3 drown in 2 separate accidents on Meramec River

BOURBON, Mo. -- A pair of separate accidents have claimed the lives of three people on the Meramec River.

The Missouri State Water Patrol says two St. Louis men were swept into deeper water while swimming with friends Sunday near the Meramec Caverns and disappeared. Authorities recovered the body of 27-year-old Sridhar Tekula on Sunday night and the body 30-year-old Suresh Merumu late Monday afternoon.

Around the same time that the men were swept away, 4-year-old Margaret Murphy of Wildwood, Mo., drowned 10 miles upstream.

The Missouri State Water Patrol said the girl was one of five children riding in a canoe when it struck a log jam near the Campbell Bridge and capsized.

Margaret was wearing a life vest but was pinned underwater by the logs and the canoe.

The other four children were saved.