Family members of Celeste Rivas Hernandez, including her parents, were aware of her relationship with singer D4vd before her death, according to testimony from an LAPD detective during the artist’s preliminary hearing this week.
Detective Corey Farrell told the court that investigators determined Celeste’s parents, aunt, cousins, adult sister and some school friends knew about the relationship prior to April 2025. Farrell also said D4vd’s mother was aware of it.
The details emerged largely during cross-examination by defense attorney Blair Berk. Farrell confirmed that Celeste’s parents signed a notarized travel consent form in September 2024 authorizing the then-14-year-old to travel to London with the singer. The pair also made trips to Las Vegas and Texas that year, according to evidence presented in the case.
Text messages showed discussions of D4vd attending church with members of Celeste’s family. Berk stated that the two had gone to church with the family on multiple occasions. Farrell noted messages planning those outings and said the singer had also taken Celeste to the mall and joined family members at Six Flags Magic Mountain. When the pair visited Las Vegas, Celeste’s adult sister was present at the same time and knew they were together. Celeste was also filmed sitting with D4vd’s family in a VIP box during a concert at the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood.
The defense pointed to the family’s knowledge and shared activities to show the relationship was not entirely secret. Prosecutors allege that D4vd, whose legal name is David Anthony Burke, began communicating with Celeste in 2022 when she was 11, that the relationship became sexual when she was 13 and he was 18, and that he killed her on or about April 23, 2025, after she threatened to expose the relationship and damage his career. Her remains were found months later in the front trunk of a Tesla registered to him.
Farrell described thousands of text messages recovered from the singer’s iCloud account along with dozens of sexually explicit images. The messages included discussions of sex, pregnancy, an abortion when Celeste was 13, and plans the pair referred to as “Operation Awesome.”
Burke has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder with special circumstances, continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14, and unlawful mutilation of a body. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo ruled Monday that prosecutors had presented enough evidence for the case to proceed to trial.
Celeste’s parents attended portions of the hearing. Their attorney, Patrick Steinfeld, has previously stated that Celeste’s father never had contact with Burke and that the family received no money from him. After the hearing, Steinfeld said the family was “horrified that the defense attorneys brought up evidence to put the blame on a 14-year-old girl.”
The case now moves forward in the criminal justice process.
