On September 8, 2025 — a day after what would have been Celeste Rivas Hernandez's 15th birthday — Los Angeles police responded to a Hollywood impound lot for a foul odor coming from a vehicle.

Inside the front trunk of a Tesla registered to 21-year-old singer D4vd, born David Anthony Burke, investigators found the teen's dismembered, decomposed remains: her head and torso in one bag, her arms and legs in another.

The car had been towed from a nearby street two days earlier. prosecutors say the discovery ended a monthslong investigation into the Lake Elsinore girl's disappearance.

The surprise is the gap between the accused and the allegation. D4vd, with nearly 4 million TikTok followers, had kicked off his 'Withered' tour on August 5, 2025, days before the body was found, and released his debut album that April.

Prosecutors allege the premeditated murder was committed for financial gain — to maintain what District Attorney Nathan Hochman called a 'very lucrative musical career' that Celeste threatened to expose by revealing their underage relationship.

His family maintains his innocence, and his attorneys entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.

According to the complaint detailed by ABC News, prosecutors allege D4vd sent an Uber to Celeste's Lake Elsinore home on April 23, 2025, killed her 'by means of lying in wait,' then drove to an isolated area off SR-154 in Santa Barbara County.

They allege he bought a shovel, two chainsaws, a body bag and a blue inflatable pool — the pool found in his garage with 'multiple linear cuts' — ordered a burn cage under a fake name, and stuffed her remains in bags in the car's front trunk.

He was arrested April 16, 2026, and charged with murder, continuous sexual abuse and unlawfully mutilating a body.

The D4vd charges arrive amid a string of other murder prosecutions moving through US courts this week.

In Colorado, Denver7 reports that 18-year-old Omar Perez of Thornton was charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder and assault in the Halloween-party shooting that killed 19-year-old CU Boulder student Luca Hanlon and wounded another student; no bond was set and his next hearing is February 10.

In Maryland, Prince George's County police charged three people — De'Andre Reid and sisters Wonnae and Wonnese Bridgeforth — with first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of 20-year-old Diontay Jackson in Landover, which police said stemmed from a dispute among people who knew each other.

Between November 2025 and February 2026, three investigative grand juries examined the case — grand juries used to compel testimony rather than return indictments, according to prosecutors.

In December 2025, the medical examiner ruled Celeste's death a homicide, though an LAPD-initiated security hold kept the cause and manner of death from release. A Caltrans worker found her passport off SR-154 in January 2026.

Investigators also put together the chronology of the relationship: prosecutors say D4vd met Celeste when she was 11 and began abusing her when she was 13, and that Riverside County sheriff's deputies had contacted him after she was reported missing in February 2024.

D4vd is being held without bail, per Los Angeles police, and the remaining dates of his 'Withered' tour were canceled in September 2025, with his label, Darkroom/Interscope, dropping him during 2025, ABC News confirmed with a source.

The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's report remains under a security hold barring release of the cause and manner of death.