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Los Angeles police have prevented the county coroner from releasing details of the death of a teenage girl whose body was found in the trunk of a car registered to the “d4vd” singer, the medical examiner's office said Monday.
Celeste Rivas Hernandez was found dead on September 8th in a repossessed Tesla in Los Angeles, just after her 15th birthday. Several news outlets reported that the car belonged to d4vd, whose legal name is David Anthony Burke, 20.
The medical examiner's office said in a statement that it had obtained a “court order brought by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) to suspend the case of Rivas Hernandez.”
The order, issued Friday, requires that “no records or details related to this case, including the cause and manner of death, or the medical examiner's report, may be published or posted on the website until further notice,” the statement said.
The order comes days after several Los Angeles television stations reported that police consider the Houston-born alt-pop singer to be a suspect, citing anonymous sources. The Los Angeles Police Department has not confirmed the information, and d4vd attorney Blair Burke did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
LAPD Capt. Mike Bland said the detention was not intended to undermine transparency but to maintain the integrity of the police investigation, which is ongoing by Robbery-Homicide detectives.
“This was done to ensure that our investigators received information before the media and the public,” Bland said.
Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Odey Ukpo said such safety measures are “virtually unheard of in other counties” in California.
“We are committed to serving our community with complete transparency; however, the law does not allow us to do so while the case remains under a court order,” Ukpo said.
Rivas Hernandez's body “was found severely decomposed,” the medical examiner's office said in a September statement, and she was likely “dead inside the vehicle for an extended period of time before she was found.”
Rivas Hernandez was last seen in April 2024 in Lake Elsinore, where she grew up, about 95 kilometers southeast of downtown Los Angeles.
D4vd gained popularity among Gen Z thanks to its combination of indie rock, R&B and lo-fi pop. He went viral on TikTok in 2022 with the hit Romantic Murderwhich peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart. He then signed with Darkroom and Interscope Records and released his debut EP. Petals to thorns and follow-up, Lost petalsin 2023.
D4vd was on tour for his first full-length album. Withered, when Rivas Hernandez's body was found. The final two North American shows, in San Francisco and Los Angeles, as well as a scheduled performance at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, were canceled, as was the subsequent European tour, which was scheduled to begin in Norway on October 1.
