D4vd allegedly used a chainsaw to dismember the body of a teenager he sexually assaulted, then cut off two of his fingers to destroy a tattoo linking him to the girl, according to a court document made public Wednesday afternoon by LA County prosecutors.
David Anthony Burke, 21, is charged with murder, sexual abuse of a minor and mutilation of a corpse. Prosecutors say he killed 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez because she threatened to expose his abuse and ruin his music career. He pleaded not guilty last week.
Before the trial that was supposed to start on Friday, Los Angeles County Deputy. He said. Beth Silverman filed a nine-page brief outlining the evidence she plans to present. In the document, Silverman detailed the abusive relationship between the singer and the little girl that began when she was only 11 years old, and wrote that Burke had chainsaws, body bags, an inflatable pool and a shovel brought to her home to dispose of Hernandez’s body.
“Knowing that he had to silence the victim before he ruined his music career as he threatened, shortly after he arrived at his home, the accused stabbed the victim several times and stood aside while she was bleeding,” wrote Silverman.
Burke also brought a “heated cage” to his residence, which served as a portable welding machine, according to the document. The lake was apparently used to contain Hernandez’s body as the singer dismembered his remains. Pieces of plastic were found in the lake embedded in Hernandez’s body, the document said.
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The singer has long been linked to Hernandez’s disappearance and death, after his badly decomposed body was found in the trunk of his Tesla at a Hollywood tow truck last September. Authorities said Hernandez was last seen at Burke’s Hollywood residence on April 23, 2025. The two got into a “long argument” the night before, with Hernandez expressing jealousy over Burke’s relationships with other women, prosecutors said.
“[Hernandez] “she became very angry and threatened to reveal damaging information about her relationship with the defendant in order to destroy her career and destroy her life,” Silverman wrote.
On the night police believe Hernandez was killed, according to a new lawsuit filed by prosecutors, the singer ordered an Uber to pick him up from his home in Lake Elsinore and take him to Hollywood around 8:40 p.m.
An autopsy report made public last week revealed that Hernandez died from stab wounds. His body was mutilated when police found it in the trunk and two of his fingers were severed, according to the coroner’s report. In the document made public Wednesday, Silverman alleges that Burke redacted those numbers to remove evidence of a tattoo Hernandez got in the singer’s name.
In the document, Silverman said Burke first met Hernandez when he was only 11 years old. The two began a sexual relationship when she was 13 but “broke up” in late November 2024, according to Silverman. Text messages between the two contained references to “sex, pregnancy, abortion and the use of Plan B emergency contraception,” he wrote.
Investigators also found pictures of Hernandez nude and performing sexual acts on Burke’s phone, according to the document. Silverman said in court last week that search warrants turned up “a large amount of child pornography” on Burke’s devices.
Hernandez was reported to have disappeared from her family several times in Lake Elsinore in 2024. Riverside County sheriff’s investigators asked Burke about her whereabouts in February 2024, but Burke said she “didn’t know she was a minor or had been reported missing,” Silverman wrote.
Two days later, he returned home and his parents took away his cell phone. But Burke allegedly drove to Lake Elsinore and paid the high school junior $1,000 to give her a new phone so they could stay in touch, according to the document filed Wednesday. The following year, Hernandez traveled with the singer to Las Vegas, Texas and London where he met “his family,” Silverman wrote.
Burke’s lead attorney, Blair Berk, could not be reached for comment for this filing.
He asked Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo to close his plea Wednesday afternoon, but the judge denied his request.
The singer took steps to cover his tracks before the execution, and the following days. Twenty minutes after arriving on the night of April 23, Burke allegedly sent a series of text messages to her phone asking where she was. Prosecutors allege that he had just killed Hernandez and was trying to make it look like he never showed up.
That night he drove to a Santa Barbara County lake, where prosecutors say he dumped most of his belongings. He returned to the same location twice last May, according to a court report Wednesday. In January 2026, Hernandez’s identification was found on a highway near Lake Cachuma.
Berk previously said that he did not believe that the prosecution’s case could continue to be considered and demanded that his case be tried immediately. Defendants have the right to a trial, where a judge decides whether prosecutors have enough evidence to bring the case to trial, within 10 business days.
But on Wednesday afternoon, attorney Marilyn Bednarski asked that the hearing be postponed to May 26, citing the large amount of evidence in the case. Olmedo admitted there was “good reason” to postpone the trial for several weeks. Burke will appear in court again on May 1 for a hearing.
Silverman expressed some dismay at Bednarski and Berk’s change of heart, noting that he had already warned the defense team that prosecutors had a lot of evidence to answer.
Silverman said last week that discovery materials will include the results of a wiretap and search of Burke’s cell phone and iCloud accounts. Law enforcement executed 54 search warrants, according to court records.
A medical examiner’s report detailing how Hernandez died was not made available to the defense until last week. Prosecutors also convened three secret grand juries between November 2025 and February 2026 to gather evidence against Burke, according to Silverman. Documents from that hearing have been sealed since last week.
Bednarski said Wednesday he needed “more time to review what we’ve just found, or are yet to find, so that we can have a full and free hearing.”
“We told them this is what was going to happen,” Silverman said in response. “As I said briefly, we sent the summons, we prepared, we told the witnesses to cancel the holidays that we had planned.”
In asking Olmedo to close the briefing, Berk expressed concern that it was “one-sided” and could prejudice the jury.
“Prosecutors appeared to file an unusual trial briefing that appears to be one sided of what is expected as evidence in this case. But no evidence was presented by the prosecution in court. Certainly there has never been a decision to admit that evidence,” said Berk.
Legal experts said Silverman’s move to show his hand early in the case was as unusual as Berk’s initial decision to rush to trial.
“It’s not unusual for the prosecutor to file a brief before that. But the prosecutor wants to be open to the public, and he’s educating the judge,” said Dmitry Gorin, a former sex crimes prosecutor in Los Angeles.
“The security forces wanted to destabilize the government. But it is clear that the DA was very serious here,” said Gorin. “As a defense attorney, you have to be ready like a professional boxer; you need to know how to spin.”
