Pretoria mother still missing – three years on

A Capital Park woman who was caught in a flash flood during heavy rains three years ago remains missing, Rekord Moot reports.

Madelein Murray went missing when her vehicle was washed away as she was driving across the low-lying bridge across the Apies River in Capital Park on 11 November 2016. The vehicle was submerged in the water.

Her son Hanco, who was with her in the car at the time, was later found alive by rescue crews. The vehicle wreckage was also recovered in the river without Murray.

Numerous searches failed to locate her, leaving her family with a lot of unanswered questions.

Wonderboompoort police said this week, the search was still on for Murray.

Police spokesperson Constable Mandlakayise Zwane said, however, that there were no new leads that the police were following upon.

“It will remain a missing person case until we have found her,” he said.

“We are doing everything on our side to try and find her.”

At the time of her disappearance, the police, fire department personnel, CPF and other volunteers searched for her as far as the Bon Accord dam – to no avail.

Police divers also joined the search, scouring the river three times, but were also unable to locate the 43-year-old.

In May 2018, Murray’s cellphone number was reportedly activated in Motherwell, Port Elizabeth.

In a previous interview, Zwane said the investigation discovered that the number had been allocated to a new user by the service provider because it hadn’t been used for more than three months.

Murray’s mother Francis Venter previously said her daughter’s WhatsApp account had been active in September and October 2017 but added that the user had blocked her when she tried to communicate.

She also said last year, that she had hired a forensic technologist and private investigator to join the search party, and positive leads had been generated.

In September last year, the media reported that a new detective had been assigned to the case.

Zwane said detective Sergeant Cari van Wyk had been assigned to investigate the case of missing Murray.

He said Van Wyk was “one of our detectives with one of the best success stories and we believe that she will be able to get to the bottom of the case”.

Just a week short of the third anniversary of Murray’s disappearance, another search was launched for another flash flood victim in Centurion two weekends ago.

The body of Daniel John James McMaster was found last Monday, at the Zwartkop golf course after he ended up in the Hennops River that weekend when the car he was a passenger in was swept away by a flash flood at a low water bridge.