{"id":195045,"date":"2026-02-26T16:53:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T16:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/195045\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T16:53:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T16:53:08","slug":"singer-d4vd-is-target-in-investigation-of-killing-of-girl-whose-body-was-found-in-car-in-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/195045\/","title":{"rendered":"Singer D4vd is &#8216;target&#8217; in investigation of killing of girl whose body was found in car in Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tSinger D4vd is the target of a Los Angeles County grand jury investigation of the killing of a 14-year-old girl whose decomposed body was found last year in an apparently abandoned Tesla registered to him that was towed from the Hollywood Hills, court documents showed.Prosecutors describe the 20-year-old Houston-born alt-pop singer whose legal name is David Burke as the target of the investigation in grand jury subpoenas issued Jan. 15 seeking to have three of his relatives testify.The documents were obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday. They were sealed in California, where the grand jury investigation has been kept secret. But they were made public by an appeal of the subpoenas in Texas from the singer&#8217;s mother, father and brother.The documents say the \u201cTarget may be involved in having committed the following criminal offenses against the laws of the State of California, to wit: One count of Murder.\u201dThe Tesla was registered in his name at the address of his subpoenaed family members, the court filings says.Authorities had not publicly named D4vd \u2014 pronounced \u201cDavid\u201d \u2014 as a suspect in the case.The long-dead body of Celeste Rivas Hernandez was found on Sept. 8, a day after she would have turned 15. She was a 13-year-old seventh grader when her family reported her missing in 2024 from her hometown of Lake Elsinore, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles. Authorities give her age as 14 when she was killed in the court documents.The subpoena says police investigators searching the 2023 Tesla Model Y in a tow yard found a cadaver bag \u201ccovered with insects and a strong odor of decay.\u201dIt says \u201cdetectives partially unzipped the bag and observed a decomposed head and torso.\u201dInvestigators from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner\u2019s Office responded to the scene.\u201cUpon removing the cadaver bag from the front storage compartment, it was discovered the arms and legs had been severed from the body,\u201d the document says. \u201cA second black bag was discovered underneath the cadaver bag. Upon opening the second bag, the dismembered body parts were discovered.\u201dRepresentatives for D4vd did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday, and they have not previously responded to emails from the AP seeking comment on the case.The District Attorney&#8217;s Office declined to comment.A judge in Texas said the three family members could not ignore the subpoenas and ordered them to appear in California and testify.The Tesla had been towed from an upscale neighborhood in the Hollywood hills where it had been sitting, seemingly abandoned.The singer was in the middle of a U.S. tour and continued to play several shows after the girl&#8217;s body was found. But he eventually canceled the rest of his concerts and a European tour after his connection to the case became widely reported.The Medical Examiner&#8217;s Office had previously said only that the body was found severely decomposed and that Rivas Hernandez had likely been dead for an extended period before she was found.In November, Los Angeles police got a judge to prevent Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Odey Ukpo from releasing the findings of the autopsy, and no cause of death has been revealed.D4vd gained popularity among Gen Z fans for his blend of indie rock, R&amp;B and lo-fi pop. He went viral on TikTok in 2022 with the hit \u201cRomantic Homicide,\u201d which peaked at No. 4 on Billboard\u2019s Hot Rock &amp; Alternative Songs chart. He then signed with Darkroom and Interscope Records and released his debut EP \u201cPetals to Thorns\u201d and a follow-up, \u201cThe Lost Petals,\u201d in 2023.When the body was discovered, D4vd had been on tour in support of his first full-length album, \u201cWithered.\u201d Later, the last two North American shows, in San Francisco and Los Angeles, along with a scheduled performance at LA&#8217;s Grammy Museum, were canceled, as was the European tour that was to have begun in Norway.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel___Associated Press writer Jaimie Ding and former AP writer Itzel Luna contributed.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/d4vd-celeste-rivas-hernandez-california-eca6975fa8e291678d80c8529ec5cea3\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Singer D4vd<\/a> is the target of a Los Angeles County grand jury investigation of the killing of a 14-year-old girl whose decomposed body was found last year in an apparently abandoned Tesla registered to him that was towed from the Hollywood Hills, court documents showed.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors describe the <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/d4vd-tour-canceled-celeste-rivas-body-found-5386c26f9db7d26c6ddc1f8332e78ed0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">20-year-old Houston-born alt-pop singer<\/a> whose legal name is David Burke as the target of the investigation in grand jury subpoenas issued Jan. 15 seeking to have three of his relatives testify.<\/p>\n<p>The documents were obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday. They were sealed in California, where the grand jury investigation has been kept secret. But they were made public by an appeal of the subpoenas in Texas from the singer&#8217;s mother, father and brother.<\/p>\n<p>The documents say the \u201cTarget may be involved in having committed the following criminal offenses against the laws of the State of California, to wit: One count of Murder.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Tesla was registered in his name at the address of his subpoenaed family members, the court filings says.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities had not publicly named D4vd \u2014 pronounced \u201cDavid\u201d \u2014 as a suspect in the case.<\/p>\n<p>The long-dead body of Celeste Rivas Hernandez was found on Sept. 8, a day after she would have turned 15. She was a 13-year-old seventh grader when her family reported her missing in 2024 from her hometown of Lake Elsinore, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles. Authorities give her age as 14 when she was killed in the court documents.<\/p>\n<p>The subpoena says police investigators searching the 2023 Tesla Model Y in a tow yard found a cadaver bag \u201ccovered with insects and a strong odor of decay.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It says \u201cdetectives partially unzipped the bag and observed a decomposed head and torso.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Investigators from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner\u2019s Office responded to the scene.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUpon removing the cadaver bag from the front storage compartment, it was discovered the arms and legs had been severed from the body,\u201d the document says. \u201cA second black bag was discovered underneath the cadaver bag. Upon opening the second bag, the dismembered body parts were discovered.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Representatives for D4vd did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday, and they have not previously responded to emails from the AP seeking comment on the case.<\/p>\n<p>The District Attorney&#8217;s Office declined to comment.<\/p>\n<p>A judge in Texas said the three family members could not ignore the subpoenas and ordered them to appear in California and testify.<\/p>\n<p>The Tesla had been towed from an upscale neighborhood in the Hollywood hills where it had been sitting, seemingly abandoned.<\/p>\n<p>The singer was in the middle of a U.S. tour and continued to play several shows after the girl&#8217;s body was found. But he eventually canceled the rest of his concerts and a European tour after his connection to the case became widely reported.<\/p>\n<p>The Medical Examiner&#8217;s Office had previously said only that the body was found severely decomposed and that Rivas Hernandez had likely been dead for an extended period before she was found.<\/p>\n<p>In November, Los Angeles police got a judge to prevent Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Odey Ukpo from releasing the findings of the autopsy, and no cause of death has been revealed.<\/p>\n<p>D4vd gained popularity among Gen Z fans for his blend of indie rock, R&amp;B and lo-fi pop. He went viral on TikTok in 2022 with the hit \u201cRomantic Homicide,\u201d which peaked at No. 4 on Billboard\u2019s Hot Rock &amp; Alternative Songs chart. He then signed with Darkroom and Interscope Records and released his debut EP \u201cPetals to Thorns\u201d and a follow-up, \u201cThe Lost Petals,\u201d in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>When the body was discovered, D4vd had been on tour in support of his first full-length album, \u201cWithered.\u201d Later, the last two North American shows, in <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/d4vd-tour-canceled-celeste-rivas-body-found-5386c26f9db7d26c6ddc1f8332e78ed0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">San Francisco and Los Angeles<\/a>, along with a scheduled performance at LA&#8217;s Grammy Museum, were canceled, as was the European tour that was to have begun in Norway.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kcra.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">See more coverage of top California stories here<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kcra.com\/article\/get-kcra-news-on-the-go-download\/44039145\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Download our app<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kcra.com\/subscribe\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Subscribe to our morning newsletter<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@KCRA\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel<\/a><\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>Associated Press writer Jaimie Ding and former AP writer Itzel Luna contributed. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Singer D4vd is the target of a Los Angeles County grand jury investigation of the killing of a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[6577,2789,91112,7,1436,26484,5013,91113,9514,1743,348,5686,48,52,51,47,50,49,346,40670,73130,2838],"class_list":{"0":"post-195045","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-authority","9":"tag-body","10":"tag-cadaver-bag","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-case","13":"tag-court-document","14":"tag-d4vd","15":"tag-european-tour","16":"tag-girl","17":"tag-hollywood","18":"tag-investigation","19":"tag-killing","20":"tag-la","21":"tag-la-headlines","22":"tag-la-news","23":"tag-los-angeles","24":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","25":"tag-los-angeles-news","26":"tag-office","27":"tag-singer-d4vd","28":"tag-subpoena","29":"tag-target"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}