{"id":762338,"date":"2026-04-29T22:43:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T22:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/762338\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T22:43:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T22:43:23","slug":"prosecutors-d4vd-dismembered-teen-with-chainsaw-tried-to-cover-it-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/762338\/","title":{"rendered":"Prosecutors: D4vd dismembered teen with chainsaw, tried to cover it up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

D4vd allegedly used a chainsaw to dismember the body of a teenager he was sexually abusing, then amputated two of her fingers to destroy a tattoo linking him to the girl, according to a court document made public Wednesday afternoon by L.A. County prosecutors in the singer\u2019s murder case.<\/p>\n

David Anthony Burke, 21, is charged with murder, continuous sex abuse of a minor and mutilating a corpse. Los Angeles police stormed a Hollywood Hills home and arrested him earlier this month. He pleaded not guilty last week. Prosecutors say Burke killed 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez because she threatened to expose his abuse and ruin his music career. <\/p>\n

In advance of a preliminary hearing that was supposed to begin Friday, Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Beth Silverman filed a nine-page brief laying out the evidence she planned to present. In the document, Silverman wrote that Burke killed Hernandez in April 2025, then ordered chainsaws, body bags, an inflatable pool and a shovel delivered to his home in order to dispose of the body. <\/p>\n

\u201cKnowing he had to silence the victim before she ruined his music career as she had threatened, very soon after her arrival at his home, defendant stabbed the victim to death multiple times and stood by while she bled out,\u201d Silverman wrote.<\/p>\n

The singer has long been linked to Hernandez\u2019s disappearance and death, after her badly decomposed body was found in the trunk of a Tesla he owned at a Hollywood tow yard last September. Authorities said Hernandez was last seen at Burke\u2019s Hollywood residence on April 23, 2025. <\/p>\n

An autopsy report made public last week<\/a> revealed Hernandez died from a pair of stab wounds. Her body was dismembered when police found it in the trunk and two of her fingers had been amputated, the report said. <\/p>\n

In the document, Silverman said Burke first met Hernandez when she was only 11. The two began a sexual relationship when she turned 13 but \u201cbroke up\u201d in late November 2024, according to Silverman. Text messages between the two contained references to \u201csex, pregnancy, abortion and use of the Plan B emergency contraceptive,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

Hernandez was reported missing by her family multiple times in Lake Elsinore in 2024. Riverside County sheriff\u2019s investigators questioned Burke about her whereabouts in February 2024, but Burke claimed he was \u201cunaware she was a minor or that she had been reported missing,\u201d Silverman wrote.<\/p>\n

Two days later, she returned home and her parents took away her cellphone. But Burke allegedly drove to Lake Elsinore and paid a junior high school student $1,000 to give her a new phone so they could stay in touch, according to the document filed Wednesday. Over the next year, Hernandez traveled with the singer to Las Vegas, Texas and London where she met \u201chis family,\u201d Silverman wrote. <\/p>\n

Prosecutors said Hernandez was last seen on April 23, 2025, at the singer\u2019s Hollywood Hills residence. The day before, text messages revealed the two got into a major argument, the document shows. <\/p>\n

\u201c[Hernandez] became extremely upset and threatened to disclose damaging information about her relationship with defendant to end his career and destroy his life,\u201d Silverman wrote.<\/p>\n

Burke\u2019s lead defense attorney, Blair Berk, was not immediately available for comment on the filing. <\/p>\n

She asked Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo to seal the filing on Wednesday afternoon, but the judge denied her request. <\/p>\n

Berk previously said she does not believe the prosecution\u2019s case can hold up to scrutiny and pushed for an immediate preliminary hearing during his initial court appearance. Defendants have a right to a preliminary hearing, in which a judge determines whether prosecutors have enough evidence to bring a case to trial, within 10 business days. In Burke\u2019s case, that would have put the preliminary hearing on track for May 1.<\/p>\n

But on Wednesday afternoon, attorney Marilyn Bednarski asked that the hearing be pushed back to May 26, citing the voluminous amount of discovery in the case. Olmedo agreed there was \u201cgood cause\u201d to delay the hearing a few weeks. <\/p>\n

Silverman expressed some annoyance at Bednarski and Berk\u2019s change of heart, noting she\u2019d already warned the defense team that prosecutors had a trove of evidence to turn over. <\/p>\n

Silverman said last week that discovery materials would include the results of a wiretap and searches of Burke\u2019s cellphone and iCloud accounts, which prosecutors allege turned up \u201ca significant amount of child pornography.\u201d<\/a> Law enforcement executed 54 search warrants in the case, according to court records. <\/p>\n

The medical examiner\u2019s report detailing how Hernandez died was not available to the defense until last week. Prosecutors also convened three secret grand juries between November 2025 and February 2026 to collect evidence against Burke, according to Silverman. Transcripts from those hearings were under seal as of last week. <\/p>\n

Bednarski said Wednesday she needed \u201cadditional time to review the discovery we either just got, or are about to get, in order to have a full and free preliminary hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe told them that this was what was going to be coming,\u201d Silverman argued in reply. \u201cAs I said in my brief, we sent out subpoenas, we\u2019ve been preparing, we\u2019ve been telling witnesses to cancel planned vacations.\u201d<\/p>\n

In asking Olmedo to seal the brief, Berk expressed worry it was \u201cone-sided\u201d and might taint the jury pool.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe prosecution has appeared to file a rather unusual pre-preliminary hearing brief that appears to be a very one-sided view of what is anticipated as the evidence in this case. But no evidence has been presented by the prosecution in a courtroom. Certainly there has been no adjudication of the admissibility of that evidence,\u201d Berk said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"D4vd allegedly used a chainsaw to dismember the body of a teenager he was sexually abusing, then amputated…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":762339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[23869,313194,305910,303403,39440,1582,276,40971,25175,313306,91894,313307,2961,224,2444,5337,78281,6617,12433,45494],"class_list":["post-762338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-atty","tag-autopsy-report","tag-beth-silverman","tag-blair-berk","tag-burke","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-cell-phone","tag-evidence","tag-guilty-last-week","tag-hernandez","tag-immediate-preliminary-hearing","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-losangeles","tag-murder-case","tag-prosecutor","tag-trial","tag-trunk"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116490417591627695","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}