14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez discussed pregnancy, abortion and Plan B (morning after pill) with singer D4vd in text messages.
According to court records, their text exchanges contained references to pregnancy, abortion and Plan B. The L.A. County coroner’s office said it’s unclear whether Celeste was ever pregnant in the year before she died.
Investigators said D4vd met Celeste when she was only 11. They allegedly began a sexual relationship when she was 13. The prosecution recovered nude images of Celeste on D4vd’s iPhone.
Police contacted D4vd in 2024 to inform him that Celeste was a 13-year-old runaway. D4vd told police he didn’t know her age or that she was a runaway. He said they only met once in person.
Celeste returned home 2 days later, and her mother took away her cell phone. D4vd then paid a student $1,000 to give Celeste a new iPhone he purchased for her so they could communicate.
D4vd continued seeing Celeste and began a sexual relationship with the minor. They traveled to London, Las Vegas, and to Texas to visit his parents.
In a text message, Celeste wrote, “All we do is have sex and just hang out man I want more than that for myself.”
The singer allegedly plotted to kill Celeste after she sent texts threatening to expose him for cheating on her.
“The messages reveal the victim’s jealousy over defendant’s relationships with other women. She became extremely upset and threatened to disclose damaging information to end his career and destroy his life,” according to a court briefing.
On April 23, 2025, D4vd arranged for an Uber to pick up Celeste from her home in Lake Elsinore, California, and deliver her to his rental house in the Hollywood Hills. He fatally stabbed Celeste minutes after she arrived at his home at 10:10 pm.
“Knowing he had to silence the victim before she ruined his music career as she had threatened, very soon after her arrival at his home, defendant stabbed the victim to death multiple times and stood by while she bled out,” prosecutors said in the briefing.
Around 10:30 p.m. on April 23, 2025, D4vd sent text messages to Celeste’s cell phone inquiring where she was. He then drove to Santa Barbara to dispose of her belongings while texting her phone asking where she was. He never contacted her again after April 26, 2025.
On April 24, 2025, D4vd ordered 2 chainsaws from Amazon.com under a false name. The chainsaws were mailed to his rental house. Prosecutors say he used the chainsaws to dismember Celeste in an inflatable pool in his garage. Blue fragments of the inflatable pool were found inside her wounds.
Afterwards, D4vd stored Celeste’s body in a freezer. At some point D4vd (or an accomplice) transferred her body to his Tesla before he went on tour in late August.
Celeste’s remains were found in 2 bags in the trunk of D4vd’s Tesla at a police impound lot on September 8, 2025. He was arrested on April 14, 2026 and charged with first-degree murder, continuous sexual abuse of a child under the age of 14 and unlawful mutilation of human remains.
D4vd’s legal team asked the judge to seal the briefing because it would taint a jury pool. But the judge denied the request. A preliminary hearing is set for today (May 1). The judge ordered the L. A. County Sheriff’s Office to give D4vd a haircut for his court appearance. But the judge refused to allow him to wear street clothes.