Graham guilty of murder
Hyde guilty of being an accessory after the fact to manslaughter
A Southland woman has been found guilty of murdering her partner, Otautau man Dale Watene.
Sandy Maree Graham, 32, was charged with the murder of Dale Tama Watene, 40, at Otautau in Southland on April 16, 2020.
George Ivor Hyde, 25, was charged with being an accessory after the fact to Watene’s murder between April 16, 2020, and April 27, 2020. He was found not guilty on that charge but guilty of being an accessory after the fact to manslaughter.
The verdict was delivered yesterday after an almost four-week trial at the High Court in Invercargill. The trial was presided over by Justice Gerald Nation and the jury’s decision was unanimous.
The pair are expected to be sentenced on November 8.
Watene’s mother, Christine, declined to comment yesterday other than to say she was grateful for the work police had done in getting justice for her and her family.
Speaking outside court after the verdicts, Detective Inspector Stu Harvey said almost every police officer in Southland was involved in the investigation in 2020.
Watene’s family wanted to make a statement at sentencing in November, Harvey said.
The homicide investigation was huge and intensive, he said.
At trial, the defence accepted Watene died at Graham’s house but focused on a struggle in the hallway of the home between the pair prior to a gun going off.
Watene’s body was found in the Longwood Forest on May 18, 2020.
Graham elected to give evidence and said she did not know if she pulled the trigger or not.
Graham’s defence lawyer, Sarah Saunderson-Warner, in her opening address last month, said what occurred in that hallway was a terrible accident that had tragic consequences.
The issue was not whether Graham was involved, but rather how Watene died, what occurred in those minutes and seconds before that firearm was discharged into the hallway, and why, she said.
In his opening address, Crown prosecutor Riki Donnelly contended that Watene was shot through his mouth with a .22 semiautomatic Ruger rifle by Graham.
Hyde’s defence lawyer, Fiona Guy Kidd, QC, argued that her client believed Watene had killed himself and he helped Graham afterwards because he believed she would lose her children for having the unlicensed firearm.
Guy Kidd asked multiple detectives about Hyde’s disposition and if he understood when his rights were read to him.
She outlined him as a person who was socially challenged.
During the trial, Crown forensic firearms expert Angus Newton said the muzzle of the gun was unlikely to have been less than 1 metre from Watene when fired because there was no muzzle residue on his face or mouth.
In Newton’s opinion the shot came from no closer than 0.8m. This was based on the number of particles embedded in a piece of cotton fabric that Newton shot at.
Graham in her evidence told the jury an argument had started between her and Watene on April 16, 2020, after she told him she had slept with someone else and he saw an explicit photo sent to her by another man. Watene punched her in the chest and winded her, she said. She went outside and messaged the local police officer. Watene followed, saw the message and accused her of sleeping with the officer, Graham said.
She then got into Watene’s Isuzu Mu and left it at a park about 500m away (where police later recovered it), returned to the house and heard her kids screaming and Watene swearing, she told the court.
The court was told Graham went and got the gun from behind her bedroom mirror to push Watene from the house. The magazine was not attached, she said, which meant she believed it was not loaded. Watene put the gun in his mouth, she said, and she pushed him backwards out a door. ‘‘We just wrestled with the gun, just pulling it backwards and forwards.’’ As she closed the door, so that her children would not hear the argument, ‘‘the gun went off’’, Graham said.