A local man has learned what happened to his sister, who went missing decades ago.
“As a whole person, Genelle was the best of us. She was. For us to lose the best of us… It’s disheartening,” Richard Bradford told Channel 11.
Richard Bradford was only in 6th grade when his big sister, Genelle, disappeared while walking home from school in Wilkinsburg back in April of 1999.
“My grandparents were frantic. Calling the school, all her friends, questioning us. It was deemed that she was a runaway, and that’s when everything stopped,” he said.
Richard didn’t believe Genelle would just up and leave him and their other siblings, who were all being raised by their grandparents after their mother died.
“The feeling was something is not right. I knew it was foul play from the beginning,” he added.
Two months later, and a block away from their family home, police found a woman’s body in the basement of a house. The woman had been strangled and police never identified her.
For the next nearly thirty years, the Bradford family never received an update on Genelle until a few months ago, when they got a call from a county detective who asked them if clothing and a necklace that were found on the woman’s body belonged to their sister.
“My brother looked and was like, ' These are my sister’s things.’ ” And clear as day, you live with someone your whole life; you know what’s theirs and not theirs,” he said.
With the help of a grant to partner with a genealogy cooperation, investigators with County police and the Medical Examiner confirmed the body found in the basement was Genelle. That meant she wasn’t a runaway. She had been murdered.
“That’s the most upsetting about it. My grandfather died not knowing what happened to Genelle. Then my grandma dying, feeling that she failed because she was assuming she ran away,” Richard said.
And for that, he feels angry.
“You have a body that was found so close to home, within a year, and you have a missing person who fits the same description… the past police department and the past detectives… how do you fumble that?"
County detectives tell Channel 11 they have not identified a suspect in Genelle’s death.
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