It’s the end of an era at the Daily Voice.
One of our longest-serving journalists, senior reporter Genevieve Serra, packs away her notepad and pen this week.
And with it, she closes the chapter on an incredible 15-year journey at your favourite koerant.
Genevieve, now 39, started her career at the Cape’s first English tabloid when it first hit the streets in 2005.
In those early days, she became the standard bearer of Voice journalism.
A Voice reporter doesn’t sit on their gat and wait all day for the office phone to ring, or a press release to land in their inbox.
No, Genna personified our skrik vir niks motto.
She was a proper field journalist who would go out to get the news, often risking her own safety at grisly murder scenes, gang war zones, violent protests and tense court cases.
Along the way, she’s made plenty of enemies - most of them underworld dik dinge and corrupt officials.
But also many friends in our communities, people whose lives she has changed for the better with her articles.
Some of the many faces she’s met along the way include the Cape’s oldest man, Fredie Blom, whose birthday the Voice would celebrate each year.
CLASSIC: Genevieve with Fredie Blom, Cape’s oldest man
As well as Brian Diamond, the miracle boy who survived a
bullet to the brain.
She was there for the families of missing Matthew Ohlsson and Zephany Nurse.
As a seasoned crime reporter, it’s no exaggeration when Genevieve says she’s covered “40-50” women and child murders.
And given the victims’ families a voice to share their pain, anger and hope for justice.
Growing up in Strandfontein and Mitchells Plain, it was during the Station Strangler’s reign of terror in the 1980s that Genevieve was first exposed to the heinous crimes that would become the focus of her work in later life.
It was a case that captured her imagination, and became the subject of a life-long investigation for her, as she maintains that many aspects of the serial killings remain unsolved.
Old-school investigative journalism was a discipline that Genna excelled at, and the newsdesk could always count on her to delve deeper, to find the story behind the story, to give you, the reader, the full story.
BIG CASE: Strangler
She would approach her work with professionalism, passion and compassion.
And then she’d write the hell out of it... literally.
She famously covered exorcisms with Father Mike Williams.
The special report on Page 4 and 5 of today’s paper is vintage Genevieve Serra - an in-depth scoop on South Africa’s first Satanic Church.
From next week, the sight of Genna and photographic partner Jack Lestrade scouting the Cape Flats for kwaai stories will be missed.
She’s touched the lives of many people in our communities, who will never forget her.
And she’s rubbed off on many of her Voice colleagues over the years.
LOVE: Genna and Voice colleagues
We wish Genevieve well in the next chapter of her life, may it be a successful one.
She will always have a special place in the hearts and history of our newspaper.
In her farewell letter, Genevieve wrote: “I wanted to do a story on my most memorable stories at the paper, but after thinking about it, it brought me back to my reasons for never entering competitions over the years - it was not about me, but about the community and