D4vd, the platinum-selling musician born David Anthony Burke, showed no emotion Tuesday as he stared at gruesome photos of the decomposed remains of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez found in the front trunk of his Tesla last year.
The photos, shared on a large screen in a Los Angeles courtroom during the singer’s preliminary hearing in his murder case, showed Rivas’ limbless torso in one black plastic bag and her dismembered arms and legs in another. A photo of her knee showed flecks of blue plastic allegedly from the inflatable pool prosecutors claim Burke used while dismembering Rivas’ body. A close-up of her left hand showed that her ring and pinky fingers had been cut off. Another photo showed a tattoo of the word “Shhh…” on her right index finger.
Rivas’ mother, Mercedes Martínez, silently bowed her head and averted her eyes as she sat in the front row of the gallery. The teen’s father, Jesus Rivas, looked at the screen with a mournful expression and repeatedly checked on his wife.
Burke, 21, is accused of murdering Celeste on April 23, 2025, to cover up his sexual abuse of the girl. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Tuesday’s hearing was the first in a multi-day hearing, during which prosecutors will lay out the evidence they’ve accumulated against Burke, and a judge will decide whether there is enough probable cause to send the case to trial. Burke’s attorneys will also get the chance to defend their client, question witnesses, and potentially poke holes in the state’s case.
Prosecutors have said that Burke dismembered Rivas after allegedly stabbing her to death. Police discovered Rivas’ remains in the Tesla after the car was tagged as abandoned and impounded. When Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman asked LAPD Det. Joshua Byers if investigators were able to make out facial features on the victim’s face, he said they could not. “There was quite a bit of decomposition. The skin slippage made it unrecognizable,” he said.
Prosecutors claim Burke first met Rivas online in January 2022 when she was 11 years old. They allege he started a sexual relationship with her in November 2023, when he was a 13-year-old student in the seventh grade, and he was an 18-year-old musician with a record deal whose breakout song, “Romantic Homicide,” had cracked the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
He was arrested April 16 and has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, continuous sexual abuse of a child under the age of 14, and unlawful mutilation of human remains. Prosecutors added special circumstance allegations of murder of a witness, murder for financial gain, and lying in wait.
Earlier in the hearing Tuesday, Silverman played 10 minutes of bodycam footage showing Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies visiting Burke at a West Hollywood residence on Feb 17, 2024, a few days after Rivas’ parents first reported her missing from their home in Lake Elsinore, a city in Riverside County about 70 miles southeast of Los Angeles. Riverside County Sheriff’s investigators had found Burke’s number in Rivas’ phone records, informed him of her age, and warned him he would get a visit, prosecutors claim.
“Just to let you know, there’s alcohol in the fridge,” Burke said in the video after he welcomed the L.A. County Sheriff’s deputies into the house, which he called an “artist compound” for Interscope artists. “It’s all good. I’m not here for none of that,” Deputy Juan Gonzalez responded. Burke told the deputies he’d met Rivas on Discord and Instagram, saw her once in person at a house in Lake Elsinore on Nov. 12, 2023, and last communicated with her on Feb. 13. The address he gave for the Lake Elsinore house was around the corner and a few blocks south of Rivas’ family’s house.
“She told me she was 18,” he told the investigators on the video. “Everybody is saying she’s 13.” Burke showed the deputies the missing person’s flyer that Rivas’ family has posted online. He had it on his phone and held it up for Gonzalez to take his own photo. He also showed the deputies Rivas’ sixth grade yearbook photo from her middle school in Lake Elsinore. In the photo, she’s wearing a black sweatshirt with the Batman insignia.
“Does she look 13?” Deputy Gonzalez asked.
“No. This is when she was 13. This is sixth grade, but they’re saying this was taken last year,” Burke said as he showed the deputies the yearbook photo.
In a disturbing evidence brief filed in April, prosecutors alleged that after Rivas returned home in February 2024 and her parents confiscated her phone, Burke bought her a burner phone and paid a classmate $1,000 to deliver it. Byers testified Tuesday that investigators later found evidence that Burke traveled with Rivas to Texas and London, buying both of their tickets directly from United Airlines.
Byers also testified about evidence that prosecutors say shows Burke was the last person to drive the Tesla before it was towed. He said data from the car showed Burke’s iPhone 16, which was never recovered, disconnecting from the vehicle at 2:18 p.m. on July 29, shortly after neighborhood surveillance video captured the black Tesla leaving Burke’s rental home at 1368 Vireo Place. Two minutes later, a neighbor’s security camera recorded Burke walking back toward the house, he said, as screenshots from the video were shown on the courtroom screen.
Byers said license-plate readers attached to passing LAPD vehicles repeatedly recorded the Tesla in the same location between July 29 and Sept. 8, suggesting that it remained there after Burke allegedly parked it and left on tour. He said Rivas’ father called LAPD on Sept. 10 to say he was concerned the unidentified female found in the trunk was his daughter.
Prosecutors claim that after the murder, Burke bought two chainsaws and an inflatable pool on Amazon and dismembered Rivas in the garage of a different rented home in the Hollywood Hills. They claim he later stowed her remains in the front trunk of his Tesla and went on tour to support his first major-label album, Withered, which was released two days after the alleged murder.
“For several weeks, or possibly months, defendants left the victim’s body to decompose inside his Tesla. He lied to friends, business associates, and others who noticed the strong smell of decay in and around his home and vehicle,” the brief alleged.
The filing further claimed that Burke pursued, manipulated, and abused Rivas for years. When her family first reported her as a possible runaway, authorities found Burke’s number in her phone records and told him how old she was. After Rivas returned to her family’s home, her parents confiscated her phone. Burke allegedly paid one of her classmates $1,000 to deliver a secret phone so the two could remain in contact.
Recovered text messages between Burke and Rivas allegedly refer to sex, pregnancy, and abortion. “All we do is have sex and just hang out man I want more than that for myself,” Rivas allegedly wrote in one message. Prosecutors say Rivas expressed jealousy over Burke’s relationships with other women, and the two argued about it over text on April 22, 2025. The following night, Burke allegedly paid an Uber driver to bring her to his home. Prosecutors claim he killed Rivas soon after she arrived because she had indicated she planned to expose him.
“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 filing read.
If convicted as charged, Burke faces either life in prison without parole or the death penalty. Prosecutors have not said yet whether or not they will seek a death sentence.
At an April 22 hearing, Burke’s attorney, Blair Berk said, “We believe the actual evidence will show David Burke did not murder Celeste Rivas Hernandez, nor was he the cause of her death.” She initially asked for an immediate preliminary hearing, in a matter of days, so he would “be able to have the evidence come into the light of day at the earliest opportunity.”
Before the hearing started Tuesday, the judge partially granted Burke’s request to have his shackles removed in court. At his five prior court appearances in the case, Burke was in restraints the whole time, with the bailiff cuffing him to his chair. His defense argued that Burke has no prior criminal record and that he’s been fully compliant while in custody since his April 16 arrest.
Judge Olmedo ruled Tuesday that Burke could be uncuffed, but his waist shackle had to be attached to his chair.
“It’s just to ensure that Mr. Burke stays in his seat. He will not be able to get up from his chair or have any free access to roam around the courtroom,” the judge ruled. “Other than that, his hands are free. He will have full use of his hands.”
