Salmon Arm human remains not those of St. Catharines woman
Human remains found at a British Columbia farm where RCMP have been conducting extensive searches have been identified as those of one of several women who have gone missing in B.C.’s north Okanagan.
Police said no charges have been laid in connection with Traci Genereaux’s death, which is being treated as suspicious.
An autopsy has been completed but the results are not being released, the RCMP said in a news release Wednesday evening.
RCMP have said five women including Genereaux have gone missing in the same area of the north Okanagan in the past 20 months, including St. Catharines woman Ashley Simpson who went missing in April 2016.
Police have not linked any of the other cases with the search of the farm.
Police said Genereaux’s family has been notified and they’re being offered support from victim assistance workers. Darcy Genereaux said his daughter went missing in May and the RCMP asked him for a blood sample last week.
Mounties began searching the rural property near Salmon Arm last month and announced the discovery of human remains on Oct. 21.
The investigation of the 10- hectare property located on Salmon River Road is ongoing and police said they’re working to establish a timeline of Genereaux’s whereabouts on the days leading up to May 29 when she was last heard from in Vernon, B.C.
The property is not far from where Simpson was living in a camper with her boyfriend Derek Favell, who she met while employed at a work camp in northern B.C. Genereaux’s father has described his daughter — who he said would have turned 19 on Oct. 4 — as artistic, funny and loud.
“She got out of her bad decisions, got back to being happy and she was the life of the party. She didn’t need a party, she was just the life of it,” he said in an interview earlier this week.
Although police have not linked the property search to any other cases, Cpl. Dan Moskaluk said in the news release: “All other families that have been publicly linked to the ongoing investigation by the media were also contacted and made aware of the investigational update.”
A forensics team specializing in recovering evidence was brought in to help last week and Mounties said the underwater recovery team had been conducting searches of the Salmon River, which runs through the property.
Police said due to the size of the property, number of buildings and terrain, more resources and equipment have since been brought in. A timeline of completing the search has not been set and police are calling the investigation “fluid.”
A title search shows the property is owned by Wayne and Evelyn Sagmoen.
It is not know whether they are related to Curtis Wayne Sagmoen, who was charged Oct. 17 with disguising his face with intent to commit an offence, uttering threats and weapons offences.
The charges came after police issued a warning to “the general public and women sex workers” about a possible risk around Salmon River Road after a incident on Aug. 28 when a woman was allegedly threatened with a firearm.