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U.S. singer D4vd has been arrested on suspicion of killing a 14-year-old girl whose decomposed body was found last year in an apparently abandoned Tesla registered to him that was towed from the Hollywood Hills, police said Thursday.
Los Angeles police said in a brief statement that the 21-year-old Houston-born alt-pop singer whose legal name is David Anthony Burke was being held without bail. Police said investigators would present a case to the District Attorney’s Office for consideration of charges on Monday.
Police said investigators would present a case to prosecutors at the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s 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 if there is enough evidence to file charges.
The singer had been under investigation by an L.A. County grand jury looking into the death of Celeste Rivas Hernandez.
The probe was officially secret, but its existence — and the designation of D4vd as its target — was revealed on Feb. 25 when his mother, father and brother filed an objection in a Texas court to subpoenas demanding they testify.
A Texas judge said the three could not ignore the subpoenas and ordered them to appear in California and testify.
Representatives for the singer have not responded to multiple requests from The Associated Press for comment on the case.
Body discovered in September 2025
The long-dead body of Celeste Rivas Hernandez was found on Sept. 8, 2025, 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 112 kilometres southeast of Los Angeles.
In court documents, authorities give her age as 14 when she was killed.
The subpoena said police investigators searching the 2023 Tesla Model Y in a tow yard found a cadaver bag “covered with insects and a strong odour of decay.”
“Detectives partially unzipped the bag and observed a decomposed head and torso,” it said.
According to the court documents, investigators from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office responded to the scene, and when they removed the bag from the front storage compartment, discovered the arms and legs had been severed from the body.
“A second black bag was discovered underneath the cadaver bag,” the document read. “Upon opening the second bag, the dismembered body parts were discovered.”
The Medical Examiner’s Office had previously said only that the body was found severely decomposed and that Rivas Hernandez had likely been dead for an extended period before she was found.
In November 2025, Los Angeles police got a judge to prevent the chief medical examiner from releasing the autopsy findings, and no cause of death has been revealed.
The singer was in the middle of a U.S. tour and continued to play several shows after the body was found. But he eventually cancelled the rest of his concerts and a European tour after his connection to the case became widely reported.
