A former chef who killed his wife and cooked her body for four days to dispose of her remains faces a potential 15-years-to-life term in prison when he is set to be sentenced on Friday.
David Robert Viens, 49, was convicted of second-degree murder for the slaying of his wife, Dawn, in October of 2009.
Viens said he argued with his wife and bound her mouth, hands and feet with duct tape because he didn't want her going out driving while intoxicated, prosecutors said.
After he found her dead the next morning, he concocted a plan to cook her remains, prosecutors said.
"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, according to audio released in court from the interview with deputies.
In 2011 after he learned that police were looking for him in connection with his wife’s death, Viens jumped off a oceanside cliff in Rancho Palos Verdes in a botched suicide, police said.
Defense attorneys argued that Viens did not intend to kill his wife.
Viens is a former chef at the Thyme Contemporary Cafe in Lomita.