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Friday, September 28, 2012

Murder LA 000008

by James Cohen

David Viens was convicted of second-degree murder Thursday afternoon. He gave several versions of what happened to his wife, Dawn, since she disappeared in October 2009. He said she simply left, and used her phone to send text messages so people would think she was still alive.

Mr.Viens is a chef and his wife worked at his restaurant. Weeks after his wife's disappearance he was dating her replacement at work.

While drinking with his daughter soon after, he confessed that he had a fight with her step-mother. He tied her up and duct-taped her mouth and took some Ambien. But hey, he had done that twice before and she survived. He woke up to find her dead so he dumped her in a trash bin. His daughter tried to help the cover-up by texting from Dawn's phone but misspelled a common nickname, which did not quell suspicion.

He's currently in a wheelchair because he jumped off an 80 foot cliff after his girlfriend prevented him from driving them both off of it. Detectives saw the whole thing because they had him under surveillance and had actually kickstarted the incident by planting a news article in a paper he was subscribed to so that he would think they had new evidence. Good thing he didn't flip out and kill the new woman, huh guys? I think her family would have at least a tenable claim against the police if he did, but on the other hand she's did jump right into a relationship with a guy who's wife went mysteriously missing only a few weeks before.

In the hospital, hopped up on medication, he told the police the same story about finding his wife dead but added that he cooked her for four days before disposing of the body. He said her skull was at his mother's house, but police never found any of it so he may have been lying about any and all of it. I would bet that the police combed his restaurant and cooking utilities too, and yet had no hard evidence to present. Without his confession he probably would not have been convicted.


Did the police lie to the journalist who wrote that deceptive article or did the paper run a story they knew was misleading?

Mr. Viens' restaurant, Thyme Cafe, has closed. I expected more mischief on the review sites but apparently they've been edited, since several reviews are now gone. According to that article, urbanspoon was the place to go for crass.