Key D4vd Hearing Delayed as Defense Pleads for More Time

The murder case against D4vd took a new turn Tuesday, when the singer’s attorneys asked for more time to sift through a mountain of evidence.

D4vd, born David Anthony Burke, is charged with murder and other counts in the killing of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez. The teen’s dismembered and decomposed body was found in the front trunk of Burke’s Tesla at a Hollywood tow yard in September 2025.

Burke, 21, entered a downtown Los Angeles courtroom on Tuesday, May 12, in orange jail-issued clothes with a long-sleeve white shirt underneath.

The “Romantic Homicide” singer was shackled as he appeared for a status conference ahead of a scheduled May 26 preliminary hearing to determine if there is enough evidence for him to stand trial.  Cameras were not allowed in the courtroom.

Instead of moving forward with the hearing later this month, the defense requested more time to get through the “40 terabytes” of data prosecutors said investigators collected.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo agreed to postpone the hearing. The judge set a June 17 status conference and pushed the hearing to June 29.

Whether or not the hearing — which will include witness testimony — happens at the end of June is uncertain.

The reason, Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman said Tuesday there is so much evidence that the prosecution has only uploaded 10 percent of the data to share with the defense as part of discovery.

Silverman told the court it could take “months” to complete discovery with so much evidence. Although the prosecution said LAPD reports and lab reports have already been handed over to the defense, in addition to about 4 terabytes of the data.

The preliminary hearing was initially scheduled for April, then pushed to May and now June.

Burke is charged with first-degree murder, lewd and lascivious acts with a person under 14, and mutilating a body. The murder charge includes special circumstance allegations of lying in wait, murder for financial gain, and killing a witness in a criminal investigation.

The singer could face the death penalty if convicted as charged, although there has been a moratorium on executions in California for years.

The singer pleaded not guilty during his arraignment on April 20. His attorneys told the court, “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.”

Prosecutors alleged the alt-pop singer killed the teen in his rented Hollywood Hills mansion on April 23, 2025. Her dismembered body was found in two large bags in his Tesla on Sept. 8, 2025.

The 26-page autopsy report, which was previously sealed at the request of the LAPD, was released to the media last month.

The report said Rivas Hernandez died from “multiple penetrating injuries.” The medical examiner said she was stabbed in the “right abdomen” causing an injury to her liver. There was a second stab wound on her “left chest.”

In a nine-page court filing on April 29, prosecutors said Burke met Rivas Hernandez when she was 11 years old in January 2022. Detectives alleged the two started having sex in November 2023, when she was 13 and he was 18.

In March 2025, Rivas Hernandez texted Burke and said she wanted more than a physical relationship. “All we do is have sex and just hang out, man I want more than that for myself,” the filing said she wrote.

Evidence collected during the months-long LAPD investigation of the singer included a “significant amount” of child sexual abuse images allegedly found on Burke’s phone, according to the court filing.

Prosecutors have said the explicit images will not be uploaded and instead the sensitive photos must be viewed in person.

According to the filing, the singer and the teen exchanged extensive text messages, revealing they had a “lengthy argument” after Rivas Hernandez discovered she was not the only girl Burke was seeing.

The teen ran away multiple times from her home in Lake Elsinore, California — about an hour from downtown Los Angeles. She had returned home before she was killed, the filing said.

Investigators said Burke ordered an Uber to bring the teen to his Hollywood Hills mansion on April 23, 2025. The two were reportedly texting during the Uber ride. Detectives alleged the teen was killed that night, which was one day after she and Burke argued via text.

“The messages reveal the victim’s jealousy over defendant’s relationships with other women, as defendant led her to believe they had a future together. She became extremely upset and threatened to disclose damaging information about her relationship with defendant to end his career and destroy his life,” the filing said.

Detectives alleged the killing was motivated by money. “He had an emerging multi-million-dollar career,” the filing read. “He also had multiple product endorsements which were highly profitable.”

The filing alleged Burke watched as Rivas Hernandez bled to death. Detectives alleged the singer put a blue kiddie pool inside the garage of his rented mansion in the Hollywood Hills and “used a chainsaw and perhaps other tools” to dismember the teen’s body.

“Defendant took horrifying measures to destroy and discard the victim’s body,” prosecutors stated in the filing.