A judge has decided that the murder case against singer D4vd, who is accused of killing 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, will go to trial after five days of a preliminary hearing that dove into gruesome details of the teen’s death.
On Monday, Superior Court of Los Angeles County Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo gave her decision that prosecutors have presented enough probable cause to proceed with a trial. The arraignment hearing was set for Aug. 31.
Over the past several days, prosecutors have called nearly a dozen witnesses to the stand and presented graphic pieces of evidence to build their case against D4vd, whose real name is David Anthony Burke.
During a news conference on Monday, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman called the killing of Rivas “horrific and barbaric” before promising to deliver justice to her family.
“We will eventually prove [Burke’s guilt] beyond a reasonable doubt,” Hochman said.
During the preliminary hearing, investigators testified about Burke’s sexual relationship with Hernandez, blood stains at his home that matched her DNA and details about her autopsy.
Burke, 21, is charged with first-degree murder with special circumstances, lewd and lascivious acts with an individual under 14 and mutilating a body.
Prosecutors argue that Burke and Hernandez were involved in a sexual relationship that began when she was 13 and during the course of it, Hernandez had an abortion. Prosecutors believe Burke allegedly stabbed her “before she ruined his music career” and threatened to expose his criminal conduct.
Hernandez’s remains were discovered in cadaver bags on Sept. 8, 2025, in the front trunk of a Tesla in a Hollywood Tow Yard that was registered to Burke. The medical examiner’s office determined that Hernandez was killed by “multiple penetrating wounds,” several weeks before her dismembered, decomposing body was found.
Burke has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and his attorneys have denied the allegations.
Hochman said it’s yet to be determined whether his office will pursue the death penalty in the case.
Text message arguments in the hours leading up to Rivas’ death
Monday’s hearing centered around testimony from Los Angeles Police Department Detective Corey Farell, who combed through thousands of text messages between Rivas and Burke between Nov. 2023 and April 23 of 2025, the day the Medical Examiner believed she was stabbed to death.
Farell testified that on April 22, Rivas and Burke engaged in a text argument about another female who formed a friendship with Burke. Rivas told Burke that she no longer wanted to maintain a relationship with him if he continued to see the other female, whose age wasn’t specified.
At one point during the argument, Rivas made multiple violent threats toward Burke, Farell testified, and said she was going to tell her father “lies” that would end his music career and damage his life.
The next morning, the pair communicated about Rivas visiting Burke in his Hollywood Hills home later that night. Burke agreed to send an Uber rideshare car to her Inland Empire home around 8:30 p.m.
They continued to talk throughout the day, Farell said, and the argument from the previous day eventually came back up around 5 p.m.
When Burke asked why he had to show her “everything” he gets, she replied, “Because I had your embryo in me,” according to Farell. Previous testimony from last week’s hearing claimed that Rivas was pregnant and had an abortion a year earlier.
Rivas’ last text message to Burke was sent at about 10:02 p.m., when she told him she had almost arrived at his home, asking him to open his door. At 10:10 p.m., Farell claimed, Burke responded to say the gate was open and his door unlocked. About 20 minutes later, Burke sent another message to her phone claiming that the Uber app said she had arrived, but he asked where she was.
Burke sent several more messages to her throughout the night asking where she was, at one point saying, “Bruh you’re scaring me.”
Farell said Uber records indicated that her car arrived at the home at 10:10 p.m. Burke’s phone and car left his home to go north to Santa Barbara County at about 11:30 p.m., he said.
During cross-examination, Blair Berk, one of Burke’s defense attorneys, asked Ferell whether Rivas, who was 14 at the time of her death, represented her age as 16 at one point and as 18 during 2022 and 2023, and Ferell said she did.
Berk asked Ferell questions about text messages that represented her in a jealous light about Burke’s friendship with the other female, and pointed to messages where Rivas threatened physical violence against him.
The attorney also pointed to a lack of evidence that Rivas ever exited the Uber at 10:10 p.m., claiming that no witness could verify and no security video shows where she went. Berk said that investigations concluded Rivas likely died sometime between 10:10 and 10:31 p.m., giving Burke just a 21-minute window to commit the alleged crime.
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