LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge ruled Monday that there is enough evidence to put D4vd on trial in the killing and dismemberment of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, who authorities said had threatened to expose their relationship and crater the indie-pop singer’s rising career just a few days before his debut album dropped.

“i will end ur career and ur life,” she told him in a text message sent the night before her death.

Los Angeles Judge Charlaine Olmedo decided that evidence presented during a preliminary hearing provided probable cause for a trial on charges of murder, continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14 and unlawful mutilation of human remains.

The dark and disturbing details presented over five days brought tears, gasps and horror to the courtroom. The evidence included grisly autopsy photos, explicit descriptions and depictions of sexual abuse and a stark picture of the final texts she sent minutes before she died and her phone went permanently silent.

The ruling was a major step in the 10-month investigation and prosecution of D4vd that began when the dismembered and decomposing body of a girl was found in the trunk of his Tesla in the Hollywood Hills in September while he was on tour.

D4vd shows no emotion as decision is read, and now heads to trial

D4vd, the 21-year-old whose legal name is David Burke, showed no emotion when the judge issued her ruling, watching calmly and intently in his orange jail clothes and glasses as he had throughout the proceedings.

He has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers argued that the murder evidence was insufficient, but did not argue against the other two charges. They declined to comment outside court.

Prosecutors argued that the evidence was overwhelming.

“Based on the mountains of evidence presented,” Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman said, “all of the allegations have been proved way beyond the standard required.”

Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman said outside court that prosecutors presented only a “small fraction” of the evidence they have. They are still weighing whether to seek the death penalty, but Burke is eligible for it after Olmedo also found probable cause for lying in wait, killing for financial gain and killing a potential witness, special circumstances in a crime that allow for a death sentence.

Olmedo ordered that Burke continue to be held without bail. An arraignment is to be held on Aug. 31, and a trial could happen as soon as 60 days later.

The last night of Celeste Rivas Hernandez

Before the decision, prosecutors gave a moment-by-moment account of Rivas Hernandez’s last night.

As she neared his Hollywood home shortly after 10 p.m. on April 23, 2025, in an Uber he had sent to pick her up, she sent her final text: “girly pop i’m almost there open ur door if ur home.”

Prosecutors allege Burke stabbed her to death when she came through the door.

The night before, the two argued via text about his relationship with a woman. She sent him an angry and profanity-riddled text saying she will tell her dad so many lies about him and that she would “end ur career and ur life.” She had sent several similar messages around the same time.

Prosecutors said that Burke met Rivas Hernandez when she was 11, began sexually abusing her when she was 13 and he was 18. A year before her death, the pair also exchanged messages about how she had become pregnant — she assured him the baby was his — and that she had an abortion.

During the preliminary hearing, prosecutors introduced photos of the two of them kissing and lying in bed. The pictures showed that she had “David” tattooed in red ink on a finger — one of two that had been cut off when her body was found.

Prosecutors said they have records showing Burke ordered chain saws and wading pools that he used to dismember her body in his garage, and that her DNA was found there on blood stains.

They said he then drove around for weeks and even months with the body in his trunk before the seemingly abandoned Tesla was towed from the Hollywood Hills.

Defense argues there’s insufficient evidence for murder

The defense argued that the evidence didn’t show the kind of malice that was required for murder.

“There’s no evidence that Mr. Burke harbored a deliberate intent to kill Miss Hernandez,” said Burke’s attorney, Marilyn Bednarski.

She said the communications between Burke and Rivas Hernandez showed “no threat, no evidence of a history of violence” and that he had “the opposite of homicidal malice” toward her.

She argued that a medical examiner ruling that her death was a homicide from two puncture wounds was too vague and inconclusive to be evidence of murder. The defense did not directly give an alternative theory on how she died and isn’t required to.

The defense also established that she had asked seven times to come to see him in the days before her death, and he reluctantly agreed only after she demanded it, and that she had threatened to kill Burke and to mutilate him.

Silverman told the judge that “the defense tried numerous times throughout these proceedings to dirty up the victim” despite her being a child.

Farrell, the detective, also said under defense questioning that the parents of both Burke and Rivas Hernandez knew about their relationship, that he had attended church with members of her family and that her parents had given their consent for her to go to London with him for a week.

Patrick Steinfeld, an attorney for Rivas Hernandez’s family said after the hearing that they were “horrified that the defense attorneys brought up evidence to put the blame on a 14-year-old girl.”

Her parents sat in the front row through most of the hearing, but sat out some of the more graphic parts and left in the middle of the sexual testimony after her mother began crying.

D4vd’s career was reaching new heights at time of killing

D4vd (pronounced “David”) became an online musical phenomenon as a teen with a blend of indie rock, R&B and lo-fi pop. He had huge followings on TikTok, Soundcloud and Spotify, where his top songs, including his 2022 breakthrough “Romantic Homicide,” have more than a billion plays.

In 2024 he played the Coachella music festival and released his first full-length album, “Withered,” two days after authorities say Rivas Hernandez was killed.

CAIRO (AP) — The U.S. military launched the 13th night of strikes Thursday against Iran, targeting key military and commercial sites as clashes continued to escalate over shipping routes. The attacks came after Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they targeted two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, potentially widening the Iran war as international oil topped $100 a barrel.

Shortly after the new attacks were announced, Iranian state media reported explosions in the port city of Bandar Abbas, a critical hub for moving military supplies as well as trade cargo, where two people were reportedly injured.

Blasts were also reported on Qeshm Island, home to stores of naval assets including drone boats that Iran can use to attack vessels on the Strait of Hormuz, as well as to the northwest near Andimeshk, Omidiyeh and Firuzabad. Four people were killed and five wounded in a U.S. missile attack on the outskirts of Ahvaz on the Karun River, Iranian state media said.

U.S. Central Command said the latest barrage was designed to “further degrade Iran’s ability to threaten civilian mariners and commercial vessels transiting regional waters” as the Americans push to regain control over the strategic waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil and gas transited in peacetime. It said the strikes ended shortly before 5 a.m. local time Friday.

Meanwhile, the Houthis threatened to shut down another key trade route, with the world economy already reeling from Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran and the U.S. have stepped up attacks as they vie for control of the strait, setting off a scramble for alternative routes.

President Donald Trump threatened “major military punishment” against the Houthis if their attacks on ships continue.

“If they do this again, the U.S. will hold Iran responsible, in that the Houthis are a Surrogate and/or Proxy of Iran, and major military punishment will be inflicted upon Iran and, of course, the Houthis, themselves,” Trump wrote on social media.

As the rhetoric escalated, so did the economic fallout. The price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, spiked more than 6% to about $100 a barrel. That’s the highest level since May, before the two sides reached a preliminary peace agreement last month that has since collapsed.

Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi of Iraq, which has close ties to both the U.S. and Iran, was in Tehran on Thursday to call for peace and dialogue, and he promised not to allow Iraqi territory to be used for attacks on Iran, his office said. Al-Zaidi met with Trump earlier this month in Washington.

Houthi attacks are a ‘double whammy’ on oil shipments

The Houthis’ SABA news agency said the rebels had struck two tankers, the Encelia and the Layla, in the Red Sea, causing fires on both. There were no reports of casualties.

It was the first reported Houthi attack on a vessel since they announced a blockade of Saudi-linked shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait earlier this week in retaliation for the kingdom’s blockade on Yemen and a recent attack on the international airport in Yemen’s rebel-held capital, Sanaa.

Bab el-Mandeb, at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is a vital shipping chokepoint connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. Around 12% of the world’s trade, including a fourth of global container traffic, passes through there, moving between Europe and Asia via Egypt’s Suez Canal.

The state-run Saudi Press Agency reported an attack set the Encelia ablaze overnight in the Red Sea. It did not mention the Layla.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center said it received a report of a tanker being struck by “an unknown projectile” 130 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of Al Shuqaiq, Saudi Arabia, in the Red Sea.

The Houthi attacks put at risk oil shipments from Saudi Arabia’s Yanbu port on the Red Sea and present a “double whammy” on top of the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, said maritime data and analysis firm Lloyd’s List Intelligence.

Saudi Arabia has diverted millions of barrels a day of oil exports to Yanbu via an overland pipeline as the war has bottled up the Persian Gulf.

The Houthi threat “raises questions on the viability of this route,” Lloyd’s said in slides accompanying an online webinar Thursday.

Both sides dig in over Strait of Hormuz

Iran says it has the right to manage traffic and potentially charge fees in the Strait of Hormuz, which was open to all toll-free before the war. It has attacked ships using a route through the strait that is overseen by U.S. forces and intended to be outside Tehran’s control.

Trump said on social media Thursday that sanctioned Iranian funds in the possession of the U.S. will cover the expense of fixing boats damaged in the war.

“Please let this statement serve to represent, until further notice, that from this point forth, any and all damages done to Ships, Cargo, or anything related thereto, will be paid for by Iranian Money that the United States has in its possession, and controls,” Trump said.

It was unclear what legal mechanisms Trump would use to seize and spend the funds, but he said that doing so would be “the fair and equitable thing to do.”

Seyed Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, said such a seizure of assets would be an “incendiary” precedent.

“Those who celebrate or profit from such funds should remember: once governments normalize confiscation, no one’s assets are safe,” Abbas Araghchi said on social media early Friday. “Ensuing chaos will not be pretty or peaceful.”

In response to Iran’s attacks, the U.S. began the widening campaign of strikes across Iran and restored a naval blockade of Iran’s ports. U.S. Central Command said it has redirected about a dozen commercial vessels and disabled one since the blockade resumed.

The war of words has also escalated. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran would adopt an “eye for an eye” policy on U.S. strikes against its infrastructure. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio retorted that Trump’s policy is “a head for an eye.”

“The price will continue to get higher every single night until they come to their senses,” Rubio told reporters while traveling in the Philippines for a regional summit.

Iran’s health ministry said Thursday that 55 people have been killed and 629 have been wounded since renewed U.S. airstrikes began on June 27.

Iran has responded to U.S. attacks by targeting energy infrastructure and desalination plants providing drinking water in parched neighboring Gulf countries.

Polls have shown the war is unpopular among Americans, a fact reflected in the narrow passage Thursday of a resolution in the U.S. House to halt the war. Though a handful of Republicans crossed party lines to support the measure, the vote remained largely symbolic.