Inside the final hours of Celeste Rivas Hernandez’s brief life
Tragic End: The Final Days of Celeste Rivas Hernandez
Healfromzero.com – A devastating chapter in the life of teenage runaway Celeste Rivas Hernandez came to a violent close following a protracted dispute with rising musician d4vd. On April 22, 2025, the pair engaged in what would prove to be their last major confrontation, marking the culmination of a complicated and turbulent romantic connection. According to a comprehensive nine-page legal document submitted by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office, text communications revealed that Celeste harbored deep jealousy regarding d4vd’s interactions with other women.
A Relationship Under Scrutiny
The singer-songwriter, legally known as David Anthony Burke, had apparently convinced the young girl that they shared a lasting future together. This belief made Celeste particularly vulnerable when she became increasingly agitated about the state of their relationship. The legal brief indicates that an emotionally distressed Celeste went so far as to threaten revealing “damaging information about her relationship” with the then-twenty-year-old d4vd, warning that such disclosure could “end his career and destroy his life.”
Timing proved cruel for both parties. d4vd’s debut studio album, titled “Withered,” was scheduled for release mere days following their explosive argument. This period would ultimately witness the horrific conclusion to Celeste’s brief existence. Prosecutors allege that the fourteen-year-old met her end after being fatally stabbed and subsequently dismembered using chainsaws that had been purchased online from Amazon and placed in an inflatable pool.
Building Career and Growing Tensions
At the time of the tragedy, d4vd was already navigating an emerging career worth millions of dollars. The legal document notes that he possessed “multiple product endorsements which were highly profitable.” The killing is believed to have occurred on April 23, 2025, based on prosecutorial evidence. Remarkably, just one night following the incident, d4vd attended an album release celebration before embarking on an international tour scheduled for late July.
Text message exchanges indicated that d4vd may have manipulated Celeste even after their initial romantic separation in November 2024. Despite the breakup, their text communications persisted alongside an ongoing sexual relationship. In one particularly revealing message, Celeste expressed her dissatisfaction, writing, “all we do is have sex and just hang out man I want more than that for myself.”
From Childhood Meeting to Tragedy
The pair first crossed paths three years prior in 2022, when Celeste was merely eleven years old. Prosecutors maintain that their sexual relationship commenced in November 2023, when d4vd was eighteen and Celeste thirteen. Meanwhile, d4vd was experiencing rapid professional growth. The bedroom pop artist held a substantial multi-million-dollar record contract and stood on the threshold of international fame. His late-night television debut on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” occurred in November 2023, where he performed “Romantic Homicide,” a breakthrough hit whose music video depicts him standing over a bloodied woman in a white dress while singing, “In the back of my mind, I killed you / And I didn’t even regret it.”
The Aftermath and Investigation
Celeste had been reported missing by family and friends on multiple occasions beginning in early 2024. Her dismembered remains were eventually discovered in the trunk of d4vd’s impounded Tesla in Los Angeles on September 8, 2025, arriving one day after what would have been her fifteenth birthday. Following his April arrest, d4vd entered pleas of not guilty to charges including first-degree murder with special circumstances, continuous sexual abuse of a child under fourteen, and mutilating human remains. Child pornography was also identified among the evidence presented against him.
Blair Berk, representing the singer, maintained his innocence following the arraignment, stating that evidence “will show that David Burke did not murder Celeste Rivas Hernandez and he was not the cause of her death.”
According to the prosecution’s brief, on the evening following their April 2025 argument, d4vd arranged for an Uber to transport Celeste from her Lake Elsinore residence to his Hollywood Hills home. She arrived at approximately 10:10 p.m. The brief explains that “knowing 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.”
In the subsequent days, d4vd acquired “two chainsaws,” along with “a body bag, heavy-duty laundry bags, and a blue inflatable pool.” He then “took horrifying measures to destroy and discard the victim’s body.” The brief notes that he placed her body into the blue inflatable pool to prevent blood from staining his garage floor, then used a chainsaw and possibly other implements to sever her limbs. Small blue plastic fragments were later found embedded within Celeste’s remains. An expert with Los Angeles police made additional findings that helped reconstruct the timeline of events.