Wellington, New Zealand – A man from Memphis, Tennessee, has been found guilty by a judge in Fiji Murder of his wife during their honeymoon in 2022the public prosecutor’s office announced on Monday.
Bradley Robert Dawson, 40, killed his wife Christe Chen of 36 years two days after the bride and groom arrived in Fiji at the exclusive Turtle Island resort in the Yasawa archipelago and then fled by kayak to a nearby island. Chen was discovered in the couple’s room by resort staff with multiple blunt trauma wounds to his head after the couple was heard arguing and did not show up for breakfast or lunch the next day.
Judge Riyaz Hamza found Dawson guilty last Thursday after a week-long trial in the Lautoka High Court, the prosecution said. Dawson denied the accusation.
The fact that Dawson was carrying his passport and other belongings when he was arrested suggested he was planning to escape, Hamza said, according to the Fiji Times newspaper. The judge said he was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Dawson and no one else committed the crime.
The U.S. citizen, who remains imprisoned in Fiji, faces life in prison when he is sentenced in January. Fiji law allows a presiding judge to set a minimum sentence before considering a pardon.
An attorney for Dawson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In 2022, a lawyer representing Christe Chen’s parents said that their daughter’s body had been so badly damaged that she could not be embalmed for repatriation to the United States and her remains would be cremated. Chen worked as a pastry chef before returning to school to become a pharmacist, and in that capacity had worked at a Kroger supermarket in Memphis.
The family’s attorney, Ronald Gordon – who did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday – said Chen and Dawson were heard arguing over dinner the night before the murder.
Dawson worked in the information technology department of Youth Villages, a nonprofit child welfare and support organization based in Memphis, the organization confirmed at the time of his arrest. An online data search found no criminal arrests for Dawson in Shelby County, which includes Memphis.
The Turtle Island Resort where the couple stayed is an exclusive and secluded 500-acre island that can only accommodate 14 couples at a time. Yasawa is a group of about 20 volcanic islands in western Fiji, an idyllic island nation in the South Pacific with a population of 930,000.
