The family of Celeste Rivas Hernandez is in “unfathomable pain” and is pushing back on rumors after prosecutors laid out a chilling account this week of how the 14-year-old California girl was allegedly murdered and dismembered by platinum-selling singer D4vd.
In a statement Friday, Celeste’s father, Jesus Rivas, flatly rejected online speculation that the musician paid the family to gain their trust or silence.
“I never had any contact with this guy, and we haven’t received any money from him or anyone in his family,” Jesus said in the new statement shared with Rolling Stone by family attorney Patrick Steinfeld.
In his own statement, Steinfeld said Celeste’s parents, brother, and sister were left devastated by the flood of grisly details revealed by prosecutors in a court filing Wednesday. In the disturbing evidence brief, prosecutors alleged D4vd, born David Anthony Burke, stabbed Celeste to death at his Hollywood Hills rental home on April 23, 2025, to cover up the sexual relationship he pursued with her when she was 13 and he was an adult.
“I had the heartbreaking responsibility of informing the Rivas Hernandez family of the horrifying allegations submitted in court,” Steinfeld said. “That David Anthony Burke allegedly stabbed Celeste, ‘stood by while she bled’ to death, used a chainsaw to cut off her limbs, and bought a ‘burn cage’ with the plan to ‘incinerate the evidence.’”
He said delivering the news “was the most difficult thing I’ve had to do in 37 years as a lawyer.” Though he initially encouraged the family to speak publicly after Burke was charged and appeared in court, the “gruesome details emerging almost daily” left the family so deeply “shocked,” they could not gather the strength to speak, he said.
“There are no words to express the indescribable pain the family is experiencing right now,” he said. “They still have bills to pay and jobs they go to every day. All they want is time to grieve and heal.”
Burke, now 21, was charged last week with first-degree murder, continuous sexual abuse of a child under the age of 14, and unlawful mutilation of human remains. Prosecutors added special circumstance allegations of murder of a witness, murder for financial gain, and lying in wait, which make him eligible for the death penalty. (Prosecutors have yet to decide whether to pursue the death penalty.) He has pleaded not guilty.
A Los Angeles judge allowed the public release of the evidence brief on Wednesday after Burke’s defense lawyer, Blair Berk, argued it was so “entirely one-sided” that it would taint any jury pool for a potential future trial. Berk asked that it be sealed, but the judge rejected the request.
In the nine-page filing, prosecutors claim surveillance video shows Burke driving his Tesla on July 29, 2025, before parking it near his rental home and leaving for a concert tour. The car was later towed and impounded, with investigators finding Rivas’ dismembered, badly decomposed remains in the front truck on Sept. 8, 2025.
“For several weeks, or possibly months, defendants left the victim’s body to decompose inside his Tesla. He lied to friends, business associates, and others who noticed the strong smell of decay in and around his home and vehicle,” the brief claims.
The filing alleges Burke met Rivas when she was 11. When her family later reported her missing, authorities found Burke’s number in her phone records and informed him of her age, it says. Burke “continued to pursue” Rivas after that, prosecutors say, allegedly paying a classmate $1,000 to deliver a secret phone so they could stay in touch.
Recovered text messages between Burke and Rivas allegedly reference sex, pregnancy, and abortion. Prosecutors say the pair argued the night before Burke allegedly paid an Uber driver to ferry Rivas from her home more than an hour outside Los Angeles, in Lake Elsinore, to his rental house in the Hollywood Hills. They allege Burke killed her almost immediately after she arrived.
“Knowing he had to silence the victim before she ruined his music career as she had threatened, very soon after her arrival at his home, defendant stabbed the victim to death multiple times and stood by while she bled out,” the filing says.
Prosecutors allege Burke later bought a shovel, chainsaws, a body bag, and a blue inflatable kiddie pool under a fake name online, and used the items to dismember Rivas in his garage. They say blood evidence found in his rental home’s garage is a match for Celeste, and they claim he lied to people who noticed the smell of her decomposing remains.
“For several weeks, or possibly months, defendants left the victim’s body to decompose inside his Tesla. He lied to friends, business associates, and others who noticed the strong smell of decay in and around his home and vehicle,” the blockbuster evidence brief, obtained by Rolling Stone, claims.
If convicted as charged, Burke faces life in prison without parole or the death penalty.
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