LOMITA, Calif. -- A man who dived off a cliff last week while fleeing police investigating his wife's disappearance has confessed to killing her, authorities say. They are now digging up a restaurant floor in hopes of finding her body.
Investigators say David Viens, 43, confessed to detectives from his hospital bedside Tuesday night, giving them similar information to what he told girlfriend Kathy Galvan before he made a leap off an 80-foot cliff in Rancho Palos Verdes -- a site next to the Trump National Golf Course. He was placed under arrest following the interview and was formally charged today, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Lt. Dave Coleman told AOL News.
"He made voluntary statements implicating himself, but didn't tell us where the body was," Coleman said. "He's going to have a few more surgeries before he's discharged. He's still going to have to repair a shattered hip and the compound fracture of one leg. He's not paralyzed."
Coleman said he hasn't determined a motive for the killing of Dawn Viens, 37, other than the fact that the couple argued frequently and both used drugs. Dawn disappeared on Oct. 18, 2009, and detectives started closing in on David within the past six months. He leapt from the cliff after reading a newspaper article detailing how detectives found blood in the home he shared with Dawn.
"They're going to get me, I'm going to prison," Viens told Galvan upon seeing a patrol car following him along the coast, sheriff's Sgt. Richard Garcia told AOL News.
Despite dogged efforts, the whereabouts of Dawn Viens' body has eluded Coleman and Garcia. However, on Tuesday they learned that she may be buried under the cement floor of the Thyme Contemporary Cafe, a restaurant owned by David Viens in Lomita, a coastal suburb of Los Angeles.
The detectives obtained a search warrant and brought a cadaver-hunting dog to the restaurant. The dog "hit" on several areas inside, Coleman said. One of those areas is an extension of the dining area that was constructed around the time Dawn Viens went missing. "He bought the building next door and added on a wing," Coleman said. "Concrete was poured for a foundation."
Using jackhammers, the Los Angeles County Fire Department and the Coroner's Office spent two days this week cutting concrete and digging through the dirt below. As of Wednesday afternoon, nothing had been found.
"I just want them to find her, wherever that may be," Dawn Viens' sister, Dayna Papin, told CBS2-TV from the scene.
The restaurant, which had been closed since Viens' jump, looked like a construction site, with a dump truck, shovels, fans and mountains of dirt.
"We'll rip up the whole floor if we have to," Coleman said.
One of Dawn Viens' friends, Karen Patterson, told the Daily Breeze newspaper she had long suspected that David Viens killed Dawn.
After her disappearance, he wore a bandage on his hand and told Patterson that he had burned himself cooking. And Viens had a gash on his forehead, claiming it happened when he ran into a tree and a squirrel bit him, Patterson told the newspaper.
Viens never reported his wife missing, and when detectives passed out "information wanted" posters in recent weeks seeking information on Dawn's disappearance, he refused to place one of the notices in his restaurant window.
His girlfriend, Galvan, moved in with him shortly after Dawn's disappearance and even took over her job as hostess in the restaurant, Coleman said. Galvan is not believed to be an accomplice in the case and began cooperating with detectives after Viens confessed to her, Coleman added.
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