Documents obtained by CTV News are shedding light on an alleged violent incident in the Lower Mainland with connections to a rural B.C. farm that was the site of a major missing persons investigation.
The farm in Salmon Arm, where the body of a missing teenage girl was found two months ago after a two-week search, belongs to the family of Curtis Wayne Sagmoen, who is currently in custody on gun charges relating to an incident where a sex worker was allegedly threatened with a gun in August.
But five years before that, Sagmoen owned a townhouse in Maple Ridge, where neighbours remember a chilling incident.
“We just knew there was something very disturbing going on outside,” recalled Kevin Robertson, who lives in the same complex. “It shocks me now to think about it.”
Robertson said in the early afternoon on a January Sunday in 2013, he and his family heard a woman yelling and calling for help while fighting with Sagmoen in a common area in the townhouse complex.
“We heard a bunch of screaming and there was a young lady there. She was lying on the ground, he was on top of her, and she was bleeding and screaming.
“He kept yelling that she had stolen something from him. He ran away, and she was left there bleeding. The RCMP were called, and she said he struck her with a hammer. That’s how it all went down,” Robertson said.
That interview happened in October, but CTV News didn’t report it until we obtained the RCMP’s incident report.
The “General Occurrence Hardcopy” tells a similar story: police were called to the townhouse complex to a report that “there was a male chasing a female southbound on Gilker Hill Road and she was yelling for help. The female yelled the male hit her with a hammer.”
An officer searched the male’s residence but didn’t find a bloody hammer. And another officer tracked the woman down in a cab, but she refused to provide a statement or let the officer view her injuries.
“It appears (the male) was ripped off by a known Surrey prostitute,” the report says. “Neither want to pursue the matter.”
The event was marked “unfounded” and it wasn’t sent to crown counsel to consider the laying of any charges.
That was a mistake, said lawyer Jason Gratl, who represented women at the B.C. Missing Women Inquiry.
He said the inquiry found the RCMP should be sending these cases to a prosecutor, whether or not the victim wants to press charges.
“It’s not for the RCMP to decide whether or not to proceed if a complainant is unwilling to co-operate. That’s a decision in the public interest, which crown counsel should make,” Gratl said.
The RCMP didn’t answer questions about the case specifically in October, claiming privacy, and repeated the line again in response to inquiries about the police report. Mounties also wouldn’t say whether police were looking at any cases in the Lower Mainland that could be connected to the missing women investigation in Salmon Arm.
“The file was classified as being unsubstantiated. As in any investigation classified as unsubstantiated, if new evidence were to come to light, the investigation could be revisited and based on investigative findings reclassified,” wrote Cpl. Janelle Shoihet in an e-mail.
Sagmoen was in a Vernon court today for a bail hearing, but his lawyer requested a two-week adjournment. He remains in custody.
He has not been charged for any offenses in relation to the death of Traci Genereaux, whose body was found on the Sagmoen property.
The people participating in the drone search looking for several outstanding missing women in the area said they were shocked at the news and wondered if there was more to the story.
“I think it’s sickening. This type of violence is horrendous and atrocious and is unacceptable. It should not be happening,” Meagan Louis said.
