A Los Angeles County medical examiner took the stand on Friday, the fourth day of the preliminary hearing in D4vd’s murder case, and described the poor condition of Celeste Rivas Hernandez’s body when it arrived at their facility last fall.
D4vd, a 21-year-old singer whose real name is David Burke, has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Celeste, 14. He could face the death penalty and has pleaded not guilty.
In graphic detail, the deputy medical examiner, Dr. Grant Ho, said that when his office first conducted an autopsy of the body on Sept. 10, it was “markedly decomposed” and the extremities had been dismembered.
People in the courtroom gasped and groaned as a deputy district attorney, Beth Silverman, put photos of Celeste’s body on a screen. Dr. Ho said that the cuts through bone on both arms and legs were relatively clean and potentially consistent with having been performed with a power tool.
Dr. Ho spent much of his time describing two key penetrating wounds: one to the right abdomen, so deep that it pierced the liver, and another to the left chest.
“Life-threatening injuries,” he said, adding that it would take only minutes for a person to bleed out and die from such injuries without medical intervention.
“The manner of death is homicide,” he said. “Death at the hands of another.”
Mr. Burke, wearing an orange jumpsuit and black glasses, leaned slightly forward at times during the doctor’s testimony.
Prosecutors had previously disclosed in court documents that they believe that Mr. Burke met Celeste when she was 11, began a sexual relationship with her when she was 13 and, when she was 14, got into an argument with her the day before inviting her to his home and fatally stabbing her.
Lawyers for Mr. Burke have cross-examined all of the prosecution’s 11 witnesses during the preliminary hearing.
One of those lawyers, Marilyn Bednarski, pressed on the fact that Dr. Ho could not say exactly when the death or dismemberment had occurred. Under cross-examination, Dr. Ho also said that some specific features of the injuries have been lost to decomposition and that it was not possible to determine whether there was a struggle before Celeste’s death.
Celeste’s parents have been present for much of the preliminary hearing but were not in court Friday as the images were shown; they exited the courtroom late Thursday when Dr. Ho first took the stand. Their lawyer has described the family as “horrified” by images they saw earlier in the week of their daughter’s body.
Prosecutors have said in court documents that in the days and weeks after Celeste was killed, Mr. Burke placed her body into a blue inflatable pool and cut off her limbs with a chain saw he had ordered online. He then stuffed her remains into a garbage bag and put the bag in the front trunk of his Tesla, according to the documents.
Celeste’s body had been so badly disfigured by the time it was found that county medical examiners used dental records to help identify her.
A 26-page report prepared by the medical examiners that was released in April said that Celeste died of “multiple penetrating injuries” that were caused “with object(s).” But many of the grim details of their examinations were not widely known until Dr. Ho’s testimony.
He said that he could not estimate how long Celeste had been dead because the body was so decomposed, but that it was clear she had been dead “at least weeks.” Asked whether it was possible that she would have been killed five months earlier, as prosecutors have alleged, Dr. Ho responded, “Potentially.”
The defense has not called any of its own witnesses at the preliminary hearing.
When the proceedings end, Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo will determine if enough proof has been presented for the case to move forward to trial. That standard of proof is lower than what is required for a conviction. Prosectors must show only that there is “probable cause” to believe that a crime was committed and that Mr. Burke committed it.