Renée Good grew up in Colorado, singing in the choir through high school. She started a family with her high school sweetheart. She also studied creative writing in Virginia, remarried, was widowed, then moved to the Midwest and started a new life.
All the while, she was forming bonds that lasted decades. She was living her dreams of motherhood, pursuing her creative goals, and leaving fond memories behind with the people she got to know.
Then, two months ago, on January 7, the wide-eyed, curly-haired 37-year-old mother of three was shot and killed by an ICE officer in Minneapolis. Her death continues to have reverberations up to this very day.
As lawyers representing Good’s loved ones start work on a civil investigation into Jonathan Ross, the 43-year-old agent who was captured on video killing Good, those who knew Good are struggling with losing her so unexpectedly.
Members of Good’s Colorado tribe who knew her before she moved away remember her as a kind, gentle artist who loved to sing and who was an active part of several families she created and nurtured.
She was known as Renée Ganger when she was a student at Coronado High School in Colorado Springs. She often participated in choir and musical theater, and she got a spot singing solo during her senior year, in May 2006, performing a version of Sarah McLachlan’s song “Do What You Have to Do.”
“Her singing voice was beautiful, but she was … she was always stuck in the back row or whatever, but this did not dim Renée's light. She still auditioned for every solo and was finally given the opportunity to share her voice,” said Ruth Schubarth, a musical accompanist who played piano as students like Renée sang in the school choir. “She was a quiet in-the-background type, but she was not a timid person,” she said.
She was often also center stage, performing in school plays with former high school classmate Paul Goggin, who now lives on the West Coast. “That’s how I knew Renée — we were in different choirs together. We would also do the musicals, so we would act in those, only acted in the plays that had singing in them,” he said. “We were both in a musical, ‘West Side Story,’ which was my sophomore year, her junior year … I always remember her as just such a kind and loving and caring person, without a mean bone in her body.”
Another high school friend, Lindsay Scurto, said they were in an AP statistics class together in high school, but made memories outside the classroom as well.
“It was very small, maybe a dozen students. And so she and another friend of mine would kind of sit in the back together, and we just got really close in that class because it was so small … I think music was just a very shared love that we had. She was a very passionate musician and really into the arts ... We'd just sit in the car if it was a lunch period, and she would teach me about indie bands and things like that.”
During a recent interview, Scruto found their high school yearbook and laughed as she flipped through the pages to find what Renée had written. On pages decades old, her friend wrote in part:
‘Oh my Lindsey … I wouldn't have made it through stats or choir without you. Oh my goodness, my love. You astound me. I can't wait to fly kites with you this summer … I'm hoping one of these days we can go watch the clouds go by on a beach in Northern Ireland.’
It was while in high school that Renée met and fell in love with a classmate, the first man she’d marry, as fellow student thespian Paul Goggin recalls.
“Her first marriage was to another guy that we were all in choir with, in high school,” he said.
His name was Justin, and they got married soon after graduating. The wedding was at the Governor’s Residence at Boettcher Mansion in Denver. At Renée’s request, Schubarth, her high school choir pianist, took to the keyboards at the ceremony — and was given clear instructions about what music to perform.
“She gave me the full list of songs to share. Her mom was heavily involved in making sure I did a good job. They prepared a notebook for me to rehearse and then met with me for me to play through everything to make sure that it was up to the mom's standards.”
Selections included Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata, Movement One,” a gentle song often chosen for its ability to offer sound while remaining in the background.
“She descended those center stairs to her family and friends gathered around at the base of the stairs,” Schubarth recalled.
The newlyweds were too young to drink, remembered Justin’s younger sister, Meghan Sheppard, who was a bridesmaid in the wedding when she was a teenager almost 20 years ago. She now works in an art gallery around the corner from Renée’s childhood home.
“They were high school sweethearts … so I knew Renée since I was 13 years old. After they graduated from high school, maybe like a year or two, my brother joined the Air Force,” she said. Their getting married set in motion a more complete benefit package for the new groom, but left Good alone initially, when he deployed to other states.
They got to be together more often when Justin got stationed at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs, Sheppard recalled, saying that her brother was receiving specialized training in cybersecurity around that time.
Soon, the young couple had a daughter. A few years later, a son came along. Although she declined to give their names to protect their privacy, Sheppard said they named both kids after movie characters.
“We were both very obsessed with her first baby and like taking pictures of her all the time … Renée was with us there all the time, watching movies and playing video games. And she honestly, like, became the older sister I never really had,” Sheppard recalled with a sad laugh.
And she never will be able to enjoy Renée’s company in that big sister role again. In January, at age 37, Renée Nicole Ganger Macklin Good was the first of two people with roots in Colorado to be killed by ICE during a raid in Minneapolis.
The other person is ICU nurse Alex Pretti, whose roots are in Arvada.
The killing has filled Renée’s family and friends with both grief and recollections of her as a kind, artistic person pursuing her dreams. Her sister-in-law, Sheppard, said that before Good left the Rocky Mountains for the Midwest, the bond between her family and Renée’s, which also included Renée’s mother, father and siblings, was tight.
“We were pretty close,” she said. “We had Thanksgiving and Christmases with them, and I like dog sat for them and they're a wonderful, very close family of Irish folk that just love to get together,” she said.
The marriage between Renée and Justin lasted for about 10 years. Then it came apart. Sheppard wasn’t sure what caused the split.
“I think it's like most any marriage story,” she said. “Sometimes things just happen between the two people, and they can't be reconciled. You do your best, but I think in the end they just decided it would be better to go their separate ways,” she surmised.
Good then went to Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, graduating with a degree in English in 2020, according to a statement by the school president:
“It is with great sadness that Old Dominion University mourns the loss of one of our own, Renée (Macklin) Good, a proud Monarch who graduated in December of 2020 from the College of Arts and Letters with a degree in English. Following Renée’s tragic killing … in Minneapolis, our thoughts and prayers are with her family, friends, loved ones, and the Monarch Nation,” President Brian O. Hemphill wrote in a statement.
The selection of a university 1,800 miles and six states away was an expression of her love of the arts. “She was trying to go to school for her writing and creative stuff. That was always really important to her. When they split up, she went to Virginia so that she could pursue school,” Sheppard recalled.
Her two kids stayed behind in Colorado with their dad, as decreed by a judge when they split, according to Sheppard, who said Good was sad about that decision and maintained close contact with her two little ones by phone.
Once she reached Virginia, Good worked several jobs and studied creative writing, according to her fiction professor, Kent Wascom, who told Minnesota Public Radio that while she was in his class, she was always trying to uplift other students.
“She was incredibly warm with her peers, generous with their work, and just a bright and engaging presence that made folks feel good,” he said in an interview with MPR. “That positivity and warmth really helped shape the class.”
Her professor said she was pregnant during his class. According to Sheppard, Good’s second husband, either official or common-law, was Tim Macklin, and they had a son together. During breaks from school, she took her new brood on visits back in Colorado.
“We were able to be a big mixed family even though Renée had moved away and started a new family, as it were,” Sheppard said. “But we still got to be together, and my niece and nephew would still go over during holiday breaks and summertime to be with them. They did their best to make it all work.”
Sheppard described Macklin as a nice guy who took good care of Renée. But their relationship didn’t work out either. She said the pair had already separated when he died from a medication complication. His online obituary describes him as a comedian who died in 2023 at the age of 36.
She had taken his name, and under the moniker Renée Macklin, she continued with her creative pursuits and began publishing poetry.
An artistic life
One of her poems, “On Learning To Dissect Fetal Pigs,” won the 2020 Academy of American Poets Prize. She opened the poem:
i want back my rocking chairs,
solipsist sunsets,
& coastal jungle sounds that are tercets from cicadas and pentameter from the hairy legs of cockroaches.
i’ve donated bibles to thrift stores
(mashed them in plastic trash bags with an acidic himalayan salt lamp—
the post-baptism bibles, the ones plucked from street corners from the meaty hands of zealots, the dumbed-down, easy-to-read, parasitic kind):
After college, Renée left Virginia and went to Missouri, Canada and then Minnesota. Why she went to those two states is unclear, but Sheppard said she believed Good had left for Canada due to displeasure with the Trump administration.
Living in Minneapolis, she was in a domestic partnership with Becca Good, whose name she took on. Her younger son from her second marriage was reportedly with the couple as well. Although Becca Good referred to her as her wife, her attorney and others say the two were not legally married. They hadn’t been in Minneapolis for long when she was shot and killed.
Since her death on January 7, a GoFundMe has been set up for her loved ones. It was closed after it raised $1.5 million.
At a memorial held a few days after she was killed, Good’s high school musical accompanist Ruth Schubarth spoke, saying over cheers from people who came out to remember her: “Just four days ago, she was trying to depart, she put the car in reverse, turned the wheel, told the agent, ‘I’m not mad at you,’ and pulled out. An ICE agent poised his camera for a better angle, paused, and fired into her car and shot to kill … and by now we have all heard his crass benediction … My friends, it is time to bear witness … ”
Her loved ones in Colorado have been doing their best to cope with the loss.
“My mom called me 'cause she saw it on the news, which is a really crazy way to find out,” Sheppard said. “I don't know if I fully even grieved it because it's been so public and political. But it comes in waves and it’s absolutely horrible.”
Renée’s partner, Becca Good, and Renée’s surviving family members are being represented by the firm Romanucci & Blandin, LLC, based in Chicago — the firm that represented some families of victims in the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs in 2022.
Partner Sarah Raisch is part of a large team working on Good’s case. “We're looking at every possible means to pursue accountability against both the government and Jonathan Ross, and any other entity that took part in allowing this tragedy to take place … Our biggest goal here is accountability against the government and Jonathan Ross for taking Renée Good's life. And we are still determining what the monetary relief sought will be.”
She said they have gotten the process started, but because the shooter was a federal officer rather than acting at the state or local level, there isn’t an established procedure to attempt holding him accountable as such, leading to their expectation of a long and protracted case.
Currently, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla is drafting legislation that could change the prosecution procedures for federal agents in response to Renée Good’s shooting, legislation for which her brothers have testified in favor of.
Coordinating with Sen. Padilla and working with family members demands many of the firm’s staff, Raisch said: “It's obviously a case of great importance, and we have a robust team from named partner and founder Antonio Romanucci; myself; a number of other partners and senior attorneys, paralegals, law clerks. We have a very large team that are pursuing this case. It is truly all-hands-on-deck.”
She said she’s been getting resistance from the Department of Justice in pursuit of documents they’ve requested from them, including information about any past complaints about the shooter’s on-duty conduct.
How Good’s loved ones in Minnesota are doing is unclear. Through the person who started the GoFundMe, partner Becca Good declined last week to be interviewed, but she has released a statement describing Renée as “made of sunshine.” She also said that the home and community they’d been building in Minnesota had been taken from her forever.
Tributes to Renée Good
Shortly after she died, artists began expressing themselves about her killing, as YouTubers also posted recitations of her published poetry.
The poet Cornelius Eady penned a tribute to her, entitled: “Renee Nicole Good Is Murdered.” Its ending reads:
There is a picture of her
Just before it tips rancid,
Just before she’s dragged
Into how they see her.
I wish I could read the words
As they blaze their last, unsuspected
Race through her skull.
A language poem that ends on
The word
Impossible.
As another tribute, the band U2 released a song, “American Obituary,” in Good’s honor.
Some of its lyrics say:
Renée Good born to die free
American mother of three
Seventh day, January
A bullet for еach child, you see
The colour of her eyе
Nine-thirty, Minneapolis
To desecrate domestic bliss
Three bullets blast, three babies kissed
Renée, the "domestic terrorist"?
Well, what you can't kill can't die
America will rise
Against the people of the lie
As lawyers seek justice and accountability, and artists create music and poetry in her memory, those who knew her in Colorado still struggle with the loss.
Her high school statistics classmate, Lindsay Scurto, said they were still connected, even though not so much in person lately. “We still messaged each other pretty recently on social media. I think within the last six months or so … but it's really tragic what happened. She was a lovely person, just so kind and calm and patient and thoughtful. Just a poet in every sense.”
Her musical accompanist, Ruth Schubarth, recalled that back when Good got married for the first time shortly after high school, she was one of the few people to have been invited to her bridal shower. That sparked a realization of how much value she must have held in her slain fellow musician’s life.
“Renée would not have known how deeply meaningful her life was upon me, just as I did not recognize how meaningful I was to her,” she said in a text. “Not many of us recognize the impact of our lives on another.”
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