Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Killers Amongst Us: Real Life "Hell's Kitchen," Gorgeous Restauranteur Disappears. What happened to Dawn? (part 5)

Episode Date: November 3, 2020

After incriminating comments are make by David Viens' daughter that he was behind the supposed text from missing Dawn Viens, saying she was starting a new life, Viens becomes the prime suspect. When confronted by detectives, Viens and his story about Dawn's disappearance falls apart. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Hi guys, Nancy Grace here. Welcome back to Killers Amongst Us, a production of iHeartMedia and Crime Online. We were talking about the disappearance of a beautiful young woman, Dawn Vins. With her world in front of her, they had just started she and her husband, David, a hot new restaurant. It was the place to be. There's one in every town that that's the place everybody seems to want to go. Of course, the first place you start with any missing person investigation is talking to the spouse. We now know that the husband is saying she took off for rehab,

but then he also said he expected her to come back after ski season. And you see Don Vann's husband, daughter, and his what? New girlfriend throwing her stuff away? Well, of course, it aroused suspicion when her clothing and some of her possessions were thrown in a dumpster. Investigators start this electronic surveillance on David Vins, Dawn's husband, including GPS trackers, wiretaps. They even go undercover into the restaurant to eat to get a sense of what's going on. But then they fly out to see his daughter, Jackie.

She had moved back to South Carolina. David Vins' own blood daughter stating, oh yeah, that pixie text. Daddy told me to do that. The cops know something is horribly wrong. I'm Nancy Grace. Thanks for being with us. Killers Amongst Us. Again, I'm Nancy Grace. This is Killers Amongst Us. Thanks for being with us.

What a panel joining together today in the case of missing Dawn Vins. First of all, crack reporter Larry Altman, crime reporter for Daily Breeze. At the time, Dawn goes missing. Now freelance journalist, death investigator, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, now the star of a hit series, Poisonous Liaisons on the True Crime Network, former police chief, Johns Creek, Chris Byers, 25 years on the force, now private investigator, polygrapher at ch Byers Investigations and Polygraph.com, psychologist, adjunct professor, Columbia University, Dr. Debbie Jaffe Ellis, renowned defense attorney,

former prosecutor joining me today out of the Atlanta jurisdiction, Daryl Cohen, and special guests, the brothers and sister of Don Vins, Derek, David, and Dana. To everyone, thank you for being with us. Take a listen to this, our friends at CBS. He just kept saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And I kept saying, you know, how could you let something like this happen? And I was just like, I can't believe you lied to me. I didn't hear that morning, monitoring traffic.

Seemed like the cop was right here. I started, you know, like flagging him down. We were just, we were hauling. I immediately pulled out behind them. He was going quite fast. And had no intention of stopping. I remember coming up on this curb. That's where I said, I don't want to die.

So you're hearing the girlfriend speaking. And it's Kathy Galvin. And she's telling Vien's, her lover, if there's something to tell me after a detective shows up at the front door, you better tell me now. And fight or flight kicks in. And they take off in the car. He's driving so erratically. She says, I don't want to die.

Screams it out. Listen. As we approach Point Vicente, he made an abrupt left turn into the parking lot. He pulled right up to like right here. He put it in park real quick and he's struggling to get it. And I'm trying to get it and i'm i'm trying to get mine off and eventually i grabbed onto him like this holding on to him like this i'm grabbing i grabbed onto his pants he's running towards the cliff's edge she's grabbing onto him he's trying

to push her away i'm running after him and he's taking his clothes off. He proceeded to this railing and began to climb over. So we both jumped over. I'm holding on to his hands and I'm like, please, please don't do this. And I looked over at the cops. I yelled out, stop. Okay, so back to you, Dr. Debbie Jaffe Ellis, psychologist. So the detective shows up at his door. He opens the door, finds out it's a detective. His face drains white. Then he jumps in the car, takes off at a high rate of speed, nearly crashes with his girlfriend in the car, then jumps out of the car and makes like he's going to jump to his death. I think we've got, let's say, a little more muscle on your rat theory.

No, I said that it indicates that there's some, at the very least, discomfort within the person, but one needs more evidence before one can guess or assume or be sure of the exact cause. Take a listen to The Perfect Murder. David gets out of the car, runs toward the cliff, climbs the fence, and jumps. I've gone there before and had people jump over the cliff. Usually it's fatal. I was like, he's guilty. Why would he try to kill himself unless he was guilty?

When paramedics finally reach David, they're shocked by what they find. Amazingly, David survives his 80-foot plunge because he lands on his legs. His legs, though, are completely shattered. He had a shredded pelvis. He was bleeding internally. David is rushed into surgery. Though doctors are doubtful he'll survive. Straight out to crack reporter Larry Altman, the crime reporter for Daily Breeze at the time. Dawn goes missing. Now freelance journalist. Larry Altman, I'm just so glad you are with us here today on Killers Amongst Us.

I mean, let's get real. Why would he jump off a cliff if he did not have a guilty conscience? Right, and of course, that morning is when the article comes out at the top of the front page that says he's a person of interest, and that's what happened. He immediately headed down to that cliff

and jumped. You know, it's amazing to me. You know, Chief Byers, I've seen it, I can't say a million, but well, well over 100 times, where when a defendant is caught and they're up against the wall, they're the chief suspect, they pull a stunt like this. The cowardly way out. Absolutely. I've seen it time and time again over 25 years of, you know, once they're backed into a corner, like you called him a rat earlier.

When a rat gets trapped, it'll do anything. And he had this guilty conscience. And with what he did, as we say in the local law enforcement community, even the FBI would call that a clue. Okay, I hope you're listening to that, Dr. Debbie Jaffe-Ellis. Even the FBI, and they're a tough crowd, would call that a clue. But it ain't over yet. The cheating husband, David Vins, jumps off a cliff. Listen. She was crying. She seemed to be really upset with David for jumping. I wasn't really sure what she knew or when she may have found out. After several hours, cops received notice that David survived surgery and is now in an induced coma.

Against the odds, detectives get word that David is awake just three days later you want to tell us about it she wouldn't shut up what happened suffocated you suffocated what'd you do with the body we need the body good sergeant Garcia asked David Viennes why didn't he just chop up the body. Good man. Sergeant Garcia asked David Vienz, why didn't he just chop up the body? And David looked at him and said, I'm a chef, not a butcher. After several hours, cops received notice that David survived surgery

and is now in an induced coma. Against the odds, detectives get word that David is awake just three days later. You want to tell us about it? She wouldn't shut up. What happened? Suffocated. You suffocated her?

What'd you do with the body? We need the body. Good man. Sergeant Garcia asked David Vienz, why didn't he just chop up the body? And David looked at him and said, I'm a chef, not a butcher. That's what he had to say when confronted

about the murder of 39-year-old Dawn Vins? I'm a chef, not a butcher. That was from The Perfect Murder, straight out to Dana Papin, Dawn's sister. When did you learn about the horrific nature of David Vian's murder plot on your sister? The detectives actually went to Florida and met with my father, my brother. They wanted to tell them in person. And I was able to listen in. Horrifying is an understatement. How do you, it's hard to wrap your head around evil like that. To David Pappin, this is Dawn's brother who was there in Florida.

Do you remember that moment that Dana's describing? Yeah, very clearly. What I remember is, you know, the detectives did come out to Florida and talk to us about the newspaper article Larry was going to write. And then Dana called me that morning and I was at work and she saidze.com and the article that said the police found blood was not front and center the fact that he jumped off this cliff was obviously front and center so then I called Dana and she was like what are you talking about and I'm like you need to go online and look so that is pretty vivid in my memory and then as things unfolded you know it was horrifying to think that you know he would tie her up put her in the bathtub gagged and you know restrained to a chair you know he says she was drunk and being loud but you know to hear that just that part was horrifying and then you know to to do what he did

next with her body was you know unbelievable no words and that's something jump in um i have a hard time believing that that's what he actually did i i from what i know about him it it's i don't know i just don't really believe that he could possibly have done it but that's just me and i wonder if we'll ever really find out. You know, let's explore that. But to Derek Pappin, Dawn's brother joining us out of Vermont. Derek, do you recall when you finally learned what exactly had happened to your sister, Dawn? I do.

Dana had texted me to, you know, check out the Internet, so dailybreeze.com and all that stuff. I just knew right away that it was obviously bad and all that. Listening to everything that's gone on today, just the volume of his character and his attributes, that he was always that big figure that you wanted to look up to and almost emulate. But then when things come crashing down, he was just a big donkey coward, and you would never want to look up to that.

Take a listen to what we learned from Richard Schlesinger at CBS. I went ahead and put her into this antique steamer trunk. And I took some gray heavy-duty garbage liners that I had in the closet. I put one over her. I put the bag over her. And I put that one in another bag. And then another bag. So there's three bags back into the trunk.

I knew I had to go to work. You know, I'm going to have people there working. So I put the trunk in the back of my vehicle. I drove to work, and I went in there and put my head down and just started working. 1245, the garbage truck came on, and I saw him enter. When I took the truck closer, I went out to the Toyota. I opened the back. I took the trunk out of the vehicle.

No one was out there, fortunately. I picked the three bags up. I put it in the dumpster. I picked up a bunch of cardboard that was on the side of the dumpster, and I threw them on top of the dumpster. On top of her body. And I went back in there, washed my hands,

and just thought to myself, you're going to hell, David. Well, that's the first true thing he said. If there was any doubt about David Vien's murdering his young wife, Dawn, there he is. He's speaking. That's his voice describing what he did. Take a listen to our friends at The Perfect Murder. Boiling his wife in a pot. As the body

heats up, begins to fall apart. Over the days, he was able to dispose of the body. The fat would go into his restaurant's restaurants grease traps stay up all night long the next night he'd come back after closing and bring her back out and start the whole process again until she was completely gone he cooked her at the restaurant was he feeding her to get rid of the body to his customers that was a big issue with me I had no idea if he did or not in my 34 years of law enforcement, what separates this case from any other is the manner in which he disposed of the body. He took the woman he was married to for 14 years,

the woman he promised to love, honor, and cherish, and treated her literally like a piece of meat. You know, to Larry Altman, crime reporter, Daily Breeze, at the time that Dawn was murdered, currently freelance journalist, apparently some people still do not believe that the husband, David Vance, a chef, actually revealed how he slowly cooked his beautiful young wife for four days then hit her skull at his mother's house after he killed her in a rage fit i mean the cadaver dogs were brought there and they hit and they made a hit because the grease from her body was poured down a grate in the floor that is why the dogs made a cadaver hit remember one other thing at the very beginning

of this mystery dawn's friend goes to the restaurant to confront David to ask, where is Dawn? And she finds David sweaty, agitated. It's in the morning and he's got a bandage on his arm. To me, that means that he burned himself in this process. And that's what was going on at the time. Larry Altman, freelance journalist. What do you think is the most powerful evidence that not only did he murder Dawn, but that he disposed of her body by slow cooking her for days on end? Well, I also wonder about the blood. And even though the blood wasn't able to be used in court, I still want to know what that blood was about. And I, this is just speculation.

This is what I believe. I believe that, and I apologize to the family for saying this, but I believe that he dismembered her at home. And that's why there's blood. Or he killed her in some other manner than he said that it wasn't that he tied her up, that he killed her in some other way. And and I also, you know, wonder how did he transport. Her body to the restaurant to do this, and I always come back to the Louis Vuitton bag. And the whole thing is just horrific. In his interview with police, he stated he stuffed Dawn's body in a 55-gallon drum of boiling water, keeping it submerged with weights and mixing what remained with other waste before he disposed of it. He said the only thing left at the end was her skull,

which he stashed at his mother's home. Now, a search of the home turned up nothing, nor did an excavation of his restaurant, the Time Contemporary Cafe there in Lomita. What do you make of the recording he gave Larry Altman? Do you think he truly boiled his wife's body for days on end? I do. I do. I believe he did that overnight. Now, I don't necessarily believe it was a 55-gallon drum.

I believe that was suggested to him by the detective. That's what he used. I believe it had to be something smaller because it would have just been too heavy to keep lifting onto the stove. But but and then I also believe that I don't know where the skull is, but I do believe one day it will be found somewhere, maybe in the mountains. I always believed that perhaps he was he hid it somewhere so that it would be found sometime. And he could see say, well, see, look, she ran away and and she, you know, died in the mountains or whatever. I that's what I always have believed. To Daryl Cohen, veteran trial lawyer, you know, my inspiration said, many a true word is spoken in jest. Did you know that we learned that the daughter, Jackie Vins, stated that her father used to joke about the best way to dispose of a body. And her exact words, Daryl, were, he's a chef. He would joke about cooking a body. Nancy, you can't make this stuff up.

When you joke about it, and then he then later admits that that's what he did, whether it was a 55 pound, a five pound, a two quart, it doesn't really matter. It certainly seems to me that he gave a wonderful confession and admission. And I hope that his Miranda rights were given to him before he made that confession. Oh, man, you're not kidding about that. You know, Joseph Scott Morgan, could you explain exactly how what he's saying now that he did to his wife could have physically happened? Oh, yeah. And to go back to what Larry had said just a moment ago, you know, after I've read over this case now for some time, I believe with Larry that that he probably did perform a dismemberment. And let me tell you what's really kind of chilling about this is that the process that he used in disposing of Dawn's remains is something that we actually use in the medical examiner slash coroner world when it

comes to remains that we have that are decomposed and we're trying to get to the bone if you will forensic anthropologists use this all the time this is called a rendering and the idea is it's almost like a crock pot you place the remains into this large vessel and you apply low temperature heat to it for a protracted period of time. Sometimes it can be days. And I have no doubt that what he saw was actually taking place. That is, say, for instance, we're talking about the rendering down of the fat, all the other soft tissues of the body that are being poured off. However, this is what I believe. The bone itself, I think there would still be some remnant of that. I don't know that he could successfully render down all of the bone, particularly when you talk about

things like the pelvis, the long bones of the legs, because they're very robust. It's interesting that he mentioned the skull because the skull is rather robust too. I think that he still had to go some distance to get rid of the body. But what this did do is that if we follow through with this idea of dismemberment, he's completely gotten rid of evidence like tool marks, for instance. And I take exception to what he said earlier, and that is this person where he said, I'm a chef, not a butcher. Well, the reality is this. If you are a chef, you have butchering skills. And, you know, I'm from New Orleans originally.

I understand this because I've been to some of the finest restaurants in the world. I have friends that are chefs. They know how to take game and butcher that game in order to cook it. He understands this. I didn't come down with the last drop of rain. So I think that that's a ridiculous comment that he made. He knows how to do this, Nancy. He knows how to slow cook meat, if you will.

And like the reporter said, Don became just merely a piece of meat to him, something to be disposed of. And what's really chilling, Nancy, is that, you know, I've worked serial killings with dismemberments and that sort of thing. Those people are unattached from the individuals they victimized. This is his precious wife. He's doing this probably, I think, in that kitchen because he can sustain it. He can maintain it. And he has to make the body manageable, which in this case, I think that he did. And he rendered her down completely over a long protracted period. Now, according to the daughter, 22 at the time, she said her father told her that he and Dawn had been arguing. And he tried to barricade their bedroom door with a dresser, but it didn't work.

So he felt his only alternative was to tie up his wife and tape her mouth. The next morning, she was dead. She says her dad, David Vins, told her that Dawn's body would never be found. Now, he told the same story to detectives. He's sticking to his story. To sister Dana Pappin, why is it that you don't believe this is what happened? Well, number one is because that was an operating restaurant. There were customers in there daily. And I think that cooking a body like that would probably have a very intense odor. It just doesn't make sense to me. And also, I don't, I just, it's, I can't wrap my head around

him actually doing it. I can't wrap my head around the whole thing. So it really shouldn't surprise me that he said he did it and probably did do it. It just doesn't make sense to me. The case goes to trial. Take a listen to KTLA 5. We the jury in the Bob entitled action find the defendant David Vienz guilty of the crime of murder in violation of penal code section 187A. The ex-chef David Vienz was found guilty of second degree murder, guilty of killing his wife Dawn Vienz after cooking her body at the couple's THE EX-CHEF DAVID VIENZ WAS FOUND GUILTY OF SECOND DEGREE MURDER. GUILTY OF KILLING HIS WIFE, DAWN VIENZ, AFTER COOKING HER BODY AT THE COUPLE'S RESTAURANT OVER A PERIOD OF FOUR DAYS. THERE'S NO HAPPY ENDING. I DON'T THINK THERE'S ANY WINNERS OR LOSERS. TWO FAMILIES HAVE SUFFERED TREMENDOUSLY AND WE WILL CONTINUE TO.

AND WILL CONTINUE TO. HERE'S MORE FROM KTLA. have suffered tremendously and we will continue to. And will continue to. Here's more from KTLA. It has been a painful three-year courtroom drama. Jurors heard the gruesome details how her husband, who initially told investigators she just left, went missing. But Dawn was actually murdered by her husband. To destroy any trace of it, David cooked her body in boiling water at their LaMita restaurant, Time, which has since been torn down. the victim's body. The victim's body was destroyed by the police. The victim's body was destroyed by the police. The victim's body was destroyed by the police.

To destroy any trace of it, David cooked her body in boiling water at their Lomita restaurant, Time, which has since been torn down. He has to pay for what he did.

He tried to get away with it. In court, David today only slightly reacted to the guilty verdict. Karen hopes David realizes how much Don believed in him, unknowing what he was

capable of. I hope he knows that the week before he killed her, that Don told me that she loved him so much. So at this juncture, he's convicted. What now? Larry Altman, what is the status of his case? Well, the courts have upheld his conviction, but he is due for a parole hearing in February. Whether he's granted that, I don't know. Whether the governor would let him out if he gets it, I tend to doubt it. But he is due for parole in February. Up for parole in February. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Killers Amongst Us, signing off. Goodbye, friends.

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