D4vd likely to be indicted in killing of girl found dismembered in car

D4vd will likely face murder charges in the death of Celeste Rivas Hernandez, with a grand jury reportedly hearing testimony from witnesses earlier this month, including from the head of the singer’s record label who revealed how he learned that the teenager’s decomposing body had been found in the trunk of the musician’s car.

TMZ reported Monday on the grand jury hearing from witnesses and said that jurors were likely to follow the lead of Los Angeles County prosecutors who want to see the 20-year-old “Romantic Homicide” singer indicted because they believe he was involved in the killing of 15-year-old Rivas Hernandez. Grand juries generally do what prosecutors want, in part because their proceedings don’t involve hearing opposing evidence from the defendant or their attorney, TMZ said.

But last month, Harvey Levin, the founder of TMZ, reported that investigators were still not close to solving the crime because the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office was still working to determine the cause of death.

The girl had reportedly run away from home in 2024 and may have been in a romantic relationship with D4vd, whose real name is David Anthony Burke. Her dismembered body was found in the trunk of D4vd’s Tesla on Sept. 8, after the car had been abandoned for nearly a month in the Hollywood Hills, near his home.

Levin, who also is an attorney and a veteran Los Angeles-based legal analyst, said on his “2 Angry Men” podcast that toxicology results were needed to determine the cause of Rivas Hernandez’s death. “That’s what everybody’s waiting for,” Levin said. Until a cause of death is known, authorities might have trouble saying whether she was a victim of foul play, with Levin raising the possibility that Celeste could have died of a drug overdose, then someone tried to dispose of her body.

Even if that person did so by dismembering her, that’s a “mutilation of a body, and that’s a crime, but it’s not (necessarily) murder of manslaughter,” Levin said. In November, NBC4 also cited a source “with direct knowledge of the investigation” who said that Rivas Hernandez probably died in the spring and that D4vd “likely had help in dismembering and disposing of the body.”

It’s not clear from TMZ’s report on Monday whether the Medical Examiner’s Office had determined a cause of death and shared that with the grand jury.

News about the grand jury’s role in the investigation also first came from TMZ, which said last month that one of its reporters was present in the hallway outside the courtroom where the jury was hearing testimony.

According to the reporter, Mogul Vision general manager Robert Morgenroth came out of the courtroom and told his attorney and others in the hallway that he was pressed by prosecutor, Beth Silverman, on why he “didn’t call police” after Rivas Hernandez’s body was found in D4vd’s car.

“I said I feel like I didn’t have the responsibility to do that, and just wanted to continue with the tour,” Morgenroth reportedly told his attorney, according to TMZ. Morgenroth also was in charge of arranging D4vd’s tour.

The Queens-born signer was kicking off his world tour around the time that Rivas Hernandez’s body was found. By the end of the month, those dates had been canceled and he’d reportedly put the deeds to two Houston-area homes in his mother’s name.