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WARNING: This story contains descriptions of human remains.
Singer D4vd is the target of a Los Angeles County grand jury investigation into the killing of 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, court documents showed.
Prosecutors describe the 20-year-old Houston-born alt-pop singer, whose legal name is David Burke, as the target of the investigation in grand jury subpoenas issued on Jan. 15 seeking to have three of his relatives testify.
The documents were obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday. They were sealed in California, where the grand jury investigation has been kept secret. But they were made public by an appeal of the subpoenas in Texas from the singer’s mother, father and brother.
The documents say the “target may be involved in having committed the following criminal offences against the laws of the State of California, to wit: One count of Murder.”
Tesla registered in singer’s name, court filings say
The Tesla was registered in D4vd’s name at the address of his subpoenaed family members, the court filings says.
Authorities had not publicly named D4vd — pronounced “David” — as a suspect in the case.
The long-dead body of Celeste Rivas Hernandez was found 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 112 kilometres southeast of Los Angeles.
Authorities give her age as 14 when she was killed in the court documents.
The subpoena says 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 says.
Investigators from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office responded to the scene.
“Upon removing the cadaver bag from the front storage compartment, it was discovered the arms and legs had been severed from the body,” the document says. “A second black bag was discovered underneath the cadaver bag. Upon opening the second bag, the dismembered body parts were discovered.”
Representatives for D4vd did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday, and they have not previously responded to emails from the AP seeking comment on the case.
The District Attorney’s Office declined to comment.
A judge in Texas said the three family members could not ignore the subpoenas and ordered them to appear in California and testify.
Vehicle seemingly abandoned
The Tesla had been towed from an upscale neighbourhood in the Hollywood Hills where it had been sitting, seemingly abandoned.
The singer was in the middle of a U.S. tour and continued to play several shows after the girl’s 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.
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, Los Angeles police got a judge to prevent Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Odey Ukpo from releasing the findings of the autopsy, and no cause of death has been revealed.
D4vd gained popularity among Gen 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 and alternative songs chart. He then signed with Darkroom and Interscope Records and released his debut EP Petals to Thorns and a followup, 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 L.A.’s Grammy Museum, were cancelled, as was the European tour that was to have begun in Norway.
