D4vd and Celeste Rivas Hernandez: What’s their real vibe?
The murder trial of rising indie-pop artist D4vd centers on the relationship he is accused of maintaining with Celeste Rivas Hernandez, a 14-year-old California girl whose body was recovered from his abandoned Tesla. Court records and preliminary hearing testimony lay out a timeline that stretches from online contact in 2022 to the discovery of her remains in September 2025, a period that overlaps with the artist’s commercial peak. Readers searching for updates on D4vd want clear, sourced facts rather than speculation, especially with the next status conference set for October 19, 2026.
Early online contact
Prosecutors allege the first documented interaction occurred in August 2022 on a fan Discord server when Celeste was eleven and D4vd was seventeen. Private messages followed quickly and continued for months before any in-person meetings. Phone records presented at the July 2026 hearing show the singer using the username “D4vd” while Celeste used her real name.
Family members later told detectives that Celeste began spending nights away from home around the same time, sometimes claiming she was staying with friends. Two missing-person reports filed in early 2024 noted her repeated absences but did not yet connect her to the musician.
Investigators recovered thousands of messages from both devices. The earliest texts discuss music, travel plans, and schoolwork, reflecting a pattern that started as fan-artist chat and shifted into private exchanges within weeks.
Relationship turns physical
Text logs show the first explicit sexual references appearing in November 2023, after Celeste turned thirteen. Prosecutors introduced photos and videos recovered from D4vd’s devices that depict sexual activity, material the court ruled inadmissible to the public because of her age. The defense has not contested the authenticity of the records.
Celeste’s family attorney stated that relatives knew she had a boyfriend named David, but they did not learn his full identity or age until after her death. She occasionally traveled with D4vd to Las Vegas and London, trips documented by airline and hotel records introduced at the preliminary hearing.
Messages from January 2024 reference a pregnancy scare and subsequent abortion. In one exchange, D4vd apologized for “putting you through this.” The correspondence was read aloud in court and forms part of the prosecution’s continuous sexual abuse charge.
Matching tattoos and shared plans
Both D4vd and Celeste had a small tattoo reading “Shhh…” on the same finger, a detail confirmed by the medical examiner and visible in recovered photographs. The ink appears in images dated March 2024, roughly four months after the alleged sexual relationship began.
Texts from June 2024 show the pair discussing a future wedding in Italy. Celeste wrote that she wanted “a real ring, not just promises,” while D4vd replied that earnings from his upcoming album would cover travel. Prosecutors argue these messages demonstrate long-term intent rather than casual contact.
Witnesses at the Hollywood Hills residence reported seeing a teenage girl fitting Celeste’s description at the property on multiple occasions in late 2024, though none could identify her by name at the time. Neighbors described her arriving by rideshare and leaving before dawn.
Financial and career pressures
D4vd’s debut album Withered entered the Billboard 200 at No. 13 in April 2025, two days after prosecutors allege Celeste was killed. Tour dates and a deluxe reissue were canceled within weeks of the body’s discovery, and Interscope severed formal ties in May 2026.
Court filings include text threads in which Celeste threatened to expose the relationship unless D4vd ended contact with other women. One April 2025 exchange ends with her writing that disclosure would “end his career and destroy his life.” Prosecutors cite this as possible motive under the special circumstance of financial gain.
Defense attorney Blair Berk told reporters after the hearing that the evidence will show D4vd “was not the cause of her death.” She declined to discuss the text messages in detail, citing the gag order still in place.
Final hours and discovery
Celeste was last seen alive on April 23, 2025, when rideshare records show her arriving at D4vd’s address. Her phone went silent minutes later. No outgoing messages appear after that timestamp on any device examined by investigators.
The Tesla was found abandoned in the Hollywood Hills on September 8, 2025. The badly decomposed body in the front trunk was identified through dental records on September 16. The medical examiner ruled the cause of death “homicide by multiple penetrating injuries” and noted dismemberment of the extremities.
Police towed the vehicle after parking citations accumulated. No one had reported it stolen, and D4vd’s phone records place him in Texas during the period the car remained parked.
Legal proceedings to date
D4vd was arrested April 16, 2026, and charged four days later with first-degree murder, continuous sexual abuse of a child under fourteen, and unlawful mutilation of human remains. He pleaded not guilty at arraignment and remains in custody without bail.
The July 2026 preliminary hearing lasted five days. Judge Michael J. Urban ruled that the prosecution had presented enough evidence to bind the case over for trial. A status conference is scheduled for October 19, 2026, to set a trial date.
The family filed a wrongful-death civil suit in September 2026 naming D4vd, his mother, and several business entities. The suit seeks damages for emotional distress and lost future earnings, though no trial date has been set in that proceeding either.
Public and industry response
Former stylist Aysia Collins posted on Instagram that she was “devastated and disgusted” by the charges and asked fans to respect the victim’s memory. Other collaborators have removed joint credits from streaming platforms without public comment.
Social-media discussion remains active on X, where users circulate old Fortnite clips and debate whether earlier red flags were ignored. Some accounts question the timeline, while others urge followers to avoid spreading unverified details ahead of trial.
Streaming numbers for D4vd’s catalog dropped sharply after the arrest and have not recovered. Playlists curated by major platforms no longer feature his tracks, and the deluxe edition of Withered was pulled from stores within forty-eight hours of the charges being filed.
Defense strategy signals
Berk’s post-hearing statement emphasized that the defense will contest both the murder charge and the allegation that D4vd caused Celeste’s death. She did not address the sexual-abuse counts directly, leaving open the possibility of separate negotiations on those counts.
Investigators testified that no DNA belonging to Celeste was recovered from D4vd’s current residence, though the Hollywood Hills house had been cleaned multiple times between April and September 2025. The defense is expected to argue that the absence of physical evidence undercuts the prosecution’s narrative.
Additional hearings on the admissibility of explicit photographs and text messages are scheduled before trial. Both sides have indicated they will file motions to limit what the jury sees, given the victim’s age and the graphic nature of some evidence.
Looking ahead
The October status conference will determine whether the case proceeds to a jury trial in 2027 or whether plea discussions produce a resolution on any of the counts. Until then, the public record rests on the preliminary hearing transcripts and the medical examiner’s findings, with D4vd maintaining his innocence on all charges.
