The afternoon sun was warm on May 24, 1990, as drivers along Interstate 96 in Livingston County, Michigan, sped past a scene that would haunt investigators for decades. A silver Oldsmobile sat idling on the shoulder, its headlights cutting through the haze, windshield wipers still swiping across the glass as a rainstorm passed. Inside, a pair of shoes rested on the floorboard near the driver’s seat.
A purse lay untouched. A 40-ounce beer, partially poured into a fast-food cup, sat in the cup holder. The engine was running.
But the woman who belonged to that car, 30-year-old Paige Renkoski, was gone. She had vanished without a scream, without a struggle, without a single trace, leaving behind a mystery that has now stretched 35 years and recently exploded back into the headlines with a 𝓈𝒽𝓸𝒸𝓀𝒾𝓃𝑔 new suspect.
Paige was a woman who moved through the world lightly, her sister Michelle once said. She had blonde hair, blue eyes, and a smile that made strangers feel like friends. She worked at an educational care center in Lansing, studying child development, and was engaged to a man named Steve De Brabander, building a quiet life in DeWitt Township.
That Thursday began like any other. Paige offered to drive her mother, Artis, to Detroit Metro Airport for a flight to Atlanta to visit Michelle. They left around 11:30 a.
m. , chatting through the hour-and-a-half drive, nothing heavy, nothing out of the ordinary. After dropping Artis off, Paige planned to meet a friend in Canton Township, about 30 miles southwest of the airport.
She spent a couple of hours there, walking through a local park, stopping for frozen yogurt at TCBY, and later ending up at another friend’s house. By around 2:30 p. m.
, she said her goodbyes and headed back to her car.
Before getting on the freeway, Paige made one last stop at a party store on Ford Road, just west of Interstate 275. The woman working behind the counter would later become a crucial witness. She remembered Paige clearly, not because anything seemed wrong, but because Paige stood out.
She was wearing loose, multicolored pants with a bold flower pattern and a long beaded necklace. The clerk complimented her on it. They exchanged a few casual words.
Paige bought a 40-ounce beer, poured some into a fast-food cup, sealed the bottle, and walked back out to her car. That was sometime between 2:30 and 2:45 p. m.
From there, she merged onto Interstate 96 westbound and started the drive home to Okemos, where she had a service appointment scheduled for 4:30 p. m.
The trip from Canton to Okemos takes about an hour. For most of that drive, Paige would have been indistinguishable from everyone else on the road, one car among thousands moving across Michigan’s highways on a Thursday afternoon. Multiple witnesses later reported seeing her silver Oldsmobile on I-96.
A couple of long-haul truckers recalled an attractive blonde woman behind the wheel driving west. One person believed they may have seen her at a rest stop, though investigators were never able to confirm that sighting. What is known for certain is that Paige made it as far as Livingston County, roughly halfway through her drive home.
And that is where the record starts to fracture.
Sometime between about 3:15 and 4:30 p. m. , Paige pulled her car onto the shoulder of Interstate 96, roughly a quarter mile east of the Flowerfield exit.
It was close enough to the off-ramp that if she needed help, she could have reached a gas station or a restaurant in under a minute. But instead, she stopped right there. Investigators later determined there were no mechanical issues with the car.
The gas tank was full. There was no visible damage. Nothing to suggest an emergency that required her to pull over.
So why would she stop? And where did she go?
This is where witness accounts become both crucial and frustratingly incomplete. The people who saw her were passing by at highway speeds, 60 to 70 miles an hour. They had only seconds to take in the scene, but several noticed something unusual enough that it stayed with them.
Across multiple statements, one detail kept coming up: a maroon or burgundy minivan. Some witnesses said it was parked in front of Paige’s car. Others believed it was behind.
Either way, most agreed it was stopped close to her vehicle right there on the shoulder. And Paige was not alone. According to reports, she was seen talking to two men in between the vehicles.
One person recalled that she appeared to be gesturing with her hands, the way someone does when they are explaining something. The man had a hand resting on her shoulder. Nothing about it looked frantic.
Nothing appeared overly threatening. To anyone driving past, it would have looked like two people having a conversation on the side of the road. That relative calmness is what makes the moment so unsettling.
One witness, an off-duty law enforcement officer, later said he came away with a very specific impression as he drove past. He recalled seeing a man standing near the front of Paige’s silver Oldsmobile, his arm extended as if he were showing her something in his hand. In that moment, the officer assumed he was looking at a traffic stop, that the man might be a plainclothes or off-duty officer displaying a badge.
That detail matters. Paige’s father had worked in law enforcement herself. She would have grown up with a clear understanding of police authority: to pull over when signaled, to comply, not to argue or question.
If someone presented a badge to her, whether legitimate or not, there is little reason to believe she would have challenged it.
And there is another detail that deepens the mystery. When Paige pulled over, she took off her shoes. Investigators later found them on the floorboard near the driver’s seat.
Driving barefoot is not unusual, but leaving your car barefoot on a gravel shoulder and stepping away from your vehicle on the side of a busy freeway without your purse, without your shoes, in the middle of the afternoon, that is harder to explain. Unless she believed she was only stepping out briefly, say, to speak with a police officer.
By around 6:00 p. m. that evening, a deputy with the Livingston County Sheriff’s Department responded to reports of an abandoned vehicle along the interstate.
When he arrived, the Oldsmobile was still running. The headlights were on. A rainstorm had moved through, and the windshield wipers were still sweeping back and forth.
Inside the car, he saw Paige’s purse, her shoes, and the beer she had purchased earlier that afternoon. With no missing person report yet filed and no immediate signs of a crime, the situation was treated as what it appeared to be: an abandoned vehicle. The deputy shut off the engine, locked the doors, tagged the car for towing, and left the scene.
No photographs were taken. Nothing was handled the way a proper crime scene would be. The exact location of the car was not even properly documented.
That means that when investigators later understood that Paige was missing, that this was not simply an abandoned vehicle, whatever potential evidence existed along that stretch of road was already gone. That is one of the most difficult realities of this case. From the very beginning, there were missteps that could not be undone.
At the same time, Paige’s family had no idea anything was wrong. Her mother, Artis, was in Atlanta with Michelle. Paige’s fiance, Steve, was waiting for her to show up at his softball game, assuming she was just running late.
Earlier that evening, the sheriff’s department had left a voicemail at Artis’s house saying they had located Paige’s car on the side of the road, but Artis was not home to hear it. The message sat on that answering machine unheard as the hours passed. It was not until later that the worry really set in.
Paige had not called to say she had made it home, something she normally would have done. In a time before cell phones, staying connected meant landlines and answering machines, and silence carried more weight. When neither Michelle nor Artis could reach her, they called Steve and asked him to check the messages at the house.
That is when he heard the voicemail. That is when the day shifted from confusion to fear. The family finally realized this was not a delay or a miscall or a harmless mix-up.
Something was seriously wrong.
Steve contacted the DeWitt Township police to report that his fiance was missing. From there, the case was transferred to Livingston County, where her car had been found. By Saturday, investigators finally processed the Oldsmobile as a crime scene.
Inside the vehicle, they recovered roughly 20 other fingerprints scattered throughout the car from someone who was not Paige. They also found palm prints on the trunk, positioned in a way that suggested someone had been leaning against it. When those prints were run through law enforcement databases, nothing came back.
Whoever they belonged to had no record in the system.
In the weeks and months that followed, investigators worked through every lead they could identify. The maroon minivan seen near Paige’s car became a central focus. Witnesses told police they saw Paige standing on the shoulder of the road speaking with a man next to a minivan.
The majority of those accounts, roughly 80 percent, described the man as black. Others believed he may have been Hispanic. The descriptions varied enough that investigators turned to police sketch artists, producing multiple composite drawings over the years.
One sketch from the late 1990s depicted a smaller frame man. Years later, after hundreds of more tips came in, the prevailing description shifted, now pointing towards someone taller. None of these sketches led to an arrest.
This case drew an enormous amount of public attention, not just because Paige disappeared, but because of where it happened. In the middle of the afternoon on a heavily traveled highway, with witnesses who saw her standing there and assumed everything was fine. Over time, investigators received more than 1,200 tips.
Every one of them was followed up on. Searches were conducted across rural Livingston County using cadaver dogs and ground penetrating radar. Properties were examined.
Fields and wooded areas were combed. Then in 2011, investigators received something very interesting and also very creepy. It was a hand-drawn map sent in anonymously.
It was detailed and carefully labeled, showing what appeared to be directions from the Interstate 96 exit to a wooded area nearby. The map came with a cryptic note suggesting it might be a red herring, but stating that the sender had verified what they could. From there, investigators searched the area shown on the map, and they found nothing.
More years passed, and Paige’s absence never softened for her family. Her mother became an advocate for missing persons, channeling her grief into action. She helped establish Michigan’s annual Missing in Michigan conference and worked relentlessly to keep Paige’s case visible, not just for her daughter, but for other families navigating the same unanswered questions.
In December of 2017, Artis passed away without ever learning what had actually happened to Paige.
Over the years, investigators repeatedly examined and ruled out the people closest to her. Paige’s fiance, Steve, was cleared multiple times. He remained in contact with the family and continued cooperating with law enforcement.
With no evidence pointing towards him, detectives were forced to look elsewhere. That search eventually expanded to men already known to police. Investigators considered several serial offenders who had been active in Michigan around the time Paige disappeared.
Arthur Ream, with a documented history of violence stretching back decades, often targeting young women along roadways. Gary Artis was suspected in multiple killings in the state, though the full scope of his crimes has never clearly been established. And then there was Samuel Little, a name that at the time did not stand out.
Years later, though, he would confess to dozens of murders across the country, including killings in Michigan during that exact same period. Each of them was investigated, but none could be definitively linked to Paige. With no physical evidence and no confirmed suspect, the case slowly went quiet.
Not because it stopped mattering, but because there was nowhere left to push.
Last year, 35 years after Paige disappeared, something new finally happened. Detectives in neighboring Washtenaw County made an arrest in an entirely separate cold case. A man named Buster Robins was charged with the murder of Beverly Wivel, a 30-year-old woman who had been killed back in September of 1989.
DNA collected from her at the time of her death had been preserved. And in 2024, it was sent for forensic genealogy testing. The result pointed to Robins.
That is when investigators began looking more closely at the details of Beverly Wivel’s case and noticed similarities that were difficult to ignore. Beverly had been sleeping in her car in Canton Township after dropping her son off at school. At some point, she was abducted from the vehicle, assaulted, and then shot.
Her body was later found along Gotfredson Road in Superior Township. But what stood out most was what happened to her car. It was discovered later that same night back in Canton Township.
The engine was still running, the driver’s door was open, and her purse was still inside. When investigators laid the two cases side by side, the overlap was striking. Both women were 30 years old.
Both cases involved Canton Township. In both, the victim’s vehicle was found running with shoes and purse left behind. Beverly was killed in September of 1989, and Paige vanished just eight and a half months later in May of 1990.
And there was one more detail. According to investigators, Robins was driving a vehicle in 1989 and 1990 that resembled an unmarked police car, a late-model Chrysler New Yorker. A witness in Beverly Wivel’s case reported seeing a blue vehicle with a white top speeding away from the scene, matching that description.
Court records show that Robins had worked as a reserve police officer during that period. If he had access to a badge, even a reserve officer’s badge, it raises a troubling possibility. That kind of authority could explain how Paige was convinced to pull over in the first place.
It brings us back to that off-duty officer who drove past and believed he was witnessing someone flashing a badge on the shoulder of the road.
But this is also where the case becomes more complicated. Despite the DNA evidence linking Robins to Beverly Wivel’s murder, a district court judge declined to bind the case over for trial in March of last year. Robins’ attorneys argued that the DNA evidence only proves he had 𝒔𝒆𝒙 with her, not that he killed her.
The judge said in court, quote, I believe there is more to this story. At the same time, the judge acknowledged Robins as both dangerous and a flight risk, ordering him held on a $5 million bond. Prosecutors immediately appealed the decision.
During those proceedings, prosecutors also referenced other investigations involving Robins. These included allegations raised by his wife during divorce filings, describing coercive and non-consensual arrangements involving other men. Investigators also reported finding inappropriate and illegal materials on a tablet belonging to Robins.
None of those allegations have been adjudicated in court, but taken together, they paint a picture investigators say is deeply concerning of someone accused of long-term predatory behavior operating for years without being stopped.
For Paige’s family and for detectives who have lived with this case for decades, it raises a difficult question once again. Was this the man they had been looking for all along? Setting aside everything surrounding Robins, investigators continue to work Paige’s case.
Even with advancements in forensic technology, there still is not a clear answer. The fingerprints and palm prints recovered from Paige’s car have been run through law enforcement databases multiple times over the years, always with the same result: no matches. In terms of connecting those to Robins, the results have not been publicly released.
Whether they match or not, either way, it would change how investigators work the case. At some point, the truth on that front should be heard.
Right now, with physical evidence offering few answers, the cold case team is focused on three primary theories as to what really went down on Highway 96. The first is that Paige knew the person who took her. While investigators have not ruled it out, there is little evidence to support it.
The odds of encountering someone she knew on a random stretch of interstate, someone with both the opportunity and intent to harm her, are considered low. The second theory involves a staged accident or request for help, a scenario where someone created a situation that caused Paige to pull over. But again, the physical evidence does not strongly support it.
There was no meaningful damage to Paige’s car, and the maroon minivan witnesses described did not appear to be disabled or damaged either. The third theory centers on authority. Investigators believe Paige may have been convinced to pull over by someone posing as a law enforcement officer.
This explanation accounts for details that otherwise do not make sense: why she stopped just short of an exit instead of continuing to safety, why she stepped out of her car barefoot, and why she left her purse behind. If Paige believed she was being stopped by police, compliance would have been instinctive. She would not have questioned it, and she would not have felt immediate danger.
By the time she realized something was wrong, investigators believe it may have already been too late.
For now, the connection to Buster Robins remains under investigation. The similarities between Beverly Wivel’s murder and Paige’s disappearance are significant enough that detectives cannot ignore them. But similarities are not proof.
The cold case team knows that better than anyone. It is still too early to say whether Robins played any role in what actually happened to Paige. But as changed as this, for the first time in years, investigators have a lead they can actively test.
Prosecutors in the county continue to fight to bring Robins to trial in Beverly Wivel’s murder. The appeals process is ongoing, and in the meantime, Robins remains in custody on a $5 million bond, facing allegations that stretch back decades.
Paige Renkoski should be 59 years old today. She would have lived a full life, built a career, grown older alongside the people who loved her, marked time in ways none of us ever think about until they are taken away. Instead, she exists in fragments, a photograph on a missing person’s poster, a case file in a sheriff’s office.
Thirty-five years is a long time, but it is not long enough to stop looking for someone you love. Anyone with information about Paige’s disappearance is urged to contact the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office at 517-540-7880 or email coldcasetips@livgov. com.
Even now, after more than three decades, a single detail could be the only thing that finally brings answers home.
