A Los Angeles judge ruled Monday that prosecutors had presented sufficient evidence for the musician D4vd, whose legal name is David Anthony Burke, to stand trial for the murder of Celeste Rivas Hernandez when she was 14 years old.
“It appears to me, for the purposes of preliminary hearing, the people have met their burden of proof on all charges,” Judge Charlaine Olmedo ruled. “I order that Mr. Burke be held to answer.” Burke’s re-arraignment has been set for August 31st.
D4vd was a “very clever adult” who sexually abused Rivas, “gaslit” the minor, and eventually murdered her after causing her such severe emotional anguish that she threatened to expose the abuse, Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman argued to the court shortly before the ruling.
Silverman spoke in a Los Angeles courtroom on the fifth and final day of a preliminary hearing for the singer. She was responding to a defense motion arguing that prosecutors had failed to present enough evidence to send Burke to trial on a first-degree murder charge and special circumstance allegations that he was lying in wait when he allegedly killed the 14-year-old girl for financial gain and to prevent her from reporting the abuse.
Defense lawyer Marilyn Bednarski argued that Rivas had invited herself to Burke’s home on the night of April 23, 2025, and that Burke had been participating in a multiplayer virtual-reality game in the minutes before she arrived, not preparing to kill her.
Bednarski said the scores of text messages presented in court on Friday showed “the opposite of homicidal animus.” Burke, she said, “repeatedly expressed his love and care [for Rivas] even after they broke up.”
Burke also faces charges of continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14 and unlawful mutilation of human remains. Prosecutors allege that he dismembered Rivas’ body in his garage with a chainsaw, placed the remains in a cadaver bag and a laundry bag, and concealed them in the front trunk of his Tesla.
“Dismemberment is post-mortem conduct. It says nothing about what caused the death, when, where or how,” Bednarski argued. “There is no evidence of a deliberate intention to kill. We cannot impute malice from concealment. What remains is suspicion of concealment of a death, which is not murder.”
After Bednarski finished, Silverman argued that investigators presented a “mountain of evidence” that proved the allegations “way beyond the standard required” for a preliminary hearing.
“We have a minor who was sexually abused for many, many months. She was groomed. … She was being gaslit,” Silverman said. “The defendant was telling her over and over again that this was sex she asked for, and he just went along with her. This is very obvious grooming. We have a young victim who really doesn’t know what is in store for her.”
Silverman said the messages between Burke and Rivas were sexually graphic and included discussions of contraception, pregnancy, and abortion. Even after Burke ended their relationship in late 2024, she said, “he unfortunately continued to use the victim for sex.”
“We saw some of the devastating consequences of that on this young girl through her text messages revealing mental health issues caused by the way she was being used by someone who was an adult, telling her that he loved her,” Silverman argued. “She wanted to have a future, and yet she had enough maturity to indicate to this adult that she was clearly head over heels in love with that she wanted more for herself than hanging out and having sex.”
The final witness, Los Angeles police Detective Corey Farell, returned to the stand after testifying Friday. During cross-examination, defense lawyer Blair Berk asked him to confirm a text Rivas sent Burke on April 22, 2025, the day before prosecutors say she was killed. It was among a series of text message in which Rivas expressed jealousy over Burke’s relationship with another female, Aysia Collins, who had attended Coachella with him in the weeks before the alleged murder.
“Oh my fucken god I swear to GOD I will kil u she was in my dam seat I will strangle u to fucken death bro I will tell my dad so many fucken lies about u dead ass I will end ur career and ur life I will damage anything,” Rivas wrote in the message, which was read aloud in court and displayed on a screen.
Berk also asked Farell to confirm that Rivas’ parents knew she was spending time with Burke after they had previously reported her missing. Farell testified that they allowed Rivas to live with an aunt in Los Angeles during the summer of 2024. The aunt later told investigators that Burke took Rivas on movie dates, he said.
Farell also testified that text messages referred to plans for Burke to attend church services with Rivas and members of her family. In September 2024, Rivas’ parents signed a four-page, notarized consent form allowing her to travel with Burke to London, he said.
When Berk asked whether Farell was aware of allegations that Rivas had been violent toward Burke, the judge ruled the question irrelevant, and Farell did not answer. Berk next asked whether the detective knew that Rivas had referred on “multiple occasions” to “wanting to kill herself.”
“I had seen that before. I don’t know about multiple occasions though,” he replied.
In her final arguments to the judge before the ruling Monday, Bednarski, the defense lawyer, said the medical examiner who testified that Rivas died of two penetrating wounds that pierced her torso “couldn’t rule out” the possibility that the wounds actually “occurred after death.” When Bednarski previously cross-examined the medical examiner on the stand, she asked whether “collateral information” about a victim’s history could help determine a cause of death, such as whether the person had been “potentially suicidal” or had a history of violence. The medical Examiner acknowledged such information could affect a determination, but he did not speak with Rivas’ family before his office ruled her death a homicide, he said.
After the judge’s ruling Monday, the lawyer representing Rivas’ parents slammed the defense for suggesting Rivas caused her own death. He called it “very disturbing” that Burke would suggest Rivas “may have committed suicide or that [she] was violent.”
“The family was horrified that the defense attorneys brought up evidence to put the blame on a 14-year-old child,” lawyer Patrick Steinfeld said. He then added that while Burke and his lawyers claim Rivas lied about her age, Burke was informed of her age when Rivas’ parents reported her missing in February 2024, and sheriff’s deputies contacted Burke directly and informed him she was a minor.
“David Anthony Burke has taken the position that Celeste said she was 18, that he didn’t know she was a child, but he knew because he was told in February of 2024 that Celeste was only 13 years old,” Steinfeld said outside the courthouse.
