On July 18, 2016, 47-year-old Nancy Kathleen Renkas left her home in Florence, Wisconsin, telling her family she would be back by the afternoon. She first drove to Iron Mountain, Michigan, to visit a relative. After the visit, around 1:30 p.m., she mentioned plans to travel to Menominee, Michigan, to look at a camping trailer. Later that afternoon, she was seen in the parking lot of a Super One Foods in Iron Mountain. Surveillance footage captured her getting into a white SUV, which then drove away. Nancy was never seen or heard from again. The following day, her own vehicle was discovered abandoned in the same parking lot, containing perishable groceries she had just purchased. Her two sons reported her missing after she failed to return home and did not answer their calls or texts.
Nancy Kathleen Renkas was a 47-year-old female who was last seen on July 18, 2016, in Iron Mountain, Michigan, after leaving her home in Florence, Wisconsin, earlier that day. Public missing-person records state that Nancy left home around 11:00 a.m. to get the mail and buy food, telling her sons she would be back by the afternoon. She went to Iron Mountain, visited a relative, and said she also planned to stop in Menominee, Michigan, to look at a camping trailer. Later that afternoon, she was seen in the Super One Foods parking lot in Iron Mountain getting into a white SUV connected to that planned meeting, and the vehicle left the parking lot heading eastbound on U.S. 2.
The first signs that something was wrong came quickly. Nancy never returned home, and her sons' calls and text messages to her phone went unanswered. The next day, her vehicle was found abandoned in the Super One Foods parking lot near U.S. 2 in Iron Mountain, with perishable groceries and meat still inside. That detail has remained one of the most troubling parts of the public record because it suggested she expected to be gone only briefly. Wisconsin's missing-person clearinghouse states that she had been wearing a dark blue T-shirt and blue jeans, and public descriptions note that she walked with a limp and had an L-shaped scar on her left hand.
As investigators reconstructed the day, the public focus turned to the white SUV and the person Nancy was believed to have met. The Charley Project states that in August 2020, Louise Wender was named as a suspect in Nancy's case, identifying her as Nancy's sister-in-law, a worker at the Super One Foods store, and the person whose SUV Nancy was seen getting into. Public reports later stated that the driver of the SUV had been classified as a person of interest early in the investigation and had been interviewed by law enforcement. No public source reviewed states that any arrest or conviction has occurred in connection with Nancy's disappearance.
The case continued to develop years after Nancy vanished. On the sixth anniversary of her disappearance, the Dickinson County Sheriff's Office announced that the case was officially considered a homicide investigation, stating that there was no evidence Nancy went missing of her own accord and that investigators classified it as a no-body homicide investigation. Later reporting said the case remained active, that the Michigan Attorney General's Office had been consulted and was assisting, and that authorities continued pursuing legal and investigative steps. In 2024, authorities executed search warrants on multiple properties in Breitung Township, with court documents describing searches for human remains, biological evidence, and personal items linked to Nancy.
Public reporting has also described renewed searches and continued legal disputes over access to investigative records. FOX 11 reported that investigators searched more than 200 acres in Breitung Township in an area believed to be the last place Nancy was seen alive, while later Daily News reporting described a lawsuit seeking records in the investigation and noted that the case had been treated as a homicide investigation since 2022. The available online sources do not state that Nancy Kathleen Renkas has been found alive or deceased, and they do not provide a public resolution status showing that her remains have been recovered. What can be said with care is that Nancy Kathleen Renkas, a 47-year-old female, disappeared after being seen in Iron Mountain, Michigan, on July 18, 2016; she had gone there from Florence, Wisconsin, after telling family she would return that afternoon; she was seen getting into a white SUV in the Super One Foods parking lot; her vehicle was later found abandoned with groceries inside; and investigators have since classified the case as a no-body homicide investigation. The overview of the case is that Nancy's disappearance began as an ordinary errand and visit, became alarming when she failed to return to her sons, and remains a deeply painful case defined by surveillance clues, years of investigation, unanswered questions, and the continuing need for credible information about what happened after she got into that white SUV.
Last Seen: Jul 18, 2016
