US chef gets 15 years for cooking wife
Date March 23, 2013
AP
David Viens, a chef who told police he cooked his wife's body in boiling water, has been sentenced in Los Angeles to 15 years to life in prison for second-degree murder. Viens was convicted in September of killing of 39-year-old Dawn Viens in 2009. Her body was never found.
A US chef who told police he cooked his wife's body in boiling water has been sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for second-degree murder.
But in a new twist on Friday, he told a judge the story, which could have been a script for a horror movie, was a lie.
David Viens gave a rambling, 45-minute speech during his sentencing hearing, saying that when police questioned him two years after his wife's disappearance, he was hallucinating and had made up the story about cooking his wife.
"I loved my wife. I didn't cook my wife," Viens said.
"I'd like the opportunity to testify."
Viens, 49, was convicted last September of killing of 39-year-old Dawn Viens in 2009. Her body was never found.
Police all but demolished the restaurant that Viens and his wife operated looking for evidence of a cooked body but found nothing.
David Viens said the story he gave authorities came after he had been in surgery for injuries he suffered when he jumped off a cliff. Most of the bones in his body were broken and he has been in a wheelchair since then.
"I'm hallucinating the whole time I'm there," he said of the interview.
"I'd been on an operating table 12 hours."
Authorities said Viens leapt off the cliff after learning he was a suspect in the case.
In the recorded interrogation presented at trial, Viens said he had argued with his wife of 17 years, taped her hands and feet, duct-taped her mouth and went to bed. When he awoke, he said, she was dead.
He told police he then cooked her body for four days to get rid of the evidence.
Superior Court Judge Rand Rubin noted that within two weeks after his wife's disappearance Viens had a new girlfriend living with him and went on with his life.
