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Crime & Safety

Jury Continues Deliberations in Cliff Jumper Trial

David Viens, who jumped off a Rancho Palos Verdes cliff in an apparent suicide attempt last year, is accused of killing his wife, Dawn.

Editor's note: This article was updated at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Jurors will hold a second day of deliberations Wednesday in the trial of a former Lomita restaurant owner who told detectives he bound his wife with duct tape, panicked when he awoke to discover her dead and "cooked" her body for four days to get rid of her remains.

The Los Angeles Superior Court jury got the case against David Viens on Tuesday and deliberated for two hours before leaving for the day. Deliberations are set to resume at 1:30 p.m.

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Earlier Tuesday, Deputy District Attorney Deborah Brazil urged jurors in the second day of closing arguments to convict Viens of first-degree murder for the death of his wife, Dawn, who disappeared in October 2009 and whose body never turned up.

Defense attorney Fred McCurry countered that the 39-year-old woman's death was accidental and implored jurors to set aside their emotions.

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"The evidence does not support murder," Viens' lawyer told the jury. "It does not support anything other than this was an accident ... Just because there was a death doesn't mean there was a murder."

He urged the panel to acquit his 49-year-old client of murder.

In her rebuttal argument, the prosecutor countered that Dawn Viens "likely met her death in a much more violent fashion" -- such as being choked -- than her husband described in interviews with Los Angeles County sheriff's investigators.

"And that is why the defendant needed the four days to completely destroy and dispose of Dawn Viens' body," Brazil said.

She noted that the defense was asking jurors to believe Viens' account that he dumped his wife's body in a trash bin while setting aside "the more gruesome explanation that he cooked her for four days" after her death.

Viens is in court in a wheelchair as a result of injuries he suffered during an 80-foot jump off a cliff in Rancho Palos Verdes in February 2011, shortly after telling his girlfriend that his wife's death was an accident. He had also told his daughter that his wife had died accidentally.

Viens told sheriff's detectives in March 2011 that "for some reason I just got violent" and that he bound his wife's mouth, hands and feet with duct tape. He said he had taped her up "probably twice" on other occasions because he "didn't want her driving around wasted, whacked out on coke and drinking."

He told investigators he woke up four hours later and panicked once he discovered that she was dead, then set about cooking her body for four days before dumping her remains in the trash.

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