LOS ANGELES (AP) — Seven months after a 14-year-old girl’s body was found in D4vd’s towed SUV, the alt-pop singer has been arrested on suspicion of killing her, authorities said.
Detectives arrested the
21-year-old, whose legal name is David Burke, on Thursday on suspicion of murder in the investigation of the killing of Celeste Rivas Hernandez, Los Angeles police said. Authorities had not publicly named Burke as a suspect until his arrest. Investigators are expected to present a case to prosecutors on Monday, police said. Burke’s lawyers have declared his innocence.
Here are a few things to know about the case:
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement that it is aware of the arrest and its Major Crimes Division will review the case to determine whether there is enough evidence to file charges.
Defense attorneys Blair Berk, Marilyn Bednarski and Regina Peter stressed that Burke has only been detained under suspicion, no indictment had been returned and no criminal complaint has been filed.
“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,” the defense lawyers said. “We will vigorously defend David’s innocence.”
The seventh grader’s family reported her missing in 2024 from her hometown of Lake Elsinore, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles. Her long-dead body was found in an apparently abandoned Tesla Model Y towed from an upscale Hollywood Hills neighborhood on Sept. 8, a day after she would have turned 15. Authorities give her age as 14 when she was killed in court documents.
Police investigators searching the Tesla in a tow yard found a cadaver bag “covered with insects and a strong odor of decay,” court documents said, and “detectives partially unzipped the bag and observed a decomposed head and torso.” Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office investigators “discovered the arms and legs had been severed from the body,” according to court documents. Dismembered body parts were found inside a second black bag beneath the first. No cause of death has been publicly revealed.
Police in November had blocked the coroner’s office from publicly releasing the autopsy’s findings.
D4vd, pronounced “David,” went viral on TikTok in 2022 with the hit “Romantic Homicide,” which peaked at No. 4 on Billboard’s Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart. After signing with Darkroom and Interscope Records D4vd released his debut EP “Petals to Thorns” and a follow-up, “The Lost Petals,” in 2023.
He was on tour supporting his first full-length album, “Withered,” when Rivas Hernandez’s body was found. The last two North American shows, in San Francisco and Los Angeles, along with a scheduled performance at LA’s Grammy Museum, were canceled, as was the European tour that was to have begun in Norway.
The singer had been under investigation by an Los Angeles County grand jury looking into the death of Rivas Hernandez. The probe's existence — and the designation of D4vd as its target — was revealed when his mother, father and brother filed an objection in a Texas court to subpoenas demanding they testify. The Associated Press obtained documents in the case in February that had been sealed in California, where the grand jury investigation had been kept secret. The 2023 Tesla Model Y was registered in the singer’s name at the Texas address of his subpoenaed family members, according to court filings from prosecutors.
The status of the grand jury investigation wasn’t immediately clear but Burke’s attorneys noted no indictment has been returned.
