Chef says he 'slowly cooked' wife's body in boiling water

The murder trial of a South Bay chef took a bizarre turn this week when he was heard on tape telling detectives he cooked her body.

"I just slowly cooked it, and I ended up cooking her for four days," David Viens said on the tape, which was played in court.

"You cooked on [her] body for four days?" replied Los Angeles County Sheriff's Sgt. Richard Garcia.

"Before it was done," Viens said. It was unclear from the interview where the cooking took place.

Viens said he had accidentally killed his wife and wanted to get rid of her body.

The chef said he thought of how easily he disposed of grease in his restaurant. So, he said, he stuffed his wife's body, face-down, into a drum of boiling water — and cooked it. For four days.

Viens has pleaded not guilty to killing his wife, Dawn, who was 39 when she vanished in October 2009. In 2011, after Viens learned investigators suspected that he had played a role in her disappearance, he leaped off an 80-foot cliff in Rancho Palos Verdes — feet first, arms raised, screaming.

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