newjerseynewsroom.com

BY BOB HOLT

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

The jury in a grisly murder case in Los Angeles involving a California chef heard two taped interviews that appeared to be alleged confessions.

David Viens, 49, a chef at the Thyme Contemporary Café in Lomita, California, is on trial for the murder of his wife, Dawn Viens, 39, on Oct. 18, 2009.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Viens said he put Dawn Viens’ 105-pound body into a 55-gallon drum of boiling water and used weights to keep it submerged. Viens then proceeded to slow cook his wife for four days.

Viens then mixed his wife’s remains with other waste and poured it into the grease pit at the restaurant. He told investigators all that was left was her skull. "I came up with the idea of cleaning the grease traps and commingling in the, the excess, the excess protein," David Viens said, according to NBC Southern California.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Viens said he left the skull in his mother’s attic, but investigators found nothing after a thorough search.

ABC News reported that Viens and his wife had an argument on the night of the murder. He duct-taped her mouth and bound her hands and feet, and after falling asleep, found Dawn Viens dead the next morning. "I panicked," Viens said. "She was hard."

He told authorities that he had taped his wife up before to keep her from "driving around wasted, whacked out on coke and drinking."

CBS News reported that Viens learned he became a suspect in his wife’s disappearance in 2011. Police interviewed him from a hospital bed after he jumped off an 80-foot cliff in Rancho Palos Verdes. Viens is attending the murder trial in a wheelchair.