Stanley Graham
| Stanley Graham | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Eric Stanley George Graham 12 November 1900 Kokatahi, New Zealand |
| Died | 21 October 1941 (aged 40) Hokitika, New Zealand |
| Cause of death | Shot by police |
| Occupation | Farmer |
| Killings | |
| Date | 8–9 October 1941 |
| Location(s) | Kowhitirangi, South Island, New Zealand |
| Killed | 7 |
| Injured | 0 |
| Weapons | 7mm Mauser Rifle |
Stanley Graham (baptized Eric Stanley George Graham) (12 November 1900 – 21 October 1941) was a New Zealander who killed seven people.
Graham was born and raised in Kokatahi, New Zealand, and as a child, worked at the Longford Hotel, built in 1902, ten miles from Hokitika, whose proprietor was his father, John Graham. Graham met his wife, Dorothy McCoy, when she moved from Rakaia in the late 1920s to work at the Longford Hotel.
They married in Christchurch on 22 December 1930, living there for six months before moving to a dairy property at Kowhitirangi on the West Coast. They were to have two children, a son and a daughter.
Through the late 1930s Graham maintained reasonably good relations with his neighbours, although he and his wife took little part in the district’s social life. By 1940 though, the Graham family was under severe financial pressure, having had cream condemned by the Westland Co-operative Dairy Company and having incurred debt from a venture into cattle breeding. As income from his farm dropped he fell into debt totaling over £550 (approximately NZ$49,263 in 2015) and his behaviour towards others became more threatening. His behaviour took a turn for the worse and he started threatening and abusing neighbours passing his house. Graham and his wife practiced target shooting out the back of their home in the middle of the night. Graham was an expert marksman and had an assortment of firearms.
During the first part of 1941, Graham was in a dispute with the police, who wanted to relieve him of his .303 rifle for war use. This was finally handed over on 15 July, but Graham and his wife still held a shotgun and two Winchester rifles, a .22 and a .405.
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