TWO YOUTHS MISSING

Press, Volume C, Issue 29699, 18 December 1961, Page 17

TWO YOUTHS MISSING

Both Feared Drowned (NJZ. Press Association) PALMERSTON NORTH, December 17. . Two youths, aged 17 and 15, one of whose calls for help to a young girl with whom they had been swimming, was thought to be a joke, are believed to have been drowned in the Manawatu river at Shannon today. Their names were not available until the next-of-kin have been informed. The boys, with the young girl, were swimming in the river about 4 pun. at the end of the old Foxton read. The boys moved away from the girl. One went into the middle of the river, and the other to the side. The boy who had swum out called out for help, but the girl thought he was joking. She later got out of the water and walked along the bank. Willows obstructed her view of the water and when she was abreast of the spot where she had last seen the youths, they had disappeared. The girl went back to the car in which they were travelling, thinking the boys were hiding from her. She waited for an hour and they did not arrive. The police were informed at 7.45 p.m. and although the river was searched, there was no sign of their bodies.

Constable F. C. Monteith, of Shannon, raid the river current was not particularly strong where the boys disappeared.