Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Real Life 'Hell's Kitchen': Gorgeous Restauranteur Disappears. What happened to Dawn Viens?

Episode Date: January 11, 2025

Dawn Viens, the owner of a popular California eatery and wife of the chef, disappears. Many, including the police, initially believe Dawn left of her own accord, but the facts don’t add up. What led to her disappearance? When Dawn met her future husband, she was a beautiful, vivacious front-end hostess. The man of her dreams, David Viens, was a talented chef. The couple married and set out to make their mark in the food industry, eventually settling in California and opening a highly successful restaurant. Dawn disappeared after David claimed they had an argument. Police spoke with David and Dawn’s friends, but certain details didn’t add up. Then, a friend received a text from “Pixie,” Dawn’s nickname, saying she was starting over in another state. David appeared to have moved on as well. He had a new girlfriend who had taken Dawn’s place at the restaurant and in his home. Suspicion grew when the new girlfriend was seen throwing away Dawn’s clothes. Police decided to take another look at the evidence. The pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place, and detectives identified a new person of interest. Using traditional investigative methods, they worked tirelessly to uncover the truth about what happened to Dawn. Incriminating comments from David Viens’ daughter suggested that David himself was behind the suspicious text message. He quickly became the prime suspect. The answer may have been in plain sight all along. Join Nancy Grace, along with Dawn Viens’ siblings, as they discuss this case.                                                                                                      See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Quote, I love my wife. I didn't cook my wife. Yes, you heard me right. That is what David Vian said in court in 2013. I loved my wife. he said emphatically. I did not cook my wife.

Okay, here we go. Hello, I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. This guy, David Vance, convicted of murdering his wife, then tried to convince the judge at sentencing. It didn't happen. Well, in the last days, the very successful restaurateur comes clean in a bid for parole and he says, oh yeah, okay, I did cook my wife. Okay, like that's going to help him get parole? Seriously? I cooked my wife, let me walk free?

Okay, where did this whole thing start? On the suggestion that Dawn disappears after an argument, leaving with nothing but her Louis Vuitton bag, a mystery text. Listen. Finally, a friend named Monica comes to police with a real clue. I just got a text from her. What does it say? It says, I'm okay. I'm in Florida.

I'm starting over Pixie. Pixie, which is the nickname that David gave Dawn. You're hearing our friends at Perfect Murder. So starting over, joining me in all-star panel, Larry Altman, crime reporter, Daily Breeze at the time, now freelance journalist. He knows everything about her disappearance from beginning to end. Joseph Scott Morgan, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet, now the star of Poisonous Liaisons on True Crime Network. Chris Byers, former chief of police, Johns Creek, 25 years as a police officer, now PI and polygrapher at Chris Byers Investigations and Polygraph.com.

We're now on Psychologists. Joining me, Dr. Debbie Jaffe Ellis, adjunct professor, Columbia University at Debbie Jaffe Ellis dot com. Veteran trial lawyer, Daryl Cohen, former prosecutor joining me out of the Atlanta jurisdiction and special guests joining me. Dawn's brother joining me out of Burlington, Vermont. Derek Pappin, Dawn's brother. Joining me out of Burlington, Vermont, Derek Pappin. Dawn's brother from Bradenton, Florida, David. And her sister, Dana. Joining me from Gardenia, California. To you, Dana, do you remember that moment when you first heard that Dawn had disappeared?

That she took off on her own to so-called start over? Oh, I do, very clearly. Tell me. I got a phone call at work from Karen Patterson, a close friend of Dawn's, and I met up with her and her husband and found out the information from them. And it was a Sunday night, late on a Sunday night, and I immediately went to the Lomita Sheriff's Station to file a missing persons report

because I just knew that something was wrong. Now, that's interesting. When you learned this from a friend of your sister's, you went immediately to the sheriff's office. Why? What made you feel that something nefarious had happened? I would call it a gut feeling, but also because of the timeline. They didn't reach out right away, so it had been almost three weeks since anybody had seen her.

And that just was something that was she wouldn't do. You know, she would have been in touch with one of my brothers or my father or even our grandmother at the time. And none of that had happened. And my instinct told me that something was wrong and that I needed to file a police report immediately. David, Dawn's brother, do you recall when you first learned your sister, Dawn, had disappeared? So I do remember. So our mother passed away June 17th that year when Dawn went missing. So July, August, September 17th, she called me each of those days for those months. And then it was October 17th. I didn't hear from her.

So I want to say within the next couple of days, I reached out and I was getting no, no, no response at all. And that's right around the time when Dana, you know, called me and said, you know, and told me this story. But, yeah, she was calling me every month on the 17th of my mom's death anniversary. And, you know, just just checking in. And when she didn't check in, I knew something was happening. Joining me now, Derek, Dawn's other brother, joining me out of Burlington. Derek, do you remember when you realized or when you were first told, hey, Dawn's missing? Yeah, to quote what David said, it was basically the same thing.

We talked after mom passed away I had a son on July 17th and we talked every time and it was probably right around that same time the first week of October when we had chatted and she heard she forgot what I named my son and I named him Cooper Brink and my mother's maiden name was Brink and then it was you know she just started crying and said that I can't talk to you right now and that was the last time I talked to her was probably the first week of October. Larry Altman crime reporter Daily Breeze at the time now freelance journalist he knows everything about her disappearance from beginning to end you know Larry right there when we hear the friend state, she gets a text.

And Dawn signs it Pixie, which was a nickname given to her by her husband. A lot of people called her Pixie. Why didn't they try? Why didn't Cox triangulate it right then and there? You know, I don't know. They didn't seem to be too concerned at the beginning. I mean, that text was misspelled. The text from Dawn's friend made no mention.

The text to Dawn's friend made no mention of the fact that the friend had just been diagnosed with cancer. I don't think at the beginning anyone really took this seriously. Take a listen to our friends. Investigators speaking to other of Dawn's co-workers and acquaintances. Listen. As the investigation continues, cops talk to Dawn's friends. Was she unhappy lately or depressed? More exhausted. It's a tough business.

Did she ever mention, like, wanting to leave or leaving? All the time. Basically back up what David says. They're really sure that she took off on her own, that she's somewhere with a margarita on hand and enjoying herself, and she'll come back when she's ready. They run her credit card, see if there's any credit card history. Investigators also check U.S. Customs to see if maybe Dawn had taken a flight out of town.

There was no sign of Dawn anywhere. Wow, okay, right there, that was good police work, Larry Altman. Larry on the case from the very beginning, checking to see if she had taken a flight, checking to see if she had gone down to one of the islands, checking her banking, her credit card history, but so far nothing. So the cops are on the right track. Wouldn't you agree, Larry? You know, I don't agree, actually.

I would check in regularly with the police, and they would just tell me there was no signs of foul play and her name was in the system. And, you know, they were waiting for her to turn up somewhere. But I I never really got the impression early on that they were really digging into it. I think that came later on. I just never felt at the beginning that they were really all that active. You know, that's a really interesting point. Joe Scott Morgan, I agree and disagree with Larry. I disagree in the sense that they're looking at her credit cards. They're looking at banking activity. They're looking to see if she left the jurisdiction or is any of her potential old haunts.

So they're looking. They're speaking to friends. They're speaking to the husband. They're speaking to coworkers. And that's what they should be doing. So I disagree with Larry Altman on that. But I agree with him that I don't know how seriously they were taking it. Yeah, I don't know either, Nancy. And, you know, when you're

talking about adults that just kind of vanish off the face of the earth, the standard line that you will get from police is, well, they're an adult. They have, you know, they can do whatever they want to do. Listen, even at the medical examiner's office, Nancy, we used to get calls from people that would say, I'm missing my husband or I'm missing my wife. I'm just calling the morgue to check if they're there. And, you know, you get so many of those calls after a period of time, it kind of wears you down. And you're working on other cases at that moment in time, stuff that you have solid information on. So it's a very confusing position to put investigators in. To the Pappin siblings, Derek, David, and Dana here.

To you, Dana, did it sound like something Dawn would do, just go off to one of the islands and sit back and have a margarita? No, absolutely not. Why do you say that because regardless of anything that if they were attached together they did everything together she had never done it before it didn't make any sense at all and if she was going to run away she was going to run away with him you know it didn't make sense you know that's an interesting point you're talking about the husband david what about you david pappin had was was dawn the quote free-spirited one in the family the one that would just leave and go on a vacation without telling anybody and get it out of her system and come back home? Was she the responsible one?

I mean, growing up, what was her character? Dawn, growing up, I would say that Dawn was a free spirit. I would say that. But once she met David, like Dana said, they were, they, there wasn't one without the other in very many circumstances. Yeah, he had, they were together 99% of the time. And it sounds like they were really dedicated to making this restaurant work. And Derek Papin, the restaurant was working. It was very popular. popular yeah it absolutely was they

they were the teamwork that they had together was outstanding and definitely was a great couple and like David said they were always together even through the bad times through the good times through any time they always seemed to work things out if there were bad times and the good times. Don would never go to an island unless he was with her. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. In the last days, a confession reverberates across the country. 45-minute attempt to postpone his sentencing and reopen his case without a lawyer, insisted he had been suffering from hallucinations caused by painkillers when he told detectives he boiled his wife's body and poured the liquefied remains down a grease trap, then tossed her bones into a Dixie dumpster, a trash bin.

At that time, he says, I loved her. Okay. Twelve years later, he appears in front of a California parole board panel and says he's remorseful and therefore he should get early release. So the ends comes to court now, 12 years later, and says, OK, yes, I did kill my wife. Then I panicked and I boiled her body. Okay, I've read the transcript and what I've learned is very, very disturbing. He said, quote, I thought about suicide. Why do they think about suicide yet they kill somebody else?

And the sun was starting to go down. I had a panic attack. And he says, he's talking out loud to himself. He goes, you have to do something. You have to do something. Then I thought of what I'd seen on TV. And I decided to boil my wife's body. Okay. How does this beautiful woman, Dawn, end up? No remains, no nothing. Where did the whole thing start? Larry Altman, crime reporter, Daily Breeze at the time. You know, Larry, right there when we hear the friend state, She gets a text. And Dawn signs it Pixie, which was a nickname given to her by her husband. And a lot of people called her Pixie. Why didn't they try?

Why didn't Katz triangulate it right then and there? You know, I don't know. They didn't seem to be too concerned at the beginning. I mean, that text was misspelled. The text from Dawn's friend made no mention, the text to Dawn's friend made no mention of the fact that the friend had just been diagnosed with cancer. I don't think at the beginning

anyone really took this seriously. Take a listen to our friends, investigators speaking to other of Dawn's co-workers and acquaintances. Listen. Friends basically back up what David says. They're really sure that she took off on her own, that she's somewhere with a margarita on hand and enjoying herself and she'll come back when she's ready if dawn really has taken a trip somewhere then police should be able to track her they run her credit card see if there's any credit card history investigators also check u.s customs to see if maybe dawn had taken a flight out of town there was no

no sign of dawn anywhere wow okay right there That was good police work, Larry Altman. Larry, on the case from the very beginning, checking to see if she had taken a flight, checking to see if she had gone down to one of the islands, checking her banking, her credit card history, but so far nothing. So the cops are on the right track. Wouldn't you agree, Larry? You know, I don't agree, actually. I would check in regularly with the police, and they would just tell me there was no signs of foul play

and her name was in the system. And, you know, they were waiting for her to just turn up somewhere. But I never really got the impression early on that they were really digging into it. I think that came later on. I just never felt at the beginning that they were really all that active. You know, that's a really interesting point. Joe Scott Morgan, I agree and disagree with Larry. I disagree in the sense that they're looking at her credit cards.

They're looking at banking activity. They're looking to see if she left the jurisdiction or is any of her potential old haunts. So they're looking. They're speaking to friends. They're speaking to the husband. They're speaking to coworkers. And that's what they should be doing. So I disagree with Larry Altman on that.

But I agree with him that I don't know how seriously they were taking it. Yeah, I don't know either, Nancy. And, you know, when you're talking about adults that just kind of vanish off the face of the earth, the standard line that you will get from police is, well, they're an adult. They have, you know, they can do whatever they want to do. Listen, even at the medical examiner's office, Nancy, we used to get calls from people that would say, I'm missing my husband or I'm missing my wife. I'm just calling the morgue to check if they're there. And, you know, you get so many of those calls after a period of time, it kind of wears you

down and you're working on other cases at that moment in time, stuff that you have solid information on. So it's a very confusing position to put investigators in. To the Pappin siblings, Derek, David and Dana here. To you, Dana, did it sound like something Dawn would do? Just go off to one of the islands and sit back and have a margarita? No, absolutely not. Why do you say that?

Because regardless of anything, they were attached together. They did everything together. She had never done it before. It didn't make any sense at all. And if she was going to run away, she was going to run away with him. You know, it didn't make sense. You know, that's an interesting point. You're talking about the husband, David. What about you, David Papin? Was Dawn the, quote, free spirited one in the family, the one that would just leave and go on a vacation without telling anybody and get it out of her system and come back home? Was she the responsible one?

I mean, growing up, what was her character? Growing up, I would say that Dawn But once she met David, like Dana said, they were they there wasn't one without the other and very many circumstances. Yeah, he had. They were they were together 99 percent of the time. And it sounds like they were really dedicated to making this restaurant work. And Derek Pappin, the restaurant was working. It was very popular. Yeah, it absolutely was. The teamwork that they had together was outstanding and definitely was a great couple.

And like David said, they were always together. Even through the bad times, through the good times, through any time, Take a listen to our friend Dave Mack, CrimeOnline.com. The investigation into Dawn Vienne's disappearance began weeks after she was last seen. Her sister, Dana Pappin, and friends went to the police on November 18, 2009 to report her missing. Police talked to Dawn's husband, David Vienz. He tells detectives that on October 18, he argued with his wife about her excessive drinking. He said that earlier in the day, they'd gone to eat at California Pizza Kitchen and that he dropped her off at home and returned to work. When he got home from work that night, Viennes tells police that Dawn wasn't home. He says he takes an Ambien, goes to bed. He also

says Dawn wasn't home the next day. And Viennes tells police that he texted and called her a number of times. Police asked why he didn't contact police. Viennes says that maybe a week or two after. He also says Dawn wasn't home the next day. And Viennes tells police that he texted and called her a number of times. Police asked why he didn't contact police. Viennes says that he talked to Dawn on the phone and that she came home on October 25th, begging him to leave Lomita and run away to the mountains. David Viennes claims that he told her to check into rehab and the next day she was gone. Wow. To Dana, David and Derek Pappin, Dana, do you believe cops did not take it seriously? No, I believe they took it seriously.

But when you don't know a person, you don't know their habits, you can only go on the evidence you're given. And coming from her husband, the person that's supposed to know her best and he's saying well i just talked to her and she's mad and we had a fight and then you know i don't blame them for for not taking it more seriously because they didn't have any evidence to prove that anything was wrong what about it david pappin? I don't, I don't think they did anything wrong. Um, and around that time I actually called him. I actually called David, um, and had an hour long conversation. Um, and he assured me, he kept calling me brother, you know, I would never, I would never do anything. You know, I would never do anything.

You know, she just left. You know, you know me better than anyone. You know, da-da-da-da-da. And without any evidence, like Dana said, there was really no reason to think something had happened. She just left, which I told her to do 100 times. Oh, really? Oh, absolutely. Derek Papin,

do you believe the cops were taking it seriously that she had disappeared? Did you buy into she just took off? No, I definitely didn't buy into that. She just took off and all that stuff. And I think, like Larry said, I think that they didn't think it was a big deal at first and stuff like that. And then, you know, I thought there was something wrong from the start, just like Dana said.

You know, to you, Larry Altman, you're the only one, although Dana goes to the cops and says she's missing, something's wrong, you're the one that says they're not taking this seriously enough. Why did you feel that? I just felt at the time that they took a report and put Dawn's name in the system and were just waiting to see what happened. I mean, there were some key things that we all knew. From the start, we knew that Dawn's car was still in the driveway. So if she had just taken off, like David said,

why wouldn't she take her car? This is Southern California. You can't, you know, do anything without driving. And she also left behind a sizable amount of money that she had been saving. If she just left on her own, why wouldn't she have gone and collected that money? It was about $640. Well, now that you're telling me that, you've completely turned me around. These are facts that are very, very critical. She left behind her car. I mean, for Pete's sake, what is she going to hitchhike when she's got a car? And also the nature of the money. She had asked

a friend to hold the money in case of an emergency. Why not put it in the bank? Why did she feel she had to? I mean, I'm not going to go hide my little bit of money I've got in a glass jar in the backyard for Pete's sake. Guys, now that months have passed, everyone is getting more serious about Dawn's disappearance. Why did it take months? Why are police now sitting on their thumbs? Take a listen to our friend Richard Schlesinger. Some friends alerted Dawn's sister who filed a missing persons report. That caught the eye of Larry Altman. His first story about Dawn's disappearance ran on Christmas Eve 2009, two months after Dawn vanished.

And it got an immediate response. I received a phone call from one of Dawn's friends who had seen that story. She said, hey, I read your story. There's more to this than you know. Wow. Well, the first article was just a basic missing person story. But when I initially had heard about Dawn's disappearance, I placed a call to David to ask questions, you know, what's going on with this? And I never got a response. And a lot of time passed. And, you know, after several weeks, I thought, boy, I never heard from him.

Why would he not call me back? And so I tried again. And I got a return phone call this time from an attorney. And this attorney said, he's not going to talk to you. He's not going to do any interviews, but he is cooperating with the police. And I said, what are you talking about? He's cooperating with the police. And I'm, why wouldn't he be cooperating with the police? And I'm sure, Nancy,

you know, that is a phrase that is used when there's some sort of suspicion. You know what, you're absolutely right, Larry Altman, on the case from the very beginning. And then after you write your article, somebody else hears about it and the case blows up. Listen. How did all this start and why now? This case lay dormant until we reported on it and then suddenly cops appoint a brand new investigative team and start reinvestigating the case. And now suddenly they've dug out the bottom of the husband's restaurant. Right, Nancy. Well, on October 18th, 2009 is the last time anybody saw Don Vians. Her husband said that he actually fired her. They got in an argument. Whoa, whoa. Yeah. The husband

fires his wife from the family restaurant. Okay, go ahead. Right, right. Her friends claim that he fired her that day. He says she just walked away, took a Louis Vuitton bag with her. That was the last time he saw her. Wow, so all this, the case blows up after Larry Altman publishes that first article. You know what? I recall the first time I learn, Larry Altman, that he says, the husband says he fired her. How do you fire your wife?

Well, exactly. And what else was interesting was that Dawn was replaced in the restaurant. Straight out to Dana, David, and Derek Pappin. Dana, did you know the husband had, quote, fired Dawn? No, I didn't. That's a surprise. Good luck, David, if you try to fire me, David Pappin, did you know that Dawn had basically been, quote, fired from her own restaurant? How do you do that?

Oh, I did not know that. But funny enough, in 2004, I was working for David and Dawn and my dad's sister passed away. So Dawn and I were in Florida and she said, one of us needs to go. I'll go. And I said, okay, I'll stay and man the restaurant. Well, David stepped in and told Dawn she was not allowed to go. So I jumped in my car and I started towards the airport because I was going to go. Dawn was going to cover the restaurant. I got about halfway into the Tampa airport. David called me and said, don't bother coming back.

You don't have a job. You're not loyal, blah, blah, blah. And he fired me on the spot. I was driving or I was going to Vermont to bury my dad's sister. So I do believe he fired her because he did it to me. Firing people, but I mean, I'm telling you, I mean, you know, guys, how much I love David. But if he tried to order me around or fire me from whatever I'm doing, he would, you know, you pull out, put out an arm and pull back aub. That's what I've got to say to that.

Derek, did you have any idea that your brother-in-law fired? Don, I mean, it's her restaurant, too. How can you fire somebody? I'd say, oh, H-E-L-L, no, I'm firing you. Take the pat and turn her, pat the street and turn a corner. Absolutely not. Yeah, no, it's weird to hear that and all that, especially since she was the primary owner.

She couldn't give his licenses and stuff without hers. So to fire her would just be silly. Guys, take a listen to a little bit more. I follow the trail that Larry Altman sniffed out first. Take a listen. Deborah, the recent information that we got is that after our show Friday night, cops have now gone out and started re-interviewing people, interviewing friends. We also learned about the possessions being thrown in a dumpster,

the Jeep being towed away almost immediately after she goes missing? About a week and a half later, Nancy, after she disappeared, a friend of hers saw her husband's daughter and his new girlfriend taking her stuff. They were in a car. They drove to the restaurant, took stuff out of the car, and started throwing things into the dumpster. Allegedly, you know, there was a few things they decided to keep, but most of the things were just thrown away. Okay, so you're telling me that they basically went shopping in the missing woman's closet? They kept some of her belongings for themselves?

I have no idea if it was for themselves, but they certainly did keep some things. That's me talking to Deborah Mark. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. In the last days, convicted killer David Viennes describes himself as, quote, deeply remorseful and just sick by what he did. I guess he was so sick he lied through his teeth all these years. It's one of the single most shocking crimes in the whole South Bay area in years and years. The story behind Dawn's disappearance and murder has been hashed over and over. Not only did this guy, her husband, jump from a cliff, seriously, jump from a cliff when police were closing in on him. His revelation about how he tried to cover up the crime is still stunning. He had been married to Dawn for 17 years before he murdered her.

He told all of the co-workers at I'm Contemporary Cafe, his wife worked as a hostess there, that she left him because he demanded she seek help for drug abuse. Nothing could be further from the truth. She died a horrible death and then he boiled her body. Where did this whole thing start? Well, of course, it aroused suspicion when her clothing and some of her possessions were thrown in a dumpster by her husband's new girlfriend. But that does not evidence make. While it certainly raised the hackles of the family. But what about the mystery text? It should relieve the worry from her friends. But it didn't. And I'll tell you why.

There was a glaring problem with that text. The nickname Pixie was misspelled. How often do you misspell your own name? Well, the moment it's pointed out that Pixie is misspelled in that mystery text this is what happens take a listen to the perfect murder we decided to take it to the next level and do electronic surveillance we had a whole camera facing the rear of the restaurant we had gps trackers on david's car we also had undercovers that would go into the restaurant occasionally for meals. Straight out to Larry Altman, a crime reporter, Daily Breeze, at the time that Dawn goes missing.

So 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. What happens when they get there, Larry Altman? Well, while they are interviewing her, and I'll tell you what she said in a moment, they are also utilizing me. And they used me, they gave me a story, which was true, that, and this is all going on at the same time. They told me that they had gone into the residence where Don and David had lived.

They found blood in there. They believed Don was dead and that there was blood and that he was a person of interest in the case. So I wrote a story to put that out to the world. At the same time, they're interviewing her. And during that interview, she apparently admitted that her father had told her that he had killed Don. Take a listen to our friend at 48 Hours, Richard Schlesinger. Did you tell them the truth? I did, yeah. I told them what happened. And then she called her father to tell him what she had done. I said, pops, they're looking for you.

I mean, they just came and talked to me and I told them what happened. So, you know, beware. They're going to be coming for you. It was an unanticipated extra stimulation. And that next morning, February 23rd, 2011, Vians saw Altman's story on page one. I smell a rat, Daryl Cohen. Well, absolutely you can smell a rat, but smelling a rat doesn't mean you see the rat.

Smelling a rat doesn't mean the rat exists. What it means is it gave you some reason to continue whatever superficial or deep investigation you had but quite frankly the fact that this daughter said yes i said it and daddy told me to do it she doesn't want to throw herself under the bus so she throws her dad under the bus does that mean he killed dawn no and you know that's exactly why i like trying people together co--defendants. I let them boil in the same pot because they always start pointing the finger at each other. You know, when was it, Dana Papin, this is John's sister, that you found out?

When did you find out? The daughter, the grown daughter who hightails it back to South Carolina, says her dad told her to send the text from quote Pixie and she misspelled the name. I don't remember exactly how I found out there was a lot of information coming in at the time. I just remember being really sad by it, really upset. When you first learned that the daughter, David Vian's daughter, David Pappin, said she was the one that sent the mystery text, I mean, a lot of people had pinned hopes on that text that your sister was alive somewhere in Florida. I knew that she was not in Florida because I was in Florida, and she would have definitely reached out if she just left with nothing but a Louis Vuitton bag. She would have certainly needed some help.

So I knew she wasn't in Florida. What about it, Derek? Yeah, I agree with David. I think it's just one more wool over the sheep's eye, if you will, to everything that has happened. At this point, police start digging in, digging in. So right now, the cops know something is horribly wrong. They got a slow start on this investigation. Larry Altman was beside himself trying to figure out what was happening.

Finally, he lights a fire under the police rear ends, and the case is now in full swing, and they start digging. Take a listen to our friend at 48 Hours, Richard Schlesinger. In 2005, Vians was arrested for selling marijuana, and it was not his first arrest. Manatee County Detective Randy Barnett and DEA agent Derek Pollack worked on the Florida case. He was convicted in Vermont for distribution of cocaine in 1993. The police sat Vians down and asked for his help to break up the drug ring. He was an agent's dream to work with. He returned calls. He was there for every deal that we needed for him to be there for, and he was on time. Vians was sentenced to just one year in prison and in 2008 he and Dawn headed to Lomita. What? Dana did you have any idea that Dawn was dating a doper? Yes we found out pretty

quickly that he had been arrested and was awaiting jail time yeah holy moly i mean in the big scheme of things uh with the cases that you and i've handled in the past daryl cohen thank god we're on two different sides of the fence but i mean you know pot people don't even sneeze at a bag of pot anymore but But this guy was convicted of selling cocaine. That's a whole nother can of worms. Then he turns. Wait a minute. Then he turns into a snitch.

A snitch. He was such a great snitch. So convincing as a snitch. They say he was a quote, dream CI, dream confidential informant. He got a sweetheart deal one year behind bars because he was such a great liar, a snitch. You know, snitches get stitches. My son just said that the other day. Fancy.

What? Oh, come on. What? You know, I hate it when somebody says, okay, go on. You use snitches all the time. You have to. Because without those confidential informants slash snitches, you don't make cases. And we don't know how much cocaine he was convicted or he pled guilty to.

Still sold it? It might have been just a small amount. If he sold from an ounce, there has to be a brick somewhere. Yeah, but doesn't necessarily mean it's in his hand, his house, his place of business, or his car. He may have gotten it from someone else. All I know is he's convicted of selling cocaine. And Dana, how much of his history did you know about?

In the beginning, not as much. It only took a couple of years for more serious things to come to light. All I know is if my sister were dating a doper, I would try like hell to get her to break up based on just what I know from being in the crime business for so long. But whether Don knew the full extent of his background, we may never know. The investigation goes on. Listen to Richard Schlesinger. David Fiennes was now a person of interest. When you introduced yourself as Sergeant Garcia from the L.A. County Sheriff's Homicide Division, how did he react? He immediately turned white. To Joseph Scott Morgan, death investigator, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, author and TV star,

your resume is getting way too long for me to say the whole thing, Joe Scott. My question is, why do people turn white? I mean, I don't really completely understand why people turn red, but I get that the blood rushes to your face. But why do people, I guess both of those, why do you turn red when you're embarrassed or flummoxed or your face gets hot? But why do people turn white? Is it the blood drains from their face?

Yeah, and that's a literary device that's been used for years and years, isn't it, Nancy? This idea that, you know, when you turn red, you become flushed. You know, this vascular reaction that you have. And conversely, this can happen when you're faced with kind of a shocking moment, you know, and we've heard this for years and years. People have a sensation that their blood runs cold. How many times have you heard that over the years? And most of the time, it's almost like it's this physiological response to something very, very troubling, something horrific. It's almost a primal response.

When I heard that his face drained white, I investigated. And it brought on fight or flight. And that's not just a term of speech. Listen. He said, I don't want to talk about it here. We need to leave. He just kept saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Listen. 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. If there was any doubt about David Vien's murdering his young wife, Dawn, it doesn't end there. 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 mine off. And eventually I grabbed onto him like this, holding on to him like this. You were holding him, you were trying to stop him. 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 to the perfect murder. David gets out of the car, runs toward the cliff, climbs the fence and jumps.

Amazingly, David survives his 80 foot plunge because he lands on his legs. 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. Against the odds, detectives get word that David is awake just three days later. 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 Pappin, 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, how do you 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 said, did you read the article? And I got home, and I read Breeze.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, well, 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 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 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, um, I have a hard time believing that that's what he actually did. From what I know about him, 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, Don? I do. Dana had texted me to, you know, check out the Internet, so dailybreeze.com and all that stuff. And, you know, I just knew right away that it was obviously bad and all that. Listening to everything that's gone on today, just speaks volume of his character and his attributes. He was always that big figure that you wanted to look up to and almost emulate. But then when things come big crashing down and he's 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 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 it'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 got 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. On top of her body. 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 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. 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 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 he, that was suggested to him by the detective if 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. 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. Many a true word is spoken in jest. 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 5-pound, a 2 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 i'd you know after i've read over this case now for some time i believe with larry that that he probably did 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, 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, 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. OK, he understands this. All right. 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 victimize. 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, it 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 Beans, guilty of the crime of murder in violation of Penal Code Section 187A. I can tell you this much. If all it takes to get out of jail is to say, I did it, all the jails will be empty right now. I hope no parole board falls for this

in the future. Rot in hell, Vians. Rot in hell. Or should I say, boil in hell? Goodbye, friends.