Singer David Anthony Burke has been arrested in connection with the death of a teenage girl from Lake Elsinore whose dismembered body was found in the front trunk of his Tesla when it was impounded at a Hollywood tow yard last year, police said Thursday, April 16.
Los Angeles police said Burke, 21, who is known by the name D4vd, is being held without bail, and the case will be presented to the District Attorney’s Office on Monday.
Burke is suspected in the death of Celeste Rivas Hernandez, whose body was found Sept. 8 in the front trunk of a Tesla registered to him. The body was found days after what would have been the teen’s 15th birthday, although she is believed to have been dead possibly for weeks in the trunk of the car, which had been parked for several weeks in the Hollywood Hills before it was towed.
Celeste had been reported missing by her mother in 2024, when the girl was just 13. The mother has told reporters that her daughter had a boyfriend named David. D4vd has a tattoo on one of his fingers matching the one reading “Shhh” that the Los Angeles County medical examiner revealed previously was on Rivas’ index finger.
The teen’s brother told NBC4 last year that Celeste was last seen going to a movie with D4vd, but she never returned.
The Tesla in which her body was found had been abandoned near a home in the 1300 block of Doheny Place, not far from a home D4vd had rented. Police served a search warrant at the house and took several items as possible evidence.
“The vehicle had been parked at the location from which it was towed for several weeks, so Ms. Rivas Hernandez may have been deceased for several weeks before the discovery of her body,” police said in a statement in September.
In November, police acknowledged media that D4vd — pronounced David — traveled to the Santa Barbara area during the spring of last year for unknown reasons. The media reports suggested that he traveled to a remote area and remained there for several hours, and that the singer may have had help from another person to dismember the teen’s body.
Police did not provide specifics, saying only, “The reason for that trip is still under investigation and we’ve drawn no conclusions at this point about the relevance of the trip to this case.”