D4vd’s lawyers challenged a medical examiner’s conclusion that 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez was killed by another person, questioning whether the autopsy could exclude the possibility that she had caused her own injuries. The exchange offers an early indication of the defence’s potential strategy in the case against the singer, whose legal name is David Anthony Burke.

Dr Grant Ho testified that Rivas had two penetrating wounds: one about 1.5 inches deep in the abdomen, reaching the liver, and another about two inches deep in the chest near a lung. He said he could not identify who held the instrument or reconstruct the exact circumstances, though he noted self-inflicted wounds would normally be expected to show hesitation marks; he also said the liver injury could have caused death within minutes and that cutting through bone would require a power tool.