Police still looking for answers in Flaxmere, Hastings homicide inquiry

Eddie Peters has been remembered by close friends as a lovable man who would do anything for others. Photo / Supplied

Police are still hopeful of an arrest relating to the death of Hastings man Eddie Peters, who died from injuries received in an assault in Flaxmere seven weeks ago.

Peters, 45, was attacked in the driveway of a Diaz Dr property in Flaxmere West between midnight and 12.15am on November 16, soon after leaving a wake at a nearby address, also in Diaz Dr.

An investigation of the assault became a homicide inquiry after died in Wellington Hospital on November 24, but there have been no arrests.

Inquiry head Detective Sergeant Brent Greville said police still needed to speak with all the people who were at the address where Peters had been drinking with friends, and they are still seeking information from anyone else who was in the area.

"We are still looking at who was there and whether anything happened there that led to this incident," he said.

The assault was reported after residents investigated noises involving people yelling and running outside their home and found a badly injured man on their property a few metres from their front door.

The police inquiry was one of four suspected murder investigations in the Napier-Hastings area in less than 12 months.

During the year, 17-year-olds Rosie Page Lewis and Shaun Liam Karauria were each sentenced to life imprisonment after pleading guilty to a charge of murdering 22-year-old Sandeep Dhiman in a brutal stabbing beside a remote road near Tutira late on the night of December 17, 2017, motivated by Lewis' desire to steal his car.

The death of Flaxmere man Kelly Donner after an attack by young teenagers out stealing in Flaxmere on the night of March 4 led to a trial involving one of the youngest ever charged with murder in New Zealand. Haami Hanara was just 14 years and two months old when he stabbed Donner during the incident. Although he denied the charge, a jury found him guilty at a short High Court trial in November. He is due to be sentenced next month.

Two men, David James Lothian, 27, and James Taylor Martin Webby, 24, are currently awaiting a trial on a charge of murdering 30-year-old Alex Latimer, whose body was found on a Te Haroto farm about a week after he is believed to have died on September 30. The two have pleaded not guilty and are remanded in custody. A trial is not expected to be held before September.