North Wales police confirm two bodies, that of a man and a woman, have been recovered from the River Clywedog near Wrexham.
Police say they couple, named locally as 25-year old David Platt and 27-year old Alicia Williams, lived locally. The force says it is treating the deaths as unexplained and have appealed for witnesses.
Mr Platt’s uncle told Channel 4 News reporter Ciaran Jenkins the family is “in bits”.
A member of the public spotted a woman’s body on a sandbank in the River Clywedog, near Wrexham, north Wales, shortly after 5pm on Wednesday evening.
As a result of police searches connected to the discovery, a second body, thought to be a man, was found in the river in the early hours of Thursday.
The River Clywedog was swollen on Wednesday following heavy rain and North Wales Fire Service’s water recovery team had been assisting the search.
Witness Michael Morgan, who works at a car wash close to the entrance to Erddig Country Park, said he was alerted by a whippet which came into the car wash.
He said: “I was on my knees buffing a car and I turned round and there was a dog licking my ear. “It’s happened before when people come in off the park saying their dogs have run off. But this dog was too good for a stray, he was in beautiful condition.
“So I said I would take it up to the field and have a look in case the owner has had a fall or got their car stuck in mud or whatever.”
Mr Morgan went into the park and saw three more dogs sitting beside a Citroen Picasso, which is thought to have belonged to the couple. He described them as two retrievers, one a dark golden brown colour and one white, and a small Jack Russell.
He said: “The whippet was pulling on the rope towards these dogs so I thought obviously he knows them and I said to my colleague we’d tie them up as well.
“But as I turned around an ambulance appeared and the lady said there was somebody hurt and asked for help to get across the field.
“So I went ahead of the vehicle opening the gate. As I got past the third gate, that’s when I saw a lady waving her hands and then across from her was the body lying on the grass on her back.” Mr Morgan said it was a “terrible shock”.
He said he recognised the victim as a regular dog walker in the area. “Everybody is friendly down here,” he said. “People shout out ‘Hiya’ and all that.” He said he believes the whippet, which had a collar but no name, was “definitely” trying to raise the alarm.
“If it wasn’t for the whippet, we wouldn’t have known the dogs were there,” he added. Other locals described the river’s levels in recent days as “horrific”, saying it had risen 4ft (1.2m) since the heavy rain began.
(Picture of River Clywedog courtesy: geograph.org.uk – 1704115)
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