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A shocking crime has unfolded in California, where prosecutors allege that a 14-year-old girl was brutally murdered and dismembered with a chainsaw in an inflatable pool. The victim, Celeste Rivas Hernandez, reportedly threatened to reveal her alleged abuser, leading to the horrifying act.
David Anthony Burke, a 21-year-old known in the music world as “D4vd,” has been charged with multiple serious offenses, including murder, child sexual abuse, and the illegal mutilation of a body. Authorities claim that Burke had been abusing the teenager for several months before the tragic incident. After killing her, he allegedly dismembered her body and left it to decompose in the trunk of his Tesla.
Burke has entered a plea of not guilty and is currently being held without the possibility of bail.
Los Angeles police apprehended the singer-songwriter following the discovery of the young girl’s remains in the trunk of his vehicle, a Tesla. The case has sent shockwaves through the community and the music industry alike.
According to court documents obtained by FOX 11 Los Angeles, the last sighting of Celeste was on April 23, 2025. Prosecutors allege that Burke invited her to his residence in the Hollywood Hills following a dispute. It was during this altercation that Celeste reportedly threatened to expose their relationship, an act that authorities believe led to her tragic death.
Police found her dismembered and decomposed remains in the trunk of an abandoned car on Sept. 8, 2025 — 400 feet from his house, according to a brief signed by Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman and Deputy DA Beth Silverman. It was registered to Burke, they wrote, and surveillance video allegedly shows he was the last person to drive it.
Photographs, intimate notes, and flowers are among the items left at a memorial for slain teen Celeste Rivas Hernandez, who was found dead in the trunk of a Tesla in a Hollywood tow yard on Sept. 25, 2025 in Lake Elsinore, California. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Burke is accused of setting up the inflatable pool in his garage to catch Celeste’s blood as he dismembered her with “a chainsaw and perhaps other tools.” In the process, he tore plastic fragments from the pool which authorities later found mixed with her remains.
He is also accused of removing two of her fingers because they showed his name. Those were never recovered.
However, he placed more of her dismembered remains in a cadaver bag and trash bags in the trunk of his Tesla, which prosecutors say he abandoned months later near the home before he left to go on tour.
David Anthony Burke, known as D4vd, is arraigned in Los Angeles on April 20, 2026, on charges of killing a 14-year-old girl whose dismembered body was found in his car. (Ted Soqui/Pool Photo/AP)
Prosecutors said Burke first met Celeste when she was 11 and allegedly began molesting her in November 2023, when she was 13 and he was 18. The following February, her parents called police and took her phone away. Burke allegedly paid a high school student $1,000 to deliver her a new phone.
“Throughout 2024, the victim spent a significant amount of time with defendant, including summer weekends at his home in the Hollywood Hills and traveling with him to Las Vegas, London and Texas to meet his family,” prosecutors alleged in the filing.
Singer D4vd was arrested in Los Angeles in connection to the murder of a 14-year-old girl found in a Tesla trunk, police say. (Cyril Zingaro/Keystone via AP)
They “broke up” in November 2024 but kept in touch until Celeste’s phone activity came to an end on April 23, 2025, according to the prosecution timeline.
“[Text] messages reveal the victim’s jealousy over defendant’s relationships with other women, as defendant led her to believe they had a future together,” prosecutors wrote. “She became extremely upset and threatened to disclose damaging information about her relationship with defendant to end his career and destroy his life.”
The argument was two days before his first studio album dropped.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman and LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell hold a press briefing on the case against singer D4vd in Los Angeles on April 20, 2026. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)
With millions of dollars on the line, Burke allegedly ordered Celeste an Uber from her home in Lake Elsinore to his in Hollywood Hills. However, 20 minutes after the vehicle arrived, Burke allegedly sent her text messages asking where she was.
Prosecutors allege these texts were part of a “premeditated plan to cover up the murder.” She was already dead by the time they were sent, according to the filing.
Prosecutors allege that Burke stabbed her to death almost immediately after she arrived. According to the Los Angeles medical examiner’s office, Celeste died in a homicide caused by multiple penetrating injuries.
The next morning, he sat for a radio interview about his forthcoming album, according to prosecutors. Then he allegedly had a shovel delivered from Home Depot via the courier app Postmates. On May 1, prosecutors allege he ordered two chainsaws from Amazon. On May 5, he ordered a body bag, laundry bags and the inflatable pool. On July 7, he allegedly bought a “burn cage.”
He allegedly made the purchase using a fake name, “Victoria Mendez.”
At a hearing Wednesday, prosecutors revealed gruesome allegations in connection with the crime that legal analyst Royal Oakes said strongly support the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office’s push for capital punishment.
Although California has a moratorium in place on executions, the death penalty is still on the books for prosecutors to pursue.
“The gruesome new details about Burke’s actions, disclosed by the DA, are guaranteed to boost the chance, not only of a murder conviction, but the death penalty, if a jury eventually hears the allegations and concludes Burke is responsible,” he told Fox News Digital. “Buying and using a chainsaw, a portable incinerator and body bags, and dismembering the victim’s body, including by amputating fingers with tattoos linking her to Burke, are shocking allegations.”
In September 2025, the Los Angeles Police Department served a search warrant on Burke’s home. They recovered the damaged pool, blood evidence and other DNA samples linked to Celeste.
Compounding Burke’s legal troubles, prosecutors also recently alleged they found a huge amount of child sex abuse material on his devices, including nude pictures of the victim on his phone.
“[That] puts the burden squarely on the defense to fight back,” Oakes said.
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