Tracing the Tragic Final Hours of Celeste Rivas Hernandez

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story contains graphic and deeply disturbing content.

The prolonged conflict between the young artist behind the created the anthem for Fortnite and a teenage runaway on April 22, 2025, ultimately marked the fatal conclusion of a volatile relationship.

According to a nine-page brief from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office, the dispute was captured in text messages indicating that Celeste Rivas Hernandez harbored jealousy over singer-songwriter d4vd’s interactions with other women. The artist, born David Anthony Burke, allegedly “led her to believe they had a future together,” the documents state, culminating in a charge for the 14-year-old’s murder.

Furious, Celeste “threatened to disclose damaging information about her relationship” with the 20-year-old musician “to end his career and destroy his life,” prosecutors alleged in the brief.

His debut studio album, “Withered,” was scheduled for release mere days following their fight, triggering the gruesome sequence of events that ended Celeste’s life. Prosecutors claim the teenager was brutally stabbed and subsequently dismembered inside an inflatable pool using chainsaws purchased from Amazon.

“He had an emerging multi-million-dollar career already in progress,” the legal brief detailed. “He also had multiple product endorsements which were highly profitable.”

Authorities believe the murder occurred on April 23, 2025. Paradoxically, d4vd hosted an album release celebration the very next evening before embarking on a global tour in late July.

The prosecution asserts that text messages reveal d4vd’s manipulation of Celeste, persisting even after they separated in November 2024. Their correspondence and sexual relationship continued, the brief notes. In one message, Celeste expressed her frustration: “all we do is have sex and just hang out man I want more than that for myself.”

Burke, now 21, originally met Celeste three years prior in 2022, when she was merely 11 years old, the brief indicates. Prosecutors contend their sexual relationship commenced in November 2023, when he was 18 and she was 13.

Shortly thereafter, Celeste began a troubled path as a runaway from Lake Elsinore in Riverside County, California. Meanwhile, d4vd, a rising bedroom pop star armed with a lucrative record contract, was ascending to international fame.

In that same month, November 2023, he debuted on late-night TV with a performance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” showcasing his breakout hit, “Romantic Homicide.” The song’s music video features d4vd standing over a blood-soaked woman in a white dress, singing the lyrics, “In the back of my mind, I killed you / And I didn’t even regret it.”

D4vd was apprehended in April and has pleaded not guilty to charges encompassing first-degree murder with special circumstances, continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14, and the mutilation of human remains. Following his arraignment, his defense attorney, Blair Berk, asserted his innocence, stating that the evidence “will show that David Burke did not murder Celeste Rivas Hernandez and he was not the cause of her death.”

Family and friends had repeatedly reported Celeste missing beginning in early 2024. Her dismembered remains were ultimately discovered in the trunk of d4vd’s seized Tesla in Los Angeles on September 8, 2025, just one day after what would have been her 15th birthday.

‘Stood by while she bled out’: prosecution

Following their argument in April 2025, d4vd reportedly dispatched an Uber to transport Celeste from her Lake Elsinore residence to his Hollywood Hills home, per the prosecution's brief. She arrived at his property around 10:10 p.m.

“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,” prosecutors detailed in the document.

In the aftermath of the murder, the prosecution claims d4vd ordered “two chainsaws” online, alongside “a body bag, heavy-duty laundry bags, and a blue inflatable pool.”

D4vd subsequently “took horrifying measures to destroy and discard the victim’s body.”

“After placing her body into the blue inflatable pool to prevent her blood from spilling onto his garage floor,” the brief alleged, “defendant used a chainsaw and perhaps other tools to cut off her limbs.”

Investigators found small fragments of blue plastic embedded within Celeste’s remains. A Los Angeles police expert confirmed a “physical fit match … to the blue inflatable pool” where the dismemberment allegedly occurred.

The prosecution also alleges that d4vd severed her left ring and pinky fingers to remove a tattoo of his name. “Her fingers have not been recovered,” they noted.

Portions of her body were allegedly placed into the cadaver bag, with the remainder in a standard garbage bag. D4vd then purportedly stowed these bags in the front trunk (frunk) of his Tesla, positioning the cadaver bag on top, and left the body to decompose.

As the weeks went by, prosecutors contend that d4vd “lied to friends, business associates, and others who noticed the strong smell of decay in and around his home and vehicle.”

Prior to starting his concert tour in late July 2025, the musician parked the Tesla near his residence. Upon discovering Celeste’s remains in the trunk, police and the medical examiner determined the body was in an “advanced state of decomposition.”

“There are no words to express the indescribable pain the family is experiencing right now,” Patrick Steinfeld, an attorney representing Celeste’s family, expressed in a statement. “They still have bills to pay and jobs they go to every day. All they want is time to grieve and heal.”

CNN’s Kyung Lah, Alaa Elassar, Zoe Sottile, and Elizabeth Wolfe contributed to this report.