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Singer D4vd is the target of a Los Angeles grand jury investigation into the death of a teenage girl whosedismembered remains were found last year in the trunk of his car, according to court filings.

The filings state a grand jury investigation is currently pending in Los Angeles County involving allegations that D4vd, whose real name isDavid Anthony Burke, "may be involved in the death of a 14-year-old victim" identified as Celeste Rivas Hernandez, who was reported missing from Lake Elsinore, California, in 2024.

The filings state that Hernandez "may have been the victim of foul play."

A Los Angeles Police Department source with direct knowledge of the investigation previously said that thesinger was a suspectin Hernandez's death. He has not been arrested or charged with any crime.

Both of the singer's parents, Colleen and Dawud Burke, were ordered to appear before a Los Angeles grand jury scheduled for Feb. 11, according to court documents. They live in Texas.

His father was asked to appear as a witness in the investigation, the documents state.

Hernandez's remains were found Sept. 8inside the front trunk of the singer's Tesla at a Hollywood tow lot. The manager called officers to report a "strong smell of decay" coming from the vehicle and the presence of flies, the court documents state.

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"Detectives approached the vehicle which was parked on the upper deck of the impound lot and immediately noticed a smell of decaying biological material consistent with a decomposing corpse coming from the front storage compartment of the vehicle," the documents say.

Inside the trunk was a black cadaver bag covered with insects. Officers unzipped the bag and found a decomposed head and torso, according to the documents. A second black bag was also in the trunk, containing additional dismembered body parts.

The car was taken to the tow lot after it was left abandoned on a Los Angeles street. A citizen reported the abandoned vehicle in August.

The documents state that the Department of Transportation marked the vehicle and issued a citation before impounding it. D4vd was on tour at the time the car was impounded, the court documents state.

Following news of Hernandez's death, hecanceled the rest of his U.S. tour.

D4vd's lawyers have not responded to multiple requests for comment. In September, his spokesperson said he was "fully cooperating with authorities." A police source toldNBC Los Angelesthat the singer has not been cooperative.

CORRECTION(Feb. 25, 2026, 6:20 p.m.): A previous version of this article misquoted a section of the grand jury filings regarding the victim's age. The filings say Celeste Rivas Hernandez was 14, not 15.

As the search for Nancy Guthrie stretches into its fourth, desperate week, her family has offered up to a million dollars for information leading to her return.

The staggering reward is, in some ways, a tacit admission that the investigation is entering a new phase as DNA evidence that once seemed promising hits roadblocks, and investigators acknowledge they still do not have a suspect in the kidnapping case.

Even as she said her family is "blowing on the embers of hope" that the 84-year-old will make it safely home, Savannah Guthrie acknowledged a sobering truth:

"We also know that she may be lost. She may already be gone," Guthrie said in her video Tuesday announcing the reward. "But we need to know where she is."

The tragic admission, coming more than a week after Guthrie's last appeal to her mother's captors, sparks questions as to why investigators and the family chose to wait weeks to put forward such a large and enticing reward. CNN spoke to law enforcement experts and analysts about the possible strategy behind the timing of such a compelling offer – and why it could portend a tragic turn in the investigation.

An appeal to the inner circle

In the weeks since Guthrie's disappearance, thousands of tips have poured into the investigation's hotline. But the tide began to ebb in recent days, and the Pima County 911 supervisor told CNN the number of credible tips had begun to slow.

Then, the Guthrie family offered their million-dollar reward.

Since the details of the reward were made public, the FBI told CNN investigators have received more than 750 credible tips – among a total of about 23,000 tips collected since the beginning of the investigation.

And while the number is significantly lower than the thousands of calls the tipline received earlier in the investigation, experts say that could be by design.

"This reward is designed to prompt somebody within the suspect's orbit" to come forward, Jonathan Wackrow, a former Secret Service agent who served under President Obama, said.

"It's not the suspect themselves that the messaging is focused on, it's this broader orbit of associates – potentially friends, family, co-conspirators – really for them to break their silence."

Someone with a personal connection to Guthrie's abductor may not have been tempted by the prior $200,000 reward for information, but the prospect of up to a million-dollar payout could mitigate some of the risk of contacting law enforcement, Wackrow said.

Why now?

A source close to the family told CNN the Guthries were willing to put forward a similar reward earlier in the investigation, but there was concern such a large amount could inundate the call center tasked with sifting through tips.

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There are a number of reasons why law enforcement may have advised the Guthries to wait before making such a large offer, CNN senior law enforcement analyst Josh Campbell said.

"Time is of the essence in a kidnapping case, and bogging down investigators with a mountain of false leads could have slowed their effort as they sorted fact from fiction," he said.

And, he added, early in an investigation, the goal is to open a line of communication with the abductor and bring the case to a fast and safe resolution.

"It can be very counterproductive to simultaneously appeal to the abductor to do the right thing, while at the same time encouraging people who might know the abductor to turn on him with the incentive of a million-dollar reward."

The FBI's crisis negotiators, Campbell said, would have likely been trying to find a balance between enticing people with direct knowledge of the kidnapping to come forward and not angering an abductor and inadvertently causing harm to the victim.

What happens next?

Sources close to both the Guthries and the investigation tell CNN the family has continued to work in lock step with authorities, and the new reward was offered in consultation with law enforcement.

Indeed, Savannah Guthrie's language around the reward appeared to align with how the FBI framed its previous offers – with one key distinction.

In recent weeks, the FBI hasofferedpayouts for information "leading to the location of Nancy Guthrie and/or the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in her disappearance."

But now, after acknowledging that her mother may be "dancing in heaven," Savannah said her family is offering up to a million dollars for "any information that leads to her recovery."

The subtle shift in language indicates the Guthrie family's reward does not hinge on an arrest of Nancy's captors. It may also be a reluctant nod to an even worse tragedy.

"This is shifting to acceptance of a whole variety, or a multitude of outcomes including the fact that (Nancy) may now be deceased and they're looking for closure," Wackrow said, adding he finds it "shocking" that it took weeks to get to this point in such a high-profile investigation.

"Again, (the $1 million reward) is a tactic; I would have expected it to be earlier on in this investigation, not midway through the fourth week."

CNN's Josh Campbell, Elizabeth Hartfield and Brian Stelter contributed to this report

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Oliver "Power" Grant, the close Wu-Tang Clan affiliate who oversaw the group's enormously popular Wu Wear fashion line, has died. He was 52.

Grant's death was confirmed by social media posts from several Wu-Tang members including Method Man,who wrote"Paradise my Brother safe Travels!!" under a post of the two together.

"We couldn't have done it without him," GZAwrote in his own post. "Wu wouldn't have come to fruition without Power. His passing is a profound loss to us all."

The group members' posts did not cite a cause of death. The news was first reported by outlets includingOkayplayerandHot 97.

Grant, a childhood friend of Wu-Tang co-founder RZA's older brother, was a crucial figure in the sprawling New York hip-hop collective's ascent. Though he was not a performing member of the group, he helped raise capital for early recording sessions and structured Wu-Tang's finances and record deals — no small feat for a collective with such a vast archipelago of group and solo projects.

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"We knew that if a brother got a deal for 150k, he could keep the majority of it, but it also would facilitate and help the other brothers," he toldPassion of the Weiss in 2011. "It was part of our core and movement for us to spread the money around and help brothers eat, without a project out. It was like we were trust fund babies."

His work set a precedent for autonomy and creative control as hip-hop became a commercial juggernaut in the '90s.

"Everything that we learned was hard knock life, you figure it out as you go along, and take cues from those that are actively doing things," he said. "I wasn't a rapper, but the thrill of being a part of going and where they went, it was the inspiration for how it ended up that lead us all to going back, soaking up what we'd absorbed and coming back with 'Protect Ya Neck.'"

He was also the driving force behind Wu Wear, the group's wildly popular fashion line that netted tens of millions in revenue and became a fixture of '90s hip-hop iconography. The line was later revamped as Wu-Tang Brand, and relaunched as Wu Wear in 2017. He also had cameos as an actor alongside Method Man in the 1998 hip-hop classic "Belly" and 1999's "Black and White," and served as an executive producer for the group's many LPs.

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This story originally appeared inLos Angeles Times.