Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced Monday (April 20) that David Anthony Burke, known professionally as D4vd, has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez. Burke, 21, was arrested on Thursday (April 16), four days before the charges were formally revealed at a press conference. He is currently held without bail and is scheduled to be arraigned Monday.
The charges against Burke include first-degree murder with special circumstances, continuous sexual abuse of a child under age 14, and unlawful mutilation of human remains. The special circumstances attached to the murder charge are significant: prosecutors allege the killing involved lying in wait, murdering a witness in an ongoing criminal investigation, and financial gain. The special circumstances designation makes the maximum possible sentence death or life in prison without the possibility of parole. Hochman said his office has not yet determined whether to seek the death penalty.
According to prosecutors, Rivas visited Burke’s home in the Hollywood Hills on April 23, 2025, and “was never heard from again.” Prosecutors allege Burke killed her using “a sharp instrument.” The alleged motive laid out by Hochman at Monday’s press conference was that Rivas had been threatening to expose a sexual relationship Burke had with her when she was a minor, and that she was already a witness in an ongoing investigation into Burke for “lewd and lascivious sexual acts” with a person under 14. “When she threatened to expose his criminal conduct and devastate his musical career, Burke allegedly murdered her, cut up her body and stuffed her body in two bags that were placed in the front trunk of his car,” Hochman said. The financial gain element of the special circumstances charge, the DA explained, was specifically tied to Burke’s effort “to maintain his very lucrative musical career that Celeste was threatening.”
Rivas’s decomposed, partial remains were discovered on September 8, 2025, one day after what would have been her 15th birthday, in the front trunk of an impounded Tesla registered to Burke at a Hollywood tow yard. Workers at the facility had reported a strong odor coming from the vehicle. The car had been parked for an extended period near Burke’s Hollywood Hills rental property before being towed. LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell described the subsequent investigation as unusually challenging: “The substantial amount of time that passed between her death and the discovery meant that crucial evidence had degraded or disappeared, and as detectives worked to uncover the truth, they also had to sift through and debunk a great deal of false information circulating publicly.”
Burke’s defense attorneys Blair Berk, Marilyn Bednarski, and Regina Peter have denied the allegations. “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,” they said following his arrest. They added that they “will vigorously defend David’s innocence.” Burke’s lawyers did not immediately return requests for comment on Monday’s formal charges.
D4vd rose to prominence in 2022 when his single “Romantic Homicide” went viral on TikTok and reached No. 33 on the Billboard Hot 100. He had opened for SZA on her blockbuster SOS tour in 2023 and released his debut album Witheredon April 25, 2025, two days after prosecutors allege the killing occurred. The album opened at No. 13 on the Billboard 200. He was in the midst of a headlining world tour when Rivas’s body was discovered in his car in September. That tour was cut short, a planned deluxe edition of Withered was shelved, and Burke was subsequently dropped by Darkroom/Interscope Records, Sony Music Publishing, and his management company The Team, formerly Wasserman.
This is a developing story. Full Time Musician will update as the case proceeds.
