abuse of a child under age 14 and mutilation of human remains.
He has pleaded not guilty through his attorneys, who have maintained his innocence.
Tosch, who is among a series of LAPD criminalists who have been called to testify during the hearing, noted that Burke was included as a possible contributor involving DNA test results on a swab from the outside of a trash bag that was also found in the garage and contained a mixture of DNA from four people.
Another trash bag contained wipes with brown stains that were consistent with the teen's profile but not Burke's, she said.
Another LAPD criminalist, Lisa LaHendro, testified Thursday that blue fragments recovered by the county medical examiner's office from the teen matched up with portions missing from an inflatable pool the prosecution alleges he used to dismember her body.
She told the judge that she was able to compare some fragments collected from the teen by the county medical examiner's office with damage to the pool and that she concluded that the fragments were once part of the pool.
The pool was discovered during a search last Sept. 17 in the garage of Burke's rented Hollywood Hills home, with another criminalist, Lauren Wallace, testifying Wednesday that the pool had multiple cuts, appeared to have a "fresh, almost laundry-like scent" and had a white dryer sheet rolled up inside of it.
The prosecution contended in an April court filing that Burke "purchased tools to carry out his plot to dismember and dispose of the victim's body," including ordering a shovel, two chain saws, a body bag, heavy-duty laundry bags, and a blue inflatable pool to be delivered to his home under a fake name.
"Moreover, defendant took horrifying measures to destroy and discard the victim's body. After placing her body into the blue inflatable pool to prevent her blood from spilling onto his garage floor, defendant used a chain saw and perhaps other tools to cut off her limbs. Small blue plastic fragments were found embedded in the victim's remains, which were collected by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Department," according to the prosecution's filing earlier this year.
Under cross-examination by defense attorney Blair Berk, LaHendro acknowledged that she had done a visual comparison of the fragments but that an exhaustive comparison was not done.
The criminalist testified that she also examined the teen's Forever 21 tube top, a pair of leggings, Victoria's Secret thong underwear, and Skechers socks and found that "all of them were heavily soiled and had numerous insects."
She said she was not able to determine whether the leggings matched up with black fabric recovered from a trash bag found on the floor of the garage, saying that they were in "poor condition" and heavy soiling prevented her from comparing the two items.
In testimony Wednesday, LAPD criminalist Chelsea Murillo told the judge that she found at least 11 air fresheners in Burke's Tesla a day after police found the girl's remains in the vehicle.
Graphic photos of the teen's remains were shown in court Tuesday shortly after the hearing began, with the victim's parents sitting in the front row of the packed downtown Los Angeles courtroom.
Los Angeles Police Department Detective Joshua Byers testified Tuesday that police were called to the tow yard where the Tesla had been taken two days after it had been ticketed, with employees noticing a strong odor emanating from the vehicle with a Texas license plate.
Police discovered that the vehicle's front trunk contained a black body bag holding a girl's decomposed torso and head, while a garbage bag underneath contained her severed arms and legs, according to the detective.
"You could see various limbs of a body ... arms and legs that had been severed," Byers testified.
Two fingers on the victim's left hand—her ring finger and her pinky finger—had been severed, according to the detective.
Prosecutors displayed graphic photographs of the front trunk and the victim, along with an image showing blue plastic fragments embedded in the victim's right knee.
Another photograph showed a tattoo reading "Shhh" on the victim's right hand, along with the victim's left hand without the missing two fingers.
The detective testified that Burke had a tattoo in blue or black ink that also read "Shhh" on his right hand and the name "Celeste" tattooed in red on another finger when he was arrested in April.
Asked whether he could make out any facial features, the detective testified that there was "quite a bit of decomposition" and that she was "unrecognizable."
Byers testified that the girl's father subsequently called police because he was concerned that the then-unidentified victim might be his missing daughter and provided investigators with information to contact his daughter's dentist.
Burke allegedly used an alias to buy two cadaver bags, heavy-duty laundry bags, and an inflatable pool, according to the detective.
The teen's remains were found last Sept. 8—just days after what would have been her 15th birthday, according to the prosecution's court filing, which noted that the vehicle had been towed three days earlier while parked about 400 feet from his Hollywood Hills home.
"Surveillance video and other evidence confirm defendant was the last person to drive the vehicle on July 29, 2025, before he left Los Angeles on a concert tour," according to the prosecution's filing.
LAPD detectives served a search warrant last Sept. 16 at Burke's home and found "evidence consistent with the dismemberment of the victim's body in the inflatable pool, which contained multiple linear cuts," according to the prosecution's filing.
The filing alleges that several biological samples, which tested positive for blood, were collected within the garage area. DNA analysis determined that various samples matched the victim's unique genetic profile.
According to the prosecution's brief, Burke and the girl met in January 2022 when she was 11 years old, and they began a "sexual relationship" in November 2023 when she was 13 and he was 18, and "text exchanges between the victim and defendant contain references to sex, pregnancy, abortion, and use of the Plan B emergency contraceptive."
"There are also explicit photographs documenting and corroborating their sexual relationship," the prosecution alleged, noting that the two "broke up" in November 2024 but continued to communicate and that "text messages suggest they also continued to have sexual relations."
The prosecution alleges in the filing that the girl likely died April 23, 2025, and that the two had "engaged in a lengthy argument described in detail in their text messages" a night earlier that "reveal the victim's jealousy over defendant's relationships with other women, as defendant led her to believe they had a future together."
The teen "became extremely upset and threatened to disclose damaging information about her relationship with the defendant to end his career and destroy his life," according to the filing, which noted that his first studio album was set to be released a few days later.
Burke allegedly sent an Uber to bring the girl from her Lake Elsinore home to his residence and then sent text messages to her inquiring where she was after the Uber dropped her off, the prosecution alleges.
The prosecution contends in the brief that it was "part of defendant's premeditated plan to cover up the murder, as she was already dead by this time."
"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. At no time did he call law enforcement or 911 or take her to an emergency room to save her life. Despite knowing she was dead and her family was trying to find her, the evidence will show defendant lied and claimed he didn't know where she was," according to the filing.
D4vd was arrested April 16 by LAPD officers.
His attorneys issued a statement at the time denying the singer killed the teenager.
"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," Berk and fellow defense attorneys Marilyn Bednarski and Regina Peter said. "We will vigorously defend David's innocence."
The hearing is set to continue Friday with testimony from Dr. Grant Ho, a deputy medical examiner who told the judge late Thursday that the girl's body was "markedly decomposed" and that she had been dismembered.
Source: abc7.com, Terri Vermeulen Keith, July 24, 2026
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