Singer-songwriter David Anthony Burke who performs as D4vd, sings on the Casino stage, during the 58th Montreux Jazz Festival, in Montreux, Switzerland, in July 2024. The singer is facing charges of murder in the death and mutilation of a 15-year-pld girl. By Cyril Zingaro/EPA
A preliminary hearing is set to begin in Los Angeles Tuesday in the murder case against singer D4vd who is accused of murdering a teenage girl because she threatened to expose their relationship.
Prosecutors will present evidence and testimony for the first time in the case against the singer, whose real name is David Burke. He was arrested in April for the alleged killing and dismembering of Celeste Rivas Hernandez after her body was found in his car.
He has pleaded not guilty to charges including first-degree murder, sexual abuse of a child and unlawful mutilation of human remains. He has been held without bail since his arrest.
Rivas was 13 and Burke was 18 when the relationship began in 2023. She allegedly threatened to go public with the relationship if he didn’t stay exclusive to her.
Police found her mutilated body in September 2025 in a Tesla that had been sitting in an impound lot. They had been called when the lot owner complained of an odor and that there were flies around the vehicle. After about a week, the victim was identified as 15-year-old Rivas, who was reported missing in 2024. Burke was arrested in April.
Prosecutors allege that the singer ordered an Uber that took Rivas Hernandez to his Hollywood Hills home on April 23, 2025. That was the last time she was seen alive. They allege that he stabbed Rivas multiple times then dismembered her body after ordering two chainsaws on Amazon.
“In order to distance himself from the victim, he amputated her left ring and pinky fingers because her ring finger contained a tattoo of his name,” prosecutors wrote in a court document detailing evidence against Burke. They added that the fingers have never been found.
His attorneys said they plan to “vigorously defend David’s innocence.”
“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,” his attorneys Blair Berk, Marilyn Bednarski and Regina Peter, said in a statement.
An attorney for the Rivas family said in April that the family has decided not to make any more statements “in light of the gruesome details emerging almost daily.”
“There are no words to express the indescribable pain the family is experiencing right now,” attorney Patrick Steinfeld said in a statement. “They still have bills to pay and jobs they go to every day. All they want is time to grieve and heal.”
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President Donald Trump delivers a prime-time address to the nation from the East Room of the White House on Thursday. Pool photo by Saul Loeb/UPI | License Photo
