Warning: this article contains distressing details
A court has heard that D4vd’s Tesla, where the decomposing remains of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez were found, was filled with air fresheners, and also that his DNA was found on garbage bags related to the case.
Earlier this year, the singer (real name David Anthony Burke) was accused by prosecutors of dismembering Celeste Rivas Hernandez’s body with a chainsaw in his garage after buying tools online.
He was charged with the murder of the 14-year-old girl on April 20, and has pleaded not guilty of murdering and sexually abusing the teen. The victim’s remains had been found severely decomposed in the front boot of a Tesla registered to Burke last September.
During the opening day of a preliminary hearing in the murder case on Tuesday (July 21), the court was shown a series of graphic and distressing photographs relating to the case, and Hernandez’s parents were in attendance at the hearing.
On that day, a homicide detective testified that Burke had purchased a body bag, chainsaws, an inflatable pool and a shovel online in the days after the victim’s death. The details of the murder had previously only been described in court filings, and the hearing marked the first time that evidence and photos were shown publicly in court.
According to prosecutors, Burke stabbed Hernandez before dismembering her body with a chainsaw to cover up the murder following years of alleged sexual abuse. It is alleged that he killed the teenager because she had threatened to speak out about his relationship with a minor and ruin his music career. He has denied the charges, and told police that he did not know Hernandez was a minor. He also claimed to have only met the then-13-year-old once in person.
Now, at the second day of the hearing, it has been heard that at least 11 air fresheners were found in D4vd’s Tesla alongside the human remains of the 14-year-old.
Criminalist with the Los Angeles Police Department, Chelsea Murillo, testified and said that the majority were found on the center console of the Tesla Model X, and some others were tucked into pockets of the rear seats.
She told the court that she noticed a “strong odour” when processing the vehicle one day after Rivas’ remains were found inside two bags in the storage compartment under the front hood.
The odour, she said “resembled a decomposing body, based on my professional experience”, and prosecutors showed the court images of the air fresheners alongside an image of fly larvae engulfing the air freshener near where the body was found (via Rolling Stone).
As well as the insects in the front boot, Murillo also claimed to have found stains in a compartment of the Tesla’s rear boot, which were later confirmed as Rivas’ blood.
Defense lawyer Blair Berk said that of all the swabs collected by Murillo, only two tested positive for blood DNA, and neither came from the passenger compartment.
Also at the hearing, another LAPD criminologist, Lauren Wallace, spoke about what police found in their search of Burke’s rental home, where the alleged killing and dismembering took place.
She said that traces of blood were found on the rubber floor mats and the brick floor underneath in the garage, as well as on a nearby rowing machine, on a green tarp, and on brown-stained wipes in the bin.
Wallace spoke about the allegations that D4vd used an inflatable pool to collect the blood when allegedly dismembering the body of Rivas. The criminologist said that the pool had a “fresh, almost laundry-like scent” and had dryer sheets stuck on it. No blood was visible, although when sprayed with Bluestar – a luminol-like chemical used to detect traces of blood – one patch glowed, indicating likely traces of blood.
In court yesterday (Thursday July 24), another police criminalist, Samantha Tosch, testified that Burke’s DNA was among the genetic material found on a trash bag found in the garage (as per Rolling Stone). She said at the hearing that the bag – which could be significant to the case – had the DNA of four people, and D4vd was one of them.
She also said that at least two of the four people with their DNA on the bag were male, and that a sample of one of the aforementioned brown-stained wipes in the bag contained DNA that was “three trillion times more likely to have come from Rivas than from an unknown person”.
Burke’s DNA was not found on the wipe.
Tosch later said that other suspected blood evidence found in the garage also matched the DNA profile of the victim, although in the cross-examination by Burke’s defense lawyer, the criminologist acknowledged that DNA can be transferred without a person needing to touch it.
The lawyer also pressed Tosch on the software used by the LAPD, suggesting that it may be calculated that only the singer’s DNA was detected in the mixture of the four-people. The LAPD criminologist said that while it was “fair” to say that, it is her professional opinion that the DNA on the trash bag belonged to Burke.
Also at the hearing, criminalist Lauren Wallace revealed that investigators did not swab nor collect the two chainsaws found in Burke’s garage as they “did not appear to be used”.
Previously, prosecutors said that Burke ordered the two chainsaws on Amazon shortly after the alleged murder.
On Tuesday, the court heard from an LAPD detective that the singer purchased a third chainsaw from Home Depot on May 4 2025, but that one was never recovered. On Thursday, Wallace said that a third electric saw was found upstairs in the home and tested negative, so was not collected for the investigation.
The preliminary hearing, which is not the trial itself, will see prosecutors lay out the evidence they say links Burke to the teen’s death. They are seeking to convince the judge that there is sufficient evidence for the case to proceed to trial.
At the first hearing, Burke was reportedly shackled at the wrists and ankles as he attended the hearing wearing orange jail clothes.
During his testimony, Detective Joshua Byers recalled opening a cadaver bag inside the car where the victim was discovered. He found decomposing human remains, including a torso and a head, and a black bag containing severed limbs. According to Byers, Hernandez’s body was so severely decomposed that her face was no longer recognisable.
The court also heard about tattoos prosecutors claimed connected Burke and the victim. Images of a red-ink tattoo reading “Celeste” on Burke’s left ring finger, and a “Shhh…” tattoo on his right index finger, were shown to the judge. Another photo showed Hernandez with a similar “Shhh…” tattoo on her right index finger, while a separate picture showed a hand where the ring and little finger were cut off.
In a previous evidence filing, prosecutors alleged that the victim had sent text messages threatening to expose her relationship with Burke before she was allegedly murdered.
In April, the court heard that investigators had obtained access to Burke’s iCloud account, which they claimed contained “ a significant amount of child pornography”.
His lawyers have vowed to “vigorously defend David’s innocence”, claiming that “evidence will show that David did not kill Celeste”.
The victim was first reported missing in April 2024, with the Tesla later being discovered after it had been moved to an impound lot in LA. The LAPD subsequently confirmed that the case was being treated as an “investigation into murder”.
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