Friend wants justice for dead teen
Police ramp up search for bodies after troubled 18-year-old’s remains were found at a farm
VERNON — Standing beneath a gentle snowfall on Thursday, Bob Zimmerman broke down in tears in the lane where he last saw his young friend Traci Genereaux.
Hours after remains found on a farm near Salmon Arm were identified as those of the missing Vernon teenager, Zimmerman, 51, described meeting her. It was in spring 2016, after he drove past her as she stood on a curb in his neighbourhood.
Zimmerman, a mill worker who lives in an apartment block near 26th Avenue and 37th Street in Vernon, met Genereaux during a troubled time in her life, when she was dabbling in sex work and struggling with an opioid addiction.
Zimmerman told her she needed to go home to her family.
“She didn’t like doing what she was doing,” he said. “She just wanted out, but she was so scared.”
Over the next year, Zimmerman formed a bond with Genereaux, taking her for cheeseburgers at McDonald’s and checking in on her safety by text message.
On Wednesday, RCMP confirmed the remains found on the farm were those of Genereaux. The 18-yearold’s death is considered suspicious. No charges have been laid.
Curtis Sagmoen, whose parents own the farm, was arrested on unrelated charges last month after he allegedly pulled a firearm on a sex worker behind the sprawling 24-acre property in late August. He’s in custody and set to appear in court on Nov. 23.
Zimmerman said he told police that on May 29, he spotted Genereaux, from his Jeep down the block, as she got into a white, late-model, Chevrolet van marked with a company’s logo.
It was the last time anyone heard from her.
The vehicle was parked tightly against a bush on 26th Avenue, Zimmerman said. He doesn’t know if it was the last vehicle in which Genereaux rode that night.
Zimmerman said that three days later, after not hearing from or seeing Genereaux, he texted her mother, Laurie Nixon, and father, Darcy Genereaux, asking where she was. They hadn’t seen her, either, and filed a missing-person report the next day.
Zimmerman said Genereaux’s mother loved her daughter dearly and formed part of a small network of adults — including a social or youth worker — who kept tabs on the teen.
Genereaux was “just another kid, like any other,” said Zimmerman, who has three adult daughters.
She loved colouring books, particularly a Disney one Zimmerman had given her as a gift, he said. A week before she was in a car accident that broke her spine, she gave him a small plastic space alien figurine that she said would protect him.
They would often discuss how she would overcome her addiction and they would someday go kayaking together.
“It was someone’s kid,” Zimmerman said, choking up.
Thursday, he urged the owner of the van he reported to come forward to police. He wants anyone who saw even a glimpse of the 4-foot-11 redhead that day to tell police where she was going. And he wants justice for Genereaux.
“I hope whoever did it is off the street,” he said. “I’ve had sleepless nights over this. I hope he has many sleepless nights.”
Thursday, RCMP investigators continued their sweeping search of the Sagmoen farm on Salmon River Road.
Four white tents hid detectives’ work as temperatures hovered around zero, potentially affecting the digging and collection of evidence they began two weeks ago. Faint radio chatter could be heard from across a field surrounded by yellow police tape.
Investigators don’t know when they’ll be finished at the site, Cpl. Dan Moskaluk said in a Wednesday news release.
Moskaluk reiterated the importance of the public coming forward with any information about Genereaux’s disappearance and death.
He said investigators are working to form a timeline of her activities on the days leading up to her May 29 disappearance and the days that followed.
Zimmerman said he wishes he’d known how important May 29 had been.
“If I would have known that was the last time I would have seen Traci, I would have stopped right there and I would have dragged her out the van,” he said.