D4vd Allegedly Bought a Pool, Two Chain Saws, and a Cadaver Bag Online Under a Fake Name to Dispose of His 14-Year-Old Girlfriend’s Body
Prosecutors say the online shopping cart came together in the days after 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez was stabbed to death inside his Hollywood Hills home. Her torso and head were later found zipped in a cadaver bag in the trunk of his Tesla.
Celeste Rivas Hernandez was 14 when she vanished in April 2025. Five months later, her badly decomposed remains turned up in the trunk of an abandoned car registered to the singer David Burke, the 21-year-old known to millions of TikTok fans as D4vd.
Burke pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, mutilation of human remains and child sexual abuse. He appeared in a Los Angeles courtroom Tuesday for a preliminary hearing that may run several days, where the district attorney’s office has to show a judge it has enough evidence to take the case to trial.
In a court brief, prosecutors laid out what they call the “horrifying measures” Burke took after the killing. They say he placed the girl’s body in a blue inflatable pool “to prevent blood from spilling onto his garage floor,” then removed her limbs with a chain saw “and perhaps other tools.” The pool, two chain saws, a shovel and a cadaver bag were bought online under a fictitious name and delivered to his home, according to the document.
Prosecutors say Burke killed her to keep her quiet. His first studio album was due out that week and he’d locked in lucrative endorsement deals, and they allege the girl, jealous and threatening to go public with damaging information about their relationship, could have upended it all. One special allegation accuses him of murder for financial gain. Another says he killed her because she was a witness to a crime.
Investigators say Burke’s sexual relationship with the girl began when she was 11, and recovered text references to sex, pregnancy, abortion and Plan B, along with sexually explicit photos. The brief says he hailed her an Uber to his home one day after they’d quarreled over her threats to expose him, then stabbed her to death when she arrived. An autopsy found she died of “multiple penetrating injuries.”
Her torso and head were found inside a cadaver bag stuffed in the front trunk of the Tesla, with a plastic garbage bag holding her limbs underneath, according to police and medical examiners. Two fingers on her left hand, one tattooed with Burke’s name, had been amputated and were never recovered.
Burke was the last person to drive the car on July 29, 2025, prosecutors say, before he left it near his home and departed on a concert tour. Weeks later it was towed to an impound lot, where workers smelled decay and alerted authorities on September 8.
“We believe the actual evidence will show David Burke did not murder Celeste Rivas Hernandez, nor was he the cause of her death,” defense attorney Blair Berk said at his April 20 arraignment.
Burke gained fame as a teenager in 2022 when songs he recorded on his phone for his Fortnite gaming videos went viral, and his single “Romantic Homicide” helped him sign with Interscope Records. He performed at Coachella last year, less than two weeks before prosecutors say he committed the murder.
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