Married couple stabbed and thrown to crocodiles before remains found floating in river

TWO tourists brutally stabbed to death and then dumped in a crocodile-infested river in the world-famous Kruger National Park have sparked a huge police manhunt for their brutal killers.

Retirees Ernst Marais, 71, and his wife Dina, 73, were visiting South Africa’s top nature reserve on the eve of its 100th birthday when it is feared they ran into poachers at an elephant crossing.

The SA couple from Mossel Bay had driven 1100 miles from their retirement village on the coast to spend a week viewing the Big Five of elephant, rhino, buffalo, lion, and leopard while on safari.

They were staying close to the Kruger’s Parfuri Gate in the north of the game park, the size of Wales, when they vanished on Wednesday after failing to return to their overnight accommodation.

The Kruger National Park is the game reserve jewel in the crown for South Africa and is visited by nearly 1 million tourists a year, many of them British, American, and German, to go on safari.

The grisly murders are the first within its borders in its century-long history after the area reserved for wildlife by then-President Paul Kruger was made into the first official national park in 1926.

The repercussions for the $406 million (£350m) a year tourist trade have shocked South Africa, which fears an exodus until the killers are caught and a reassurance from the South African authorities that the area is safe.

The bodies were discovered by a group of tourists on Friday morning, viewing a herd of elephants crossing at a notorious viewing spot called Crook’s Corner, when they spotted them floating in the river.

Crook’s Corner got its notorious name in the 1880’s as a small area of “no-mans-land” where South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique meet at the confluence of the rivers Limpopo and Luvhuvhu.

It was a small triangle of land where, back in the day, ivory poachers, gun runners, slave traders, and murderers on the run hid from the authorities and were avoided as a danger spot for the law.

It is believed their hands had been tied behind their backs and they had been repeatedly stabbed in the upper body before being dragged to the River Limpopo and dumped for the Nile crocodiles.

The horrified Kruger guests watched over the lifeless and blood-soaked bodies after raising the alarm to summon South African National Park game rangers and police to the remote scene.
The bodies were discovered by a group of tourists on Friday morning, -Credit:Google.com

They had already been looking for them since they were reported missing on Thursday morning after the maid at their safari camp said that their room had not been slept in overnight as expected.

A Kruger National Park source said: “It was hoped that they had gone off road and broken down after heavy local floods somewhere, but then we got a call to say two bodies had been found.

“They were in the river at Crook’s Corner, which has a bit of a notorious reputation, and when our rangers got to the scene, they pulled the two bodies up onto the riverbank to wait for police.

“Both had been stabbed in what was clearly a very brutal attack and had been thrown into the river, no doubt for the crocs, and their 4 x 4 had been stolen, so this is a very major incident for us.

“We have never had an incident like this in the history of the Kruger and we are praying that this does not cause a major tourist knee-jerk reaction who decide it is no longer a safe place for them to visit."

“This is an extremely safe national park, and this has shocked us all,” she said.

A South African police source who refused to be named said they suspected the couple may have unexpectedly run into a group of poachers who killed them to prevent them from raising the alarm.

He said: “Their pick-up truck would have been an easy way to transport anything they were carrying if they were smugglers, and there are unfenced ways to get across the river into Mozambique.

“A large manhunt is underway, focusing on the assumption they are already out of the Kruger”.

The couple lived in a retirement village, the Fynboshoogte Lifestyle Estate at Mossel Bay on the famous Garden Route, a popular route for British tourists running between Port Elizabeth and Cape Town.

The married couple also had a home on a wildlife estate at Hoedespruit in an area known as The Valley of the Elephants, close to the Kruger National Park, which they both visited regularly.

A neighbour in Mossel Bay said, “The police came knocking on their door on Friday morning to see if they had returned from the Kruger early, and then we heard Ernst and Dina had been found dead.

“They were a lovely couple who loved going on safari, and the residents are all in shock,” she said.

The Kruger National Park is set in 7,500 sq miles in the north-east of the country, in the Limpopo and Mpumalanga Provinces, and is 220 miles long from north to south and 40 miles east to west.

This year’s I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here TV special was billed as being in the Kruger but was in fact held just outside their borders, although the celebrity contestants were all visitors.

The chaotic final was won by Adam Thomas, who was crowned King of the Jungle, with Mo Farah runner-up, with angry recriminations still ongoing from the Ant & Dec-fronted hit TV show.

Just last month, pop sensation Dua Lipa posted photographs of herself and her fiancé, Callum Turner, on safari in the Kruger on Instagram, with her posing in front of wild elephants and zebras.

In 1947, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (later to be the Queen Mother) visited the Kruger with their daughters, Princesses Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II) and Margaret.

KNP spokesman Rey Thakhuli confirmed: “A search operation was launched on Thursday, 21 May 2026, evening, after Parfuri camp staff noticed that two tourists had not returned to camp.

“The search continued on Friday, 22 May 2026, leading to the gruesome discovery of two bodies near a river area, which had been reported by other tourists, and our park rangers were alerted.

“It is the first time in the history of the Kruger National Park that an incident of this nature has been reported. Everything is being done to track those responsible and bring them to justice,” he said.

A South African Police Spokesman said: "We are investigating two counts of murder and one of hijacking, and at present we have made no arrests but are following up very strong leads".

Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Willie Aucamp said the families of the victims had been notified of the tragedy and were on the way to the Kruger to identify the couple.

He said: “On behalf of SANParks and the department, we fully extend our sincere condolences to the family and friends of the victims during this extremely difficult time and are doing all we can”.