Prosecutors to speak on arrest of singer D4vd in Celeste Rivas Hernandez killing

Family members of Celeste Rivas Hernandez are expected to attend a news conference Monday morning with police and Los Angeles County prosecutors about the arrest of the TikTok star and singer known as D4vd in connection with the teen’s killing.

District Attorney Nathan Hochman and LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell will speak at the 10 a.m. news conference, which comes after Friday’s arrest of D4ved, whose real name is David Burke, in the death of the 14-year-old Lake Elsinore girl whose remains were found in the front storage area of an abandoned Tesla registered to Burke.

The arrest Thursday in the months-long investigation comes after the teen’s remains were discovered in September 2025 inside the front storage area of the Tesla. The vehicle was impounded after it had been parked for an extended period in a Hollywood Hills neighborhood not far from a rental property where Burke had been living.

Police said Celeste’s death likely occurred in the spring of last year.

Burke was arrested Thursday at a home near the Chateau Marmont, the legendary Hollywood hotel. He was booked into a jail in South Los Angeles with no bail several hours later.

Burke’s defense attorneys stressed that he has only been detained under suspicion. No indictment had been returned and no criminal complaint has been filed, his attorneys said.

The murder suspect is expected to make a court appearance on Monday.

“Let us be clear — the actual evidence in this case will show that David Burke did not murder Celeste Rivas Hernandez and he was not the cause of her death,” attorneys Blair Berk, Marilyn Bednarski and Regina Peter said in a statement Thursday night after his arrest. “There has been no indictment returned by any grand jury in this case and no criminal complaint filed. David has only been detained under suspicion.”

Celeste, who disappeared in the Lake Elsinore area in 2024, was identified through forensics. She was last seen April 5, 2024, in the western Riverside County community.

Details about the circumstances surrounding her disappearance at the age of 13 were not immediately available.

Celeste’s brother told NBCLA last year that family members, who still live in Lake Elsinore, were aware that the girl knew D4vd.

Her decomposed body was found Sept. 8 after workers at Hollywood Tow reported a strong odor coming from the Tesla registered to the singer. Officers opened the front trunk, also known as a frunk, and found the remains in two cadaver bags, according to LA County grand jury documents made public following a hearing in Texas court.

The grand jury documents, including subpoenas for the testimony of Burke’s mother, father, and brother, said Celeste’s remains were not intact.

They were found a day after what would have been Celeste’s 15th birthday.

The Tesla was impounded by LA parking enforcement officers after someone reported it was abandoned in the Hollywood Hills, where neighbors say it had been parked for more than a month.

The “Romantic Homicide” singer’s world tour was in Minneapolis at the time of the discovery with a stop in Kansas City the next day. A representative told NBCLA at the time that D4vd was cooperating with authorities in their investigation.

In November, an LAPD source with direct knowledge of the investigation told NBC4 Investigates that the Houston-raised artist has not been cooperative in the investigation.

In February Burke’s parents and brother, who live in Texas, asked a judge to block LA grand jury subpoenas for their testimony, and the court there filed the grand jury documents in an open court file. The judge there declined to intervene, and it appeared the family members were compelled to come to Los Angeles and appear before the grand jury in February or March, but prosecutors declined to discuss what happened, citing the secrecy of grand jury proceedings prior to an indictment.

D4vd had not previously been publicly identified as a suspect in the teen’s death, but law enforcement sources told NBC4 Investigates months prior that he was the focus of the investigation.

Law enforcement sources also told NBC4 Investigates that more than one person may have been involved in Celeste’s death and the attempted disposal of her body.

Citing the ongoing investigation, the LA County Department of Medical Examiner removed public information about the case last November, which indicated at the time that Celeste’s cause of death was still undetermined.

D4vd is a singer-songwriter who rose to fame with viral hits on TikTok, where he has 3.8 million followers. That success led to signings with Darkroom and Interscope Records.

Born in Queens, New York, Burke moved to Texas in his early teens and gained a following on YouTube playing Fortnite and other online games. He started creating original music, some of which went viral on TikTok.

D4vd released his debut album “Withered” in April 2025 and embarked on a world tour.

In an interview on the “Zach Sang Show,” D4vd said the 4 substituted for the a in his name was for search-engine optimization and a representation of four cinematic universes with various characters that he was creating.