Whirlwind: The Honeymoon Homicide of Christe Chen
Was Christe’s violent death an accident, or was it maliciously premeditated murder?
Brianna Bennett, M.A., M.F.A.
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Published in
Honor the Victims
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4 min read
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Nov 26, 2022
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Photo licensed by Jumlong Ch via Shutterstock.
Note: This case happened recently, so there is limited information available and is subject to change as the investigation continues. I will do my best to update the article as new information is made available.
Love is blind, so when you’re swept up in the rose petals and chocolates, red flags are difficult to come to grips with. As such, things that appear obvious to outsiders, such as the questionable decision to marry someone three months after meeting them, often go unseen.
Christe Chen, a native of Memphis, Tennessee, met Bradley Dawson in November 2021. Dawson, a divorcee, IT specialist, and fellow Bluff City local, charmed Christe right away. By February 2022, they were married.
Photos of the couple were shared on Christe’s Instagram account and acquired by the New York Post.
The Victim
Christe Jiao Chen was an only child and presumably born in 1982, but exact information hasn’t been released to the public.She attended the University of Tennessee, where she earned awards for her work in pharmaceutical science. At the time of her death, she was working as a pharmacist in a Memphis-area Kroger. By all accounts, she was a wonderful person.
The first photo is from the University of Tennessee’s Health Science Center Facebook page (left) and the second is a photo posted by Chen to her Facebook account (right) and acquired by Oxygen True Crime.
The Timeline
After marrying in February 2022, the newlyweds decided to spend their honeymoon in Fiji the following July. Their getaway took place on Turtle Island, an extremely private — and outrageously expensive — resort.July 8, 2022: According to multiple witnesses, the newlyweds got into an argument just two days after their arrival. They were at a beach party, but the altercation didn’t stop there. Resort staff later heard “loud noises” coming from the couple’s room.
The Chen family’s attorney, Ronald Gordon, later revealed that the argument might have been caused by Christe learning that Bradley had been to the resort before — with a previous wife.
July 9, 2022, around 3 pm: A housekeeper for the resort (sometimes referred to as a butler, other times a maid) went to the couple’s room to check on them. (The couple hadn’t been seen at breakfast or lunch.)
Upon doing so, they found a horribly beaten Christe slumped over a cracked toilet in a pool of blood, already deceased. She had clearly suffered significant head trauma. Bradley, however, was nowhere to be found.
July 10, 2022: Indigenous residents of nearby Matacawalevu Island turned Bradley in to authorities. He was found carrying $1,000 in cash, his passport, Christe’s credit cards, and both of their driver’s licenses. He’d kayaked there at some point on July 9 and was quickly apprehended.
Tragically, Christe’s body was so badly injured that her remains couldn’t be shipped back to the United States for burial. She had to be cremated and returned to her family that way.
The Alleged Perpetrator
Bradley Dawson was supposedly the man of Christe’s dreams. For her family, he represents a nightmare that they will never wake up from.According to an exclusive interview with Dawson from his jail cell in Fiji, Christe was his “everything” and claimed that her death was an accident. His flight from justice was apparently an attempt to de-escalate the situation.
Investigators in Fiji said that Dawson confessed to the murder, but later recanted upon receiving legal advice. His appeal for pre-trial release was denied, and his lawyer is currently fighting to have the confession thrown out, which could take 2–3 years.
