Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Hockey stick killer back in court
GRAEME Eadie, convicted of beating a man to death with a hockey stick during a fit of road rage in 1999, was back in court yesterday facing new charges of assault and malicious damage to property after he allegedly attacked a 67-yearold man.
Eadie appeared briefly in the Wynberg Magistrate’s Court yesterday, where the matter was postponed after the prosecution said it needed more time to “peruse” the case docket. This, they indicated, was after reports of his previous murder conviction surfaced in the media.
Prosecutor Keppler Uys said the Director of Public Prosecutions wanted more time to review the case, and decide its next course of action.
Magistrate Sylvia Mandla agreed to a postponement to January 16.
Eadie allegedly assaulted the 67-year-old man in Plumstead during a “heated argument” on November 22. He allegedly punched the man and damaged his camera.
Eadie was convicted of murder after he bludgeoned 54year-old Kevin Duncan to death with a hockey stick during a fit of road rage in Fish Hoek in 1999.
Eadie, who had been drinking on the night of the murder, had been on his way home from Woodstock with his wife Wendy and their two sleeping children when they encountered Duncan on Ou Kaapseweg.
During his 2000 trial, Eadie said he had become angry when Duncan drove up behind his car, tailgated him, flashed his lights, overtook on a solid white line and then cut in front of him.
He was also charged with defeating the ends of justice after he left the scene, changed his bloody clothes, only to return to the scene and pretend to be an onlooker.
He was sentenced to seven months in prison for this, which ran concurrently with his murder sentence.
Eadie also had previous convictions of drunk driving, negligent driving and escaping lawful custody. His defence – that he suffered temporary non-pathological criminal incapacity because of financial, marital and work stress – was rejected by Judge Bennie Griesel. He was sentenced to 15 years in jail in 2000, five of which were conditionally suspended. He was released on parole in September 2006.