Skin-divers Find Bodies In River

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30405, 2 April 1964, Page 3

Skin-divers Find Bodies In River

(New Zealand Press Association)

INVERCARGILL, April 1. The bodies of two Invercargill men, missing since Monday night, were discovered in a van in the Makarewa river, just upstream from the Wallacetown bridge, by skin-divers today about noon.

The dead men were:— Douglas Dailey, aged 32, of 618 Elies road north, married, with three children; and Ivan Cook, aged 37, of 358 Dee street, married, with four children.

They were principals of Southern Construction, Ltd., and had spent Monday at Nightcaps looking at the site of the new school there. They Were contractors for the control tower at Invercargill airport. The van left the road on the curve on the Wallacetown side of the bridge, ploughed down four concrete road markers, passed between a

telegraph pole and the end of the bridge through a gorse thicket, down a 20ft bank and into the river.

It was found in mid-stream, its nose pointing upstream. It is thought the van rolled end over end several times before coming to rest on its wheels in about 10ft of water. Search Made

Relatives of the dead men became alarmed when they failed to return on Monday night. Yesterday relatives and friends searched roads in the western Southland area.

Today, Mr B. K. Smith, of Janet street, continuing the search, found the flattened roadmarkers and notified the police. Members of the Southland Skindivers’ Club were called to assist and they found the van with the men in it. A wrecking truck from Invercargill, attached to a tractor for anchorage, winched the van from the river just after noon today. The police said today the men had last been seen alive at 7 p.m. on Monday. The van, particularly the rear section and the interior, was extensively damaged. A Transport Department spokesman at the scene said hundreds of cars had passed the spot where the van failed to negotiate the hend, but noone had reported seeing the marker posts down.