ONE OF THE SIGNS placed in Iron Mountain after Nancy Renkas disappeared in July 2016. The 47-year-old now has been missing for seven years. (Betsy Bloom/Daily News photo)

IRON MOUNTAIN — The Dickinson County Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday said the Nancy Renkas case remains “an active investigation” seven years after her disappearance.

That seventh anniversary “will now permit certain legal proceedings to take place to benefit the investigation,” a news release from Undersheriff Aaron Rochon stated Tuesday.

“Additionally, the Michigan Attorney Generals Office has been consulted and is assisting in the case,” according to the news release.

Renkas, then 47, reportedly went missing July 18, 2016, after last being seen in the Midtown Mall parking lot in Iron Mountain.

Renkas’ children, Kaylyn and Joseph Renkas, said in an interview with The Daily News in 2021 their mother had gone from their home in Florence, Wis., to Iron Mountain to buy supplies for a meal to celebrate the sale of the family’s campground in Pembine, Wis., but never returned home.

In 2018, then-Dickinson County Undersheriff Scott Metras and Detective Lt. Derek Dixon said a surveillance camera showed Renkas about 12:30 p.m. July 18, 2016, getting into a white SUV in the parking lot at Midtown Mall in Iron Mountain that then headed east on U.S. 2. She left perishable groceries in her vehicle, indicating she believed it would be a brief trip, Metras said at the time.

The SUV driver was classified as a “person of interest” early in the investigation and was interviewed by both Florence and Dickinson County law enforcement, Metras said in 2018.

In an interview with The Daily News in July 2021, Louise Wender acknowledged the vehicle was her 2010 Lincoln Navigator. Renkas, the common-law wife of Wender’s late brother Mark Barker, had recommended they both check out a camper she’d seen in the Norway area, Wender said. Renkas’ children confirmed last year the family had discussed purchasing a camper in 2016.

But Wender, with her attorney present, said in that 2021 interview she returned Nancy Renkas to the Midtown Mall parking lot after never locating the camper.

Wender spoke up after Dixon testified during an online court hearing in August 2020 that she was a suspect in the case, when Wender unsuccessfully sought a protective order against another woman she claimed was harassing her on social media about the disappearance.

The Daily News did not publish her name at the time because Wender had not been charged in the investigation. But Wender and her attorney said in 2021 her name had been so widely circulated as the suspect that they wanted to tell her side of the story.

Nancy Renkas’ children, who at last report now live in Missouri, could not be reached for comment.

A sheriff’s department task force meets regularly and is making progress with the investigation, Tuesday’s news release stated.

“The sheriff’s office would like to thank those that have reached out to offer information regarding the investigation,” the news release stated, while encouraging anyone with possible information on the case to contact the office at 906-774-6262.