He was an up-and-coming singer who is now at the center of the investigation into the death of a teenage girl.
David Anthony Burke, whose stage name is D4vd, is a Billboard-charting artist.
Burke was raised in Houston and has collaborated with musicians Kali Uchis, Stray Kids’ Hyunjin, Laufey and 21 Savage. He also created an anthem for the game “Fortnite.”
Burke has been on a national tour promoting his debut album, “Withered,” since early August. He performed in Boston, Montreal and Toronto in late August and in early September had stops in Detroit, Chicago and Indianapolis. The U.S. leg of the tour is slated to end in Los Angeles in September. The national tour promoter Goldenvoice has not responded to requests for comment and the tour is set to resume in Europe in October.
The Withered world tour includes themes of death and remembrance. Fans entering Burke’s show are greeted by a casket and guest book, where they can pay condolences to a character Burke sometimes reprises in his performances and music videos. Part of that character’s uniform includes a shirt covered in bloody handprints and a blindfold.
“Withered” was released on Darkroom and Interscope Records in April. The album charted at No. 13 on the Billboard 200 and has more than 521 million streams on Spotify.
In September, the decomposing body of a girl was found in an abandoned Tesla registered to singer D4vd.
He has not been charged with a crime. Early in the investigation, police said he was cooperating with detectives.
In February, The Times reported D4vd is the “target” of a Los Angeles County criminal jury investigation into the death of the girl, Celeste Rivas Hernandez.
According to a grand jury subpoena seeking to have Burke’s father, mother and brother testify in L.A., the musician is described as “Target David Burke,” who may have committed a criminal offense in California, “to wit: One count of Murder.”
The document was part of a legal challenge to the subpoenas filed by the singer’s family in Texas. The newly unsealed documents reveal that, when Los Angeles police opened up the Tesla trunk, they found “a black cadaver bag covered with insects and a strong odor of decay” inside. Investigators had been granted a search warrant to look in the vehicle Sept. 8 after a tow yard worker noticed a rotting smell emanating from the vehicle.
According to the document, detectives partially unzipped the bag and found “a decomposed head and torso.”
