LOS ANGELES – Singer D4vd has been arrested on suspicion of killing a 14-year-old girl whose decomposed body was found last year in his apparently abandoned Tesla that was towed from the Hollywood Hills, authorities said Thursday (April 16).
Los Angeles police said in a brief statement that the 21-year-old Houston-born alt-pop singer whose legal name is David Burke was being held without bail on suspicion of murder after his arrest in the investigation of the killing of Celeste Rivas Hernandez.
Police said investigators would present a case to prosecutors at the Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office on Monday. The office said in its own statement that it is aware of the arrest and its Major Crimes Division will review the case to determine whether there is enough evidence to file charges.
The singer had been under investigation by an LA County grand jury looking into the death of Rivas Hernandez. The probe was officially secret, but its existence – and the designation of D4vd as its target – was revealed on Feb 25 when his mother, father and brother filed an objection in a Texas court to subpoenas demanding they testify.
Emails seeking comment from an attorney and a publicist who have previously worked with D4vd were not immediately returned. His representatives have not responded to multiple previous requests from The Associated Press for comment on the case.
The long-dead body of Celeste Rivas Hernandez was found in a Tesla 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 court documents.
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The 2023 Tesla Model Y was registered in the singer’s name at the Texas address of his subpoenaed family members, according to court filings from prosecutors. It had been towed from an upscale neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills where it had been sitting, seemingly abandoned.
Police investigators searching the Tesla in a tow yard found a cadaver bag “covered with insects and a strong odour of decay,” court documents said, and “detectives partially unzipped the bag and observed a decomposed head and torso.”
Investigators from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office removed the bag and “discovered the arms and legs had been severed from the body,” according to court documents. A second black bag was found under the first, and dismembered body parts were inside it. No cause of death has been publicly revealed.
Authorities had not publicly named D4vd – pronounced “David” – as a suspect prior to the arrest.
D4vd gained popularity among Generation Z fans for his blend of indie rock, R&B and lo-fi pop. He went viral on TikTok in 2022 with the hit Romantic Homicide, which peaked at No. 4 on Billboard’s Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart. He then signed with Darkroom and Interscope Records and released his debut EP Petals to Thorns and a follow-up, The Lost Petals, in 2023.
When the body was discovered, D4vd had been on tour in support of his first full-length album, Withered. Later, the last two North American shows, in San Francisco and Los Angeles, along with a scheduled performance at LA’s Grammy Museum, were cancelled, as was the European tour that was to have begun in Norway.
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