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.
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.
AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes
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.