The police are pinning their hopes on finding the white VW Polo that the three constables were driving to solve the mystery surrounding their deaths.
The puzzling disappearance of constables Linda Cebekhulu, 24, Boipelo Senoge, 24 and Keamogetswe Buys, 30, which had gripped the nation for the past few days, reached a tragic end on Tuesday. Their bodies were found along with those of two other people in the Hennops River in Centurion, Tshwane, along the N1 on Monday night and Tuesday.
After a dramatic day, last night national police commissioner Gen Fannie Masemola confirmed the bad news to the families of the deceased.
The vehicle they were travelling in from the Free State to Limpopo on April 23 has not been found. But police found pieces of metal believed to be of the same vehicle along the N1 near where the bodies were located.
“For now we don't know what has happened. How we ended up here [Hennops] ... we were checking all the cameras all the way. The last camera from which we saw the vehicle is a camera at the Brakfontein interchange driving north on the N1. For now, it might look as an accident, we do not know until we find the car, then we can make conclusions as to what had happened,” said Masemola at the scene.
As the police searched the river, they found a Renault Kangoo panel van on Monday. He said the car belonged to an admin clerk from Lyttleton police station who went missing on Saturday after visiting friends around the area.
“The wife confirmed that by Sunday morning around 2am, she checked the tracker of the vehicle and saw the vehicle was 1km from their house. She never doubted anything and did not report him missing until yesterday [Monday] after a passer-by alerted the police that there is a vehicle in the river. Our search and rescue [team] searched the river and that is when she acknowledged it was her husband,” said Masemola.
We are told that on that fateful day, it was raining, and the river was overflowing, so we are still investigating.
— Lt-Gen Shadrack Sibiya
He said the second body [Senoge] was also found on Monday. “We had to abandon the search as it was already dark.”
Cebekhulu's body was the third to be discovered on Tuesday morning. By 2pm police had located a fourth body near a golf course. It had decomposed and has not yet been identified. Later on Tuesday afternoon, Buys' body was found on the other side of the river.
Masemola said there was no link between the three constables and the other two who were found with them. “It has been a difficult six days for members of the police and affected families as we searched everywhere for our three missing police officers,” he said.
He said the high-level team that had been tasked with investigating the officers' disappearance spent sleepless nights combing the length and breadth of Gauteng, Free State and Limpopo.
He said after studying all the evidence the police had gathered, the investigation led them to between the Grasmere Toll Plaza on the N1, past the Buccleuch interchange, onto John Voster Drive. The police used drones to locate the deceased, while and Hawks, the counter-intelligence unit, the Gauteng Traffic Airwing as well as Bidvest Protea Coin Airwing were also involved.
After the gruesome discoveries, the families of the deceased were flown from Bloemfontein to Gauteng to identify their loved ones at a mortuary in Tshwane.
Senoge's father Paul sent a text message to a Sowetan reporter just after 4pm saying: “Hey my sister, my daughter is no more.”
At the scene, where the bodies were found, a steel barrier was bent and looked like a heavy object had crashed onto it. The area had been cordoned off while traffic was slow on the N1. Traffic had to be stopped completely several times to allow the police chopper to land on the road.
Cebekhulu and Buys, who are from Bloemfontein, worked in Limpopo for Operation Vala Umgodi, a unit that fights illegal mining. They were on their way to their work base after visiting their homes.
Senoge worked at the Park Road police station charge office in Bloemfontein. She was off duty at the time and was accompanying her boyfriend, Cebekhulu, to Limpopo.
Earlier, Lt-Gen Shadrack Sibiya, the deputy national commissioner for crime detection, said: “We are told that on that fateful day, it was raining, and the river was overflowing, so we are still investigating. We are still searching for the vehicle, and as long as we haven’t found the vehicle, it is very difficult to relax.”
SowetanLIVE
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.