It’s been two days since remains found at a farm on Salmon River Road near Salmon Arm were confirmed as Traci Genereaux, an 18-year-old Vernon resident who was last seen about five months ago.
In confirming the identity of the remains, the RCMP have called on the public to offer any information that would help advance the investigation into her death.
Coverage of the search of a Salmon River Road farm on Globalnews.ca:
A group of women in Vernon have answered that call.
On Friday, with a kid in a stroller, Meagan Louis set out in the freezing cold with 17-year-old fellow volunteer Emily Wilson-Francis to canvas the city for any tips they can provide the RCMP as part of their investigation.
The Mounties are trying to establish a timeline for Genereaux’s activities in the days leading up to her last sighting in Vernon’s Red Light District on May 29.
Louis and Wilson-Francis want to help.
“We want the family to get the closure that they need,” Louis told Global News.
“Whoever was involved with her death, we want justice brought forward for Traci and her family.”
Louis didn’t know Genereaux herself, but a personal motivation helped to drive her out into the cold and look for tips on Friday.
Louis’ cousin is Danita Faith Bigeagle, a woman who was last seen in Regina, Sask. on Feb. 11, 2007.
Louis also grew up “right smack dab in the middle of the Highway of Tears,” a stretch of Highway 16 in northern B.C. where several women, most of them Indigenous, have been murdered or gone missing.
“Now that it’s really hit home into my family, so close to me, my first cousin, I’ve just sort of taken it upon myself to bring awareness as much as possible,” she said.
“If not in Regina, then here as well.”
READ MORE: A friend of Traci Genereaux hears the news about her remains for the first time
One of the men that Louis spoke to on Friday would only give his name as “Cowboy.”
He said he knew Genereaux but only learned of her death that morning.
Cowboy said the last time he saw her was around the time that she disappeared.
“We’d just been talking, catching up, and then she had to take off,” he told Global News.
“And she just took off with somebody else and I went about my business and never saw her again.”
The farm where Genereaux’s remains were found is owned by the Sagmoen family, and it’s still being investigated by the RCMP.
READ MORE: Traci Genereaux’s mother says her worst fears realized on an Okanagan farm
Curtis Sagmoen, 37, lives there.
He’s been arrested and is facing charges in connection with a separate case that stems from an August incident, in which a man allegedly threatened a sex trade worker with a gun.