A preliminary hearing for the murder case against singer D4vd, legal name David Anthony Burke, was postponed again until the end of July during a Wednesday court proceeding in Los Angeles.
Burke appeared in court for a status hearing on Wednesday when the decision to delay the hearing until July 21 was announced after his defence team asked for more time, according to NBC Los Angeles and Rolling Stone.
Another status conference was scheduled for July 7 and the preliminary hearing is expected to last around five days, according to the outlets.
The judge said she found “good cause” to continue the hearing after reading a sealed declaration from the Romantic Homicide singer’s lead lawyer Marilyn Bednarski, Rolling Stone reports.
Last month, the preliminary hearing for the murder case had been delayed until the end of June due to the amount of new evidence in the case and was set to begin on June 29.
Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman told the court that prosecutors have already turned over more than 10 terabytes of digital evidence, including materials found as part of a series of search warrants that were executed on the 21-year-old singer’s phone and iCloud account.
Get daily National news
Get daily Canada news delivered to your inbox so you’ll never miss the day’s top stories.
Silverman said prosecutors are continuing to upload evidence and added that the overall discovery could exceed 40 terabytes.
Burke has been charged with murder in the death of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, whose decomposed body was found in the trunk of a Tesla registered to the singer last year.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges in April and is being held without bond ahead of his trial.
Burke’s preliminary hearing was also previously rescheduled for May 26 after it had originally been set to begin on May 1.
The hearing comes after prosecutors alleged in April that Burke killed 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez by stabbing her multiple times.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office shared what it said the evidence would show in a document that provided the first detailed allegations of efforts to dismember Rivas’s body and get rid of evidence, according to The Associated Press.
The court filing, viewed and obtained by The Associated Press, alleges that Burke began a sexual relationship with her when she was 13 and he was 18, and killed her when she threatened to reveal their inappropriate relationship.
“Knowing he had to silence the victim before she ruined his music career as she had threatened, very soon after her arrival at his home, defendant stabbed the victim to death multiple times and stood by while she bled out,” the filings allege.
Rivas’s death was ruled a homicide in the report from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office that had been blocked from release for months.
The autopsy was limited by “extensive postmortem changes” to the body that was dismembered and decomposing when it was found in two bags in the trunk of a Tesla parked in the Hollywood Hills in September 2025.
The examination revealed “two penetrating wounds of the torso with smooth edges that may represent sharp force injuries.” One wound on the upper abdomen penetrated the liver. Another, on the left chest, damaged her ribs. The tube top she was wearing appeared to be cut in three places.
A judge had ordered the report sealed late last year at the request of law enforcement, but prosecutors agreed to allow its release in April.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office previously announced that Burke was charged with first-degree murder, lewd and lascivious acts with an individual under 14 and mutilating a body in the killing of Rivas. She was reported missing by her family in 2024, when she was 13. Authorities say she was 14 when she died.
The murder charges included special circumstances — lying in wait, committing a crime for financial gain and murdering the witness in an investigation — that could carry the death penalty. Prosecutors haven’t announced whether they will seek it.
—with files from The Associated Press
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
