D4vd was charged Monday with first-degree murder with special circumstances in the killing of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, a case that could send him to life in prison and make him eligible for the death penalty if convicted. Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said the singer’s real name is David Anthony Burke.
Burke also faced charges of sexual acts with a person under 14 and mutilating the remains of a body. Prosecutors said the special circumstances attached to the murder charge were lying in wait, murdering a witness in an ongoing investigation, and financial gain. Hochman said the financial gain allegation meant Burke acted “for Mr. Burke to maintain his very lucrative musical career that Celeste was threatening.”
Rivas was already at the center of the case before Monday’s filing. Los Angeles police found her dismembered and severely decomposed body in the front trunk of an impounded Tesla belonging to Burke seven months ago, after responding in last September to a call from a tow yard in Hollywood about a foul odor coming from the vehicle. At the time, officers could not immediately identify her because the body was so decomposed. The Tesla was a 2023 Tesla Model Y with Texas license plates registered to Burke.
The case had been under investigation for months before the charges were announced, and that delay reflected the amount of evidence authorities said they had to sort through. Los Angeles Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell said officers “recovered and analyzed a substantial amount of digital and forensic evidence” during the investigation, while Hochman said the coroner’s report on Rivas would soon be released to the public. Prosecutors also said Rivas had been a witness in an ongoing investigation into Burke for lewd and lascivious sexual acts with a person under 14 before her death, a detail that now sits at the center of the special-circumstances allegations.
Burke was arrested last Thursday, April 16, on suspicion of murdering Rivas, but his lawyers rejected the case in blunt terms. They said “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,” and added, “We will vigorously defend David’s innocence.” With the charges now public, the dispute is no longer about whether prosecutors will act. It is about whether they can prove Burke killed Rivas and whether the allegations that raise the case to special circumstances will hold up in court.
