Pretoria – SA Police Service (SAPS) National Commissioner General Fannie Masemola has confirmed that the bodies recovered from the Hennops River were those of the three missing constables.
“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,” General Masemola said Tuesday, (29 April 2025).
The constables – 20-year-old Boipelo Senoge, 24-year-old Cebekhulu Linda, and 30-year-old Keamogetswe Buys – were off-duty and traveling in a white VW Polo sedan (registration number JCL 401 FS) from Bloemfontein, Free State, to Limpopo when they went missing.
They had been last seen on Wednesday, (23 April 2025), at the Engen garage, near the Grasmere toll plaza along the N1.
Giving details of the search and recovery of the bodies, General Masemola said: “It has been a difficult six days for members of the SAPS and affected families, as we searched everywhere for our three missing police officers, Constable Keamogetswe Buys, Constable Boipelo Senoge, and Constable Cebekhulu Linda.”
He said the high-level team that had been tasked with investigating their disappearance had 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,” General Masemola said.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I am unfortunately not the bearer of good news this evening.
“We had hoped to find our three police officers safe, unharmed, and alive, but this is not the case.”
Giving further details of the probe, General Masemola said: “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 has just come to light that he is one of our employees attached to the Lyttleton Police Station, and the second body was that of Constable Senoge.”
General Masemola said the team 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,” General Masemola said.
“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.”
General Masemola said the families were taken to the mortuary, where they have identified the bodies of their children and loved ones.
“We are still searching for the VW Polo and our investigation is continuing,” the police chief said.
“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.”
A badly decomposed body was also found in the area during the search, but it appeared unrelated to the four other identified bodies. The decomposed body was yet to be identified.
General Masemola said the investigations were continuing.
