National Police Commissioner, General Fannie Masemola, has confirmed that the bodies found at the Hennops river in Centurion near the N1 highway in Pretoria, are those of the police constables who went missing last week while enroute to Limpopo.
Addressing the media along the N1 in Pretoria on Tuesday, the Commissioner said the bodies of the three missing constables namely Keamogetswe Buys, Boipelo Senoge and Cebekhulu Linda have been found.
“It is with deep sorrow that I confirm that our three members have been found, together with two other bodies, one being an admin clerk that is attached to our Lyttleton police station,” the Commissioner said.
This as police had earlier reported that the constables went missing on Wednesday, 23 April 2025.
The Commissioner said the police “searched everywhere for our three missing police officers” and the high-level team that had been tasked with investigating their disappearance “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.
“We had hoped to find our three police officers safe, unharmed and alive, but this is not the case.”
The two women constables Buys (aged 30) and Senoge (aged 20) and 24-year-old male constable Linda were travelling in a white VW Polo sedan from Bloemfontein to their area of deployment in Limpopo when they went missing.
At the time of their disappearance, the officers were off duty.
In a statement on Saturday, the police appealed to members of the public for assistance in finding the missing constables and on Sunday, the Commissioner and the Deputy National Commissioner for Crime Detection, Lieutenant General Shadrack Sibiya met with the team involved in investigating the officers’ disappearance.
The police delegation also met the officers’ families at the weekend.
READ | SAPS Commissioner to meet investigating team and families of missing constables
On Monday, the investigation and search led police to the Hennops River in Centurion.
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With the assistance of the South African Police Service (SAPS) drone pilots, cybercrime unit, HAWKS, Crime and counter-intelligence unit, SAPS and Gauteng Traffic Airwing as well as the Bidvest Protea Coin Airwing, police first found pieces of vehicle parts believed to be of a VW polo along the N1.
Police were then led to the banks of the river where they 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 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,” said the Commissioner.
The families were taken to the mortuary where they have identified the bodies of the officials.
“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,” he said.
The Commissioner said police were hoping for a positive outcome in the case.
“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.”
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