National police commissioner General Fannie Masemola has confirmed that three of the five bodies found at the Hennops River on April 29 are those of the three missing constable.

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This comes after Constable Keamogetswe Buys (30), Constable Boipelo Senoge (20) and Constable Cebekhulu Linda (24) went missing in their way to Limpopo from Bloemfontein on April 23.

Masemola said it has been a difficult six days for members of the South African Police Service and affected families, as they searched everywhere for the trio.

He said the high-level team that had been tasked with investigating their disappearance had spent sleepless nights combing the length and breadth of Gauteng, Free State and Limpopo.

“Following all possible leads and after studying all evidence that we had gathered, our investigation led us to between the Grasmere Toll Plaza on the N1, past the Buccleugh interchange, onto John Voster Drive. I am unfortunately not the bearer of good news this evening [April 29]. We had hoped to find our three police officers safe, unharmed and alive, but this is not the case,” said Masemola.

He said it was with deep sorrow that he confirmed that the police’s three members have been found, together with two other bodies.

One of the other bodies is the of an admin clerk that was attached to the Lyttleton police station.

Masemola said on April 28, their investigation and search led them to the Hennops River in Centurion.

“We had the assistance of our drone pilots, cybercrime unit, HAWKS, Crime and counter-intelligence unit, SAPS and Gauteng Traffic Airwing as well as Bidvest Protea Coin Airwing. We first found pieces of vehicle parts believed to be of a VW Polo along the N1 that led us to the banks of the river where we found a Renault Kangoo panel van. Our SAPS and Tshwane divers immediately commenced with the search, where we discovered two bodies; one of the driver of the Renault panel van. It has just came to light that he is one of our employees attached to the Lyttleton Police Station and the second body was that of Constable Senoge. We had to abandon the search as it was already dark,” added Masemola.

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The third body was then discovered which is believed to be that of Constable Linda .

“We further found a fourth decomposed body, we are still trying to identify who this person is. Later this afternoon, we sadly found the fifth body of Constable Buys,” Masemola confirmed.

The families were taken to the mortuary where they have identified the bodies of their children and loved ones.

He said they were still searching for the VW Polo and that investigation was continuing.

Masemola said he didn’t want to speculate at this stage what led to the deaths; whether it was an accident or not. Their further probe would reveal those aspects once they find their vehicle.

He said they are currently investigating a case of culpable homocide, and not ruling out anything.

“We would like to thank the families and the task team involved in the search for working tirelessly to ensure a breakthrough in this case. This is not how we expected this case to unfold, we were hoping for a positive outcome. Be that as it may, we are relieved that we could provide the painful closure to the families and the broader SAPS family,” concluded Masemola.

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