MELBOURNE, Australia—A man from Memphis, Tennessee, was sentenced to life in prison for murdering his wife during their honeymoon in Fiji in 2022, a court official said on Friday.
Bradley Robert Dawson, 40, will have to serve at least 18 years in prison before he can be considered for release, a Fiji High Court registry official in Lautoka said.
Dawson was convicted in December of murdering his wife, Christe Chen, who was then 36, at the exclusive Turtle Island resort in the Yasawa archipelago two days after the newlyweds arrived in the South Pacific nation. He then fled by kayak to a nearby island.
He was sentenced by Justice Riyaz Hamza on Wednesday.
Hamza told Dawson he had shown disregard for Chen’s right to life and her personal liberty.
“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,” Hamza said, according to The Fiji Times newspaper.
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Chen’s body was discovered in the couple’s room by resort staff with multiple blunt trauma wounds to her head after the couple was heard arguing and did not appear at breakfast or lunch the next day.
Dawson pleaded not guilty to the charge and was tried over eight days.
His lawyer Anil Prasad told the court that prosecutors had failed provide sufficient evidence to convict Dawson, the Fijian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
Prasad said that while the prosecution alleged that Dawson was planning to flee Fiji, authorities failed to acknowledge that many of the couple’s personal belongings remained at the resort.
Prasad also said Dawson had no injuries to suggest he had been involved in a physical altercation with his wife.
But the judge said he was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Dawson and no one else had committed the crime.
Under Fijian law, prisoners can apply for parole after serving a minimum term set by a court, although the parole board is currently unstaffed. Critics argue the lack of an effective parole option is a cause of prison overcrowding.
David Naylor, an Australian National University expert on Pacific law and regulation who has lectured in Fiji, said that after serving 18 years in prison, Dawson could apply to the national Mercy Commission to be released with a pardon from the Fijian president.
He could also apply for his life sentence to be reduced to a fixed term, which would set a release date, Naylor said.
Dawson worked in the information technology department at Youth Villages, a nonprofit child welfare and support organization based in Memphis. An online records search showed no criminal arrests for Dawson in Shelby County, which includes Memphis.
The Turtle Island resort, where the pair stayed, is an exclusive and remote 500-acre island that accommodates only 14 couples at a time. Yasawa is a group of about 20 volcanic islands in the west of Fiji, a nation of 930,000 people.
By Rod Mcguirk
