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A court has heard that D4vd allegedly used chainsaws to dismember Celeste Rivas Hernandez and used a ‘burn cage’ to destroy evidence.
Last week police charged the American rapper, 21, with the murder of the 14-year-old, whose remains were found in the boot of a car registered to him in September last year.
Prosecutors have alleged D4vd- real name David Anthony Burke – had engaged in a sexual relationship with the teenager before her death.
He has been charged with lewd and lascivious acts with an individual under 14 and mutilating a body in the killing of Hernandez.
After Burke pleaded not guilty during his first court appearance, the court has now heard additional chilling details of the case.
On Wednesday prosecutors provided a nine-page preliminary trial brief, with the rapper also appearing during the 40-minute hearing.
After they broke up last April, Hernandez ‘threatened to disclose damaging information about her relationship with defendant to end his career and destroy his life’ the documents stated.
At the time Burke had been set to release his first solo album, with prosecutors saying his career was at stake if details of their relationship were to have been made public.
He then allegedly sent an Uber to pick her up from her home in in Lake Elsinore, California at around 8.40pm on April 23, 2025, and she was dropped off at the home he was renting in Hollywood Hills at around 10.10pm.
‘Knowing he has to silence the victim before she ruined his music career as she had threatened, very soon after her arrival at his home, defendant stabbed the victim to death multiple times and stood by while she bled out,’ the brief said.
‘At no time did he call law enforcement…to take her to the emergency room to attempt to save her life.’
In the days following her death, Burke allegedly attempted to hide his tracks by texting the teenager’s phone several times asking where she was.
Around the same time, he also ordered a shovel, two chainsaws, a body bag, heavy-duty laundry bags and a blue inflatable pool to the home he was renting, doing so under a fake name.
Prosecutors also said he ordered a ‘burn cage’, with plans to incinerate evidence before taking ‘horrifying measures to destroy and discard the victim’s body’.
‘After placing her body in the blue inflatable pool to prevent her blood from spilling onto his garage floor, defendant used a chainsaw and perhaps other tools to cut off her limbs,’ the document continued.
It’s also been claimed that in an effort to ‘distance himself from the victim’, he amputated her left ring and pinky fingers as one ‘contained a tattoo of his name’. These fingers have never been recovered.
After Burke mutilated Hernandez’s body he allegedly put her head and torso in the cadaver bag and placed her limbs in a garbage bag, placing both in the front trunk of his Tesla.
When Hernandez’s body was discovered in September, Burke had been on tour – which was later cancelled.
Police have said that Burke first met Hernandez in 2021 when she was just 11 years old. They then allegedly began a sexual relationship two years later – when she was 13 and he was 18.
At the time her mother reported her missing three different times in the same year, telling police her daughter was dating a guy she’d never met, but who she knew was called David.
When questioned by police at the time, Burke denied he knew Hernandez was a minor, but ‘continued to pursue her’.
‘Throughout 2024, the victim spent a significant amount of time with defendant, including summer weekends at his home in the Hollywood Hills and traveling with him to Las Vegas, London, and Texas to meet his family,’ they said.
‘Text exchanges between the victim and defendant contain references to sex, pregnancy, abortion and use of the Plan B emergency contraceptive.’
Although they broke up in November 2024, they stayed in touch.
The charges Burke is facing carry a maximum sentence of life without the possibility of parole and the death penalty.
His defence lawyer entered not guilty please to all counts during his first court appearance last week.
Burke will next appear in court on May 12.
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