Judge Orders D4vd To Stand Trial As Chilling Text…
D4vd goes to trial.
A Los Angeles County Superior Court decide ruled that prosecutors offered enough evidence during a five-day preliminary listening to to order the 21-year-old singer-songwriter, born David Anthony Burke, to stand trial on costs stemming from the 2025 killing of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez.
During the multi-day listening to, forensic specialists, criminalists and prosecutors outlined what they allege was a calculated killing and tried cover-up, presenting bodily and digital evidence surrounding the teenager’s death.
According to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, prosecutors called 12 witnesses who testified about evidence they are saying hyperlinks Burke to the alleged homicide. District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman said the listening to represented “a small but illustrative fraction” of the evidence investigators have collected.
“D4vd allegedly squandered his fame and fortune by brutally killing a young girl because he feared their illicit inappropriate relationship would ruin his aspiring career,” Hochman said in a assertion. “The only headlines that will accompany his stage name from here forward will be about the vicious murder of a young girl.”
Burke has pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors Present The Timeline Of Alleged Events
Investigators allege that D4d killed Celested Rivas inside his Hollywood Hills residence in April 2025. As beforehand reported, Burke set up a blue inflatable pool in his storage to comprise the blood splatter before utilizing online-purchased chainsaws to dismember her physique. LAPD criminalists testified to discovering hint DNA constant with Rivas on a rowing machine, charging cables, and bloodstains beneath brick mats in the storage.
The teenager’s stays had been finally double-bagged inside two heavy-duty cadaver baggage and saved in the entrance trunk of Burke’s Tesla, where they sat decomposing for over 4 months until the impounded vehicle was towed to a Hollywood lot in September 2025. The car was discovered with 11 particular person air fresheners stuffed throughout the luxurious vehicle in a determined bid to masks the overwhelming scent of decay.
Beyond the bodily crime scene evidence, prosecutors reconstructed a deeply troubling digital paper path detailing the unlawful, predatory nature of the pair’s relationship. Text messages recovered from Burke’s iPhone confirmed that the 2 first related in January 2022 when Rivas was just 11 years outdated. By late 2023, when Rivas was 13 and Burke was 18, the connection turned inappropriate, finally main to a being pregnant and subsequent abortion in early 2024.
In emotional textual content exchanges from August 2024, Rivas expressed deep regret over the abortion, writing to Burke, “i care abt u i killed my kid [for] you… id do anything to have it back.” However, by Spring 2025, that they had made a flip for the more serious. Text messages offered during D4vd’s case confirmed intense arguments fueled by jealousy, boundary points, and Rivas’ need to end their in-person relationship. On April 22, 2025, the night time before her homicide, Rivas threatened to publicly expose their unlawful relationship and reveal intimate particulars that would wreck his exploding music profession.
Fearing the instant destruction of his public image and multi-million greenback recording contracts, prosecutors argue Burke organized an Uber to transport the 14-year-old to his home the next night to completely silence her.
Burke at present faces a number of costs, including first-degree homicide with particular circumstances, steady baby inappropriate abuse, and illegal mutilation of human stays. Due to the particular circumstance allegations of mendacity in wait and killing a witness, the 21-year-old faces a potential most sentence of life in prison without parole or the death penalty if convicted.
Burke’s protection staff, led by attorney Marilyn Bednarski has tried to poke holes in the timeline, arguing that the superior decomposition makes establishing a exact time or methodology of death scientifically inconceivable.
The post Judge Orders D4vd To Stand Trial As Chilling Text Messages, Alleged Abortion & Forensic Evidence Surface In Teen’s illegal killing Case appeared first on GWN.
