Revelatory details about the relationship between the singer D4vd and Celeste Rivas Hernandez, whom he is accused of killing when she was 14, were presented in excruciating testimony on Friday during a preliminary hearing in the murder case.
A Los Angeles police detective spent much of the afternoon describing photograph after photograph of what investigators believe to be D4vd and Celeste performing sex acts on each other, along with text messages between them that discuss birth control, pregnancy and abortion when she was 13 and 14 and he was 18 and 19.
Prosecutors had previously said that D4vd, whose real name is David Burke, and Celeste had a sexual relationship, but few details about their relationship had been disclosed.
According to prosecutors, Mr. Burke, now 21, fatally stabbed Celeste, dismembered her body and stuffed the remains in the trunk of his car. He has pleaded not guilty to a first-degree murder charge.
The detective, Corey Farrell, testified in Los Angeles Superior Court after a deputy county medical examiner described the poor condition of Celeste’s body when it arrived at the agency’s facility. Her decomposed remains were discovered in Mr. Burke’s car in September.
Detective Farrell’s testimony about the photographs was punishing in its detail and repetition. He was asked to describe what appeared in the images, but they were withheld from public view. During one break, a deputy district attorney, Beth Silverman, leaned over the railing to strongly encourage Celeste’s parents to leave the proceeding. “I just think it’s too much,” she told them.
Detective Farrell said he had found the photos on an iPhone 15 that was discovered during a search of the Hollywood Hills house where Mr. Burke had been staying.
Text messages between Mr. Burke and Celeste, many of which involved their relationship and sexual activity, were also presented during the testimony. Detective Farrell said the two had first communicated on Aug. 8, 2022, when she was 11, and had last communicated on April 23, 2025, the day the authorities say he killed her.
In February 2024, text messages appeared to show Mr. Burke and Celeste discussing moving in together, a plan they referred to as “operation awesome.” Celeste was reported missing from her home in Lake Elsinore, Calif., on Feb. 14, 2024, prosecutors have said.
In June 2024, Mr. Burke suggested in a message that they get married in Italy. Soon after, Celeste raised concerns about feeling renewed symptoms of pregnancy. In a text message months later, Celeste raised concerns about whether the “first abortion” had worked. She later lamented loss: “I’d do anything to have it back,” she wrote.
Ms. Silverman went over the graphic text messages with the detective for perhaps two hours. Before introducing a text message that discussed sex, the prosecutor would ask the detective to restate the age of the victim and the defendant.
On several instances, Mr. Burke told Celeste he loved her. But as 2024 wore on, the text messages showed the relationship appearing to deteriorate, with the teenager complaining at one point, “All we do is just hang out and have sex.”
“I don’t want anything to do with you in person anymore if I’m going to try to move on,” Celeste wrote to Mr. Burke in March 2025, the messages showed.
Prosecutors have said in court documents that after Celeste was killed, Mr. Burke placed her body into a blue inflatable pool and cut off her limbs with a chain saw he had ordered online. He then stuffed her remains into a garbage bag and put the bag in the front trunk of his Tesla, according to the documents.
On Friday morning, the deputy medical examiner, Dr. Grant Ho, testified that when his office had first conducted an autopsy of Celeste’s body, it was “markedly decomposed” and the extremities had been dismembered.
People in the courtroom gasped and groaned as Ms. Silverman put photos of Celeste’s body on a screen. Dr. Ho said that the cuts through bone were relatively clean and potentially consistent with having been performed with a power tool.
A 26-page report prepared by the medical examiner’s office that was released in April said that Celeste died of “multiple penetrating injuries” that were caused “with object(s).” Dr. Ho spent much of his time on the stand describing two key wounds: one to the right abdomen that pierced her liver, and another to the left chest.
“Life-threatening injuries,” he said, adding that it would take only minutes for a person to die of blood loss from such injuries without medical intervention.
“The manner of death is homicide,” he said. “Death at the hands of another.”
Mr. Burke, wearing an orange jumpsuit and black glasses, leaned slightly forward at times during the doctor’s testimony.
When the proceedings end, Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo will determine if enough proof has been presented for the case to move forward to trial. That standard of proof is lower than what is required for a conviction. Prosectors must show only that there is “probable cause” to believe that a crime was committed and that Mr. Burke committed it.
Lawyers for Mr. Burke have cross-examined the prosecution’s first 11 witnesses during the preliminary hearing. Detective Farrell will return to the stand on Monday.
One of those lawyers, Marilyn Bednarski, pressed on the fact that Dr. Ho could not say exactly when the death or dismemberment had occurred. Under cross-examination, Dr. Ho said it was not possible to determine whether there had been a struggle before Celeste’s death.
Dr. Ho said that he could not estimate how long Celeste had been dead because the body was so decomposed, but that it was clear it had been “at least weeks.” Asked whether it was possible that she was killed five months earlier, as prosecutors have alleged, Dr. Ho responded, “Potentially.”
