D4vd’s legal representation was granted a withdrawal during a hearing on Monday as the singer was arraigned on charges alleging he murdered a teenage girl whose decomposed remains were found in the front trunk of his abandoned vehicle last year
D4vd pleaded not guilty during the hearing, which comes a month after a judge ruled that the singer will stand trial on first-degree murder, sexual abuse of a child and unlawful mutilation of human remains charges in connection with the death of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez.
He has been appointed a public defender 9
D4vd, whose legal name is David Burke, previously pleaded not guilty to the same charges following his arrest in April. He has remained held without bail.
A trial is expected to take place within 90 days of Monday’s arraignment.
Prosecutors allege that D4vd and Rivas Hernandez began a sexual relationship in 2023, when he was 18 and she was 13, and that he killed her after she threatened to expose their illegal relationship and ruin his career.
Just as tickets for his world tour were set to go on sale, it is alleged that the “Romantic Homicide” singer ordered an Uber that brought Rivas Hernandez to his Hollywood Hills home on April 23, 2025, prosecutors said. That was the last time she was seen alive, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors allege that D4vd stabbed the teen multiple times, watching her bleed out, and then undertook a series of “ghoulish” steps to dismember her body and get rid of evidence. Her badly decomposed remains were found in two body bags in the front trunk of D4vd’s impounded Tesla in September 2025, according to prosecutors.
During a five-day hearing in July, prosecutors presented some of their evidence in the case. They called a dozen witnesses as they set out to establish probable cause that D4vd committed the criminal offenses to move forward with a trial.
“D4vd allegedly squandered his fame and fortune by brutally killing a young girl because he feared their illicit sexual relationship would ruin his aspiring career,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said following the preliminary hearing. “The only headlines that will accompany his stage name from here forward will be about the vicious murder of a young girl.”
