Speaker notes by the National Police Commissioner, General Fannie Masemola: update on #missing SAPS members.
Three of the five bodies discovered in the Hennops River in Centurion are those of our constables who were reported missing. The bodies of Constables Linda Cebekhulu, Keamogetswe Buys, and Boipelo Senoge were positively identified by their families.
The high-level team that had been tasked with investigating their disappearance has 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.
On Monday, our investigation and search led us to the Hennops River in Centurion.
With 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 where we are standing at this moment 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 who it is 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.
This morning, the third body was 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.
We are still searching for the VW Polo and our investigation is continuing.
We don’t want to speculate at this stage what led to the discovery of these bodies in this river, whether it was an accident or not, our investigation will reveal those aspects once we find their vehicle.
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.
Investigations are still continuing into this matter.
Police are still searching for the VW Polo and investigations are continuing.
