Judge rules singer D4vd must stand trial in killing of 14-year-old girl

Prosecutors claim singer killed Celeste Rivas Hernandez after she threatened to expose relationship and ruin his music career

A Los Angeles judge ruled on Monday that singer D4vd must stand trial over the killing, sexual abuse and mutilation of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez.

Judge Charlaine Olmedo decided after a five-day preliminary hearing that prosecutors had provided enough probable cause to put the 21-year-old singer, who was born David Burke, on trial. Prosecutors have claimed Burke killed Celeste after she threatened to expose their relationship and ruin his burgeoning music career.

Burke, who has pleaded not guilty, will continue to be held in custody without bail. An arraignment is scheduled for 31 August and a trial could begin as soon as 60 days later.

“The people have met their burden on all counts,” Olmedo said, emphasizing that the probable cause standard is much lower in a preliminary hearing than it is during a criminal trial.

“Based on the mountains of evidence presented,” deputy district attorney Beth Silverman said, “all of the allegations have been proved way beyond the standard required.”

Burke had no visible reaction to the decision. The defense declined to comment outside court.

The dark and disturbing details presented over five days brought tears, gasps and horror to the courtroom. The evidence included grisly autopsy photos, explicit descriptions and depictions of sexual abuse and a stark picture of the final texts she sent minutes before she died and her phone went permanently silent.

As she neared his Hollywood home shortly after 10am on 23 April 2025, in an Uber he had sent to pick her up, Celeste sent her final text: “girly pop i’m almost there open ur door if ur home.”

Prosecutors allege Burke stabbed her to death when she came through the door.

The night before, the two argued via text about his relationship with a woman. She sent him an angry and profane text saying she would tell her father so many lies about him and “i will end ur career and ur life.”

Detective Corey Farrell of the Los Angeles police department, under questioning from the prosecution, read the texts that were obtained from warrants on Burke’s iPhone and iCloud accounts.

Prosecutors said that Burke met Celeste when she was 11, and began sexually abusing her when she was 13 and he was 18. A year before her death, the pair also exchanged messages about how she had become pregnant, she assured him the baby was his, and that she had an abortion.

During the preliminary hearing, prosecutors introduced photos of the two of them kissing and lying in bed. The pictures showed that she had “David” tattooed in red ink on a finger, one of two that had been cut off when her body was found.

Defense attorneys argued that there was not sufficient cause that Burke caused Celeste’s death, and that the murder charge should be dismissed.

“There’s no evidence that Mr Burke harbored a deliberate intent to kill Miss Hernandez,” said Burke’s attorney, Marilyn Bednarski, said on Monday.

Defense attorneys established that no witnesses saw and no cameras captured Celeste entering the house or Burke being at the house in the time frame prosecutors say she was killed.

The defense showed several other texts from Celeste threatening him about their relationship, and saying she would go to Burke’s mother, talk to his friends and “leak” information about them.

Under questioning from defense attorney Blair Berk, Farrell said he saw no indication that she ever threatened to go to police or pursue any legal action against him.

The defense also established that she had asked seven times to come to see him in the days before her death, and he reluctantly agreed only after she demanded it, and that she had threatened to kill Burke and to mutilate him.

Farrell also said under questioning from Berk that the parents of both Burke and Celeste knew about their relationship, that he had attended church with members of her family and that her parents had given their consent to go to London with him for a week.

The detective also agreed that Celeste in her earliest conversations with Burke when he was 17 and she was 11 had told him she was 16, and at other times said in messages she was 18.

After her phone went silent, Burke sent her several other messages that night asking where she was, and expressing concern. Prosecutors allege those messages were sent as cover after he had killed her.

Patrick Steinfeld, an attorney for Celeste’s family, said after the hearing that they were “horrified that the defense attorneys brought up evidence to put the blame on a 14-year-old girl”.

Her parents sat in the front row through most of the hearing, but sat out some of the more graphic parts and left in the middle of the sexual testimony after her mother began crying.

Prosecutors allege Burke dismembered the body in his garage. A police analyst testified earlier in the hearing that samples pulled from apparent blood stains there matched her DNA.

Her body was found in a Tesla registered to him nearly five months later.

D4vd (pronounced “David”) became an online musical phenomenon as a teen with a blend of indie rock, R&B and lo-fi pop. He had huge followings on TikTok, Soundcloud and Spotify, where his top songs, including his 2022 breakthrough Romantic Homicide, have more than a billion plays.