Celeste Rivas Hernandez became pregnant at 13 and had an abortion more than a year before she was allegedly murdered and dismembered by “Romantic Homicide” singer D4vd, according to text messages read in court.
LAPD Detective Corey Farrell read their blunt conversations aloud from the witness stand Friday as part of a days-long preliminary hearing to determine whether the murder case against D4vd — whose legal name is David Anthony Burke — should proceed to trial.
The singer has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14, and unlawful mutilation of human remains in connection with Hernandez Rivas’ grisly death.
Rivas Hernandez was 14 when she was killed in April 2025. D4vd was 19 at the time, officials said.
In one message written in November 2023, Rivas Hernandez said she was waiting for her period, telling D4vd: “If im pregnant tho im not having it though.” In another text on Dec. 20, she asked him if she should “take the plan b?”
Then, on Jan. 8, 2024, D4vd texted her to apologize.
“im sorry again baby I didn’t want to ever put you through this,” the singer wrote.
“No it’s ok we both aren’t able to take care of it,” she responded, according to the text exhibits. She followed up with: “it’s okay tho neither one of us are capable of watch or taking care of a baby.”
D4vd apologizes again before asking if it’s his.
“of course it’s yours David,” she wrote back.
He later texted: “When re you gonna get it done?” And she told him in “2 days.”
Farrell on Friday also described one-by-one more than three dozen graphic photos of Rivas Hernandez and Burke that could not be shown in court because they depicted explicit sexual abuse. Rivas Hernandez was 13 and 14 in the images. At one point, Celeste’s mother started to cry while her father cast his eyes down. They both eventually left the courtroom.
Rivas Hernandez was last seen alive on April 23, 2025, when she was spotted arriving at D4vd’s home in Hollywood Hills, and police have said they believe she was killed shortly thereafter. That night, the singer sent a rideshare car to pick her up from her hometown of Lake Elsinore, Calif. some 80 miles outside of Los Angeles.
Prosecutors have said that Burke planned and carried out the slaying because Rivas Hernandez threatened to expose their sexual relationship while she was underage and ruin his music career. He was arrested on April 16 following a seven-month investigation, triggered by the discovery of Rivas Hernandez’s dismembered remains on Sept. 8. They were found by police after crew at Hollywood Tow reported a foul odor coming from an impounded Tesla registered to D4vd.
Her cause of death was later determined to be “multiple penetrating injuries,” the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office said.
With News Wire Services