Doctor details condition of Celeste Rivas Hernandez’s body in D4vd hearing

Celeste Rivas Hernandez, who was 13 at the time, later received an abortion, text messages indicate

Singer D4vd had impregnated the teenager he is accused of fatally stabbing, according to evidence presented in a Los Angeles courtroom on Friday. Celeste Rivas Hernandez later received an abortion, text messages between the two indicate.

The musician, who was born David Anthony Burke, apologized to Rivas Hernandez in January 2024 for “putting her through this”, in a text message obtained from his phone.

“Neither of us are capable of watching and taking care of the baby. it’s for the best no?” Rivas Hernandez replied. She was 13 years old at the time.

The revelation came on the fourth day of a hearing to determine whether the musician will stand trial for murder and child sexual abuse charges linked to Rivas Hernandez’s death. He has pleaded not guilty.

Speculation swirled online over whether Rivas Hernandez had been pregnant after prosecutors previewed their plan to present text correspondence with references to pregnancy, abortion and a Plan B emergency contraceptive in an April court filing.

Prosecutors say Burke fatally stabbed Rivas Hernandez, who was 14, in April 2025 to silence her from divulging the sexual nature of their relationship as his career soared. He was 18 and she was 13 when the sexual abuse began, according to prosecutors.

The abortion appeared to have weighed heavily on Rivas Hernandez.

“I care abt u i killed my kid [for] you,” she wrote in an August 2024 text to Burke, the Los Angeles Times reported . “i don’t like talking about it cause it gets [me really] upset but id do anything to have it back.”

Rivas Hernandez’s parents left the room as Corey Farell, a Los Angeles police detective, discussed explicit photographs the pair took of each other naked, Courthouse News reported .

Beth Silverman, the deputy district attorney, apologized to Rivas Hernandez’s mother, Mercedes Martinez. “It’s too much,” she said.

In February 2024, Burke suggested to police officers he believed that Rivas Hernandez was 18, according to a video presented to court earlier in the week. Law enforcement had been investigating a missing person’s report.

In text messages, shown on Friday, Burke seemed to reference past encounters with authorities.

“I can’t wait to move in tg without the cops bitching baby,” he wrote to Rivas Hernandez in June 2024, according to Courthouse News.

He also floated the prospect of the two eloping in Italy.

The autopsy of Rivas Hernandez’s body was also discussed on Friday.

Last September, Los Angeles police discovered Rivas Hernandez’s remains in the front trunk of a Tesla, registered to Burke, five months after prosecutors allege Burke killed her.

The court has seen graphic photographs of Rivas Hernandez’s dismembered and decomposing body this week.

The degraded conditions of her remains posed challenges to the autopsy, Grant Ho, the doctor who performed the postmortem examination, testified on Friday.

Rivas Hernandez had been dead for weeks when her body was found, but Ho noted it was “extremely difficult to tell” when exactly she died.

In April, Rivas Hernandez’s autopsy report was unsealed amid mounting scrutiny and speculation over the circumstances of her death. According to the Los Angeles county medical examiner’s office, she died from multiple penetrating injuries.

On Friday, Ho said he had identified two stab wounds – one on her abdomen that struck her liver and another on her left chest that damaged her ribs.

Defense attorney Marilyn Bednarski appeared to call into question the extent to which the autopsy report could reveal what preceded Rivas Hernandez’s death.

“You can’t rule out that she was holding an instrument that caused either of those wounds?” she asked Ho.

The doctor said he could not, but noted that self-inflicted injuries typically are paired with “hesitation marks” on the skin, which the teenager’s remains did not have.

The Associated Press contributed reporting