A teen lady was found lifeless in a automotive owned by d4vd. CNN went to her hometown to analyze the mysterious hyperlink between her and the rising music star. Upgrade to watch the full report.
Los Angeles
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In the summer time of 2024, a budding musical sensation recognized to his legion of principally younger followers as d4vd posted on social media that he was experiencing a case of author’s block.
“I’m in a song crisis right now,” the entertainer, then 19, lamented on Discord.
Within minutes, one in all his followers on the favored platform provided an oddly particular suggestion:
“Drop the one with the missing girl celeste rivas hernandez,” the nameless consumer wrote, referring to a 13-year-old runaway whose face was plastered on “missing person” posters on the time.
The message went unaddressed by the singer, whose full title is David Anthony Burke.
But the cryptic—seemingly taunting—submit has since emerged as an intriguing nugget in reference to a grand jury investigation in which prosecutors have deemed Burke a “target.”
That’s as a result of a couple of 12 months after the submit mentioning Rivas, her dismembered and decomposed body was found in the trunk of Burke’s Tesla, which had been deserted not removed from the rented multimillion-dollar house the place he was dwelling in the glitzy Hollywood Hills overlooking Los Angeles. The automotive was ultimately transferred to a tow yard, the place an worker known as police after noticing a foul odor emanating from the automobile.
Following the grisly discovery in September, Burke canceled a world tour upon which he had simply embarked. He has made no public remark in the months since.
Authorities investigating her dying have been tight-lipped as nicely. A choose has ordered that the outcomes of Rivas’ post-mortem stay confidential on the request of the LAPD’s elite Robbery-Homicide Division, which is investigating the younger lady’s dying.
Interest in the case, in the meantime, has exploded on the web: The singer was the No. 1 searched particular person on Google worldwide for 2025 primarily based on queries following the invention of Rivas’ body. An military of novice on-line sleuths has been parsing Burke’s lyrics, interviews and social media posts for clues, and the case has resulted in headlines in publications from the Los Angeles Times to the New York Post.
A CNN investigation, primarily based on an in depth evaluation of social media postings each by and about Burke, in addition to greater than a dozen interviews, found that Rivas repeatedly appeared in Burke’s orbit before and after she was reported lacking for the primary time in February of 2024.
She was simply 13 years outdated when she appeared alongside Burke in a livestream video shot in the wee hours of the morning from inside a West Hollywood house linked to the entertainer. She was photographed backstage at one in all his concert events a number of months later and appeared in pictures on the reminiscence card of a digital camera left behind on the singer’s house in the Hollywood Hills after information of her dying grew to become public.
CNN additionally used geolocation to confirm Burke’s unexplained presence a number of blocks from Rivas’ household house greater than an hour’s drive from the place he lived in Hollywood across the time the lady was reported lacking.
Citing the continued grand jury probe, Burke’s lawyer, Blair Berk, declined touch upon any side of the case, together with what relationship, if any, her shopper had with Rivas.
The singer and the runaway
Before one in all his music movies went viral and made him a web based phenomenon, Burke was a homeschooled teenager dwelling in a devoutly spiritual family exterior Houston. He was a gaming fanatic and a lover of music.
A mix of these two passions led to him making music to accompany movies he posted of himself gaming, and in 2022, his debut single “Romantic Homicide” went viral on TikTok.
As his profession took off, he moved to Los Angeles, the place his administration firm rented a lavish home in the Hollywood Hills for $20,000 a month. He was dwelling the fast-paced lifetime of a younger movie star when Rivas in some way ended up in his orbit.
Lake Elsinore, California, Rivas’ hometown, is a couple of 90-minute drive from LA, however the working-class metropolis feels a world away.
Rivas was reported lacking from her neighborhood in early 2024. Posters of her face have been plastered round city and shared on social media on the time.
Elie Naddaf, a nook retailer proprietor in Rivas’ neighborhood, instructed CNN he would typically see Rivas come in with her associates after faculty for snacks.
He remembered her as a well mannered, respectful child among the many generally rowdy ones who would frequent his retailer.
“Always nice,” he mentioned of Rivas.
Hints concerning the lady’s connection to Burke started to floor even before she was reported lacking.
In January of 2024, Rivas appeared facet by facet with Burke in a livestream video on the social medial platform Twitch. In it, the pair joke and banter till about 3 a.m. before Burke laughingly proclaims, “Delete everything.”
A month later, an individual involved over Rivas’ well-being despatched an e mail to an tackle bearing Burke’s stage title — d4vd — on his document firm’s area.
The author referenced Rivas’ disappearance and mentioned “There’s been talk” that Burke probably had one thing to do with it.
If there was any fact to that, the particular person wrote, “please do the right thing and take her home. Her parents are very worried.”
CNN confirmed the authenticity of the e-mail with the one that despatched it. But that particular person requested to not be recognized on account of security considerations.
Rivas returned house inside days of the e-mail being despatched, an acquaintance of the household confirmed to CNN.
Around that very same time, between January and March of 2024, the singer was photographed getting out of a black Tesla a number of blocks from Rivas’ house. A neighborhood teen in Lake Elsinore later posted the pictures on TikTok. CNN geolocated and chronolocated the pictures to confirm when and the place they have been taken.
A number of months later, after having been reported lacking once more, Rivas was photographed backstage throughout a sold-out present the entertainer carried out on the Fonda Theater in Los Angeles in June.
Then, in August, got here the message on Discord asking Burke when he was going to drop the track concerning the lacking lady.
Another piece of the puzzle linking Burke to Rivas was found in Burke’s rented house after Rivas’ body was recognized in September 2025 and the case started making nationwide headlines.
Steve Fischer, a personal investigator employed by the proprietor of the property, mentioned he uncovered a digital digital camera inside the home with pictures of each Rivas and Burke taken in late December of 2024 and early January of 2025. During that point, the entertainer posted different pictures from the digital camera’s reminiscence card to his X account, captioned “took these pics” together with a selfie of him sporting a digital camera of the identical mannequin.
After Rivas’ body was found and the case was broadly publicized, her brother instructed NBCLA that the household was conscious she knew Burke, and that she was on her strategy to see a film with the singer when she disappeared. The household has since stopped talking publicly concerning the case and didn’t reply to requests from CNN to be interviewed for this text.
Some of the intrigue surrounding Burke and his ties to Rivas comes from the singer himself. Though Burke comes throughout in interviews as a soft-spoken artist with a delicate demeanor, he has acknowledged having a darker alter ego he refers to as IT4MI, which he mentioned was impressed by the Japanese phrase for “pain.”
“A part of that manga was an evil version of me,” he said in May to the music YouTube channel Mahogany.
“And he would commit the crimes that I would have to solve as the detective. … I’d be, like, solving murders that I’m committing myself.”
The track that went viral in 2022 and primarily launched his stardom was entitled “Romantic Homicide.” Among the lyrics was the road: “In the back of my mind I killed you and I didn’t even regret it.” The music video incorporates violent imagery of a younger, dark-haired lady’s lifeless body and bloody knives.
In a later music video for the track “One More Dance,” Burke’s alterego drags his personal body into the trunk of a automotive. Following the invention of Rivas’ body in the trunk of Burke’s automotive, some followers started to attach the bloody aesthetic of his fantasy alterego, which may be frequent in the anime style, to the real-life circumstances.
While authorities have saved quiet for months concerning the investigation, current developments have signaled some motion in the probe.
In January, a younger affiliate of Burke’s, who frolicked with him on the home in the Hollywood Hills and was typically photographed with him at occasions, was arrested at his mom’s home in Helena, Montana.
Lt. Adam Shanks with the Helena Police Department mentioned detectives from Los Angeles had a fabric witness warrant for the younger man.
“They came up here and scooped him up,” Shanks instructed CNN. He was then transported to Los Angeles, the place he was booked into jail and launched a day in a while a $60,000 bond.
Then, final month, courtroom paperwork in Texas grew to become public, revealing a dispute over whether or not Burke’s members of the family could possibly be pressured to look before the grand jury in Los Angeles. The filings additionally revealed a grotesque new element concerning the case and supplied some readability about Burke’s standing in the eyes of prosecutors.
The element was that Rivas’ body was not solely badly decomposed when it was found – it had been dismembered and separated into two baggage before being positioned in the trunk of the Tesla.
The readability got here in prosecutors describing Burke as a “target” of the investigation, titled, “The People of the State of California v. David Burke.”
The paperwork didn’t specify what function authorities suspect Burke might have performed in the lady’s dying, solely that he was a “target” of the probe.
“It is alleged in this case that the Target may be involved in the death of 14-year-old victim Celeste Rivas Hernandez,” prosecutors wrote.
