Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman on Monday, April 20, announced felony charges against singer D4vd in relation to the death of a 14-year-old Lake Elsinore girl whose body was discovered in the front trunk of his impounded Tesla in Los Angeles last year.
The singer, whose real name is David Anthony Burke, was charged with first-degree murder with special circumstances, lewd or lascivious acts with a minor, and mutilation of human remains, Hochman announced. Celeste Rivas Hernandez was known to last be seen alive at the singer’s home on April 23, 2025.
The murder charge included special-circumstance allegations of lying in wait, murder for financial gain, and murder of a witness in a criminal investigation.
If convicted, D4vd could face life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty, Hochman said, adding that a decision on whether to seek the death penalty would be made later.
The charges stem from the discovery of the 14-year-old girl’s body, which was found by Los Angeles police officers in the trunk of a Tesla in a tow yard registered to the 21-year-old singer on Sept. 8 after someone called to report a foul smell coming from the SUV, police have said.
The district attorney declined to say how the girl was killed but added that will soon become public. He will ask the coroner’s office to unseal its investigative findings, kept secret apparently to allow police to properly investigate the homicide.
“The coroner had a determination on how Celeste died,” Hochman said. “And at the point the coroner’s report becomes public, we will be able to comment on it.”
He declined to say whether others would be arrested in the case.
Investigators have physical, forensic and digital evidence, the district attorney said, without elaborating.
After a months-long investigation into her killing, Burke was arrested on Thursday, April 16, in Hollywood Hills and was being held in jail without bail.
Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said the investigation took time; police made few comments over the months since the girl’s body was found.
“We had to be certain that nothing we said or did would ever jeopardize this case,” he said during the press conference, calling the it a “difficult and complex” case.
Hernandez’s body was found days after what would have been her 15th birthday, but investigators believed she could have been dead possibly for weeks in the trunk of the car, which had been parked for several weeks in Hollywood Hills before it was towed, police have said.
It had been abandoned near a home in the 1300 block of Doheny Place, near a home D4vd had rented. Police served a search warrant at that home and took several items as possible evidence.
The victim, from Lake Elsinore, had been reported missing by her mother in 2024, when she was 13 years old. Her mother told reporters that her daughter had a boyfriend named David.
Investigators also discovered that D4vd had a tattoo that read “Shhh” on one of his fingers, which matched a tattoo that the Los Angeles County medical examiner had found on Hernandez’s index finger.
D4vd’s lawyers issued a statement last week denying his involvement in Hernandez’s death.
“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,” lawyers Blair Berk, Marilyn Bednarski and Regina Peter said. “We will vigorously defend David’s innocence.”
Of the special circumstance allegations, Hochman said Monday that the evidence in court would show that D4vd killed Hernandez for financial gain in order to maintain his “very lucrative musical career that Celeste was threatening on that night,” and that Celeste was a witness in an investigation into the singer for lewd and lascivious acts, which Hochman said stemmed from his sexual abuse of the girl.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.