Episode 141: Christe Chen Dawson

February 17, 2025

When a young couple’s dream honeymoon suddenly turns into a nightmare, the search for justice becomes an international affair. What happened to Christe Chen Dawson?

Episode Media
Christe Chen Dawson (ABC24)
Bradley Dawson & Christe Chen Dawson (Instagram)
Christe and Bradley on their wedding day (Instagram)
Map of Fiji islands where the Dawsons honeymooned (Google Maps)
Turtle Island Fiji bungalows on the Blue Lagoon (The Luxe Voyager)
Washroom area where Christe’s body was found (Daily Mail)
Episode Sources
Episode Transcript

Welcome back to Bite-Sized Crime. This week I’m bringing you a case that I’ve been following since the beginning, one that has finally come to a resolution. This episode discusses sensitive topics, so listener discretion is advised.

Thirty-six-year-old Christe Jiao Chen was living out her dream in the bustling city of Memphis, Tennessee. After working for years as a pastry chef in a Colorado bakery, Christe had finally gotten the chance to pursue a career in medicine. She enrolled in pharmacy school at the University of Tennessee and immersed herself in her studies. She focused on social determinants of health in low-income communities and was awarded a grant to fund her research. In April of 2021, Christe was presented with the Wolters Kluwer Award of Excellence in Clinical Communication, a testament to her dedication and hard work in the field.

In addition to being smart and driven, Christe was also generous and kind. Her friends described her as fun and outgoing, someone who connected easily with others and would do anything to help a friend.

In November of 2021, Christe met 38-year-old Bradley Dawson, and it was love at first sight. Although Bradley was in the middle of a divorce, it couldn’t stop their whirlwind romance. Bradley’s divorce was finalized in January of 2022, and by February, just three months after they first met, he and Christe were married. Their small, intimate wedding at the historic James Lee House in Memphis was attended by their closest family and friends; for some of them, it was their first time meeting Bradley. But everyone said that the couple seemed deeply in love, overjoyed at their luck in finding each other.

After the wedding, Christe and Bradley settled into married life. They bought a house in the Cooper-Young neighborhood of Midtown Memphis, an area known for its hip, eclectic vibes. Bradley worked as an IT professional for a nonprofit youth organization, and Christe worked in a local pharmacy. Over the next few months, the couple planned for their upcoming honeymoon trip to the beautiful islands of Fiji.

On July 7, 2022, Christe and Bradley checked in at Turtle Island Fiji, an all-inclusive resort located on a 500-acre private island. The couple’s luxurious bungalow overlooked the Blue Lagoon, and they were looking forward to partaking in all that the resort had to offer.

Sadly, their dream honeymoon would soon come to a tragic end.

On the morning of July 9th, resort staff noticed that Christe and Bradley had not shown up for breakfast, nor had they ordered room service. This seemed odd, but perhaps they had just decided to sleep in that morning. However, the couple also failed to show up for lunch, and none of the staff had seen them around the resort that day. Finally, around 1pm, the butler assigned to them was given permission by a manager to bypass the “Do Not Disturb” sign and enter the bungalow to clean. When he did, he found that it was empty, so he went about his business, changing the bedsheets, replacing the towels, and folding the couple’s clothes.

As he moved around the bungalow, the butler glanced through the wooden slats of the washroom window and saw something unexpected: red stains on the wall. Heart racing, he slowly pushed open the door of the washroom and discovered Christe slumped on the floor beside the toilet, covered in blood.

Terrified, the butler rushed to alert the resort manager, who immediately contacted the authorities. When Fiji Police arrived at the scene, they confirmed what the butler had suspected – Christe Chen Dawson was dead. It appeared that she had been violently beaten, her body shoved between the toilet and the wall. An autopsy would later reveal that she had suffered multiple traumatic injuries, including a gaping wound on her upper back and blunt force trauma to her head.

It didn’t take long for authorities to notice that Christe’s husband was nowhere to be found. The island was small – only inhabited by resort staff and guests. Surely he had to be nearby. Police sent a search team to find Bradley Dawson.

In the meantime, they began interviewing everyone at the resort. Several witnesses recalled seeing Christe and Bradley at dinner on the night of the 8th. The resort had thrown a party for the guests, and the couple had been drinking heavily. One witness stated that it appeared Bradley had been flirting with another guest, and Christe had been upset. They left the party and continued arguing on the beach before going back to their bungalow. Around midnight, guests in the bungalow next door heard raised voices followed by a loud scream and multiple banging noises. Staff members told police that they had received a noise complaint that night, but hadn’t followed up because the noise had stopped. It wasn’t until the next day that anyone made the connection between the noise complaint and Christe’s death.

A night watchman told police that he had seen Bradley walking along the beach alone in the early morning hours of July 9th. He had eventually gone back to his bungalow, and the watchman hadn’t seen him again.

But Bradley didn’t stay in the bungalow. Leaving his phone behind, he had grabbed his wallet and passport and fled the island, paddling a kayak across the lagoon. He floated for over a mile, ending up on a secluded stretch of Matacawalevu Island. Hours later, a local man found him exhausted and bleeding, likely from scrambling over the sharp coral as he approached the island. The man could tell that Bradley was drunk, and he seemed disturbed. He kept repeating that he had fought with his wife and that he needed to call the police.

Soon, officers arrived on the island and took Bradley Dawson into custody, then transported him to the main island for questioning. According to Fiji law, police are required to conduct a preliminary “caution interview” with anyone suspected of a crime, and that interview must be recorded. During Bradley’s interview, he allegedly told police that he and Christe had gotten into a drunken argument on the night of July 8th. When they returned to their bungalow, the argument had gotten physical. They broke a windowpane in the washroom and cracked the porcelain toilet tank. The fight had ended with Christe bleeding on the floor. Bradley said that he panicked, running from the bungalow and fleeing on a kayak.

At the police station, Bradley invoked his right to an attorney and refused to provide DNA samples to the police prosecutor. He was officially charged with the murder of his wife.

While Bradley sat in a Fiji jail cell, Christe’s parents were on their way to the islands. They had received a phone call from the State Department informing them of their daughter’s death. At first, the idea was so shocking that they thought it was a prank call. But once the devastating truth set in, they immediately booked a flight to Fiji.

Sadly, the Chens were informed that Christe’s body was so badly injured that the medical examiner would not embalm her. Instead, she would have to be cremated before they could bring her remains back to the United States. Their lawyer told the Daily Mail, “[Christe] is the only child of her parents, and obviously they are quite devastated… They want to ensure that justice at the end of the day is given to her.”

Within weeks of Christe’s death, her story had reached the international media. The shocking tale of a husband allegedly murdering his new bride on their honeymoon captured the interest of journalists across the globe. Bradley’s lawyer Iqbal Khan gave interviews to news outlets, painting a picture of a newlywed in mourning, a man wrongfully convicted. Khan told the Daily Mail that Bradley had been devastated by his wife’s death, too distraught to even talk for days afterward. “Something surprising happened. Bradley’s okay now but he was really distressed when it happened. Last week he was in a desperate condition but he’s picking up now. It is a horrendous thing to happen on your honeymoon.”

In August, Bradley himself gave an interview to ABC News, during which he claimed that he and Christe had “never had any physical arguments” in their relationship. He said that on the night Christe died, they had argued, but he had left the bungalow in an attempt to de-escalate the situation. “I just wanted to give her some space. It was normal for me to take a walk.” When he returned and found Christe bleeding on the floor, he freaked out and ran. He claimed that when police detained him, they didn’t tell him that his wife was dead; he didn’t know what was happening.

Bradley told ABC News that he was praying for Christe every day. “What I can say is I am so sorry for the situation we are all going through now. We were supposed to have amazing holidays and I lost my wife. Just thinking she is not here anymore is so painful. I am thinking of her all the time. We were supposed to have an amazing life.”

In September, Bradley entered a not guilty plea in the High Court of Lautoka. His lawyer asked the court to release him on bond, saying that Bradley’s alleged confession had not been signed and therefore should not be held against him. He would willingly hand over his passport and promise to stay on the island.

But the judge wasn’t having it. Bradley Dawson had no real ties in Fiji, nothing keeping him from fleeing the country as soon as he had a chance. When he was arrested, he had been found with his passport, multiple credit cards – one of which was in Christe’s name – and over $1,000 in cash. In court documents, the judge wrote, “This Court is of the opinion that since the Applicant is charged with a serious offence, there is a high likelihood that he would fail to appear in Court if granted bail.”

Over the next two years, Bradley’s case made its way through the Fiji courts. Finally, in December of 2024, his trial began.

The defense argued that Christe had been so drunk on the night of her death that she had fallen down during her argument with Bradley and injured herself. Bradley had been in shock, not thinking clearly, so instead of getting help, he had fled the scene. There was no proof that he had been the one to hurt Christe.

But the prosecution easily poked holes in that story. They argued that Christe’s injuries were far too severe to have been caused by a drunken fall. A pathologist testified that her injuries could only have been caused by blunt force trauma, likely by someone punching her repeatedly. A total of fourteen witnesses were brought before the court, and after eight days of testimony, the judge issued his verdict. “Having considered all the evidence in its totality, I am of the opinion that the prosecution has proved the charge of murder against the accused beyond reasonable doubt.”

On February 11, 2025, Bradley Robert Dawson was sentenced to life in prison. He must serve a minimum of 18 years before he can be considered for a pardon.

At the sentencing, the judge addressed Bradley, saying, “Your conduct after the incident was appalling. Having inflicted serious and life-threatening injuries to the deceased, you fled the scene of the crime, leaving the deceased alone and helpless…”

Christe’s parents were also present at the hearing and were allowed to read statements. Her father spoke of the devastating loss of his only child. “The day you killed my daughter was the day you killed me as well… I struggle every single day to find a purpose to go on. I would not wish this all-consuming grief on anyone – except for you and your family.”

Christe’s mother expressed how the death of her daughter had taken an emotional and psychological toll on her. “No mother should have to know this is how her daughter’s life ended, and by the hands of the very person who took a vow to love, honor and cherish her. I can only hope that the rest of your life is filled with misery, loneliness and despair… I hope the memories of what you did to her in her last moments haunt you — because you are a monster.”

Christe Chen Dawson was a beautiful, vibrant woman with a thriving career and a loving family. Her life was taken in an act of violence by the person she loved the most. While her family did get justice, it will never make up for her loss.

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, please contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or text START to 88788 for free and confidential help. You deserve to be safe.