Courts and Crime
The singer is facing charges he murdered Celeste Rivas Hernandez to cover up his sexual abuse of the 14-year-old girl
D4vd, the platinum-selling singer accused of murdering 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, sat quietly in a Los Angeles courtroom on Thursday as a police criminalist testified that his DNA was among the genetic material found on a trash bag that could become significant evidence in the case.
The bag, which prosecutors say contained blood evidence linked to Rivas, was recovered from the garage of the singer’s Hollywood Hills rental during a Sept. 17, 2025, search. The search came shortly after Rivas’s dismembered and badly decomposed remains were found in the front trunk of the musician’s towed Tesla. Prosecutors claim the artist, born David Anthony Burke, stabbed Rivas to death in the house on April 23, 2025, and dismembered her body in the garage, probably weeks later.
Samantha Tosch, a criminalist with the Los Angeles Police Department, testified that a swab taken from the trash bag during the search of the house contained a mixture of DNA from four people. At least two contributors were male, she said, and Burke’s DNA was “included in that mixture profile.”
