The singer D4vd, whose real name is David Anthony Burke, has been arrested in connection with the death of a teenage girl whose body was found in the trunk of his Tesla last year, police in Los Angeles say.
In a statement, the Los Angeles Police Department said that Burke, 21, is being held without bail on suspicion of murder in the killing of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez.
Burke was arrested on Thursday by members of the LAPD’s Robbery Homicide Division at a home in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles.
The LAPD said investigators will present a case on Monday to prosecutors at the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, who will determine whether there is enough evidence to file charges.
Armed officers approach a home in the Hollywood Hills.
(LAPD via X)
In a statement, Burke’s attorneys said they were prepared to “vigorously defend David’s innocence.”
“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,” Burke’s attorneys said, adding: “There has been no indictment returned by any grand jury in this case and no criminal complaint filed. David has only been detained under suspicion.”
How the lurid case unfolded
Rivas Hernandez was reported missing in April 2024, when she disappeared from her home Lake Elsinore, Calif., about 70 miles southeast of Los Angeles.
Her body was found on Sept. 8 in a Tesla registered to Burke that had been towed to an impound lot from the Hollywood Hills, where it had been parked for several weeks after seemingly being abandoned.
Officers responded to the tow yard after someone reported smelling a strong odor coming from the vehicle.
Inside the front trunk, detectives found a plastic bag containing “a decomposed head and torso,” according to court documents. A second bag containing dismembered body parts was also found inside the vehicle.
Forensics later determined the remains were those of Rivas Hernandez.
LAPD Captain and Commanding Officer Scot M. Williams told People magazine that it was likely she had been dead for “several weeks prior to her body being discovered.”
No cause of death has been publicly revealed.
D4vd performs at Coachella in Indio, Calif., in 2025.
(Arturo Holmes/Getty Images)
At the time of the gruesome discovery, D4vd was performing in Minneapolis as part of a world tour in support of his first full-length album, Withered.
After the medical examiner identified the body as being that of Rivas Hernandez, the tour was canceled. A spokesman for the singer said he was “fully cooperating with authorities.”
In November, when Burke was identified as a suspect in the case, he stopped cooperating, according to NBC News.
