Singer D4vd arrested in connection to death of teen girl

US singer D4vd has been arrested in connection to the death of a teenage girl who went missing last year, police say.

The TikTok star, whose legal name is David Anthony Burke, was the target of a grand jury investigation into the apparent murder of Celeste Rivas Hernandez, whose remains were found in his Tesla in September.

The Los Angeles Police Department said on Thursday that the 21-year-old was being held without bail and the case will be presented to the District Attorney's office on Monday.

The singer has been virtually silent on the case but his representatives previously said the singer was cooperating with authorities. The BBC has contacted his representatives about the arrest.

Police said on Thursday they had arrested Burke for the "murder of Celeste Rivas".

Questions had been mounting since the 8 September discovery of the 14-year-old's remains in a Hollywood tow yard after authorities received reports of a foul odour coming from the vehicle.

On 8 September 2025, investigators found her decomposed head and torso in a cadaver bag in the front boot of a Tesla car registered to D4vd's address in Texas, court documents said.

The county's medical examiner said the body was "severely decomposed" and deferred on making a ruling on how she died pending the death investigation. The girl might have been dead "for several weeks" before the discovery of her body, officials said.

No cause of death in the teen's case has been announced, with authorities only saying for months that they were treating the case as a death investigation.

A judge ordered that the teen's death records be sealed in November to ensure officers received information from the medical examiner before the public.

The lack of information in the macabre death has fuelled intrigue for months, igniting an online following, with many hypothesising about the girl's connection to the Romantic Homicide singer.

A grand jury began hearing evidence in the case in December, but D4vd's arrest on Thuresday marks the first significant development in the case in weeks.