D4VD Faces Murder Rap!

Singer, rapper and sexual predator faces murder charges.

The former singer, rapper and media personality is arrested for the death of a 14-year old girl who was found dead inside his Tesla. The allegations involve domestic violence and pedophilia.

Midway Wrap Up in May.

D4VD has been arrested on suspicion of killing a 14-year-old girl whose decomposed body was found seven months ago in his apparently abandoned Tesla, authorities said Thursday, while his lawyers declared his innocence.

The suspect is innocent until proven in a court of law.

Los Angeles police said in a brief statement that homicide detectives arrested the 21-year-old Houston-born alt-pop singer, whose legal name is David Burke, on suspicion of murder in the investigation of the killing of Celeste Rivas Hernandez.

Defense attorneys Blair Berk, Marilyn Bednarski and Regina Peter responded in an email: “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.”

Police said investigators would present a case to prosecutors at the Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office on Monday. The office said in its own statement that it is aware of the arrest and its Major Crimes Division will review the case to determine whether there is enough evidence to file charges.

Fatal attraction. The girl was seen with D4VD. They referred to each other as a couple.

The long-dead body of Celeste Rivas Hernandez was found in a Tesla on Sept. 8, a day after she would have turned 15. She was a 13-year-old seventh grader when her family reported her missing in 2024 from her hometown of Lake Elsinore, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles. Authorities give her age as 14 when she was killed in court documents.

The 2023 Tesla Model Y was registered in the singer’s name at the Texas address of his subpoenaed family members, according to court filings from prosecutors. It had been towed from an upscale neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills where it had been sitting, seemingly abandoned.

Police investigators searching the Tesla in a tow yard found a cadaver bag “covered with insects and a strong odor of decay,” court documents said, and “detectives partially unzipped the bag and observed a decomposed head and torso.”

D4VD allegedly groomed victim.

Investigators from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office removed the bag and “discovered the arms and legs had been severed from the body,” according to court documents. A second black bag was found under the first, and dismembered body parts were inside it. No cause of death has been publicly revealed.

Authorities had not publicly named D4VD — pronounced “David” — as a suspect prior to the arrest.

D4VD gained popularity among Generation Z fans for his blend of indie rock, R&B and lo-fi pop. He went viral on TikTok in 2022 with the hit “Romantic Homicide,” which peaked at No. 4 on Billboard’s Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart. He then signed with Darkroom and Interscope Records and released his debut EP “Petals to Thorns” and a follow-up, “The Lost Petals,” in 2023.

When the body was discovered, D4VD had been on tour in support of his first full-length album, “Withered.” Later, the last two North American shows, in San Francisco and Los Angeles, along with a scheduled performance at LA’s Grammy Museum, were canceled, as was the European tour that was to have begun in Norway.

This case was being treated as a possible DEATH card indictment.

 

A spokesperson told NBC News in a statement that D4VD "has been informed about what’s happened, and although he is still out on tour, he is fully cooperating with the authorities."

How did D4VD hid a girl inside his car?

Universal Music Group, the parent company of Interscope Records, referred questions to an attorney for D4VD. The attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Another body was found in a car Tuesday at a different tow yard in South Los Angeles as part of an investigation into a missing person, police said. That tow yard is near Western and Gage avenues, around 7 miles south of Hollywood.

"At this point in the investigation there is no known connection between the two cases," police spokeswoman Jennifer Forkish said.