A judge on Monday set another status conference Jan. 11 for singer D4vd, who is charged with murdering a 14-year-old girl whose dismembered and decomposing remains were found in the trunk of his Tesla at a Hollywood tow yard.
The 21-year-old singer, whose real name is David Anthony Burke, pleaded not guilty Aug. 31 to murder and other charges stemming from the death of Celeste Rivas Hernandez.
Burke is being represented by attorneys from the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office. He had previously been represented by three private attorneys — Blair Berk, Marilyn Bednarski and Regina Peter — who withdrew from the case Aug. 31.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo found sufficient evidence following more than four days of sometimes graphic testimony during a preliminary hearing in July to allow the case against Burke to proceed to trial.
Burke was charged April 20 with capital murder in the 2025 death of Celeste, along with the special circumstance allegations of lying in wait, murder for financial gain and killing a witness in a criminal investigation.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office had not announced whether it would seek the death penalty against Burke, who was arrested April 16 by Los Angeles Police Department officers and is being held without bail.
Burke is also charged with one count each of continuous sexual abuse of a child under age 14 and mutilation of human remains.
In a statement released last month, the girl’s family called for Burke to face a death sentence.
“If the death penalty were activated, it would be perfect for this kind of human being, devoid of feelings and emptiness inside, and without conscience, who only caused pain to our daughter, our family, and the world that supports our precious daughter,” the Rivas Hernandez family said in a statement provided to media, as they marked what would have been her 16th birthday.
“But that’s not in our hands, but rather in God’s, and the California justice system,” the family added.
The family objected to Burke being represented by the Public Defender’s Office, maintaining that he is “not indigent.”
Prosecutors contend the singer killed the underage girl to prevent her from damaging his burgeoning music career by going public about their lengthy sexual relationship.
District Attorney Nathan Hochman has said the lying-in-wait allegation stems from D4vd’s invitation to the teen to come to his Hollywood Hills home on April 23, 2025, while the financial gain allegation stems from the singer’s effort to maintain his lucrative music career, which was being threatened by his relationship with Celeste.
Celeste was considered the key witness in the investigation into Burke’s alleged sexual activity with the underage girl, leading to the allegation of murdering a witness, the district attorney said.
The teen’s body was found Sept. 8, 2025, just days after what would have been her 15th birthday. According to a prosecution court filing, the vehicle had been towed three days earlier while parked about 400 feet from Burke’s Hollywood Hills home.
During the preliminary hearing, Bednarski argued there was insufficient evidence to support any of the charges against Burke.
The defense lawyer argued that Burke had “repeatedly expressed his love and care” for the girl even after they broke up and that there was no evidence Burke had ever stated he intended to harm her. She told the judge Burke eventually relented on the girl coming to his home after she repeatedly insisted on seeing him.
Bednarski also argued that the evidence “failed to establish” Burke had been watching and waiting for the girl or that there was any advance planning, and contended prosecutors had no evidence the girl intended to inform police about their relationship.
Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman countered there was “nothing about this case that sounds like an accident” and said the teen was “obviously dead” within 20 minutes of being dropped off by an Uber driver at Burke’s rented Hollywood Hills home on April 23, 2025.
“We have an underage minor who was threatening to expose this relationship,” Silverman told the judge, arguing later that the defense had tried to “dirty up” the girl.
During the preliminary hearing in July, the prosecution presented graphic photos of the girl’s remains, along with sexually explicit photos of the two from Burke’s cell phone and text messages that were stored on an iCloud account in which an abortion was discussed, suggesting Celeste had been impregnated by the singer when she was 13.
LAPD Robbery-Homicide Detective Corey Farell testified in July that data from Burke’s iCloud account showed communications with the girl that began in 2022 when she was 11 and ended April 23, 2025. The text messages exchanged between the two that involved sex-related content were written between November 2023 and March 2025, according to Farell.
The detective testified that the teen sent a text message to Burke on the evening of April 22, 2025, in which she threatened to strangle him, tell her father “lies” about the singer and to “end ur career and ur life.”
Farell acknowledged under cross-examination that the teen’s parents had given their consent for Celeste to travel to London with Burke and that her adult sister was aware that she had traveled to Las Vegas with the singer.
The prosecution alleged in a court filing that the two had “engaged in a lengthy argument described in detail in their text messages” a night earlier that “reveal the victim’s jealousy over defendant’s relationships with other women, as defendant led her to believe they had a future together.”
The teen “became extremely upset and threatened to disclose damaging information about her relationship with the defendant to end his career and destroy his life,” according to the filing, which noted that his first studio album was set to be released a few days later.
In its court filing in April, the prosecution alleged that Burke sent an Uber to bring the girl from her Lake Elsinore home to his Hollywood Hills residence and then sent text messages to her inquiring where she was after the Uber dropped her off.
The prosecution contended in the brief that those messages were “part of defendant’s premeditated plan to cover up the murder, as she was already dead by this time.”
Prosecutors allege Burke stabbed the girl multiple times shortly after she arrived at his home, then dismembered her body and concealed the remains in his Tesla.
A deputy county medical examiner testified in July that the teen had two life-threatening penetrating wounds — one to the right side of her abdomen and the other to the left side of her chest — and concluded that her death was a homicide.
Dr. Grant Ho testified that the severely decomposed condition of the girl’s remains made it “extremely difficult” to determine exactly how long she had been dead before her body was discovered.
Shortly after Burke’s arrest, his then-attorneys issued a statement denying that he killed the teenager.
“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,” they said then. “We will vigorously defend David’s innocence.”
