D4vd murder case: Singer to face key hearing on charges he killed, dismembered teen
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A preliminary hearing in the murder case against David Anthony Burke, the 21-year-old singer better known as D4vd, will go forward at the end of June, setting a timeline for when more detailed evidence about the gruesome killing and dismemberment of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez will become public.Burke — who prosecutors say sexually abused the teen for a year before stabbing her to death and mutilating her corpse last year — will face the hearing on June 29, attorneys said during a brief hearing Tuesday morning.After the singer’s arrest in April, his legal team pushed for an immediate preliminary hearing — in which a judge determines if prosecutors have enough evidence to bring a case to trial — but they backed off after prosecutors began turning over what they have described as a massive amount of digital evidence linking Burke to the teenager’s brutal slaying.
Burke has pleaded not guilty in the case.The hearing is expected to last at least five days.A status conference hearing will take place June 17.Questions about the singer’s connection to Hernandez’s grisly end have swirled since last summer, ever since her badly decomposed and dismembered body was found in the trunk of a Tesla linked to Burke.
Late last month, prosecutors filed a nine-page brief laying out what they believe to be Hernandez’s final moments and Burke’s alleged horrific actions after her death.In the filing, prosecutors said Burke stabbed Hernandez to death inside a Hollywood Hills residence after she threatened to go public about the ascendant singer’s continual sexual abuse.After killing her, Burke ordered a chainsaw, a “burn cage,” a shovel and other implements he used to dismember her remains in his garage, prosecutors alleged last week.
The motion also laid out the dramatic steps Burke went to in order to continue his relationship with the teen.In February 2024, Herna...