Chef tells police he killed his wife to prevent divorce

Richard Magdayo Dahan told police he ended his wife’s life because she wanted to end their marriage.

Dahan, 40, told detectives that divorce was unacceptable to him because his parents were married until his father died, according to a Las Vegas police report.

Police said Dahan, an unemployed chef, used a meat cleaver and two different kitchen knives in the attack.

He told police that if he could go back in time to before the stabbing, he would kill Daisy Casalta Dahan, 28, again, the report said.

Dahan reported the crime himself on Friday, when he walked into the Las Vegas Police Northwest Area Command and told the person at the front desk that he wanted to confess to killing his wife.

It was the first homicide under Las Vegas police jurisdiction in 2014.

Dahan told detectives that he and his wife of two years had a deteriorating relationship. He said his wife didn’t like him seeing his ex-girlfriend, with whom he had two children, and disapproved of him giving them money.

Dahan, who married his wife in the Philippines in October 2011, told detectives that after he and his wife returned to the U.S., she became jealous and demanding. He said the two would fight and she would throw and break things.

The man told police that on Friday his wife was sitting in the dining room of their small one-bedroom apartment looking at documents on a laptop computer when she asked him once more to sign divorce paperwork.

According to the report, Dahan grabbed a large, serrated kitchen knife and stabbed her in the back the neck.

Dahan provided police with a detailed and grisly description of the ensuing struggle. He said he ended up stabbing and cutting his wife a number of times with the serrated knife, a meat cleaver and a filet knife.

Immediately after the incident, Dahan told police he took a shower in his bloody clothes and went to the police station without looking at his wife’s body.

Dahan told detectives he should go to prison for having killed his wife, but did not say for how long, according to the report.

After questioning Dahan, detectives obtained a warrant to search the couple’s apartment on the 6500 block of Vegas Drive. Detectives found Daisy Dahan’s body in the kitchen, the serrated knife still entangled in her hair. The meat cleaver and filet knife were in the kitchen sink, right where Dahan told them they would be.

He was taken to University Medical Center for treatment before being booked at the Clark County Detention Center on one count of murder with a deadly weapon. He had cuts on his hands, including one that severed the tendon on his right ring finger. His left ring finger was broken.

Contact reporter Maria Agreda at magreda@reviewjournal.com and (702) 383-0391.