'I know somebody took her life:' Ashley Simpson's family still waiting for answers four years after disappearance | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
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'I know somebody took her life:' Ashley Simpson's family still waiting for answers four years after disappearance

Ashley Simpson posted this photo of herself on Facebook on April 11, 2016, just a couple weeks before she disappeared.
Image Credit: Facebook

Cindy Simpson knows that somebody knows something.

April 27 marked the "excruciating" four-year anniversary of her daughter's disappearance.

On April 30, 2016, Ashley Simpson was reported missing. She was living with her boyfriend at a property on Yankee Flats Road, near Enderby, when she went missing.

Police in B.C. haven't confirmed Ashley's disappearance is being treated as a homicide investigation, but one month after Ashley went missing, Cindy reports the Niagara Regional Police came to her Ontario home and informed her the investigation was being treated as such.

"I know somebody took her life and I know that people know about it," Cindy says. "Somebody knows something... there is more than one person who knows and they are being quiet." 

Ashley is one of several women to have gone missing from the area in recent years. Caitlin Potts, Deanna Wertz and Nicole Bell are all still missing. The body of Traci Genereaux was discovered on a Silver Creek property in the fall of 2017. Curtis Sagmoen, whose parents own the property, has since been convicted in separate cases of violence towards women, but no charges have been laid in relation to the discovery of Genereaux's body.

Cindy said she speaks to the RCMP every few weeks and it is always the same.

"It's an open investigation but they have no leads (and) nothing else to go on," she said. "It is such a horrible feeling I look into my family's faces, my husband, Ashley's sisters, my grandchildren, my father, and it breaks my heart every time knowing they're going through some of what I'm going through because somebody else put us in this position."

Cindy says people tell her she is strong but she says people are strong when they need to be, and regardless she has no choice. She spoke to iNFOnews.ca during a break at work. She has to carry on.

"When it gets too much you go into a corner, you cry your eyes out, or you cry yourself to sleep, and when you wake up, you just start all over again," she said. "You never forget, every minute of every day I wonder... that's all that's on my mind. I try and keep busy... but she's always, always, always on my mind."

She describes Ashley as "bubbly and friendly" someone you remember if you met her.

"Just her voice and the tone of her voice made everybody smile," she said.

Cindy says she very seldom smiles herself anymore.

"You can never accept the fact that your child has gone," she said. "I'm praying that we're not like other families that have waited for 15, 20 years."

Cindy reiterates a $10,000 reward - put up by her husband's uncle - still stands.

"All it takes is somebody to say enough is enough (and) call the RCMP," Cindy said. "Just make at least one family's life a little better, it will never be the way it was, but it could be a little better by having Ashley home resting with her family where she belongs."


To contact a reporter for this story, email Ben Bulmer or call (250) 309-5230 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

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