A Tennessee man has been charged by Fijian police for allegedly murdering his newlywed wife while the pair were spending their honeymoon at an exclusive resort on the South Pacific island.
Bradley Robert Dawson, 38, and his wife of five months, Christe Chen, 36, had been vacationing at Fiji’s Turtle Island Resort, a luxury vacation destination in the Yasawa Islands, when on 9 July the Memphis-native allegedly killed Chen, the Fiji Sun reported.
Police told the South Pacific news outlet that when they arrested Mr Dawson, he was reportedly uncooperative, claiming that the US citizen refused to participate in a DNA test, which led them to ask a judge to order one.
In an exclusive interview with Fox News affiliate WHBQ-TV, Mr Dawson’s attorney, Iqbal Khan, confirmed to the Memphis-based news outlet that he could not confirm the cause of Chen’s death, but said that the 36-year-old Tennessee-native’s body was found inside the couple’s hotel room.
Mr Dawson, who has been charged with one count of murder, “maintains his innocence”, Mr Khan said to WHBQ-TV.
Last Wednesday, Mr Dawson made his first appearance in court before a Magistrates Court in Lautoka, where the magistrate said that the accused had committed an “an indictable offence”, the Fiji Sun reported.
The couple’s marriage, which was officiated at a small inn on 18 February with an intimate ceremony of just 20 people, according toThe Daily Beast, seemed at the time to have caught some in Chen’s network by surprise.
Chen, a University of Tennessee Health Science Center graduate who worked at Kroger as a pharmacist, reportedly became engaged in what one of her professional acquaintances characterised as a “whirlwind romance”.
“It was some kind of a whirlwind romance,” said the professional friend in an interview with The Daily Beast, asking not to be named out of concerns for privacy.
The friend also noted that the pair had known each other for such a brief period before the nuptials that it would be difficult for anyone to potentially raise any red flags about their relationship since Mr Dawson had met so few people from Chen’s life before February.
Mr Dawson, who worked as an IT professional at Youth Villages, a non-profit which provides services for at-risk children, has since been suspended from the organisation, according to a statement issued by the non-profit to FOX13
“Bradley Dawson was an IT professional at Youth Villages. He has been suspended pending further information. It is our understanding Ms. Chen was his wife, and our condolences go out to her family,” said Youth Villages in a statement to FOX13.
The case has been transferred to Fiji’s High Court in Lautoka, where Mr Dawson is scheduled to appear in court on 27 July while his attorney says he is working to secure a bond for his client, according to the Fiji Sun.
The Independent reached out to the attorney for Mr Dawson but did not hear back immediately.
