Verdict brings closure – cop
A former Otautau policeman says a guilty verdict in a murder trial will bring closure on a ‘‘bad run’’ for the western Southland town.
In the High Court at Invercargill on Thursday, a jury unanimously found Sandy Maree Graham guilty of Dale Tama Watene’s murder at Otautau on April 16, 2020.
George Ivor Hyde was found guilty of accessory after the fact to manslaughter between April 16 and 27, 2020.
In a separate incident a child was murdered in Otautau about six months before Watene died.
Senior Constable Dave Cowie, who is now stationed in Alexandra, remembered that period as just a ‘‘shit time’’.
‘‘Everyone was just emotionally worn out.’’ Thursday’s verdicts closed the last chapter of a ‘‘bad run’’ for Otautau, Cowie said.
Cowie worked in Otautau for about 14 years until March 2021.
Graham and Hyde are expected to be sentenced on November 8.
‘‘Right from the start I just smelt a rat and thought something does not sit right here,’’ Cowie said.
‘‘I’m not going to go slagging her publicly, but I think she’s a pathological liar,’’ Cowie said.
The senior constable knew Graham in Otautau.
For all her faults, Cowie felt Graham still cared for her children.
‘‘There’s probably Sandy the mother and then Sandy to everyone else.’’
The people of Otautau would breathe a sigh of relief after Thursday’s verdicts, he said.
Community board chair Andre´ Bekhuis said he stopped following coverage of Graham and Hyde’s trial after the first week because Graham was ‘‘changing her story that f . . . ing much I thought anyone following this will just get confused’’.
‘‘If she’s been found guilty she deserves to be found guilty then.’’
Speaking outside court after the verdicts on Thursday, Detective Inspector Stu Harvey said the 2019 murder and Watene’s death were aberrations for Otautau.
‘‘People need to understand that this is not something that detracts away from Otautau as a town,’’ he said.