Romantic honeymoon ends in death: Husband arrested after newly-wed wife found dead in Fiji resort room

A US pharmacist told a friend she was going to ‘“paradise” for her honeymoon.

Now Christe Chen, 36, is dead, and her husband, Bradley Robert Dawson, has been charged with murder.

There was a reason for Ms Chen to use that word. The couple were going to one of the most famous romantic resorts in the world - Turtle Island in Fiji.

It was the location for the 1980 Brooke Shields film The Blue Lagoon and has reportedly hosted celebrity couples such as Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey, as well as Britney Spears and her ex, Kevin Federline.

Ms Chen’s body was reportedly found in a hotel room there. The cause of death was not immediately known.

Her husband was said to have been missing then, but was arrested later in Fiji.

Dawson, a 38-year-old IT professional, was produced in court on Wednesday (July 13), Fijian and US media reports said. He denied the charge of murdering his wife on July 9.

Dawson refused a request for a DNA sample and Fiji’s high court was to rule on whether investigators could take it.

The couple, from Memphis, Tennessee, reportedly got married in February and had moved into a new house before leaving on the honeymoon.

Ms Chen was also known as a pastry chef and owned a bakery in Denver, Colorado, before she moved to Memphis to go to pharmacy school at the University of Tennessee.

“Christe was caring, funny, generous,” the Daily Mail quoted one friend as saying.

“She was so excited to get married and to have babies,” said another.