LOS ANGELES -- A chef who is accused of murdering his 39-year-old wife and boiling her body for four days to get rid of the evidence won't be allowed to represent himself in the last days of the trial.
The 49-year-old stood up from his wheelchair Thursday to object when his attorney Fred McCurry told the court that the defense had no more evidence to present.
Viens is accused of murdering his wife Dawn sometime before she vanished in October 2009, and was badly injured when he jumped off an 80-foot cliff in Rancho Palos Verdes after learning he was being investigated as a suspect.
The AP reports that on Tuesday, jurors listened to a recording played in court of Viens telling sheriff's investigators they couldn't find the body of his wife, Dawn, because he cooked her until little was left but her skull.
"I just slowly cooked it and I ended up cooking her for four days," Viens said in the recording.
Viens gave detectives the interview from a hospital bed in March 2011. He was injured after leaping off an 80-foot cliff in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.
He jumped after he heard he was a suspect in his wife's death, authorities said, according to the AP.