NO SAH

David Viens Murder Trial: Chef Says He Slow-Cooked His Wife’s Body
Sep 20, 2012 4:45 AM EDT
Police say David Viens admitted to killing his wife and slow-cooking her body for four days until nothing was left but her skull. But he says he’s not guilty of murder. Christine Pelisek on the grisly trial unfolding in Los Angeles.
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In October 2009, 39-year-old Dawn Viens disappeared without a trace from the apartment she shared with her husband. David Viens, chef and owner of Thyme Contemporary Café in Lomita, Calif., told detectives that he and his pretty blond wife had been arguing over her alcohol use and that she just wanted to escape her life. “He said she needed time away,” said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sgt. Richard Garcia. “He said she walked away on the night of Oct. 18.”

Although they never found her body, police didn’t believe she was still alive. “There were no signs of life,” said Garcia. “There was no contacting any friends. There was no credit card or cellphone use. She left behind her clothing and vehicle.”

As detectives began closing in on Viens, he attempted to commit suicide by diving feet first off a Rancho Palos Verdes cliff. He survived, and in 2011, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office charged him with the murder of his wife.

The trial, which is now playing out in Los Angeles Superior Court, has all the makings of a made-for-TV movie, including chilling tapes played for the jury of Viens, recovering from his near fatal tumble, confessing to police that he accidentally killed his 105-pound wife, slow-cooked her remains in a 55-gallon drum, drained out the fat, and then hid her skull for safekeeping in his mother’s attic.

Prosecutors say Viens, now 49, killed his wife in a fit of rage over money missing from the sandwich shop they opened together in 2009. “In this case, you are going to learn about a once-happy couple, a couple who had hopes and dreams, and used their efforts to build a future,” said deputy district attorney Deborah Brazil during opening arguments last week. “The evidence in this case will reveal to you just how tragic a once-hopeful relationship can turn.”

Viens, who sat nearby in a wheelchair, has pleaded not guilty, saying he did not try to kill his wife intentionally. During the trial on Wednesday, he told superior court Judge Rand S. Rubin that he would not be taking the stand in his own defense.

The investigation into Dawn Viens’s disappearance began on Nov. 18, 2009, when her sister, Dayna Papin, and friends reported her missing.

In a police interview, David Viens told detectives that on Oct. 18, the night police believe she was murdered, he argued with his wife about her excessive drinking. “She was, uh, yeah, wasted at work,” Viens said. “You know, she had issues with everybody … She ended up, you know, becoming a mean drunk.”

Earlier that day, Viens said, his wife was drunk again. She was so drunk, he said, that she lost money at the sandwich shop. The two, who met in the 1990s when David was still married to his first wife, went to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen, and he dropped her off at home and returned to work, he said.

He returned home later that night to find her gone and went to bed after taking an Ambien, he initially told police. His wife was still missing the following day, so he texted and called her a number of times.

Asked why he did not call the police, Viens said, according to Brazil: “After she left, a few days later, maybe a week to two weeks, I’m not exactly sure when it was, but I got a text message from her. And she said, ‘I’m OK. I’m with a friend.’”

“And by the way, I talked to her, my wife, Dawn, on the phone,” he said. “I talked to her the day I picked my daughter, Jackie, up from the airport. And when I spoke to Dawn on the phone, she told me she was with a friend, and she just needed time to herself.”

She finally came home on Oct. 25, he told detectives, and begged him to leave their life in Lomita and run away with her to the mountains. The following day, he told her she needed to check into rehab. The day after that, she was gone.

When customers at the sandwich shop asked about her, prosecutor Brazil said Viens offered various answers. “She’s gone to rehab,” he said. “She went to the mountains. She left for the East Coast to visit friends.”

During their hunt for Dawn Viens, missing persons detectives interviewed longshoreman Todd Stagnitto, who told them that on the night she disappeared he saw her husband going through the restaurant receipts and counting up the day’s tally. Viens appeared agitated, Stagnitto said, and told him the money was short for that day.