A vehicle parking near Curtis Sagmoen's property. The occupants worked in the sex trade industry.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED: Anonymous

Two young girls rushing to catch the school bus from their Silvercreek home Oct. 15 noticed a strange vehicle in their rural neighbourhood.

The girls had a brief exchange with the man and two women in the vehicle, then while on the bus, one of the girls texted her mom about the weird experience and one sentence told their mother all she needed to know.

The women in the car “didn’t really have any clothes on.”

Sex trade workers searching for addresses and clients might seem unusual in many rural areas — but not on Salmon River Road, which has been made somewhat famous by Curtis Sagmoen for doing this exact same thing.

"I was really, really mad," the neighbour told iNFOnews.ca.

Police have since made a public statement about that day, but haven’t explained the details or why Sagmoen hasn’t been charged with breaching his probation. The neighbour’s account of that day may help clear that up.

READ MORE: Curtis Sagmoen sentenced on mischief charge

She’s neighbours with Sagmoen, which is why she agreed to speak about the incident she reported to police, only if she remains anonymous.

Sagmoen, born in 1980, lives on the nearby property where the body of 18-year-old Traci Genereaux was found after an extensive search of the property by RCMP investigators, aided by plenty of earth movers and equipment. Sagmoen hasn’t been charged in Genereaux’s death, nor has anyone else, but the presence of the three people in the car was disturbingly similar to a pattern of behaviour that earned Sagmoen a lengthy probation order as well as strict orders to have no contact with sex trade workers.

Three times he has been convicted for similar offences, generally involving calling sex trade workers to the remote rural North Okanagan area, then assaulting or scaring them without ever engaging in their services or paying them. Genereaux was also known to work in the sex trade.

At one of his trials, it was made clear that he was broke and couldn’t afford them so he seemed to gain some pleasure in scaring them instead.

So when the neighbour got the text from her daughter, she went to investigate. 

READ MORE: Sex workers called to notorious rural area near Sagmoen family property: RCMP

Several properties share the same long driveway which sits adjacent to Sagmoen's parent's property and that's roughly where she found the vehicle. They told her they'd come from Kelowna and had been waiting since 4 a.m. One woman showed her a back-and-forth text message conversation with a person who never appeared. The person messaging said they would be there soon, but never showed up. The person who lived at the address they'd been called to was away at the time.

"She kept telling me, 'they owe us $1,600, they owe us $1,600,'" the neighbour said. "At this point, I'm freaking out because I know all this stuff that had happened."

She said this has happened several times over the years — people trespassing on her large property and on the private driveway. The police had been called multiple times.

She called the RCMP this time and reported the incident and police responded right away, she said. She told them about the vehicle and where it was headed and she believes police managed to find the vehicle and speak to the occupants.

Police warned sex trade workers privately, then when the incident became public, put out a general notice about the incident, reminding people about his bail conditions.

In 2017, Sagmoen called a sex worker to his family’s home and when she arrived at the same long driveway, he ambushed her and pointed a gun at her.

Just weeks before, Sagmoen laid a homemade spike belt across the same driveway and destroyed the tires of a woman's Jeep. He was later convicted of mischief.

READ MORE: Curtis Sagmoen had history of calling sex workers to his North Okanagan home: Lawyer

Also in 2017, he called another woman to his family's home and when she exited the vehicle on the driveway at night, he hit her with his quad. 

During Sagmoen's December 2019 trial, the court heard that in the summer of 2017, cars full of people often turned up in the area near Sagmoen's property. People in the vehicles were looking for him and telling the neighbours he owed them money.

During court appearances for both Sagmoen’s convictions in December 2019 and June 2020, the sex trade workers talked of multiple text messages to confusing addresses. One testified she went to the long driveway on one occasion months before she was assaulted and no one showed up.

If Sagmoen was responsible for the sex workers arriving in the driveway at Oct. 15, 2020, it would be a clear breach of his probation and land him back in front of a judge.

But so far, he hasn't been charged with any breaches of his probation, suggesting either it wasn’t him or police can’t tie him to the text messages requesting services.

Following Sagmoen's December 2019 conviction for ambushing the sex worker, he was released from custody due to time already served and put on 36 months strict probation. His probation mandates that he live at his parent's property at 2290 Salmon River Road and he needs written permission to spend a night away from home.

He's also prohibited from having any contact, "in any way" with any sex trade workers.

READ MORE: Sagmoen guilty of ambushing sex trade worker

Sagmoen's conditions also prohibit him from using any device capable of accessing the Internet. He is allowed to own a cell phone but it can only be used to contact his probation officer, lawyer, immediate family, or "local day-to-day activities" related to the family farm. As well as monitoring his cell phone, Sagmoen must also turn over his cell phone bills to his probation officer with details of all his phone calls and text messages. He's also not allowed to delete his call or text history.

Following his conviction in June for deliberately driving his quad into the escort in 2017, Sagmoen was given a five-month jail term but didn't get locked up as he was still owed credit for having spent more than two years in custody prior to the December 2019 trial. His probation order was amended slightly but mostly stays the same.

The neighbour said since Sagmoen was released last December things have been largely quiet until the Oct. 15 incident. She said she has a decent relationship with the Sagmoen family and her teenage daughters would visit the house when his mother, Evelyn, was home.

However, the Oct. 15 incident has changed the way she feels.

"I feel like we're being terrorized," she said. "There are people living in fear because people will not stay off of their property. These weren't such random people sitting at the end of the driveway, they had been there for hours."

She said she's put up cameras at her house and another neighbour has a multitude of surveillance equipment at their property.

READ MORE: Curtis Sagmoen won't do jail time for driving quad into sex worker

"We can't just move, it's not that easy," she said.

She said she'd prefer it if Sagmoen wasn't at his parents' house.

"I didn't want him there and nobody else wanted him there, as far as I'm concerned he shouldn't be there right now," she said.

The neighbour said she gave a statement to the police following the incident and is sure the police spoke to the sex trade workers.

"I don't know what the cops are going to do, but I feel there is enough reason he shouldn't be there," she said.

For more stories on Curtis Sagmoen go here.

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