LOS ANGELES — Singer D4vd was back in court Tuesday for a multiday hearing to decide whether there is enough evidence to put him on trial in the killing and dismemberment of a 14-year-old girl who authorities said had threatened to expose their relationship.
D4vd, whose legal name is David Anthony Burke, entered the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in shackles and an orange jumpsuit. The judge denied a request to unshackle him completely, saying that the handcuffs would be removed while Burke was at the table but that his legs would remain shackled under it.
Prosecutors have said the evidence will show that Burke, 21, took Celeste Rivas Hernandez to the Hollywood Hills house he was renting, stabbed her multiple times, then cut apart her body in his garage using chain saws.
The preliminary hearing is expected to last about four days and will look much like an abbreviated trial. There is no jury. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo will decide whether the prosecution offered enough evidence to demonstrate probable cause to proceed to trial.
The hearing will resemble a mini-trial
It will be the first public presentation of evidence against Burke, who was arrested in April and pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, continuous sexual abuse of a child under the age of 14 and unlawful mutilation of human remains. His attorney, Blair Berk, has said Burke is not responsible for Celeste’s death.
Burke, who has been held without bail in a jail near the courthouse since he was arrested, will appear in court in his jail clothes, after the judge rejected a request that he be able to wear a suit as is usually allowed at a jury trial. No cameras will be allowed in the courtroom.
Soon after Burke was arrested, prosecutors filed a memo, which the defense unsuccessfully tried to have sealed, outlining their evidence at the hearing.
The defendant and the victim had known each other several years
The first witness, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Senior Deputy Juan Gonzalez, testified that in February 2024, he was sent to Burke’s home on Doheny Drive in the city of West Hollywood in an attempt to check on Celeste after she was reported missing.
The deputy said Burke was cooperative, told deputies he met Celeste through Discord, had last spoken with her days earlier and believed she was 18 years old.
A court filing said Burke met Celeste when she was 11, began sexually abusing her when she was 13 and he was 18, and killed her when she threatened to report him.
She was reported missing multiple times in the years before she died, and prosecutors said they have evidence that she was with Burke for long stretches, including a trip to Texas, where she met his family.
Detectives had contacted him about her, but authorities say he lied and said he had met her only once and did not know she was a minor. Prosecutors said they have sexual text messages and photos the two exchanged.
A court filing said he sent a car to pick her up on the night of April 23, 2025, from her hometown, Lake Elsinore, California, 80 miles outside Los Angeles. The two exchanged messages until she arrived at his Hollywood home, after which her phone went dead.
“Knowing he had to silence the victim before she ruined his music career as she had threatened, very soon after her arrival at his home, defendant stabbed the victim to death multiple times and stood by while she bled out,” the document said.
Prosecutors say they have evidence linking Burke to girl’s death
Prosecutors said that they have records showing Burke ordered chain saws and wading pools that he used to dismember her body in his garage and that her DNA was found there on bloodstains discovered when police served a search warrant.
They said he then drove around for months with the body in the Tesla’s front trunk. About four months after Celeste’s death, her decomposing body was found in the Tesla registered to Burke after it was towed from the Hollywood Hills in September.
Prosecutors said that the car had been parked around the corner from his house and that surveillance video will show he was the last person to drive it.
At Tuesday’s hearing, Los Angeles Police robbery-homicide detective Joshua Byers described finding the teen’s remains in trash bags in the front trunk on Sept. 8, 2025, after workers at a tow yard where the car was parked reported a strong odor coming from the vehicle.
Burke’s phone was the last device connected to the Tesla before it was abandoned, the detective said, and surveillance footage showed him near the vehicle.
Byers described finding the partially decomposed body and identified photographs showing severed limbs, a torso and a “Shhh” tattoo on a finger.
“Two severed arms and two legs — but the legs had also been severed at two points,” Byers said.
The testimony elicited visible emotion from Celeste’s family — her mother wiped away tears — who remained in court throughout the testimony.
Byers also testified that investigators observed blue fibers on the victim’s remains, which prosecutors later connected to a blue inflatable pool they said Burke purchased.
Purchases allegedly made by Burke under aliases also included cadaver bags, heavy-duty laundry bags, chain saws, a shovel and a fireproof mat, Byers testified.
Benjamin Greger, the former finance director for Mogul Vision, Burke’s management company, estimated that Burke generated more than $10 million in gross income between 2023 and 2025. Defense attorney Marilyn Bednarski said Burke’s mother, Colleen Burke, managed most of the company’s financial decisions.
It is not entirely clear why it took seven more months to arrest Burke; uncooperative witnesses had to be subpoenaed, and the final autopsy report showing she was stabbed was not released until December.
The defense has not publicly provided its version of events.
Preliminary hearings like this one serve a similar function to that of grand jury proceedings. Prosecutors generally present only as much evidence as they think they need to, and witnesses are kept to a minimum — mostly police and other investigators. For defense attorneys, they can provide ways to explore potential weaknesses in witness testimony that they can exploit at a trial.
D4vd had budding music career
D4vd began making music for YouTube videos of the video game Fortnite that he created when he was a teenager.
The songs he wrote and recorded on his phone were a blend of indie rock, R&B and lo-fi pop. The music made him a phenomenon on TikTok, Instagram, SoundCloud and Spotify, where his top songs, including his 2022 breakthrough, “Romantic Homicide,” have more than a billion plays. In 2023, he released two EPs and opened for SZA on tour.
He performed at last year’s Coachella music festival just a few weeks before the day prosecutors said Celeste was killed, and his album was released. Five months later, he was on tour promoting it when the body was discovered.
