The father, mother and brother of the singer known as D4vd are fighting Los Angeles County grand jury subpoenas related to the investigation into the death of a teenage girl discovered in the trunk of his Tesla, arguing their due process rights are being violated, court records in Texas indicate.
The 1st District Court of Appeals in Texas on Monday denied all three habeas corpus petitions to overturn a lower court ruling that required the family members, who live in Texas, to comply with subpoenas to testify in California. The appeals panel could take the matter up for another hearing on Feb. 24, according to the ruling.
The development comes five months after the gruesome discovery of the remains of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez in a Hollywood tow yard on Sept. 8. Although the Los Angeles Police Department has publicly declined to characterize the girl’s death as a homicide, a court filing by an LAPD detective referred to the case as a murder investigation.
In November, prosecutors began presenting evidence to a grand jury, described at the time as an investigative grand jury, according to a source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case with the media.
Since then, numerous other witnesses have been called into the grand jury room to testify in the investigation into Celeste’s death. Among those is one of the managers of D4vd, whose real name is David Anthony Burke. A friend of D4vd, Neo Langston, was arrested in Montana after ignoring a subpoena and was recently forced to return to L.A. to testify.
In a Texas appeals court footnote, the court refers specifically to the singer’s true name. The court states that the “underlying case” is “The People of the State of California v. David Burke,” pending in the 506th District Court of Waller County, Texas, with Judge Gary W. Chaney presiding. There is no public case with that name, but grand jury proceedings are confidential.
The singer’s father, Dawud, mother, Colleen, and brother, Caleb, reside in Texas, according to the records, and hence were served there. Lawyers for the trio could not be reached for comment.
The grand jury investigation of Celeste’s death was first exposed when a grand jury case number was included in that court order. In that document issued in November, LAPD Det. Joshua Byers of the Robbery-Homicide Division successfully persuaded a judge to bar the L.A. County medical examiner from divulging autopsy results and other details related to the girl’s death that would otherwise be made public.
It was Byers who characterized the case as “an investigation into murder,” according to the document.
Detectives spent months investigating the circumstances surrounding the girl’s death, as well as her relationship with D4vd.
His Tesla sat abandoned on a street in the Hollywood Hills for several weeks, and potentially months, before its removal. A tow yard worker noticed a foul smell coming from the Tesla and alerted the LAPD.
Authorities uncovered her body the day after Celeste’s 15th birthday. LAPD Capt. Scot Williams, who leads the Robbery-Homicide Division, said the girl had been “dead for at least several weeks.” Williams said the body had not been decapitated or frozen, as some news outlets have reported.
Detectives determined that the Tesla had been parked on Bluebird Avenue since late July — around the time D4vd began a national tour. The tour was canceled soon after the death investigation drew worldwide media attention.
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