Preliminary hearing nears close after five days of testimony
Prosecutors on Monday gave a moment-by-moment account of the final night of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, showing that after a stream of text messages with singer D4vd, her phone went permanently silent when she arrived at his home.
The texts were shown in court on the fifth and likely final day of a Los Angeles hearing to determine whether he will go to trial in her killing.
As she neared his Hollywood home shortly after 10 a.m. on April 23, 2025, in an Uber he had sent to pick her up, she sent her final text: “girly pop i’m almost there open ur door if ur home.” Prosecutors allege Burke, 21, stabbed her to death when she came through the door.
Detective Corey Farrell of the Los Angeles Police Department, under questioning from the prosecution, read the texts that were obtained from warrants on Burke’s iPhone and iCloud accounts. The night before, the two argued via text about his relationship with another woman. She sent him an angry and profane text saying she would tell her father so many lies about him and “i will end ur career and ur life.”
The hearing will end with a decision from Judge Charlaine Olmedo on whether to put Burke on trial on charges of murder, sexual abuse of a child under 14 and mutilation of a body. He has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers have said he did not cause her death.
Defense attorney Blair Berk established that no witnesses saw and no cameras captured Rivas Hernandez entering the house or Burke being at the house in the time frame prosecutors say she was killed. The defense showed several other texts from Rivas Hernandez threatening him about their relationship, including saying she would go to Burke’s mother, talk to his friends and “leak” information about them.
Under questioning from Berk, Farrell said he saw no indication that she ever threatened to go to police or pursue any legal action against him. The defense also established that she had asked seven times to come see him in the days before her death, and he agreed only after she demanded it.
Farrell also said under questioning from Berk that the parents of both Burke and Rivas Hernandez knew about their relationship, that he had attended church with members of her family and that her parents had given their consent to go to London with him for a week. The detective also agreed that Rivas Hernandez in her earliest conversations with Burke when he was 17 and she was 11, she had told him she was 16, and at other times said in messages she was 18.
After her phone went silent, Burke sent her several other messages that night asking where she was, and expressing concern. Prosecutors allege those messages were sent as cover after he had killed her.
Prosecutors allege Burke dismembered the body in his garage. A police analyst testified earlier in the hearing that samples pulled from apparent blood stains there matched her DNA. Her body was found in a Tesla registered to him nearly five months later.
Both sides finished their questioning of Farrell, the hearing’s final witness, and were preparing for closing arguments before Olmedo makes her decision.
MSI previously reported that the medical examiner identified two stab wounds on Rivas Hernandez’s body, and that the preliminary hearing began July 21 with prosecutors alleging the sexual relationship between Burke and Rivas Hernandez began when she was 13 and he was 18. Medical examiner identifies two stab wounds in D4vd hearing | D4vd faces preliminary hearing in killing of 14-year-old girl