The Orange County multimillionaire and longtime fugitive Peter Chadwick, 57, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for strangling and drowning his wife, Quee Choo Chadwick, back in 2012.
It took investigators four years to hunt down Chadwick after he vanished while awaiting trial for murdering his wife, according to People. He was caught near Puebla, Mexico, on Aug. 4, 2019.
Chadwick strangled and drowned his wife in the bathroom of their Newport Beach home on Oct. 10, 2012, prosecutors said. The police said he dumped her body into a trash bin in San Diego after wrapping her body in a comforter, according to the Los Angeles Times.
It has been reported by the Orange County District Attorney’s office that the couple had a “dispute regarding a possible divorce and related financial issues,” around the time of the murder.
“I just want to express that I am truly sorry,” Chadwick said during the Orange County Superior Court hearing according to the Los Angeles Times. He hoped that his wife’s family could “somehow carry on remembering what kind of a person she was. Such a great person, so loving, and she cared for everyone.”
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The primary investigation started when no parent picked their two youngest sons up from a private school in Huntington Beach. When investigators searched the family’s home, they found a decorative vase broken and blood splattered in the bathroom.
Chadwick was initially arrested on Oct. 11 in San Diego and charged with the murder of Quee Choo. However, before his court hearing in 2015, he disappeared People reported.
Investigators learned Chadwick was receiving assistance from people close to his family, the Los Angeles Times reported. He was found in August 2019.
“Three young boys lost their entire reality the day their mother was murdered by their father,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer in a news release. “It took years of painstaking police work to track down this defendant in order to hold him accountable for the murder of his wife and the mother of his three sons.”
“In making the decision to accept a guilty plea, we carefully considered the wishes of Q.C.’s family, especially her sons who have already suffered the loss not only of their mother but also of their father at such a young age,” Spitzer said.
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