Last week, a Tennessee man was charged in connection with the death of his wife who died during their recent honeymoon in Fiji.
Bradley Robert Dawson, 38, is accused of murdering his 39-year-old wife Christe Chen Dawson at a resort on the Yasawa Islands, as previously reported. Christe, a pharmacist, was found dead on July 9 at the secluded $3,500-a-night Turtle Island Resort, which only hosts 14 guests at a time. However, Bradley has maintained that her death was an accident.
The couple, who met in November 2021, married three months later after a whirlwind romance. Christe had previously been engaged. She was Bradley’s second wife – he’d married his first in Fiji in September 2019, according to a wedding registry. It’s unclear when he separated from his first wife.
Christe was found dead just two days after they checked into the elite private resort, which her parents – who were regulars there – had paid for.
Bradley Caught ‘Flirting’ with Another Person at Party
New details have emerged in Christe’s alleged murder as the Daily Mail reports that on the night of her death, Bradley and Christe attended a party, dubbed “family fun night,” with island staff and other guests on the beach where both were “very drunk.”
Witnesses told the tabloid that tensions arose between the couple when Bradley started acting inappropriately with someone else at the party. “They were enjoying themselves and drinking quite a lot but towards the end they looked troubled,” the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said.
It’s understood the couple then left the party and their argument continued on the beach before they headed back to their private bungalow about midnight, where the fight continued. “Not long after that, guests in the bungalow next door said they heard arguing, a loud scream, and then silence,” a source told the publication.
Christe Found Bloodied on the Bathroom Floor
DailyMail.com revealed that Christe was found bloodied on the bathroom floor by a personal butler around midday. She had suffered multiple traumatic injuries to her body and shoulders, lacerations to her face and blunt force trauma to the head, according to a post-mortem exam report.
A source told DailyMail.com that the lid of the toilet’s cistern was cracked and broken. The couple’s personal butler found her body squashed and slumped between the tiny space between the toilet and the wall, badly beaten and covered in blood, according to sources.
A lawyer for Christe’s family, Ronald Gordon, said earlier this week that her body was so badly beaten that she was unable to be embalmed and her parents had to cremate her before bringing her ashes back to the United States. He added that she suffered such deep lacerations to both sides of her head, near her eyes, that the embalming fluid would have leaked.
Bradley Fled the Island After the Murder, Claimed He was Kayaking
On the night Chen was killed, Bradley was seen walking the length of Turtle Island in the early hours of the morning by the night watchman, before he went back toward the private bungalow.
He left his GPS watch and mobile phone in the bungalow, but took his wallet and passport before fleeing across the water, 1.2 miles away to a secluded beach on Matacawa Levu Island. Gordon said it suggested that he’d been headed toward the mainland – which is about a two or three hour boat ride away – in the hopes of fleeing Fiji.
But Bradley never made it that far, and he was discovered – bleeding with cuts and bruises – about 3pm on July 10, by a local man as he walked toward the island’s village. Manoa Ratulele, 49, told DailyMail.com that Bradley told him that he used a kayak to paddle to the island between 2am and 3am on Saturday morning after having a fight with Chen.
The kayak Bradley claimed he’d traveled on has never been found, according to Gordon. By the time Bradley emerged, he had been missing 36 hours and police had been on the hunt for him since the couple’s personal butler found Christe dead, and raised the alarm with Turtle Island Resort management, who alerted authorities.
A team of three police officers soon arrived on Matacawa Levu Island to take Dawson back to Turtle Island and then to Lautoka on Fiji’s main island Viti Levu, where he was charged with murder. Once he engaged a lawyer, Dawson refused to provide DNA samples to officers.
