A Los Angeles judge ruled Monday that singer D4vd, born David Burke, will stand trial for the killing, sexual abuse, and mutilation of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez. Prosecutors say Burke stabbed her to death the moment she walked through the door of his Hollywood home, after she threatened the night before to expose their relationship and destroy his career. Her body was found nearly five months later in a Tesla registered to him.
What the Judge Decided
Judge Charlaine Olmedo made the ruling after a five-day preliminary hearing, finding that prosecutors had established probable cause on all counts. Burke, 21, will remain in custody without bail. An arraignment is scheduled for August 31, and according to The Guardian, a trial could begin as soon as 60 days after that.
Deputy district attorney Beth Silverman did not mince words outside the court. "Based on the mountains of evidence presented," she said, "all of the allegations have been proved way beyond the standard required." Judge Olmedo was careful to note that the probable cause standard in a preliminary hearing is considerably lower than what jurors will need to convict, which is the kind of legal disclaimer that lands very differently when the underlying facts are this horrific.
Burke has pleaded not guilty. His defense team declined to comment outside court. Burke himself showed no visible reaction to the ruling, which, given what was described in that courtroom over five days, is its own disturbing detail.
The Last Texts She Ever Sent
The Guardian reports that Celeste sent her final text from an Uber that Burke had arranged to pick her up, as she approached his Hollywood home on the morning of April 23, 2025. "Girly pop i'm almost there open ur door if ur home." Prosecutors say Burke stabbed her to death when she came through the door.
The night before, the two had argued over text about his relationship with another woman. Celeste, in an angry message, threatened to lie to her father about Burke and wrote that she would "end ur career and ur life." Prosecutors have framed this as the motive. The texts were obtained through warrants on Burke's iPhone and iCloud accounts, and read into the record in court by LAPD detective Corey Farrell.
After her phone went permanently silent that morning, Burke sent her several messages that evening asking where she was and expressing concern. Prosecutors allege those messages were constructed cover, sent after he had already killed her.
Three Years of Abuse Before She Died
The timeline prosecutors laid out is staggering. According to The Guardian, Burke met Celeste when she was 11 years old. He allegedly began sexually abusing her when she was 13 and he was 18. She was 14 when she died.
Prosecutors introduced photos of the two kissing and lying in bed together. A year before her death, text messages between them referenced a pregnancy, with Celeste telling Burke the baby was his. She had an abortion. At the time of her death, she had "David" tattooed in red ink on one of her fingers. The Guardian reports that two of her fingers had been cut off when her body was found.
Her body was discovered nearly five months after her disappearance, in a Tesla registered to Burke. Prosecutors allege he dismembered her in his garage. A police analyst testified that DNA from apparent blood stains found there matched Celeste.
What the Defense Is Arguing
Burke's attorney, Marilyn Bednarski, argued Monday that there is no evidence Burke harbored deliberate intent to kill Celeste. "There's no evidence that Mr Burke harbored a deliberate intent to kill Miss Hernandez," she said. The defense also established that no witnesses saw Celeste enter the house, and no cameras placed Burke there during the window prosecutors identified.
The defense leaned hard into Celeste's threatening messages, pointing out that she had threatened to go to Burke's mother, contact his friends, and "leak" information about their relationship. Detective Farrell acknowledged under cross-examination by defense attorney Blair Berk that he saw no indication Celeste ever threatened to go to police or pursue legal action.
The defense also surfaced that Celeste had asked to visit Burke seven times in the days before her death, that Burke agreed only reluctantly after she demanded it, and that she had sent messages threatening to kill and mutilate him. Farrell also confirmed under questioning that both sets of parents knew about the relationship, that Burke had attended church with Celeste's family, and that her parents had consented to let her travel to London with him for a week. The defense is clearly building toward painting Celeste as an aggressor. Patrick Steinfeld, an attorney for her family, called it what it is: "horrified that the defense attorneys brought up evidence to put the blame on a 14-year-old girl."
Who D4vd Is
If you're not familiar with the name, D4vd is pronounced "David," and he is, by any measure, a genuine pop phenomenon. The Guardian reports that he broke through in 2022 with a song called Romantic Homicide, which now has over a billion plays on Spotify. He built his following through TikTok and SoundCloud as a teenager, blending indie rock, R&B, and lo-fi pop.
He was 21 at the time of this ruling. He was 19 when Celeste was killed. He was 18 when prosecutors say the abuse began. The career he allegedly killed to protect was already massive by then, which is the kind of fact that just sits there and refuses to become less awful no matter how long you stare at it.
The Dingo Take
Let's be clear about what the defense is doing here, because it deserves to be named plainly. Celeste Rivas Hernandez was 14 years old. She had been allegedly abused by a man who met her when she was 11. She had his name tattooed on her finger. She sent texts that read the way texts from a teenager in a manipulative, exploitative relationship read, because that is exactly what she was. Now she is dead, two of her fingers were cut off, and her body was found in his car months later, and the legal strategy is to tell a jury she was the dangerous one.
The defense's argument that Burke didn't know her real age in the earliest messages, because she told him she was 16 when she was 11, is the kind of thing that sounds like it means something until you think about it for four seconds. By the time prosecutors say the abuse began, she was 13 and he was 18. The Guardian reported that. There is no version of that arithmetic that works in Burke's favor.
The trial hasn't happened yet. Burke is entitled to his presumption of innocence in a court of law, and the probable cause standard cleared Monday is a low bar. But the facts laid out over five days in that preliminary hearing are not in dispute. A billion streams of Romantic Homicide. A 14-year-old girl. A garage. A Tesla. Her parents in the front row, leaving when her mother started crying during the sexual testimony. Whatever a jury ultimately decides, those are the facts of this story, and they will not become less true.
