After allegedly bludgeoning his wife and leaving her for dead on the bathroom floor of their luxury Fiji hotel room, Bradley Robert Dawson apparently thought it best to flee in a kayak.
However, police found him three days later on nearby Matacawalevu Island, where a local said he came to in an effort to escape from an argument with his wife Christe Chen Dawson, 39, the local witness told the Daily Mail.
Dawson, 38, from Tennessee, is now locked away in a Fiji jail cell charged with murder. Still, his lawyer maintains that a conviction is unlikely.
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Iqbal Khan, Dawson’s lawyer, told the Daily Mail that Dawson wouldn’t talk to him for several days after Chen was killed.
“On the evidence that they have presented so far, there’s no proof of the charge of murder with intention to kill or premeditation. Nothing of that sort whatsoever,” Khan said. “On the face of it, it looks like an accident, but I will be able to confirm that once I get the full disclosure next week and get in front of other witnesses.”
Dawson, an IT worker for a nonprofit, and Chen, a pharmacist, married in a small ceremony in Memphis on Feb. 18 after what one friend told The Daily Beast was a “whirlwind romance.” Most of Chen’s friends had never met Dawson until the wedding.
They delayed their honeymoon until July, booking a room at the $3,500-a-night Turtle Island Resort, which served as the location for the 1980 Brooke Shields film Blue Lagoon.
However, Chen died on July 9 of blunt force trauma to the head and other traumatic injuries, according to a post-mortem report cited by the Mail. Anonymous sources told the outlet that their personal butler at the upscale Turtle Island Resort found Chen on the bathroom floor after the two didn’t show up for breakfast or lunch that day, using a spare key to open the door despite a “Do Not Disturb” sign.
Manoa Ratulele told the Mail he found Dawson on Matacawalevu island, bruised and bleeding from his palms and smelling of alcohol. Dawson repeatedly said that he had a fight with his wife, not offering much information, later asking to call the police, Ratulele said.
“There is no way he can be convicted of murder,” Khan said. “No way. Full stop.”
Dawson’s next court appearance will be July 27.
