Singer D4vd was arrested Thursday on suspicion of murder in connection with the case of a missing teenage girl whose decomposing body was discovered inside his Tesla in Hollywood.
David Anthony Burke, 21, was taken into custody shortly after 4:30 p.m. in Hollywood, said Los Angeles Police Department Capt. Scot Williams. It is not clear what specific evidence led authorities to arrest Burke.
He is being held without bail and the case will be presented to the L.A. County district attorney’s office on Monday for filing consideration, according to the LAPD. Burke’s attorneys released a statement Thursday emphasizing that the singer had not yet been charged and noting that they intend to vigorously defend his innocence.
“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,” Blair Berk, Marilyn Bednarski and Regina Peter said in a joint statement.
Celeste Rivas Hernandez, 14, was reported missing in 2024 from the Inland Empire, according to authorities, but her whereabouts since then remained a mystery.
According to police, the girl’s severely decomposed body was found in the singer’s vehicle at Hollywood Tow on Sept. 8, 2025, after it was impounded. Someone noticed a foul odor coming from the car and detectives arrived at the tow yard to investigate. The gruesome discovery came just a day after what would have been the girl’s 15th birthday.
Law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation, but not authorized to discuss the case publicly, told The Times the vehicle was abandoned in the Hollywood Hills five days before it was impounded.
Detectives last September served a search warrant at the singer’s former home on Doheny Drive, north of Sunset Boulevard, seizing various items including electronics and computers, according to law enforcement sources.
The singer had been the target of a Los Angeles County criminal jury investigation into Hernandez’s death since November. Burke’s family resisted being subpeoned to the grand jury and a court document from that legal battle revealed grisly details about what police found inside the Burke’s Tesla.
After opening the front storage compartment of the car, investigators found “a black cadaver bag covered with insects and a strong odor of decay,” according to the document. They partially unzipped the bag and found a decomposed head and torso.
They removed the bag from the car and discovered that the arms and legs were severed from the body. They found a second black bag underneath the cadaver bag, which contained more dismembered body parts, according to the document.
Williams said the girl had been “dead for at least several weeks” before the body was found. Detectives determined that the Tesla had been parked on Bluebird Avenue since late July, around the time D4vd began a national tour promoting his debut album “Withered.”
He performed in Boston, Montreal and Toronto in late August, and in early September had stops in Detroit, Chicago and Indianapolis. But the tour was canceled amid the investigation.
Burke was raised in Houston and has collaborated with musicians Kali Uchis, Stray Kids’ Hyunjin, Laufey and 21 Savage. He also created an anthem for the game “Fortnite.”
The Withered World Tour included themes of death and remembrance. Fans entering Burke’s show were greeted by a casket and guest book, where they could pay condolences to a character Burke sometimes reprises in his performances and music videos. Part of that character’s uniform includes a shirt covered in bloody handprints and a blindfold.
“Withered” was released on Darkroom and Interscope Records in April. The album charted at No. 13 on the Billboard 200 and has more than 521 million streams on Spotify.
On Sept. 7, in his last social media post, Burke announced on Instagram he was going to drop a deluxe version of the album. It was one of his last social media posts before Rivas’ body was discovered.
Times staff writer James Queally contributed to this report