Los Angeles police arrested 21-year-old singer David Anthony Burke, known professionally as D4vd, on suspicion of murder in connection with the death of a 15-year-old girl whose decomposed body was found last year in the trunk of his abandoned Tesla, authorities announced Thursday.
Burke is being held without bail. The LAPD said the case will be presented to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office on Monday for filing consideration.
The victim, Celeste Rivas Hernandez, was reported missing from Lake Elsinore, southeast of Los Angeles, last year. The Riverside County Sheriff's Office said she was last seen on April 5, 2024. Five months later, on September 8, police officers responded to reports of a foul odor emanating from a vehicle at Hollywood Tow, an impound lot in Los Angeles. Inside the trunk of a Tesla registered to Burke, they found the girl's remains.
A spokesperson said Burke was "fully cooperating with the authorities." He has not yet been formally charged.
The gap between the discovery and the arrest spans months. Court filings from earlier this year revealed that Burke was the subject of a grand jury investigation in Rivas Hernandez's death. The New York Post reported that Los Angeles prosecutors began presenting evidence to an investigative grand jury, and one detective internally described the case as an "investigation into murder," according to court documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
No public homicide ruling had been announced before Thursday's arrest. But the LAPD's Robbery-Homicide Division handled the case from the start, a signal of how seriously investigators treated the discovery.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner said Rivas Hernandez was wearing black leggings, a tube top, a yellow metal chain bracelet, and stud earrings when she was found. The examiner said it appeared she had been dead inside the vehicle "for an extended period of time." Law enforcement sources told NBC News that the remains were not intact.
LAPD Capt. Scot M. Williams provided additional detail about the condition of the discovery. Newsmax reported Williams telling People magazine:
"We know for sure that Celeste Rivas Hernandez died and someone placed her body in the front trunk area of David Burke's Tesla. We know that the Tesla had been parked at the location from which it was towed for several weeks, so it is very likely Celeste Rivas Hernandez had been dead for several weeks prior to her body being discovered."
The cause of death remained undetermined as of the most recent public disclosure. That silence is deliberate. AP News reported that the LAPD obtained a court order blocking the county medical examiner from releasing the cause, manner, or other details of the death while the investigation continued.
LAPD Capt. Mike Bland explained the rationale:
"It was done so that our investigators get the information before the media and the public."
Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Odey Ukpo said the office was "dedicated to serving our community with full transparency" but that "the law precludes us from doing so while the court order remains in this case."
Breitbart reported in November that an LAPD source identified D4vd as a suspect after the remains were found in the Tesla registered to him. That same source said investigators believed Burke may have helped dismember and dispose of the teen's body, though he had not been charged at that time.
Those claims have not been confirmed by on-the-record officials, and the investigation remains ongoing. But the arrest itself, on suspicion of murder, held without bail, marks a decisive escalation.
Fox News reported that the LAPD issued a statement confirming the arrest:
"Detectives from Los Angeles Police Department, Robbery-Homicide Division have arrested David Burke, a 21-year-old resident of Los Angeles, for the murder of Celeste Rivas."
D4vd, now 21, rose to prominence in the music industry as a young artist. When news first broke of the remains being found in his Tesla, he was on his Withered World Tour. He later canceled the rest of his U.S. tour dates.
The timeline is worth laying out plainly. Rivas Hernandez was last seen April 5, 2024. She was reported missing from Lake Elsinore. On September 8, her body was found in a decomposed state inside the trunk of a Tesla at a Hollywood impound lot. For months afterward, police conducted their investigation, a grand jury heard evidence, and the court sealed the medical examiner's findings. Then, on Thursday, Burke was arrested.
That is roughly a year between the girl's disappearance and the arrest of the man whose car held her body.
Major questions remain. The cause and manner of death have not been publicly disclosed. No formal charges have been filed, that step awaits the district attorney's review on Monday. Where exactly the Tesla was abandoned before it was towed to the impound lot has not been specified. And the nature of any relationship between Burke and the 15-year-old victim has not been publicly established by authorities.
What is known is grim enough. A teenage girl vanished. Months later, her remains, not intact, according to law enforcement sources, turned up in a vehicle registered to a 21-year-old man. Investigators treated it as murder from the inside. A grand jury examined the evidence. And now the man is behind bars, held without bail.
Celeste Rivas Hernandez was 15 years old. Whatever fame or following her alleged killer may have built, the only thing that matters now is whether the system delivers accountability for the girl who can no longer speak for herself.