“INSIDE THAT HOUSE… SOMETHING HAPPENED NO ONE CAN FULLY EXPLAIN YET.” Court filings describe a night in April that investigators are still trying to piece together. A location. A timeline. A confrontation that allegedly escalated. But even with forensic data and digital records, the full picture isn’t complete — and that’s what’s keeping people watching closely. What’s missing from the story? 📌 Full story in the comments
Who is d4vd? The Houston-raised TikTok singer whose abandoned car was found with a decomposing body
Los Angeles authorities have identified the dismembered body as a 15-year-old girl. Fans of d4vd have been quick to cut ties from the “Romantic Homicide” singer.
Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP
d4vd arrives at Variety’s Power of Young Hollywood on Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
David Anthony Burke, better known by his stage name d4vd, was in the middle of touring for his debut album, “Withered,” when the Los Angeles Police Department reportedly found an abandoned car registered to him with a dead body in the trunk.
Now the singer, who was raised in Houston, is at the center of a rapidly developing controversy, with some fans calling for abandoning the indie R&B artist.
Who is d4vd?
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Burke, 20, was born in Queens before moving to Houston. He came to success at the age of 17, largely on TikTok with songs like “Romantic Homicide” and “Here with Me” in 2022. Both songs charted on the Billboard Hot 100.
A self-described “homeschooled kid,” d4vd soon amassed millions of followers on Instagram and TikTok. By the next year, d4vd was opening for Grammy Award-winning R&B singer SZA on her SOS arena tour. In April 2025, d4vd released his debut album, “Withered,” which debuted at No. 13 on the Billboard 200 chart, and he had been touring with that album since August.
Body found in car registered to him
On Sept. 8, a decomposed body was found in a car in Los Angeles, which had been impounded the previous week. The car, a Tesla with Texas license plates, was registered to d4vd, according to the Los Angeles Times. The car had been abandoned five days before, towed to Hollywood Tow, where someone smelled a foul odor coming from the front trunk of the car.
As of Thursday, the Los Angeles Police Department had not responded to a request for comment from Houston Public Media. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deferred to the police department in the investigation.
On Wednesday, the body was identified as that of 15-year-old Celeste Rivas. As of Thursday, she did not have a cause of death listed. According to the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office, Rivas “was found severely decomposed” and appeared “to have been deceased inside the vehicle for an extended period of time before being found.”
Rivas was described as having a tattoo that read “Shhh…” on her right index finger, according to TMZ, which on Wednesday reported that d4vd, too, has a matching “Shhh…” tattoo on his index finger.
How has d4vd reacted?
The singer is reportedly cooperating with law enforcement in the investigation. Representatives for d4vd could not immediately be reached for comment by Houston Public Media.
When news first broke of a body found in the car registered to him, d4vd performed in Minneapolis the following day. After Rivas’ body was identified, TMZ reported that d4vd’s scheduled show in Seattle on Wednesday night was canceled.
As of Thursday, the singer had not been charged with any crimes or directly connected by law enforcement to Rivas’ death. Still, many d4vd fans have publicly disavowed the singer on social media.
“Will not support this monster,” one Reddit user wrote, with a photo depicting vinyl records of d4vd’s albums in a trash can.
“D4vd just gave true crime doc producers decades worth of content,” a user on X wrote Wednesday afternoon.