UPDATE: New detective to find missing Moot mother
“She is one of the detectives with the best success record and we believe that she will be able to get to the bottom of what happened.”
Fresh eyes will look into the case of missing Moot mother, the police have confirmed.
Wonderboompoort police spokesperson Constable Mandlakayise Zwane said detective Sergeant Cari van Wyk had been assigned to investigate the case of missing Madelein Murray.
The mother of five disappeared in November 2016 when her car was swept away into the Apies river during a flash flood in Capital Park while crossing a low-lying water bridge in Flowers Street.
Her son Hanco, who was in the car with his mother, was found alive about a kilometre from the bridge.
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Zwane 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”.
He said Van Wyk was also in constant contact with the Murray family.
Rekord previously reported that Murray’s cellphone number had been activated in Motherwell, Port Elizabeth.
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.
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“We are doing everything on our side to try and find her,” he said.
Murray’s mother Francis Venter said her daughter’s WhatsApp account had been active in September and October last year but the user had blocked her when she tried to communicate
“Then the phone remained off until recently,” she said.
Venter said she had since hired a forensic technologist and private investigator to join the search party, and positive leads had been generated.
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“I still have many questions… I will never give up the search because I will never have peace until I know what really happened to my daughter,” said a sobbing Venter.
“We will exhaust all methods and resources to get to the bottom of what happened to my child.”
At the time, the SAPS, fire department personnel, CPF and other volunteers searched for her as far as the Bon Accord dam – to no avail.
SAPS divers also joined the search, scouring the river three times, but were also unable to locate the 43-year-old.
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