A Los Angeles judge ruled on Monday that David Burke, the singer known as D4vd, will stand trial for murder, sexually abusing a child under 14, and mutilating human remains after a five-day preliminary hearing surfaced disturbing allegations tied to the death of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez.
Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo found that prosecutors had cleared the legal bar required at this stage for probable cause, a standard far lower than the proof needed for conviction, and ordered Burke held without bail pending arraignment on August 31.
Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman told reporters the case against Burke went well beyond what the law required at a preliminary hearing.
Burke, 21, has pleaded not guilty. Court observers said he showed little outward emotion as the ruling came down. District Attorney Nathan Hochman said his office has not yet decided whether to pursue the death penalty.
According to the prosecution’s timeline, Burke and Rivas Hernandez first met when she was 11 years old. Prosecutors allege the relationship turned sexually abusive when she was 13, and Burke was 18 and that the two later traveled internationally together, including a trip to London with the apparent knowledge of both families.
Detective Farrell testified that Rivas Hernandez’s parents had met Burke, that he had attended church services with her family, and that her parents consented to the London trip, underscoring how deeply Burke had been embedded in the family’s life before the allegations of abuse became public.
Investigators also told the court they uncovered evidence that Rivas Hernandez became pregnant in 2024, at age 13, and later had an abortion. Testimony that, along with sexually explicit material presented in court, proved so distressing that the victim’s mother left the courtroom in tears, prompting both parents to step out during Friday’s session before returning Monday.
Prosecutors say the relationship unraveled in a heated text exchange the night before Rivas Hernandez died, sparked by her discovery of Burke’s involvement with another woman. In that exchange, prosecutors allege, she threatened to expose him to her father and warned she would destroy both his reputation and his career.
The next day, April 23, 2025, she took an Uber that prosecutors say Burke had arranged, texting him as she approached his Hollywood home. Her phone, according to investigators, went silent almost immediately after she arrived. Prosecutors allege Burke fatally stabbed her shortly after she walked through the door.
In perhaps the case’s most gruesome allegations, prosecutors said Burke dismembered Rivas Hernandez’s body in his garage, using chainsaws he had purchased along with plastic wading pools allegedly used to contain the process. Investigators testified that DNA matching the teenager was recovered from bloodstains in the garage.
Her remains were not discovered for nearly five months. Prosecutors say Burke kept the body in the trunk of a Tesla registered in his name until the car was towed from the Hollywood Hills in September 2025 and the remains were found inside.
Surveillance footage, prosecutors said, will show Burke was the last person to have driven the vehicle. Investigators also allege that after her death, Burke sent messages from her own phone asking where she was, an apparent attempt, prosecutors argued, to construct a cover story.
Burke’s attorney, Marilyn Bednarski, argued the evidence fell short of establishing murder, telling the court nothing was showing her client harbored deliberate intent to kill.
She pointed to the couple’s text messages as evidence of the opposite of homicidal animus and challenged the medical examiner’s conclusion that two puncture wounds caused Rivas Hernandez’s death, calling that finding too inconclusive to support a murder charge while acknowledging the defense wasn’t obligated to offer an alternative explanation at this stage.
The defense also introduced messages in which Rivas Hernandez herself allegedly threatened to expose the relationship to Burke’s mother and friends and noted under cross-examination that Detective Farrell could not point to any indication she had threatened to go to police.
Bednarski’s team argued Rivas Hernandez had, in the days before her death, repeatedly asked to see Burke.
Silverman dismissed the defense’s framing as an attempt to smear a child victim, telling the court the defense had repeatedly tried to disparage her character despite her age.
With the preliminary hearing concluded, the case now moves toward arraignment on August 31, where Burke will formally enter pleas to the felony charges.
The death penalty decision from the DA’s office looms as one of the case’s most consequential open questions and will likely shape how the defense approaches trial strategy in the months ahead.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
A judge has found enough evidence for D4vd (David Burke) to stand trial for murder, sexual abuse of a child, and dismembering the body of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, but he has pleaded not guilty, and this ruling only means prosecutors cleared a low legal bar, not that guilt has been proven.
