US singer D4vd has been charged with murder in the death of a 14-year-old girl who was last known to be alive nearly a year ago and whose dismembered and decomposed body was found in September in his apparently abandoned Tesla, prosecutors said on Monday.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said the 21-year-old D4vd, whose legal name is David Burke, was charged with first-degree murder in the killing of Celeste Rivas Hernandez. She was reported missing by her family in 2024, when she was 13. Authorities, who described her on Monday as a “runaway”, said she was 14 when she was killed.
The murder charges included special circumstances – lying in wait, committing crime for financial gain and murdering the witness in an investigation – that could carry the death penalty. Prosecutors have not announced whether they will seek it. Burke is also charged with lewd and lascivious acts with a person under 14 and mutilating a body.
Lawyers for the Houston-born alt-pop singer said he was innocent in a statement released after detectives arrested him on Thursday at a home in Hollywood.
“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,” the lawyers said. A new request for comment to Burke’s lawyers on the charges was not immediately answered.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman called the case “a parent’s nightmare” and said Rivas Hernandez was last heard from on April 23, 2025.
