Former Lomita restaurateur was denied parole for murdering his wife

A former Lomita restaurateur who told sheriff's detectives that he bound his wife with duct tape, panicked when he found her dead and “cooked” her body for four days to get rid of her remains, lost his Thursday final application for parole.

According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, David Robert Viens was denied parole for three years.

It was the second time Viens was denied parole, having previously been denied parole in June 2021.

Viens – now 61 and behind bars at the substance abuse treatment facility and state prison in Corcoran – is serving a 15-year to life sentence for the October 2009 murder of his wife, Dawn, of her remains were never found.

He has lost a series of appeals in state and federal courts seeking to overturn his second-degree murder conviction.

In a 2016 ruling, U.S. Judge Frederick F. Mumm wrote that there was “little reason to believe that the jury would have reached a verdict more favorable to plaintiff than what it actually reached” if The jury would not have heard Viens' confession. He was hospitalized and under the influence of numerous medications after attempting suicide by jumping off a cliff.

Mumm's verdict stated that the defendant had also made a confession to his daughter and his 19-year-old new girlfriend.

“After killing his wife, the plaintiff disposed of her body. Although the plaintiff claims that he could not have cooked her body in his restaurant, as he told the police, that fact is irrelevant because he disposed of her body one way or another in a way that prevented that her body will ever be found,” Vimes added in his ruling.

A three-judge panel of California's 2nd District Court of Appeal previously rejected Viens' claim that there was insufficient evidence to convict him of murder. A July 2014 ruling concluded that he had “disposed of Dawn's body in a particularly cruel manner” and “conducted an elaborate cover-up of her death.”

The California Supreme Court in October 2014 rejected a defense motion asking him to review the case.

During Viens' trial, jurors heard taped interviews in which he told sheriff's investigators in March 2011 that “for some reason I just became violent” and that he used his wife's mouth, hands and feet Tied with tape. He said he filmed her “probably twice” on other occasions because he “didn't want her driving around exhausted, high on cocaine and alcohol.”

Viens, who ran the now-closed Thyme Contemporary Café, which was leased from his mother, told investigators he woke up four hours later and panicked when he discovered she was dead.

“I cooked them for four days. I let it cool, I sifted it out while I was in there, OK,” he told sheriff's detectives in a March 15, 2011, interview, adding that he threw the remains in the trash.

In an interview two weeks earlier, he told sheriff's investigators that “for some reason I just became violent.”

He said that it “apparently had to do with her stealing money from the restaurant” and that he grabbed her and wrapped her in duct tape before falling asleep, then woke up and panicked and found her dead.

Shortly before his sentencing in March 2013, Viens denied that he killed his wife for a few hundred dollars, saying it was “ridiculous to think that I would harm my wife for that.”

He also denied cooking his wife, saying he loved her and had undergone “two major surgeries” in the hours before he was recorded talking to sheriff investigators in March 2011 and couldn't even remember , having spoken with them while he was hospitalized at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance.

During his 45-minute sentencing testimony, Viens said he had “hallucinations” while speaking to sheriff's detectives and didn't know how he could have summoned them to his bedside when he was handcuffed to the hospital bed was tied up.

Former Lomita restaurateur was denied parole for murdering his wife

You may also like...

Recent Posts

Former Lomita restaurateur was denied parole for murdering his wife

You may also like...

What is ketamine? What you should know about the drug that killed Matthew Perry

Bruce Willis spotted driving with bodyguards during rare outing to battle dementia

Technical data of Can-Am electric motorcycles published, Pulse and Origin coming in 2025

Recent Posts