Family of slain Grosse Pointe teen grows impatient: Killer and gun found, why no charges?

Jennifer Stalker's patience is wearing thin.

It's been almost three years since her teenage daughter Paige was shot and killed in Detroit, but no one has been charged — a fact that gnaws at the Grosse Pointe Farms mother given developments in the case.

According to sources familiar with the investigation, police identified the shooter more than a year ago, requested a warrant from the prosecutor, found part of the murder weapon in Ohio — a disassembled AK-47 — and have gas station surveillance video that supports witness accounts.

The key witness in the case is a convicted carjacker who, a police source said, told detectives he knew who killed Stalker, hoping to secure a shorter sentence for himself. Paige's killer, the source said, has been behind bars for more than a year for another crime. The source was not authorized to speak for the department and requested anonymity.

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Stalker wants the suspect charged. She's tired of calling the prosecutor's office for updates every few weeks — it takes her a whole day to work up the courage to make the call — only to be disappointed over and over again.

"Every time you call you set yourself up for failure," Stalker said in an interview last week. "They just keep telling me, 'We're still investigating.' "

Stalker wants to know what's taking so long. If police have identified the killer, she asks, what's the holdup in charging the man who cut short the life of her spunky daughter — an honors student who dreamed of becoming a doctor, made friends with the kids at school who felt isolated, brought chocolate milkshakes to her grandparents every week and embraced her bookworm personality.

As one friend described her in a letter to Paige's parents: "She was not worried about how other kids in our grade viewed her ... Paige was secure in who she was, and she was not interested in who was cool and who was not ... Paige was beautifully unapologetic about who she was and what she stood for."

'We have the right guy'

Police have said Paige's killing was a case of mistaken identity involving drug dealers who shot at the wrong vehicle while after someone else.

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said she understands the family's frustration, but stressed the investigation "has required extensive work" and that it's not over.

“While a case is being investigated we certainly understand that it can take an emotional toll on family members that have lost a loved one," Worthy told the Free Press in an e-mail Thursday. "While I am not able to comment on an open investigation, I can say that this is not a case that was placed on a shelf and forgotten."

She continued:

"My office is working continuously with the Detroit Police Department on the Paige Stalker case. This case has required extensive work. It’s imperative that we have sufficient evidence in order to charge a case that we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Steve Dolunt, the department's former assistant police chief who worked on the case before retiring in February, believes police found the killer.

"I think we have the right guy," Dolunt told the Free Press in an interview last week. "I believe that — because I was there. ... Homicide did a very thorough job."

Dolunt said he understands that prosecutors have a different standard than police — they have to prove the case to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt — and that Worthy "wants to be thorough" before a charging decision is made. But, he admits, the waiting has been difficult and the case still eats at him.

"That's the one case I regret not having solved before I retired," Dolunt said. "I was like, 'Dammit, how can that happen?' There are certain cases that just stick with you for a long, long time."

According to Dolunt, police submitted an investigative package to prosecutors more than a year ago, but "they sat on it and sat on it and sat on it." He said the first warrant request was ultimately rejected — the prosecutor's office confirmed this — but that a second prosecutor is reviewing the package.

Dave Lawrence, Paige's grandfather who has led a crusade to find her killer, said he feels tired and hopeless at times. But he's not giving up.

About a month ago, he sought help from Mayor Mike Duggan. After years of combing Detroit's streets for clues, attending church rallies and marches and reaching out to Detroiters for help, Lawrence called the mayor's office. He asked Duggan's scheduler if the mayor could meet with him for a few minutes to discuss Paige's murder investigation.

Duggan, he said, met with him for about a half hour. He said the mayor, a former prosecutor himself, explained that these things take time and made some calls that yielded new information, including: part of the gun that was used to kill his granddaughter was found in Ohio, and the four men in the vehicle had all been identified.

Lawrence said he doesn't want to derail the investigation. But he can't stand idly by and just wait for answers.

What is known

Here, according to Dolunt, the family and public records, is what is known about Paige's killing:

Paige, 16, was killed Dec. 22, 2014, while sitting in a silver Mercury sedan with four teens on the city’s east side, just three blocks from her affluent suburb. The teenagers had pulled over on Philip near Charlevoix to smoke pot when a vehicle pulled in front of them.

The driver of that vehicle, who wore fatigues and had an AK-47, got out and opened fire. A second gunman also opened fire. About 30 shell casings were found at the scene. Paige was struck in the head and chest. Three other teens — two from Grosse Pointe, one from Detroit — also were struck but survived.

The shooting happened at 9:15 p.m. Moments earlier, at a WOW gas station at Mack and Alter, surveillance video captured four men in a car that is believed to be the car that rolled up on the teens. The men had a drug beef with another group they believed was out to kill them. While at the gas station, they saw a silver Mercury Milan drive by and thought it was their rivals trying to find them. So they decided to get to them first.

The men at the gas station followed the silver sedan. They riddled it with bullets just blocks away. But they had the wrong car.

Detroit police declined comment for this report, stating only in an e-mail: "There are no updates to report on this case. It is an ongoing and active investigation."

'Paige didn't want to be in that car'

Stalker was making pies for Christmas dinner the last time she saw her daughter.

The family had just eaten a lasagna dinner — a meal that Paige didn't care for, but ate two servings.

" 'Oh, Mom, it's so good!' " Stalker recalled Paige telling her that night, smiling over the memory.

After dinner, Stalker washed the dishes and started rolling out the pie crusts. Paige and her older sister Madison started talking about their plans to go to a 9:30 movie at Partridge Creek that night when their younger brother pleaded to go with them.

The teenage sisters said no.

Mom kept rolling out the dough. At some point, Paige mysteriously disappeared. She left the house, but no one really knew where she went.

It turned out, her best friend Mia had come by in her car and picked her up. Paige had left her wallet at home, so it was presumed she was coming back quickly.

About an hour later came the mind-numbing phone call.

A neighbor called Stalker and said Paige had been in an accident and to get to the hospital.

When Stalker arrived at Beaumont Hospital, she learned her daughter had been killed, gunned down while sitting in a car in Detroit.

"Paige didn't want to be in that car. I know she didn't," said Stalker, who has been to a medium six times to inquire about her daughter's afterlife.

"I wanted to see how Paige was doing, to make sure she's OK," Stalker said.

The medium provided her with some relief.

Paige, she told her, is fine. The medium told Stalker her daughter is taking care of children in heaven. The medium explained: "She's a martyr in heaven who wound up on earth."

According to Paige's family, Paige took her safety seriously. She wasn't reckless. They do not believe she was smoking marijuana with her friend and note that hospital lab reports showed no traces of pot in her system.

"For something like this to happen to Paige — it could happen to anyone," Stalker said. "I think she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

There's still a $152,500 reward for tips leading to the arrest of Paige's killer. Crime Stoppers of Michigan contributed $2,500 of that amount; the rest came from private donors.

Contact Tresa Baldas at tbaldas@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter: @tbaldas.