California Chef Slow Cooks His Wife for 4 Days

David Viens, a chef from California, has admitted to slowly cooking his wife for four days after he “accidentally” murdered her back in 2010. The confession was recorded on tape shortly after the 39 year old chef tried committing suicide in 2011 by jumping off an 80 foot cliff. The tape with Viens’ confession was played for the jury recently during the trial.

One night, after coming home drinking with his friends, Viens alleges that he was trying to go to sleep when his wife, Dawn Viens, came into his room and started to yell at him. After trying to make her go away in VAIN (Chef Pun’d!) he ended up pushing her into their living room, tying her legs and arms up and duct-taping her mouth shut. When she was all tied up he left her there and went back to sleep.

When he woke up a few hours later he found that Dawn had died.

Viens points out that the couple had been having issues in the hours leading up to her death. He also claims that the two had been fighting because she had allegedly stolen a significant amount of money from his restaurant, The Thyme Contemporary Cafe.

David freaked out and decided he needed a way to get rid of the body. That is when this story goes from run-of-the-mill murder plot to you-have-got-to-be-kidding me status. Veins shoved Dawn into a large barrel and then confessed to the tape that he:

“…manipulated her so the face was – the face is down, and I took some – some things – like weights that we use, and I put them on the top of her body, and I just slowly cooked it and I ended up cooking her for four days,” Viens said.

“You cooked Dawn’s body for four days?” sheriff’s homicide Sgt. Richard Garcia asked.

“I cooked her four days,” he said. “I let her cool. I strained it out as I – I was in there, OK.”

David disposed of Dawn’s remains at his restaurant’s grease traps. The only thing that remains of Dawn is her skull and jaw bone which Veins hid in his mother’s attic. It is unclear whether David boiled the body at the restaurant or just got rid of her bits n’ pieces there.

By the way, here is a comment that Dawn left on Urbanspoon defending her husband’s restaurant for poor service during its opening weeks.

The restaurant has since closed down but that did not stop the internet from doing what it does best