Evidence in the murder case against D4vd singer – accused of brutally murdering 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez – will not be made public until the end of next month, after his lawyers put the brakes on a trial that was supposed to continue on Friday.
David Anthony Burke, 21, was charged with murder, child sexual abuse and mutilation earlier this month after Los Angeles police raided a Hollywood Hills home and arrested him. He pleaded not guilty last week.
The singer has long been linked to Hernandez’s disappearance and death, after his badly decomposed body was found in the trunk of his Tesla at a Hollywood tow truck last September. Authorities said Hernandez was last seen at Burke’s Hollywood residence on April 23, 2025.
County of Los Angeles County. He said. Nathan Hochman said last week that Burke killed a 14-year-old child because he threatened to reveal the fact that he had been sexually assaulting her for almost a year. An autopsy report made public last week revealed that Hernandez died from stab wounds. His body was mutilated when police found it in the trunk and two of his fingers were cut off, the report said.
Burke’s lawyer, Blair Berk, said that he did not believe that the prosecution’s case could continue to be considered and demanded that his case be heard soon when he appeared in court for the first time. Defendants have the right to a trial, where a judge decides whether prosecutors have enough evidence to bring the case to trial, within 10 business days. In Burke’s case, that would have set the case for a May 1 trial.
But on Wednesday afternoon, attorney Marilyn Bednarski asked that the hearing be postponed to May 26, citing the large amount of evidence in the case. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo agreed there was “good reason” to postpone the trial for several weeks.
Provincial Deputy. He said. Beth Silverman expressed some dismay at Bednarski and Berk’s change of heart, noting that she had already warned the defense team that prosecutors had a lot of evidence to answer.
Silverman said last week that discovery materials would include phone calls and searches of Burke’s cell phone and iCloud account, which prosecutors said turned up “a large amount of child pornography.” Law enforcement executed 54 search warrants in the case, according to court records.
A medical examiner’s report detailing how Hernandez died was not made available to the defense until last week. Prosecutors also convened three secret grand juries between November 2025 and February 2026 to gather evidence against Burke, according to Silverman. Documents from that hearing have been sealed since last week.
Bednarski said Wednesday he needed “more time to review what we’ve just found, or are yet to find, so that we can have a full and free hearing.”
“We told them this is what was going to happen,” Silverman said in response. “As I said briefly, we sent the summons, we prepared, we told the witnesses to cancel the holidays that we had planned.”
Berk also demanded that Olmedo close the file Silverman sent earlier Wednesday outlining the evidence he plans to present at the trial.
“The prosecutors appeared to file an unusual trial report that appears to be one side of what is expected as evidence in this case. But no evidence was presented by the prosecutor in court. There is certainly no evidence that that evidence will be admitted,” said Berk, expressing concern that the publication of this issue in the future.
Prosecutors often file such documents before trial, including a list of witnesses they plan to call and a summary of the arguments they will make. Olmedo denied Berk’s request to block the motion. A copy of the document was not immediately available for review at the Los Angeles city court.
