Teen threatened to destroy D4vd's career before killing, messages show

Celeste Rivas Hernandez told the singer D4vd she would destroy his career and ruin his life roughly 24 hours before prosecutors say he killed the teenager, according to text messages made public Monday in court. After an argument about a relationship between a woman and the singer, whose legal name is David Anthony Burke, the 14-year-old Hernandez exploded on him via text message on April 22, 2025, according to the evidence shown in court. The alternative pop singer’s debut album, “Withered,” was set to release three days later, on April 25. “oh my ... god I swear to GOD I will kill u she was in my dam seat i will strangle u to ... death bro,” Hernandez wrote. “I will tell my dad so many ... lies about u ... i will end ur career and ur life I will damage anything.” The texts were some of the final pieces of evidence presented at Burke's preliminary hearing on charges of murder, continuous sexual abuse of a teenager and mutilation of a corpse. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo held Burke to answer on all charges Monday afternoon, meaning he will now stand trial. Olmedo also upheld all three special circumstances filed by prosecutors — that he ambushed Hernandez, killed her to cover up a crime and killed her for financial gain — meaning he could face life in prison without the possibility of parole, or the death penalty. Prosecutors have not decided whether they will seek capital punishment. The judge rejected arguments from Burke's defense team that prosecutors failed to show probable cause that Burke committed the killing, much less that he planned it in advance or did so to slay a witness. Burke's lawyers, noticeably, did not argue for dismissal of the sex abuse or corpse mutilation counts lodged against him. In the texts made public Monday, Hernandez threatened to “mutilate” Burke’s penis, leak damaging information about him online and contact his mother in messages sent around the same time, according to text messages entered into evidence by defense attorney Blair Berk. The next night, prosecutors say, Burke paid for an Uber to bring Hernandez from her Lake Elsinore home to his Hollywood residence. Prosecutors allege Burke killed Hernandez that night in response to her threats. Burke has pleaded not guilty and denied all wrongdoing through his attorneys. Texts displayed in court Monday show Burke continued to send messages to Hernandez’s phone hours after the Uber arrived, an attempt, according to prosecutors, to suggest she’d never arrived at his house. Phone records showed Burke was sending some of those texts while driving to Santa Barbara County, where a Caltrans worker later found Hernandez’s passport card dumped on the side of a highway, according to Los Angeles Police Department Det. Corey Farell. The texts displayed Monday showed Burke and Hernandez were in a frantic ongoing argument in the 24 hours leading up to the moment prosecutors allege the singer killed the teenager. Berk said Monday the pair exchanged over 1,200 text messages in that time frame. Prosecutors say Burke and Hernandez had been in a relationship for nearly two years but “broke up” in November 2024. Texts displayed in court late last week and Monday morning showed they continued to talk in the months after, at times arguing over the status of their friendship and Burke’s relationships with women. Autopsy records show Hernandez died of stab wounds to her chest and abdomen. Prosecutors allege she was killed by Burke inside his home, then dismembered. On cross-examination, Berk asked Det. Farell a series of questions confirming no one actually witnessed the murder or saw Burke or Hernandez between 10:10 p.m. and 10:31 p.m. on April 23, the time frame prosecutors believe the killing occurred. “You have not identified a single witness who saw David Burke during those 21 minutes?” Berk asked. “You have not had any witness tell you what happened after 10:10 p.m.?” The detective said Berk was correct both times. While she did not make a self-defense argument, Berk tried to ask Farell about prior incidents of domestic violence in which Hernandez allegedly attacked Burke. Olmedo said that would be irrelevant for a preliminary hearing, but the question suggests a possible argument that Burke’s team will make at trial. Berk raised a series of text messages in which Hernandez suggested she had bipolar disorder, but Olmedo froze that line of questioning as well. Some texts also suggested Hernandez was suicidal, according to Berk. Berk and her co-counsel, Marilyn Bednarski, declined to comment on Olmedo's ruling. The Hernandezes' family attorney, Patrick Steinfeld, was highly critical of the defense team's approach. "They made allegations that didn’t have any evidentiary basis including the assertion that Celeste may have committed suicide or that Celeste was violent, and I personally found that very disturbing," he said. "It seems the defense attorneys are stopping at nothing in their attempts to discredit the prosecution's evidence and the family was horrified.” When arguing against a defense motion to dismiss the murder charge, Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Beth Silverman said the texts showing the effects on Hernandez's mental health were evidence of the damage that Burke had done to the young girl's psyche. “We have a minor who was not only under the eyes of the law at least sexually abused for many, many months, she was groomed ... she was being gaslit," Silverman said. "Defendant was telling her over and over again that this is sex that she asked for, and he just went along with her. All of this is very obvious grooming.” Farell also acknowledged Burke’s relationship with the teenager was no secret. Hernandez’s parents — who entered the room in the middle of Farell’s testimony Monday morning — signed a travel consent waiver form in 2024 that allowed their daughter to fly to London with Burke, according to Farell. When Burke and Hernandez traveled to Las Vegas, Hernandez’s adult sister was there at the same time and aware the pair were there together, according to Berk. Text messages made public on Friday showed the couple planned to have sex in the Trump International Hotel off the Vegas Strip while on the trip. The victim's parents have repeatedly declined to speak with reporters. Steinfeld did not answer any questions about his clients' knowledge of their daughter's relationship with Burke. Hernandez was also filmed sitting with Burke’s family in a VIP box during a concert at the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood. At times in 2024, when Hernandez was living with her aunt in Los Angeles, Burke would come by the home to pick the teen up for dates. He even went with Hernandez’s family to Six Flags Magic Mountain, according to court testimony. “Celeste and David went to church with Celeste’s family members on multiple occasions,” Berk said at one point. While Farell said he had no proof that happened, there were text messages discussing a plan to attend services. Hernandez's dismembered body was found inside a Tesla registered to Burke months after their final exchange of text messages. Prosecutors allege the singer mutilated her corpse with a chainsaw after killing her. Investigators have pieced together much of what they know about Burke and Hernandez's relationship from a search of the singer's cellphone, which was seized last September. Late last week, prosecutors published dozens of text messages taken from the phone that showed Burke impregnated Hernandez, leading to an abortion in early 2024. The pair also described their sex life in graphic detail in the texts, and discussed getting married overseas and plans for Hernandez to run away from her Lake Elsinore home and move in with Burke. Last week, Farell also described dozens of images taken from the device that showed either Burke or Hernandez naked or engaged in sex acts. On Monday, Berk introduced several text messages in which Hernandez allegedly misled Burke about her age, contending the girl told the singer she was 16 when they met and 18 when they began having sexual encounters. Silverman said Monday, however, that Burke was notified by sheriff's deputies investigating a missing persons report in 2024 that Hernandez was underage. Lack of knowledge of a victim's age is also not a defense to child sex abuse charges under California law, Silverman said. Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said in a statement that prosecutors showed only "a small but illustrative fraction of the evidence" gathered by investigators in the case. “Burke is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the brutal murder of Celeste Rivas Hernandez,” Hochman said. “This has been a parent’s worst nightmare, hearing the ghoulish details of how their child was killed, dismembered and left as trash." Times staff writer Richard Winton contributed to this report.