LOS ANGELES — A preliminary hearing could wrap up Monday in the case of singer D4vd, who is charged in the killing of a 14-year-old girl whose dismembered remains were found last year in the trunk of his Tesla at a Hollywood tow yard.
The first four days of testimony in the hearing have featured sometimes-graphic images and testimony in which prosecutors have contended that the now-21-year-old singer, whose real name is David Anthony Burke, killed Celeste Rivas Hernandez to prevent her from going public about his sexual relationship with the underage girl, potentially damaging or destroying his burgeoning music career.
On Friday, Los Angeles Police Department Robbery-Homicide Detective Corey Farell testified that Burke had a series of sexually explicit photos on his cellphone of Celeste, with some images depicting him and the teen engaged in sexual activity.
Farell also said he reviewed a series of text messages between the two that were stored on an iCloud account in which an abortion was discussed, suggesting Celeste had been impregnated by the singer when she was just 13.
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 relationship with Celeste.
The teen was considered the key witness in the investigation into Burke's alleged sexual activity with the underage girl, 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.
The victim's parents, who have been attending much of the hearing, left the downtown Los Angeles courtroom Friday afternoon shortly after Farell began to describe a few dozen explicit photos that depicted the teen and singer engaging in sex acts, along with genitalia and the teen being nude from the waist up. The photos were not displayed openly in court.
The victim's parents also were not in court Friday morning, when a deputy county medical examiner was on the stand and graphic photos of their daughter's remains were shown on a large courtroom screen.
Farell told Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo that data from Burke's iCloud account showed communications with the girl that began in 2022 when she was 11 and ended April 23, 2025—the day the prosecution alleges that Burke killed the teen. The text messages exchanged between the two that involved sexual relations were written between November 2023 and March 2025, according to Farell.
Farell testified that Burke wrote in a December 2023 text message to the girl that he has different aliases and goes by the name Travion Davis, which is the alias the prosecution contends he used to buy items to allegedly dismember the girl's body.
In a January 2024 text exchange, the two expressed their love for each other and talked about a pregnancy, with the teen writing that neither of them was capable of taking care of a baby, the detective said.
Burke wrote to the girl that his mother always told him to ask in that situation if "it is mine," with the then-13-year-old girl responding, "Of course, it's yours, David," according to the detective, who said the pair exchanged messages about an abortion appointment.
Text messages between the two also showed a plan dubbed "Operation Awesome" in which the girl was to move in with Burke in February 2024, with Burke writing the girl that it was the most important day in her life next to her wedding day, according to the detective.
The pair also engaged in a series of sexually explicit text messages in June 2024, with Burke suggesting in one message that they get married the next year, according to the detective, who said the two were 13 and 19, respectively, at the time. The messages also reflect that the couple had broken up in November 2024, the detective said.
In a court filing earlier this year, the prosecution wrote that the pair 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.
Those text messages are likely to be presented in court Monday when the hearing continues.
In other testimony Friday, Dr. Grant Ho, a deputy county medical examiner, said the girl had likely been dead for weeks — possibly months — before her dismembered remains were found last September. Ho noted that it was "extremely difficult" to tell exactly how long the girl had been dead before her body was discovered, since it was "severely decomposed."
The teen's body was 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 a court filing by the prosecution.
Under questioning by Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman, Ho said the girl could have "potentially" been dead for about five months and that she had two penetrating wounds — one to the right side of her abdomen and the other to the left side of her chest — that were life-threatening and would have taken "minutes" to bleed out. He said he concluded those injuries caused the girl's death.
"I'm willing to say that she's been dead for weeks," Ho said under questioning by one of Burke's attorneys, Marilyn Bednarski.
The deputy medical examiner said the decomposed state of the girl's body made it impossible to tell whether there had been a struggle before the teen's death. He said he didn't see superficial "hesitation marks" to suggest that she was holding the weapon that caused her death.
Ho said a power saw had "potentially" been used to dismember the girl's arms and legs. He noted that her left pinky finger and left ring finger had also been removed, saying it was consistent with a sharp instrument such as a knife or saw being used to cut them off.
The deputy medical examiner said he found "partial skeletonization" to the girl's face and that her left eye was "absent." He said he couldn't tell if the missing eye resulted from the decomposition.
In its court filing in April, the prosecution alleges that Burke sent an Uber to bring the girl from her Lake Elsinore home to his Hollywood Hills 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 those messages were "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.
"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.
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 Burke "amputated her left ring and pinky fingers because her ring finger contained a tattoo of his name," and those fingers were not found in the Tesla.
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."
In testimony last week, Los Angeles Police Detective Joshua Byers said Burke allegedly used an alias to buy two cadaver bags, heavy-duty laundry bags and an inflatable pool.
LAPD criminalist Lisa LaHendro testified Thursday that blue fragments recovered by the county medical examiner's office from the teen's remains matched up with portions missing from the inflatable pool the prosecution alleges he used to dismember her body.
Another LAPD criminalist, Samantha Tosch, testified that DNA collected from apparent blood stains on evidence including a rowing machine, a green tarp, and a Tesla charger plug discovered in the garage of the singer's home were one septillion times—meaning one followed by 24 zeroes—more likely to occur if the DNA was from the teen than an unknown individual.
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," Bednarski and fellow defense attorneys Blair Berk and Regina Peter said. "We will vigorously defend David's innocence."
Source: spectrumlocalnews.com, Staff, July 27, 2026
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