Robin Renea Abrams
As the feisty, hazel-eyed girl with long brown hair drove away from their subdivision in far south suburban Beecher, the two exchanged waves.
At 3 a.m., Robin’s 1989 red Dodge Daytona hatchback was found in Harvey, key in the ignition.
Robin was nowhere to be found.
She’s now Illinois’ oldest active missing adult case on the National Center for Missing Adult Web site.
And she hasn’t turned up since.
Authorities suspect she met with foul play — and her family believes her disappearance was somehow tied to her job with the Will County Sheriff’s Department.
She got hired there in January 1988, and, according to a civil rights lawsuit she filed in late 1989, she had a five-month affair with a married officer involved with the sheriff’s auxiliary unit.
The officer harassed her for a year and orchestrated her firing, the lawsuit claimed.
And then she vanished.
To this day, Robin’s mother, Barbara Abrams, thinks someone wanted her daughter gone for fighting back, said NCMA founder Kym Pasqualini. “This case is very disturbing because her boyfriend was a law enforcement officer.”
A Will County grand jury ordered the officer and his stepbrother to submit hair and blood samples and appear in a line-up.
Their lawyers argued the two weren’t charged with a crime, so the subpoenas were too broad. The Illinois Supreme Court agreed.
Recently, the case was reopened under a $455,000 federal grant received by Will County State’s Attorney Jim Glasgow’s office, targeting some 155 cold cases.
“Do we believe Robin Abrams just walked off the face of the Earth? No. She’s somewhere,” a source there said.
Maudlyne Ihejirika