Los Angeles Chef Convicted Of Murder After Killing And Cooking His Wife

If you like to sprinkle a little fucked-upness on your cereal on lazy Saturday afternoons, you’re in luck. A 49-year-old man named David Viens was found guilty of second-degree murder yesterday in Los Angeles Superior Court for the murder of his wife Dawn Marie, with whom he owned a restaurant called Thyme in the L.A. suburb of Lomita. She disappeared in October of 2009 and Viens was questioned about the circumstances of her death in March 2011, while recovering from injuries he suffered during a suicide attempt.

In the recorded interviews, Viens copped to arguing with Dawn Marie about her stealing money from the restaurant, after which he bound and gagged her and went to sleep. When he woke up and found her dead, he panicked and placed her body in a large vat to boil. After the remains were cooked for four days, he got rid of them in assorted garbage bags with other debris.

In August of 2009, Dawn Marie had told friends and family that marks around her neck were the result of Viens’ abuse. Although his attorney argued that Viens was on a cocktail of painkillers at the time due to his injuries and the interviews were, therefore, not conducted with him in sound mind, it only took the court 5 1/2 hours to convict Viens, who now faces 15 years in the slammer. Too bad this sensational, horrible crime occurred after Law & Order: LA was cancelled: they could certainly have used this kind of headline-ripping to at least go on another season.

If you were interested, the Yelp page for the now-closed Thyme has subsequently become a sordid memorial of sorts for the deceased Viens.

‘California chef who boiled wife’s remains is convicted of murder’ [Chicago-Tribune]
”There’s no happy ending,’ sister of chef’s victim says’ [L.A. Now Blog/LA Times]