Newly recovered text messages read aloud in a Los Angeles courtroom now show that singer David Anthony Burke carefully orchestrated a secret plan called Operation Awesome in February 2024 so that thirteen year old Celeste Abigail Rivas Hernandez would leave her family home and move in with him just one month after she underwent an abortion. The messages capture Burke telling the girl exactly what to pack and even offering to hide nearby with a bodyguard so she could slip away undetected. Two days after that final planning exchange her parents reported her missing for the first time. Those details form only the opening chapter of a relationship that prosecutors say lasted more than a year and ended with Burke facing first degree murder charges.
Burke known professionally as D4vd instructed Rivas Hernandez when she texted that she did not know what to bring. He replied that they had already gone over the list for weeks and told her to take anything he could not replace immediately including the clothes she liked along with makeup jewelry and shoes. He promised to arrive with two duffle bags and later confirmed he was driving to Lake Elsinore to pick her up. On February 13 2024 he asked whether she wanted him to wait in hiding near her house so his bodyguard could walk her to the car. She answered that the idea felt embarrassing. Burke answered that the day ranked as the most important of her life next to a wedding day and asked why she was worrying about embarrassment. Her parents Jesus Rivas and Mercedes Martínez contacted the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department on February 15 2024 and filed additional missing person reports on March 19 and April 5 of that same year.
The February exchange sits inside a much longer chain of messages recovered from Burke’s phone and iCloud account that began when Rivas Hernandez was still eleven years old and continued until April 2025. Prosecutors say the sexual relationship started in November 2023 when she was thirteen and he was eighteen. In early January 2024 the pair discussed a pregnancy that led to an abortion. Burke asked whether the child was his and later followed up on the procedure. Later messages show Rivas Hernandez expressing deep regret writing that she had killed her kid for him while Burke replied that dwelling on the subject was pointless. They spoke of marriage in Italy of obtaining documents so she could travel and of living together without police interference. Matching tattoos of each other’s first names appeared on their ring fingers and a second set of matching tattoos reading Shhh appeared on their index fingers.
Rivas Hernandez born September 7 2010 grew up in Lake Elsinore with parents who had immigrated from El Salvador. Neighbors later recalled that she had run away from home on multiple occasions. After the February 2024 missing report investigators contacted Burke who claimed he had met the girl only once and believed she was eighteen. Authorities performed a welfare check at his West Hollywood residence yet the contact continued. Burke allegedly paid a classmate one thousand dollars to deliver a new phone so the pair could keep communicating after her parents confiscated the original device. By March 2025 Rivas Hernandez texted that she wanted only an online friendship because all they did was have sex and hang out. Prosecutors allege that on April 22 2025 the two argued and she threatened to expose the relationship. The following evening an Uber carried her from Lake Elsinore to Burke’s Hollywood Hills home.
Rivas Hernandez’s remains were discovered on September 8 2025 inside the front trunk of a Tesla registered to Burke after the vehicle had been impounded for parking violations. The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide caused by multiple penetrating injuries. Burke was arrested on April 16 2026 and charged with first degree murder continuous sexual abuse of a child under fourteen and unlawful mutilation of human remains. He has pleaded not guilty and remains held without bail. A preliminary hearing that ended in late July 2026 resulted in an order that he stand trial. Evidence presented included the full set of text messages the purchase of chainsaws a body bag and an inflatable pool under aliases shortly after the alleged date of death and DNA recovered from the garage of the residence he occupied.
Burke’s music career had risen rapidly through viral tracks that earned him a recording agreement with Darkroom and Interscope. That relationship ended quietly in late 2025. His public biography and career milestones remain documented in standard reference sources. Full details of the criminal case including the timeline of the relationship and the discovery of the remains appear in the comprehensive public summary of the Killing of Celeste Rivas Hernandez. The precise wording of the Operation Awesome texts and the surrounding pregnancy discussions were entered into the court record and can be reviewed through the contemporaneous transcript reporting available at this detailed account of the messages. Additional investigative context covering the arrest and charging decisions is maintained in the ongoing coverage of the Los Angeles proceedings. Burke’s professional background prior to the charges is outlined in his public biography.
The Operation Awesome messages force a hard look at how a relationship between an adult musician and a middle school student could continue in plain sight for so long. Local law enforcement received repeated missing person reports yet the contact persisted. The language of permanence wedding references joint living plans and bodyguard assisted departures reveals a level of calculation that prosecutors now present as evidence of ongoing control. At the same time the defense has indicated it will challenge the interpretation of certain forensic findings and the precise circumstances of the fatal injuries. Whatever the eventual verdict the February 2024 texts already demonstrate that the two discussed a shared future in concrete logistical terms at a moment when Rivas Hernandez was still thirteen years old and her parents were already searching for her. That single exchange continues to shape public understanding of a case that has moved from viral music success to a capital eligible murder trial.
