Police divers have recovered the back part of the VW Polo that the three Free State constables were travelling in when they were reported missing and later found deceased in the Hennops River.

The front part of the vehicle was recovered on May 1, Pretoria Rekord reports.

The three police constables disappeared on April 23 while travelling from Bloemfontein to their deployment area in Limpopo.

Constables Cebekhulu Linda (24), Boipelo Senoge (24), and Keamogetswe Buys (30) will each be buried on separate days between May 8 and 10, with memorial and funeral services planned in Mangaung and Thaba Nchu.

The partial vehicle recovery today comes just days after their bodies were discovered in the same river this week.

The search began after vehicle debris believed to be from the constables’ missing VW Polo was found near the river on April 28.

The recovery followed days of tireless searching by a high-level SAPS task team across Gauteng, Limpopo, and the Free State.

Investigators tracked a route from the Grasmere Toll Plaza on the N1, through the Buccleuch interchange, and onto John Voster Drive before locating key evidence near the river.

Five bodies were recovered from the Hennops River during an intensive two-day search for three missing police constables earlier this week.

Among the dead were Constables Senoge, Cebekhulu, and Buys, along with a Lyttelton police station employee who was driving a Renault Kangoo van, and a fifth, still-unidentified, decomposed body.

A memorial service will be held at noon on Tuesday, May 6, at Bobbiespark in Bloemfontein.

Police also confirmed that the two additional bodies found in the Hennops River are not connected to the three missing Free State constables.

National Police Commissioner General Fanie Masemola said there is no connection between the three Free State constables and the two other bodies that were found during the police’s large-scale search in the Hennops River.

After the recovery of the VW Polo from the river, General Masemola said police are investigating a case of culpable homicide.

Masemola closed by stating, “At this stage, it looks like an accident until we finalise and the forensics have thoroughly investigated the car. Let the public be assured that this is what we have for now. For now, there is nothing sinister that we physically have seen in terms of, let’s say, being shot, bullets, nothing. But, of course, there are injuries. Doctors will tell us exactly when they finalise their autopsies.”

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