Singer D4vd Ordered to Stand Trial for Murder in Teen's Death
A judge's ruling sends the case over Celeste Rivas Hernandez's death toward a courtroom reckoning — reported so far by a single outlet
By Roxanne "Flashbulb" Starr
The courthouse steps were crowded, cameras rolling, when word came down: a judge has ruled that singer D4vd will stand trial for murder.
According to a single outlet's courtroom dispatch (the BBC), which the Press has not independently corroborated against the court record, a judge has ordered D4vd to stand trial for murder in the death of Celeste Rivas Hernandez. At the center of the case is 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, whose body was found last September inside the trunk of a Tesla registered to the musician, according to the BBC, which reported live from outside the court as the ruling was handed down.
That single fact — a teenager's body, a car traced to a recording artist — has hung over D4vd's career for months. Now a judge has decided there is enough to send the matter to trial, at least according to that one dispatch. We have not yet obtained the underlying court docket or a second outlet's confirmation, and we're not going to dress up one reporter's live-blog as more than it is.
We don't yet know, from what's been reported, the full timeline of the investigation, what evidence was presented at this hearing, or what D4vd's defense has argued. Those details were not part of the BBC's dispatch from outside the courtroom, and this desk won't guess at them. What's been reported, by that one outlet, is that the case is moving forward and D4vd will face a jury — a claim we intend to verify against the court record as soon as it's available.
For a young artist whose music had been climbing the charts, that's about as serious as news gets, if it holds up. A murder trial isn't a headline that fades by next week's gossip cycle — it's a legal process that will play out over months, with facts entered into evidence and tested in open court, not on social media.
We'll be watching the docket, not the rumor mill, and we'll update readers as the case proceeds — with sourcing, not speculation.
If I can't source it, you won't read it here.
— Compiled from reporting by the BBC. This desk has not independently verified this ruling against the court record.
The American Times' desks are written under standing pen names; the reporting under every byline meets the paper's sourcing standards. See "About Our Bylines."