Rapper d4vd arrested on suspicion of murdering 14-year-old girl

American rapper David Anthony Burke, known by his stage name d4vd, has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a 14-year-old girl whose dismembered body was found in a car registered to him.

Los Angeles police took the 21-year-old singer into custody on Thursday “for the murder of Celeste Rivas”, the city’s police department said in a statement. He is being held without bail.

Burke’s arrest comes seven months after police uncovered Rivas’s badly decomposed body in the trunk of an impounded Tesla registered in his name.

Investigators found two black bags in the vehicle – one holding a decomposed head and torso and the other containing other body parts, according to a court filing. An autopsy revealed that Rivas “appeared to have been deceased inside the vehicle for an extended period of time before being found”. The discovery occurred one day before Rivas would have turned 15.

The LA County District Attorney’s office will review the case against Burke on Monday for formal charges, according to police.

Burke’s lawyers issued a statement saying they would “vigorously defend” his “innocence”.

“Let us be clear – the actual evidence in this case will show that David Burke did not murder Celeste Rivas Hernandez and he was not the cause of her death,” lawyers Blair Berk, Marilyn Bednarski and Regina Peter said in a statement quoted by NBC News.

Burke, from Queens, New York, shot to internet fame in 2022 when his Romantic Homicide became a breakout hit on TikTok.

Last year, the musician cancelled the last part of his US and European tours amid growing fallout from the investigation into Rivas’s death.