LOS ANGELES (Court TV) — Photos showing the autopsy of a teenage girl found decomposing in a Tesla sent some courtroom watchers running out of the room on Friday.
David ‘d4vd’ Burke appears in court on July 24, 2026. (Sketch by Mona Edwards)
David Burke, a singer-songwriter known as “d4vd,” has been in court all week for a preliminary hearing on charges he murdered and dismembered a missing 14-year-old girl. Celeste Rivas-Hernandez’s dismembered body was found decomposing in Burke’s Tesla months after she was last seen alive.
Testimony was graphic on Friday as Deputy Medical Examiner Grant Ho detailed the injuries he discovered on the victim’s body. Celeste weighed just 71 pounds at the time of her death; Ho said the level of decomposition made it clear that she had been dead for at least “weeks” before she was found. Officers found her body, in pieces, on Sept. 8, 2025, but prosecutors say she was killed in April.
Ho explained that Celeste’s upper extremities had been dismembered in one place, while the lower extremities were cut in two places on each side. He was unable to determine whether she had been mutilated before or after her death.
When prosecutors displayed the autopsy photos on the projector, there was a collective intake of breath from reporters and the public seated in the courtroom; Burke did not flinch. As the testimony continued with graphic descriptions of Celeste’s injuries, some people got up and left the room. The victim’s parents were not present for the testimony on Friday.
Celeste’s body was so decomposed that the odor was noticeable outside the room and down the hallway at the medical examiner’s office. Ho noted that the body was missing an eyeball, though he admitted that it may have decomposed. Celeste’s ribs, he said, had “disruption” to them that could be consistent with tool marks, where it appeared bone had been chipped away. The cause of death, he ruled, was penetrating injuries to Celeste’s torso, one of which extended so deep that it slashed her liver.
Focusing on those cuts, Burke’s defense attorney, Marilyn Bednarski, suggested that the victim may have cut herself.
Bednarski: “You cannot determine whether Ms. Hernandez was holding the knife that caused the two wounds, correct?”
Ho: “Correct.”
Bednarski: “You can’t rule that out, right?”
Ho: “So, that is a consideration, but we would expect to find hesitation marks.”
Dr. Grant Ho testifies at David Burke’s preliminary hearing. (Sketch by Mona Edwards)
Ho was unable to identify the order in which Celeste suffered the injuries or their timing based on the level of decomposition.
Los Angeles Police Department criminalist Samantha Tosch analyzed DNA collected in the investigation and testified that red staining in Burke’s Tesla and on rubber mats in his garage matched Celeste’s DNA profile. A trash bag in the garage contained wipes with Celeste’s DNA on them. Tosch testified that the outside of the bag had a mixture of DNA from four contributors.
The defense focused on that evidence, revealing that at least two of those contributors are male. Tosch said that Burke was identified as a possible contributor to the mix, but she was unable to say what percentage of the combination could be his.
At the close of evidence, Judge Charlaine Olmedo will decide whether prosecutors have proved enough of a case to move the matter to trial.
