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 prosecutor's office said Monday.
Bradley Robert Dawson, 40, murdered his wife, Kriste Chen, 36, at the exclusive Turtle Island resort in the Yasawa archipelago two days after the newlywed couple arrived in Fiji, then fled by kayak to a nearby island . When the couple was heard arguing and did not show up to breakfast or lunch the next day, resort staff found Chen in the couple's room, suffering from multiple blunt trauma wounds to the head.
Justice Riaz Hamzah 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 denied the allegation.
Hamzah said, according to the Fiji Times newspaper, the fact that Dawson was carrying his passport and other belongings with him when he was arrested showed that he had planned to escape. The judge said he was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Dawson and no one else had committed the crime.
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The US citizen, who is detained in Fiji, faces a mandatory term of life in prison when he is sentenced in January. Fiji law allows a presiding judge to set a minimum period before a pardon will be considered.
Dawson's attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In 2022, an attorney representing Christe Chen's parents said that their daughter's body was so badly damaged that her body could not be embalmed for return to the U.S. and her remains were cremated. . Chen worked as a pastry chef before returning to school to become a pharmacist, and 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 were overheard arguing over dinner the night before the murder.
Dawson worked in the information technology department at Youth Villages, a Memphis-based nonprofit child welfare and support organization, the organization confirmed when she was arrested. An online records search revealed no criminal arrests for Dawson in Shelby County, which includes Memphis.
Turtle Island Resort, where the couple stayed, is an exclusive and remote 500-acre island that can accommodate only 14 couples at a time. The Yasawa are a group of about 20 volcanic islands west of Fiji, an idyllic South Pacific island nation of 930,000 people.