LOS ANGELES - The body of a teenage girl found in the trunk of US singer D4vd’s car had been decomposed to the point it was “unrecognisable,” a police detective testified in a Los Angeles court on July 21.

The 21-year-old D4vd - whose real name is David Anthony Burke - faces several charges including murder in the horrifying death of Celeste Rivas Hernandez.

Her body was discovered in Burke’s Tesla in September 2025 within days of what would have been her 15th birthday.

Los Angeles Police Detective Joshua Byers testified during the preliminary hearing’s first day, saying that when law enforcement opened the trunk of Burke’s car in a tow yard, he recognised the “very distinctive smell” of a corpse.

Grim photographs of the girl’s dismembered remains were shown to the court, with a large black bag containing her head and torso.

When asked whether he was able to recognise any facial features, Byers said: “No, there was a quite a bit of decomposition to where skin slippage...made it unrecognisable.”

Her arms and legs were found in a separate bag where “there was insect activity. There was maggots. There was various stages of flies,” Byers told the court.

Burke, who attended the court hearing wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, did not flinch when the pictures were shown.

Prosecutors said the singer met the girl when she was just 11 years old, and started a sexual relationship when she was 13.