LOS ANGELES (CNS) – Graphic photographs of a 14-year-old girl’s dismembered remains were shown in court Tuesday as testimony got underway in a hearing to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to require singer D4vd to stand trial in connection with the killing of the girl, whose body was found in the front trunk of his Tesla at a Hollywood tow yard.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo is hearing the case against the 21-year-old singer, whose real name is David Anthony Burke.
Burke was charged April 20 with capital murder in the death of Celeste Rivas Hernandez.
The victim’s parents and Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman attended Tuesday’s hearing.
Los Angeles Police Det. Joshua Byers testified Tuesday that he responded Sept. 8, 2025, to a Hollywood tow yard after workers discovered a body inside the front trunk of a black Tesla Model X, with a Texas license plate.
Byers said the vehicle had been ticketed Sept. 3 and impounded two days later. Tow yard employees reported a strong odor coming from the vehicle, he testified.
Byers said the front trunk contained a partially unzipped black body bag holding a girl’s decomposed torso and head, while a garbage bag underneath contained her severed arms and legs.
“You could see various limbs of a body … arms and legs that had been severed,” Byers testified.
He said two fingers on the victim’s left hand had been removed and were not recovered.
The detective testified that investigators determined the vehicle was registered to Burke at a Texas address and obtained a search warrant before opening the front trunk.
Prosecutors displayed graphic photographs of the front trunk and the victim, along with images showing blue plastic fragments embedded in the victim’s right knee.
Another photograph showed a tattoo reading “SHH” on the victim’s right hand and the victim’s left hand with the ring finger and pinky finger severed.
Asked whether he could make out any facial features, Byers testified, “There was quite a bit of decomposition … unrecognizable.”
The teen’s remains were found last Sept. 8 — just days after what would have been the girl’s 15th birthday, according to an April 29 court filing by the prosecution, which noted that the vehicle had been towed three days earlier while parked about 400 feet from his Hollywood Hills home.
“Surveillance video and other evidence confirm defendant was the last person to drive the vehicle on July 29, 2025, before he left Los Angeles on a concert tour,” according to the prosecution’s filing.
Earlier Tuesday, Los Angeles County sheriff’s Deputy Juan Gonzalez testified that he and another deputy went to Burke’s home on Feb. 17, 2024, at the request of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department while trying to locate the missing girl. Gonzalez said Burke had been notified in advance that deputies would be coming.
Gonzalez testified that Burke told deputies he had last seen the girl on Nov. 12, 2023, and last communicated with her on Feb. 13, 2024. Burke also said he had met her through online chats, the deputy testified.
Asked about his impression of Burke’s relationship with the girl, Gonzalez said, “I took it as he didn’t really know her.”
The murder charge includes 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 is expected to decide later whether to seek the death penalty against Burke, who remains jailed without bail.
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 alleged sexual relationship with the underage girl, Hochman said. Celeste was considered the key witness in that investigation, leading to the allegation of murdering a witness, the district attorney said.
Burke is also charged with one count each of continuous sexual abuse of a child under age 14 and mutilation of human remains.
He has pleaded not guilty through his attorneys.
Before testimony began, Burke’s attorneys successfully asked the judge to allow the singer to remove his handcuffs during the hearing. Olmedo ordered that the handcuffs be removed, but Burke remained restrained by a waist chain.
Outside court Tuesday, Hochman said prosecutors expect to call more than 10 witnesses during the preliminary hearing and are confident they will establish probable cause to hold Burke for trial. He reiterated that no decision has been made on whether prosecutors will seek the death penalty.
“We believe we will more than accomplish the evidentiary burden of probable cause at this point to hold David to answer on these three felony charges,” Hochman said.
The prosecution’s filing alleges that he “purchased tools to carry out his plot to dismember and dispose of the victim’s body,” including ordering a shovel, two chain saws, a body bag, heavy-duty laundry bags and a blue inflatable pool to be delivered to his home under a fake name.
“Moreover, defendant took horrifying measures to destroy and discard the victim’s body. After placing her body into the blue inflatable pool to prevent her blood from spilling onto his garage floor, defendant used a chain saw and perhaps other tools to cut off her limbs. Small blue plastic fragments were found embedded in the victim’s remains, which were collected by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Department,” according to the filing.
The filing alleges that Burke “amputated her left ring and pinky fingers because her ring finger contained a tattoo of his name,” and those fingers were not found in the Tesla.
Los Angeles police detectives served a search warrant last Sept. 16 at his home and found “evidence consistent with the dismemberment of the victim’s body in the inflatable pool, which contained multiple linear cuts,” according to the filing.
The filing alleges that several biological samples, which tested positive for blood, were collected within the garage area. DNA analysis determined that various samples matched the victim’s unique genetic profile.
According to the prosecution’s brief, Burke and the girl met in January 2022 when she was 11 years old and they began a “sexual relationship” in November 2023 when she was 13 and he was 18, and “text exchanges between the victim and defendant contain references to sex, pregnancy, abortion and use of the Plan B emergency contraceptive.”
“There are also explicit photographs documenting and corroborating their sexual relationship,” the prosecution alleged, noting that the two “broke up” in November 2024 but continued to communicate and that “text messages suggest they also continued to have sexual relations.”
The prosecution alleges in the filing that the girl likely died April 23, 2025, and 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.
Burke allegedly sent an Uber to bring the girl from her Lake Elsinore home to his residence and then sent text messages to her inquiring where she was after the Uber dropped her off, the prosecution alleges.
The prosecution contends in the brief that it was “part of defendant’s premeditated plan to cover up the murder, as she was already dead by this time.”
“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. At no time did he call law enforcement or 911 or take her to an emergency room to save her life. Despite knowing she was dead and her family was trying to find her, the evidence will show defendant lied and claimed he didn’t know where she was,” according to the filing.
D4vd was arrested April 16 by Los Angeles Police Department officers.
His attorneys issued a statement at the time denying the singer 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,” defense attorneys Blair Berk, Marilyn Bednarski and Regina Peter said. “We will vigorously defend David’s innocence.”
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