Los Angeles police arrested 21-year-old singer David Burke, known by his stage name D4vd, on Thursday for the murder of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas, whose remains were discovered last September inside a Tesla that had been impounded and towed from a Hollywood Hills street. The arrest took place at a rental property in the Hollywood Hills, and Burke is being held without bail.
The LAPD's Robbery-Homicide Division confirmed the arrest in a statement:
"Detectives from Los Angeles Police Department, Robbery-Homicide Division have arrested David Burke, a 21-year-old resident of Los Angeles, for the murder of Celeste Rivas."
The case will be presented to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office on Monday. Burke's legal team has pushed back, insisting no indictment has been returned and no formal complaint filed. But the facts already public paint a grim picture, a missing teenager, a decomposing body sealed inside a car trunk, and a rising music star now sitting in a cell.
The chain of events that led to Burke's arrest began on a quiet stretch of Bluebird Avenue in the Hollywood Hills. Neighbors told reporters the Tesla had been moved several times over a period of roughly three months before it was finally left in one spot. Police said the vehicle sat on a public street for more than 72 hours, triggering an impound. It was towed to Hollywood Tow, a local tow yard.
On September 8 of last year, employees at Hollywood Tow noticed a stench coming from the vehicle. They called police. Investigators found human remains inside the front trunk, what Tesla owners call the "frunk", stored in a cadaver bag.
The Los Angeles County medical examiner's office determined the remains belonged to Celeste Rivas. The office said she had been deceased inside the vehicle for "an extended period of time" before discovery, and that the remains were "severely decomposed." When found, Rivas was wearing black leggings, a tube top, a yellow metal chain bracelet, and stud earrings.
Police said the Tesla was registered to Burke's address in Texas.
Rivas's family said she was last seen in the spring of 2024, when she left her Lake Elsinore home at the age of 13. Her mother reported her missing three separate times throughout 2024. The mother also said her daughter had been dating someone she never met, a man her daughter identified only as "David."
Friends of Burke told TMZ that the two were "frequently" seen together and were believed to be romantically involved. The Daily Mail reported that the pair had matching "Sshhh" tattoos on their right index fingers.
Let that sink in. A 21-year-old man, now charged with murder, apparently carried on a relationship with a girl who was 13 when she disappeared. A mother reported her child missing three times. And yet the girl was not found until her body turned up in the trunk of a car at a tow yard months later.
The questions that raises about law enforcement's handling of those missing-persons reports are obvious, and, so far, unanswered. When a parent files three separate reports about a missing minor, the system is supposed to respond. Whether it did so adequately here remains unclear. Celebrity cases in Los Angeles have a way of drawing public attention only after the worst has already happened.
ABC News reported that in September, police obtained a search warrant for a home in the Hollywood Hills where Burke had been staying. Officers seized a computer from the property. By mid-November, a Los Angeles County grand jury investigation into Burke was underway, with prosecutors presenting evidence and calling relevant individuals to testify. Among those called was Neo Langston, described as a friend of the singer.
Unsealed court documents show that Burke was officially named as a suspect in the killing in February. In petitions demanding that his parents testify before the grand jury, he was described as a "target" in the death of Rivas.
The language in those filings was direct:
"Target may be involved in having committed the following criminal offenses...: One Count of Murder."
Burke's lawyers, however, have contested the weight of what has been filed so far. In a statement, his legal team said:
"There has been no indictment returned by any grand jury in this case and no criminal complaint filed. David has only been detained under suspicion. We will vigorously defend David's innocence."
That distinction matters legally. But it does not change the fact that a dead child was found in his car, that he was named a target in court filings, and that he now sits in custody without bail.
The arrest drew additional attention because of the property where Burke was apprehended. TMZ reported that the Hollywood Hills rental was once owned by actress Sandra Bullock, who first acquired the bungalow for $1.48 million in 2001 and sold it for $2.9 million after 17 years. The house, built in 1942, had not been in Bullock's possession since 2018. A Zillow listing, since removed, showed the property was being rented to tenants for $17,500 a month.
Bullock, 61, has no connection to the case. The link is purely one of real estate history. But in a media environment where celebrity names get pulled into grim headlines through the thinnest of threads, the coincidence was enough to generate coverage.
The same goes for late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, who lives on the same block. When police shut down the road during the arrest operation, Kimmel was reportedly driving home around 8 p.m. and was permitted to pass through the roadblock. That is the full extent of his involvement, a man driving to his own house on a street that happened to be closed.
Neither Bullock nor Kimmel is implicated in any way. The real story is not about which celebrities live nearby. It is about a dead 14-year-old and the man police say killed her. The entertainment industry's tendency to make every story about itself is a distraction from the gravity of what happened to Celeste Rivas. The late-night world has its own dramas and controversies, but this case belongs to a murdered child and her family.
Burke rose to fame around 2022 after a string of viral TikTok hits. He collaborated with artists including SZA and Kali Uchis. One of his best-known tracks, "Romantic Homicide," became a breakout single. He was, by the standards of the streaming era, a genuine success story, a young artist from Texas who built a following online and crossed into mainstream music.
That trajectory makes the charges against him all the more jarring. The entertainment industry elevated Burke rapidly. Whether anyone around him noticed warning signs, or chose not to, is a question that will likely surface as the case moves forward. The broader pattern of the music and entertainment world celebrating young artists without scrutinizing their conduct is nothing new. It is a system built on hype, not accountability. And when celebrity culture collides with real-world consequences, the gap between image and reality can be vast.
The case now moves to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, which will review the evidence on Monday. The grand jury investigation that began in mid-November has already produced court filings naming Burke as a target. Whether formal charges follow the DA's review, and what those charges look like, will determine the next phase.
Key questions remain. The medical examiner has not publicly stated an official cause and manner of death. No motive has been disclosed. The timeline between Rivas's disappearance in the spring of 2024 and the discovery of her remains in September leaves a months-long gap that investigators will need to account for. And the question of how a missing 13-year-old girl ended up in a relationship with an adult man, and then dead in his car, deserves answers that go beyond one arrest.
The entertainment press will chase the celebrity angles. The tabloid cycle rewards spectacle over substance. But the person at the center of this case who matters most is a girl from Lake Elsinore whose mother called the police three times and still could not bring her home.
Celeste Rivas was 14 years old. She deserved better from every system that was supposed to protect her, and the people who should answer for that failure extend well beyond one man in handcuffs.