True Crime

The Disappearance of Paige Renkoski

Hello, my loyal true crime readers! I'm excited to present a guest post by Michelle. Michelle is a freelance writer and the owner of Unsubs Central, a true crime blog where she writes book and film reviews about serial killers. This is her first article dedicated to a missing persons case. As a fellow Michigander, this case was one of the earliest cases that made a deep impression on her, and the one that foretold her interest in true crime. You can reach out to Michelle on Twitter and Instagram to discuss this case or just to chat about true crime.

Enjoy the guest post ~ Christine

Introduction

It was May 24, 1990, the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend. It's a time when many Michiganders partake in the time-honored tradition of going up north. For those in the mitten state, traveling on a holiday weekend is hectic and stressful. Long drives and congested roads, therefore, push many to leave for their mini-vacations on Thursday to avoid the hassle. It was on this day, at somewhere between 3:15 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., that Paige Renkoski was last seen alive on one of the busiest highways in the state and a main thoroughfare for those traveling to Lake Michigan for the weekend. There are no reports of anyone seeing Paige after about 4:30 p.m.

Born on February 2, 1960 in Lansing, Michigan, Paige was working as a substitute teacher. She had hoped to work with deaf students. Engaged to be married in November of that year, she was living in DeWitt, Michigan. In addition to mother Ardis and father Carl, she had three sisters, Tami, Michele, and Sheril. Her family fondly remembers her love of skateboarding, singing, and swimming. They describe her as a tomboy with a bubbly personality (Roose-Church).

Case Details

Earlier on the day of her disappearance, Paige dropped her mother off at the Detroit Metropolitan airport and then stopped to visit a friend in Canton, Michigan. Between 2:30 p.m. and 2:45 p.m., she stopped at a liquor store for beer before heading westbound on I-96 on her way home. Paige was driving a 1986 silver Cutlass Calais; the car belonged to her mother's employer.

At about 6 p.m. near Fowlerville exit 129, police found the Cutlass with its lights on, the keys in the ignition, and the car running. The driver's side door was closed but unlocked, while the passenger side door was closed and locked. Her purse and shoes were in the car. Initially, the scene was treated as an abandoned car, so the car was tagged and towed without being processed as a crime scene.

Vehicle interior

Many witnesses report seeing Paige and the car she was driving. Many witnesses report her talking to a man. Some say she was talking to two men. Most witnesses report a burgundy minivan parked near, but others said it was a white pickup truck, or a red cargo van, or a black truck with an emblem. As one can imagine, considering the passage of time and the fact that most eyewitness testimony was from people in cars traveling at 65 miles per hour, the information received varies dramatically. The Livingston County Sheriff's Department estimates that at least 80% of nearly 800 tips report Paige speaking to an African American man, while others say a Hispanic man. A few witnesses state they saw a man leaning with his hand on the Cutlass, and in fact fingerprints and a palm print have been lifted from the car. Unfortunately to this day, no match has been made on any of those prints. At the time of her disappearance, Paige was wearing a white silk shirt with multi-colored loose fitting pants and a long beaded necklace.

Composite sketches of person(s) of interest

The Letter

About six months after Paige disappeared, investigators received a letter with a map enclosed. The letter reads: the information may be a "red herring however I have recently come into some information about Paige...that may or may not be true. I have tried to verify as much of this information as I could and have found many of the details to be true." The author continues to say that the map is the "supposed route taken by her abductors." The unsigned letter ends with, "Thank you for your attention to this." In November 2011, using the map, the FBI, state, and local police excavated a property in Conway Township, but no remains were found. According to an article in the Lansing State Journal, though, investigators "may have read the map incorrectly." There are no reports of further attempts to search the area (Roose-Church).

Possible Theories

Someone impersonating a police officer? The same year Paige disappeared, a woman reported to police that a man pulled up beside her and flashed a police badge in an attempt to get her to pull over near the same area where Paige disappeared.

Was it a staged accident? There was slight damage to front of the Cutlass Calais, but per investigators, it was not "overly glaring" (Roose-Church).

Suspects

Quite simply, no viable suspects have ever emerged in Paige's disappearance. While there have been persons of interest, including a 17 year old who flunked a polygraph test, there has not been enough evidence to charge anyone with a crime.

Update

May of 2019 marks 29 years that Paige has been missing. After years of tireless devotion advocating for missing persons, Paige's mother, Ardis, passed away in December 2017. In 2015, her family created a Go Fund Me page that raises money for cold case teams around the country. I recently spoke with Deputy Edwin Moore of the Livingston County Sheriff's Office and while investigators continue to work on solving the disappearance of Ms. Renkoski, according to Deputy Moore, investigators have "no new news items to release that have not already been released.

https://thetruecrimefiles.com/paige-renkoski-disappearance/