Rena Mae Payne, 47, was found murdered on May 15, 1997, in an employee restroom at a Cleveland Regional Transit Authority bus turnaround. Her body showed evidence of a violent assault, described as beating, rape, and strangulation. At the time the case remained unsolved with no immediate suspects named.

In 2015 a DNA match linked the crime scene evidence to Robert Gene Rembert Jr., who had worked as an RTA driver at the time of Payne’s death. Rembert’s DNA entered the system after an arrest on unrelated charges, and investigators connected him to other violent crimes from the 1990s onward. Reports state he had a prior 1997 conviction for voluntary manslaughter and later was linked by DNA to additional murders in 2015.

Does anyone have information about Payne’s movements or contacts around May 1997 that could help fill gaps in the timeline?