On September 8, police in Los Angeles discovered the remains of a dismembered body in an abandoned Tesla registered to the singer dv4d. The 20-year-old musician, whose legal name is David Anthony Burke, was away on tour at the time. As details about the victim came out, d4vd continued his tour. The body was identified as 15-year-old Celeste Rivas, who had been missing since last year and who had a finger tattoo matching one that d4vd has. Since then, d4vd has reportedly been cooperating with police, but more and more disturbing connections between the singer and the victim have emerged.
There are now many photos and videos -- some from social media, some apparently from a hacked iCloud account -- that seem to show d4vd and Celeste Rivas together. The girl in those posts looks like Rivas, but her identity has not been confirmed.
when i was writing this i got a noti from you, as you were talking about wanting to be with your mom and your sister again, “take me where i belong” but our circumstances won’t allow us to be in our ideal situations, we gotta push through it bro ??
— d4vd (@d4vddd) May 10, 2022
There's also a song called "Celeste" that leaked in December 2023. It's supposedly an unreleased demo from d4vd, but we can't say for certain whether it's real. Lyrics include "Oh, Celeste/ The girl with my name tattooed on her chest/ Smell her on my clothes like cigarettes/ I hear her voice each time I take a breath/ I'm obsessed." You can hear it for yourself here.
Earlier this year, the R&B star Kali Uchis appeared on d4vd's single "Crashing." In a reply to an Instagram comment, Uchis recently said that she's pulling the collaboration from streaming services: "Not my friend i did a song with him which is currently in the process of being taken down given todays disturbing news."
TMZ reports that Los Angeles police are looking for surveillance footage of dv4d'd Tesla in the Hollywood Hills, before it was abandoned there. According to that TMZ story, Celeste Rivas' mother told police that Rivas had a boyfriend named David. Police have yet to name a suspect in the murder.
