Arrest warrant upped to $5 million for murder suspect who disappeared

An Orange County judge Wednesday increased an arrest warrant to $5 million for a missing man accused of killing his wife in their Newport Beach home.

Peter Gregory Chadwick, 50, who is charged with murder in his wife’s strangulation in 2012, disappeared last month while free on $1 million bail.

The $5 million in the warrant is a penalty Chadwick must pay to avoid arrest for missing court dates.

Chadwick’s lawyer, Robert Sanger, said Wednesday that he hasn’t spoken to the defendant since before a Jan. 28 hearing in which a judge issued the original $1 million warrant.

According to prosecutors, Chadwick killed Quee “Q.C.” Chadwick, 46, and dumped her body in a trash bin in San Diego County.

Officials arrested him near the Mexico border in October 2012, a day after police found signs of a struggle at the Chadwick home in Newport Coast. A neighbor had called police after nobody picked up the couple’s children after school.

Chadwick claimed someone else killed his wife and forced him to load the body into a car and drive to the border.

On Wednesday, Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert Gannon left open the option to boost the warrant to $10 million, as prosecutors requested. He will consider the matter in about a month, when the next hearing in the case is scheduled.

“We will continue to seek the defendant,” Sanger told the judge.

Law enforcement also is searching for Chadwick.

Chadwick originally was held without bail, but he was allowed to go free on $1 million bond in December 2012 after prosecutors dropped an allegation that the killing was for financial gain.