Crime

Rapper D4VD finally arrested on suspicion of murder of a 14-year-old runaway

Back on September 8, police responded to an impound lot in Los Angeles when the owners reported a terrible smell coming from a Tesla that had been towed. The source turned out to be the severely decomposed body of a 14-year-old runaway named Celeste Rivas. She’d been missing for about a year. The body was found in a cadaver bag.

From NBC News:

“Detectives approached the vehicle which was parked on the upper deck of the impound lot and immediately noticed a smell of decaying biological material consistent with a decomposing corpse coming from the front storage compartment of the vehicle.”

The Tesla was registered to the Texas address of David Anthony Burke, a rapper who goes by the name of D4VD. It appears that he and Celeste hung out together quite a bit.

By November, he was declared a person of interest in the case while offering cooperation and claiming innocence

Well, D4VD has now been arrested. He’s being held without bail. The case will go before the DA in LA on Monday (April 20).

D4VD’s lawyers released this statement: “Let us be clear – actual evidence in this case will show that David Burke did not murder Celeste Rivas Hernandez and he was not the cause of her death. 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.”

Read more here and here. Whatever comes of this, it’s fodder for a future episode of my true-crime-and-music podcast, Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Business.

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 42024 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.