People walked the banks looking for him. All hoped that they would find him. A man as strong as Dries would simply have swum to the edge of the dam and clambered out, wouldn't he?
But days went by, and eventually the search began to lose momentum as people left to go back to work.
Nothing was found.
As the days wore on and Dries Kruger failed to show up, the Kruger family began to fear the worst. Had Dries met with an untimely end? Surely it could not be an accident? He was a strong, fit man, who could not simply have drowned. For the first time, the family's thoughts turned to foul play.
The police divers scoured the murky waters for ten days, but could find no sign of Dries Kruger. Drown victims normally surface within three to four days as their gastric gasses expand, making the body rise to the surface.
But not in this case.
Dries Kruger was still missing more then a week after his boat had sunk.
However, the police were now convinced he had died in the water, but without a body, he would remain 'presumed missing'.

On the tenth day of the search, just as the police divers and search parties were beginning to think of packing it in and going home, Dries Kruger's body was found floating more then two and a half kilometers south of the bridge. He was naked except for his tracksuit trousers and shorts. The fact that Dries had hardly been dressed in the middle of July, in the dead of winter on a night the temperature had plunged far enough to turn the water in Stan Bank's kettle to ice, was very strange.

EXTRACT TAKEN FROM 'THE SHALLOW GRAVE$ AND OTHER TRUE CRIME STORIES'



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