Judge rules singer D4vd must stand trial in killing of 14-year-old
Celeste Rivas Hernandez
[July 28, 2026]
By ANDREW DALTON
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge ruled Monday that there is enough evidence to
put D4vd on trial in the killing and dismemberment of 14-year-old
Celeste Rivas Hernandez, who authorities said had threatened to expose
their relationship and crater the indie-pop singer's rising career just
a few days before his debut album dropped.
“i will end ur career and ur life,” she told him in a text message sent
the night before her death.
Los Angeles Judge Charlaine Olmedo decided that evidence presented
during a preliminary hearing provided probable cause for a trial on
charges of murder, continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14 and
unlawful mutilation of human remains.
The dark and disturbing details presented over five days brought tears,
gasps and horror to the courtroom. The evidence included grisly autopsy
photos, explicit descriptions and depictions of sexual abuse and a stark
picture of the final texts she sent minutes before she died and her
phone went permanently silent.
The ruling was a major step in the 10-month investigation and
prosecution of D4vd that began when the dismembered and decomposing body
of a girl was found in the trunk of his Tesla in the Hollywood Hills in
September while he was on tour.
D4vd shows no emotion as decision is read, and now heads to trial
D4vd, the 21-year-old whose legal name is David Burke, showed no emotion
when the judge issued her ruling, watching calmly and intently in his
orange jail clothes and glasses as he had throughout the proceedings.
He has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers argued that the murder evidence
was insufficient, but did not argue against the other two charges. They
declined to comment outside court.
Prosecutors argued that the evidence was overwhelming.
“Based on the mountains of evidence presented,” Deputy District Attorney
Beth Silverman said, “all of the allegations have been proved way beyond
the standard required.”
Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman said outside court that
prosecutors presented only a “small fraction” of the evidence they have.
They are still weighing whether to seek the death penalty, but Burke is
eligible for it after Olmedo also found probable cause for lying in
wait, killing for financial gain and killing a potential witness,
special circumstances in a crime that allow for a death sentence.
Olmedo ordered that Burke continue to be held without bail. An
arraignment is to be held on Aug. 31, and a trial could happen as soon
as 60 days later.
The last night of Celeste Rivas Hernandez
Before the decision, prosecutors gave a moment-by-moment account of
Rivas Hernandez's last night.
As she neared his Hollywood home shortly after 10 p.m. on April 23,
2025, in an Uber he had sent to pick her up, she sent her final text:
“girly pop i’m almost there open ur door if ur home.”
Prosecutors allege Burke stabbed her to death when she came through the
door.
The night before, the two argued via text about his relationship with a
woman. She sent him an angry and profanity-riddled text saying she will
tell her dad so many lies about him and that she would “end ur career
and ur life.” She had sent several similar messages around the same
time.
Prosecutors said that Burke met Rivas Hernandez when she was 11, began
sexually abusing her when she was 13 and he was 18. A year before her
death, the pair also exchanged messages about how she had become
pregnant — she assured him the baby was his — and that she had an
abortion.
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D4vd appears at Variety's Power of Young Hollywood in Los Angeles on
Aug. 8, 2024. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
During the preliminary hearing, prosecutors introduced photos of the
two of them kissing and lying in bed. The pictures showed that she
had “David” tattooed in red ink on a finger — one of two that had
been cut off when her body was found.
Prosecutors said they have records showing Burke ordered chain saws
and wading pools that he used to dismember her body in his garage,
and that her DNA was found there on blood stains.
They said he then drove around for weeks and even months with the
body in his trunk before the seemingly abandoned Tesla was towed
from the Hollywood Hills.
Defense argues there's insufficient evidence for murder
The defense argued that the evidence didn't show the kind of malice
that was required for murder.
“There’s no evidence that Mr. Burke harbored a deliberate intent to
kill Miss Hernandez,” said Burke's attorney, Marilyn Bednarski.
She said the communications between Burke and Rivas Hernandez showed
“no threat, no evidence of a history of violence” and that he had
“the opposite of homicidal malice” toward her.
She argued that a medical examiner ruling that her death was a
homicide from two puncture wounds was too vague and inconclusive to
be evidence of murder. The defense did not directly give an
alternative theory on how she died and isn't required to.
The defense also established that she had asked seven times to come
to see him in the days before her death, and he reluctantly agreed
only after she demanded it, and that she had threatened to kill
Burke and to mutilate him.
Silverman told the judge that “the defense tried numerous times
throughout these proceedings to dirty up the victim” despite her
being a child.
Farrell, the detective, also said under defense questioning that the
parents of both Burke and Rivas Hernandez knew about their
relationship, that he had attended church with members of her family
and that her parents had given their consent for her to go to London
with him for a week.
Patrick Steinfeld, an attorney for Rivas Hernandez’s family said
after the hearing that they were “horrified that the defense
attorneys brought up evidence to put the blame on a 14-year-old
girl.”
Her parents sat in the front row through most of the hearing, but
sat out some of the more graphic parts and left in the middle of the
sexual testimony after her mother began crying.
D4vd's career was reaching new heights at time of killing
D4vd (pronounced “David”) became an online musical phenomenon as a
teen with a blend of indie rock, R&B and lo-fi pop. He had huge
followings on TikTok, Soundcloud and Spotify, where his top songs,
including his 2022 breakthrough “Romantic Homicide,” have more than
a billion plays.
In 2024 he played the Coachella music festival and released his
first full-length album, “Withered,” two days after authorities say
Rivas Hernandez was killed.
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