Missing woman's mother refuses to give up hope
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121114/OPINION03/211140331/1409/rss36
"Experts at the National Institute of Justice have called it "the nation's silent mass disaster." Ardis Renkoski calls it a national tragedy.
"The fact that there are as many as 100,000 active missing persons cases in our country and another 40,000 human remains that are unidentified is tragic," Renkoski said recently.
Renkoski is the mother of Paige Renkoski, 30, who vanished 22 years ago after dropping her mother off at the airport. Her 1986 Oldsmobile Cutlass was found along westbound I-96 near the Fowlerville exit, the engine left idling, her purse and shoes inside. Police ruled the case a homicide, even though her body has never been found.
A year ago, just before Thanksgiving, Ardis Renkoski had high hopes investigators might finally have located her daughter. Acting on one of the most promising leads in decades, law enforcement searched in a frost-covered field near where she disappeared. But extensive digging turned up nothing. The renewed grief was like losing her daughter all over again.
Still, as sad as that event was, Renkoski has never given up searching for her daughter, and as long as there is the possibility she might find the answer to what happened to Paige, there's no way she won't turn over every rock.
To that end, Renkoski has been working on proposed state legislation that would promote and encourage the use of NamUs, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, a federal program and database that aims to match missing persons cases with unidentified decedents.
"I'd like it to be called Paige's law," Renkoski said. "But it really doesn't matter what it's called, just so long as the protocol is in place and followed."
The NamUs database provides side-by-side comparisons of missing persons and unidentified remains such as fingerprints, dental records, eye color, height, weight. To be sure, the most expedient matches are those where DNA samples of both the missing person and unidentified remains are on file. But the database is only as good as the information it collects.
While cost is not prohibitive — the NamUs Center for Human Identification in Fort Worth Texas is fully funded to help all states identify their missing and unidentified deceased at no cost — state and local police agencies are not required by law to file missing persons reports with NamUs. Nor do medical examiners or coroners routinely collect DNA samples before disposing of or burying unidentified remains.
So, while the science is there, ready and waiting to solve many of these cases, not enough agencies across the country are putting it to good use.
"The problem is that sharing information and gathering evidence has never been a coordinated effort before," says Renkoski. "So, it's frustrating. You just want to yell: 'Just put it into the system GUYS!!' But, of course, nothing is that simple."
While decidedly humble, ("My friends think it is odd that I continue to pursue this," Renkoski says. "Still, it's my mission.") Renkoski is no lightweight. As the president for 12 years of her local chapter of Parents of Murdered Children Inc., Renkoski was tapped to serve as a victim advocate advisor to the NIJ's multiyear initiative aimed at maximizing the use of forensic DNA in solving missing person crimes.
Last week, for example, she spoke at the National Medical Examiner's 2012 Conference in Mount Pleasant.
Says George Adams, national director of operations for NamUs: "I first started working with Mrs. Renkoski several years ago and she is a passionate and unselfish advocate for the victims and families in the state of Michigan."
Modeled after similar laws now on the books in a handful of states, (California, Kansas, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas) Renkoski's proposed model legislation for Michigan would prohibit the cremation of unidentified remains, require DNA testing of both missing persons and unidentified remains, and mandate the profiles be added to the NamUs database.
To date, the NamUs project, which launched in January 2009, has been responsible for resolving 340 of the missing and unidentified person cases in its databases.
It's hardly a dent in the overwhelmingly large number of families over the course of decades who are still searching for loved ones who seemingly vanished off the face of the Earth.
But for Ardis Renkoski, as long as there are unidentified remains out there, there is hope.
"Not just because one of them could be Paige," she said. "Frankly, I just don't feel that's very likely. But because one of them is somebody's loved one. We all deserve to find them and bring them home."
mkeenan@detnews.com
