Alt-pop singer D4vd faces possible murder charges in Los Angeles on Monday after prosecutors reviewed evidence linking him to the death of 14-year-old Californian girl Celeste Rivas Hernandez, whose dismembered body was found in the boot of his Tesla more than seven months ago.
The news came after a year and a half of escalating concern around Rivas, who was reported missing three times by her family in early 2024 before vanishing for good. Her remains were discovered in September 2025, a day after what would have been her 15th birthday, in a car registered to the musician — real name David Anthony Burke — while he was on a world tour stop in Minneapolis promoting his debut album 'Withered.'
Burke, 21, was arrested on 16 Aprilon suspicion of killing the teenager and is currently being held without bail. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office has passed the case to its Major Crimes Division, a move that signals the seriousness with which prosecutors are treating the allegations, even as they publicly insist no charging decision has yet been made.
'At this time, additional information is not available,' the district attorney's office told CNN in a written statement on Friday. 'We will share an update on Monday once a filing decision has been made.'
Celeste's disappearance did not begin as a high-profile case linked to an alt-pop star but as the kind of missing child report that too often fades from local news. The seventh-grader, remembered in family photographs for her soft smile and cloud of curly hair, was only 13 when relatives first contacted police. By the third report in early 2024, loved ones were openly alarmed about her safety and the company she was keeping.
Authorities have not yet set out a clear timeline for when she was killed. Court records suggest she was 14 at the time of her death, and photographs obtained by CNN indicate she was alive for almost a year after she was first reported missing. That troubling gap between paperwork and reality, and between when adults began raising the alarm and when the state appears to have lost track of her, now hangs over the case.
Neighbours later told investigators that the black Tesla linked to D4vd had been parked for some time on a street not far from the Hollywood Hills home where he had been living. It appeared abandoned. The car was eventually towed and it was only then, in the impersonal surroundings of a tow yard, that an employee noticed a strong smell coming from the boot and alerted police.
Inside, officers discovered Celeste's decomposed and dismembered body. By that point, Burke was more than 1,500 miles away, performing in Minneapolis on hisWitheredtour.
Long before anyone opened the Tesla's boot, small, unsettling clues began to emerge that placed Celeste and the rising alt-pop artist in the same orbit.
In January 2024, the pair appeared together on a Twitch livestream, joking into the early hours. At one point, Burke, laughing, told viewers, 'Delete everything.' The meaning of that remark is now likely to be examined by prosecutors and defence lawyers alike, though on its own it proves very little.
Source: International Business Times UK
