Wellington, New Zealand – A man from Memphis, Tennessee has been found guilty by a judge in Fiji killing his wife during their honeymoon in 2022the prosecutor’s office said Monday.
Bradley Robert Dawson, 40, killed his wife, Christe Chen, who was 36, at the exclusive Turtle Island resort in the Yasawa archipelago, two days after the newlyweds arrived in Fiji, then fled by kayak to a nearby island. Chen was discovered by resort staff in the couple’s room with multiple blunt force trauma wounds to her head after the couple heard an argument and failed to show up for breakfast or lunch the next day.
Judge Riyaz Hamza found Dawson guilty in the Lautoka High Court last Thursday after a week-long trial, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions said. Dawson had denied the accusation.
The fact that Dawson had his passport and other belongings with him when he was arrested indicated he intended to flee, Hamza said, according to the Fiji Times newspaper. The judge said he was satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Dawson and no one else committed the crime.
The US citizen, who remains in custody in Fiji, faces a mandatory life sentence when he is sentenced in January. Fijian law allows a presiding judge to set a minimum term to be served before a pardon is considered.
An attorney for Dawson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In 2022, an attorney representing Christe Chen’s parents said their daughter’s body was so badly damaged that she could not be embalmed for return to the US and her remains were cremated. Chen worked as a pastry chef before returning to school to become a pharmacist, and had worked in that capacity 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 had heard an argument at 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 when he was arrested. An online records search showed there were 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 accommodate only 14 couples at a time. Yasawa is a group of about twenty volcanic islands in western Fiji, an idyllic island in the South Pacific with a population of 930,000.
