Singer D4vd has been at the center of global headlines in recent days after the body of a teenage girl was found in the trunk of an impounded car belonging to the singer.
Last week, Los Angeles police made the grim discovery after being called to inspect an impound lot following reports of a ‘foul odour coming from a vehicle.’
Police found human remains in the car and quickly launched an investigation, also stating that D4vd – real name David Anthony Burke – is fully cooperating and has not at this point been arrested in connection to the case.
Reports emerged earlier this week that forensic experts had determined the victim was a girl aged between 14 and 15 but were waiting to release her name until her family were located and contacted.
A day on, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner identified the body as 15-year-old Celeste Rivas.
Now, people following the horrifying story have plenty of unanswered questions.
When did Celeste Rivas go missing?
Rivas, from Lake Elsinore in California, a city 68 miles from Los Angeles, went missing aged 13 in April 2024, according to a missing person flyer cited by CBS.
Her date of death has been listed as September 8 – the day her body was discovered – while her cause of death has been recorded as ‘deferred’ – meaning it is pending additional investigation.
Police have identified no suspects so far.
According to NBC News, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office have confirmed in a statement that Rivas is the ‘juvenile who was reported missing from Lake Elsinore’ last year.
‘The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating this incident as a homicide and will be the point of contact for any further details regarding this investigation,’ they added.
They continued, explaining that they did ‘not have a crime classification from the coroner as to the mode or manner of death. Thus, we do not have any suspect information at this time.’
Sources from the LAPD said her body had been found in a state of decomposition, inside a bag placed in the front trunk of the Tesla.
Who was Celeste Rivas?
Before Rivas was identified, the teenager was described as having wavy black hair, 5 feet 2 inches tall, and weighing 120 pounds.
She was found wearing a tube top, black leggings, a yellow metal bracelet, and metal stud earrings. She also had a tattoo on her right index finger that read: ‘Shhh…’.
The teenager’s mother told TMZ that her daughter had a boyfriend named Dave before her disappearance.
How old is D4vd, and where is he from?
At just 20 years old, D4vd (born David Anthony Burke) has carved out a unique place in contemporary pop culture.
Raised between Queens, New York, and Houston, Texas, the singer-songwriter first turned to music not through traditional ambition, but as a workaround: his Fortnite video montages were constantly being muted online due to copyright strikes.
At his mother’s urging, he started writing his own songs to bypass this impediment.
When did D4vd get famous?
In 2022, two of his homemade tracks, Romantic Homicide and Here with Me, went viral on TikTok and each now have over a billion streams each on Spotify alone.
Soon enough, d4vd was signed to Darkroom and Interscope, the same label family that had broken Billie Eilish.
By 2023, he’d already released two EPs (Petals to Thorns and The Lost Petals), establishing himself as an experimental voice in the indie-pop and R&B space.
In April 2025, he released Withered, his debut album. Currently, D4vd has 34.6million monthly listeners on Spotify alone and nearly 4million followers on TikTok.
Additionally, his song Locked & Loaded is now the official anthem of Fortnite.
Tracks like Feel It – featured on Amazon Prime’s Invincible – have earned him a loyal fanbase.
For the industry, d4vd remains a reminder of how the digital age can create stars overnight: a teenager uploading songs for video game clips suddenly standing on festival stages.
What happens now?
D4vd is cooperating with the investigation, according to police.
‘At this time, the LAPD does not have a crime classification from the coroner as to the mode or manner of death.
‘Thus, we do not have any suspect information at this time,’ the LAPD said in a statement to NBC News on Wednesday.
The singer cancelled his concert scheduled to be held in Seattle on Wednesday.
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