LOS ANGELES (Court TV) — A singer facing criminal charges after the body of a missing teen was found dismembered and decomposing in his car now faces a lawsuit from the teen’s family.
d4vd arrives at the Streamy Awards on Sunday, Aug. 27, 2023, at the Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
David Burke, known professionally as “d4vd,” has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, mutilating a human body and continued lewd and lascivious acts with an individual under 14 years old in the death of Celeste Rivas-Hernandez, whose body was found on what would have been her 15th birthday.
Celeste’s parents, Mercedez Martinez and Jesus Edgardo Rivas Alvarado, filed the wrongful death lawsuit on Thursday, targeting not only Burke but also his businesses, his manager, his mother and his live-in security guard.
At Burke’s preliminary hearing in July, prosecutors laid out the evidence they said showed Burke stabbed Celeste to death on April 23, 2025, before dismembering her body, putting her remains in body bags and then leaving them in the front trunk of his Tesla, parked on a public street, before he left on tour in July 2025.
Celeste’s parents said in the lawsuit that Burke began his relationship with their daughter online, exchanging messages with her in August 2022, when Celeste was just 11 years old and Burke was 17. The two met in person for the first time in November 2023, and their relationship allegedly turned sexual immediately.
Prosecutors presented text messages at Burke’s preliminary hearing showing Celeste and Burke discussing things like “Plan B,” emergency contraception and abortion. Photos and videos show the two engaged in sexual activity, prosecutors said.
Celeste Rivas Hernandez (Family via Steinfeld Law Firm)
The lawsuit accuses Burke of grooming Celeste for years, plotting to get her out of her family’s home and into his control. “At all relevant times, Burke was an adult who occupied a position of authority over Decedent, a minor, and was able to and did exercise undue influence and control over her, including by providing her a concealed cellular telephone to maintain contact outside her parents’ knowledge, using false identities, and arranging and paying for travel,” the lawsuit said. “Burke engaged in extreme and outrageous conduct exceeding all bounds of decency tolerated in a civilized community and directed at Decedent, including the sustained sexual exploitation of Decedent as a child, followed by her killing.”
While the lawsuit alleges that Burke killed the victim alone, it accuses his manager, mother and security guard of facilitating his lifestyle and helping him in his mission to take Celeste away from her family. “Burke’s contemporaneous text messages reflect a plan to enlist his live-in security guard, Defendant Sheldon Jacques, to assist in removing Decedent from her family home and in transporting her to Burke’s mansion in the Hollywood Hills.”
The defendants, the lawsuit argues, “knew or should have known of Burke’s dangerous propensities toward, and sexual exploitation of, Decedent, a minor, and failed to take reasonable steps to protect her, to supervise Burke, or to prevent the continued abuse.”
While the lawsuit requests a jury trial, it does not specify the amount in damages the family is seeking.
Burke is scheduled to return to court in October for a status conference in his criminal trial.
