Audio Of Confession From Chef Convicted Of Killing, Cooking Wife Released
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — The Los Angeles County District Attorney has released the audio recording of a former Lomita restaurant owner describing to investigators how he killed his wife, then cooked her body.
David Viens's voice is steady as he tells Los Angeles County sheriff's department investigators that he warned his wife of 17 years that he would harm her the night she was murdered.
"For some reason I just got violent," Viens said. "I keep telling her, either spend the night somewhere else. You're not staying here because I can tell I'm going to jail any minute for all this domestic violence."
Viens' attorney says he had been drinking alcohol and had taken an Ambien. Viens said he just snapped.
"Just let me sleep, and then I get up, and I grab her right by the hand -- both hands, and I bring her out into the living room, and I go ahead and I force her onto the floor, and I wrap her hands real quick, I wrap her feet up real quick, and I take a piece of clear duct tape -- wrapping tape and I put that over her mouth. And that was it. I said, 'Good night.'"
Viens told investigators that the night his wife died was not the first time he used force to punish her. He gave investigators a detailed, step-by-step confession on his reaction to finding his bound-and-gagged wife dead and his decision on the best way to dispose of her.
"You put her whole body in there, her whole body fit in there?" detectives asked.
"Whole body," Viens said.
"Then what did you do with that?" detectives asked.
"I manipulated her so the face was face 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.
The recorded interview took place in Viens' hospital room in the jail ward, where the former chef was recovering from injuries he sustained after jumping off a cliff in Rancho Palos Verdes.
Last week, Viens was convicted of second-degree murder.
