A rising music star has been arrested on suspicion of murder, months after a teenager’s dismembered body was found in the trunk of his Tesla. David Anthony Burke, known professionally as D4vd, was taken into custody by heavily armed LAPD officers at his Hollywood Hills home on Thursday, sources told Rolling Stone. Detectives had obtained a probable-cause warrant and arrested Burke shortly after 4:30 p.m. The victim, 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, was found in September 2025 after a tow yard called police, reporting that an impounded 2023 Tesla Model Y was “emanating a foul odor and attracting flies.” Burke was on a national tour when the vehicle was towed. Court documents revealed detectives opened the trunk to find Rivas’s decomposed head and torso inside a black cadaver bag “covered with insects and a strong odor of decay,” with her severed arms and legs in a second bag. Burke’s defense lawyers issued this statement on behalf of their client: “The actual evidence in this case will show that David Burke did not murder Celeste Rivas Hernandez, and he was not the cause of her death,” they said. “David has only been detained under suspicion. We will vigorously defend David’s innocence.”
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