Renee Nicole Good was a wife, an award-winning poet and a creative mother of three who liked to make “messy art” with her two sons and daughter.

On Wednesday, she became known worldwide as the woman shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis. The action, which occurred on a residential street during a targeted ICE operation, sparked shock and outrage and left her 6-year-old son an orphan.

Good, 37, and her partner had connections to Kansas City, living in the area as recently as the fall of 2023, court records show. On Oct. 18, 2023, Good filed a petition in Jackson County Circuit Court to change her last name. She gave an address near the Waldo area of Kansas City.

According to her petition, Good wanted to change her last name from Renee Nicole Macklin to Renee Nicole Macklin Good. Her stated reason for the name change: “I want to share a name with my partner.”

The document said Good had three children, who at the time of the filing were ages 13, 10 and 3. The two older children lived in Colorado, and the youngest lived in Kansas City, it said.

A judgment approving the uncontested name change was entered on Nov. 21, 2023.

Missouri corporation records show that Good and another woman who lived at the same Kansas City address had organized a business in 2024. The company, B. Good Handywork LLC was organized on Aug. 26, 2024, according to the Secretary of State filing.

The purpose of the business, the document said: “Performs interior and exterior repair, maintenance and upgrade projects in clients’ homes.”

Jennifer Ferguson, who lived across the street from the couple for six to seven months, described them as “just two ladies with a cool kid.”

“Their youngest son, the one that lived with them full-time, and my daughter would play a lot in the front yard,” she said. In the summer, Ferguson said, they put an inflatable swimming pool in the yard.

Good’s two older children would come from Colorado for a month in the summer, she said.

Renee and Becca didn’t work, Ferguson said. She said Becca had recently sold a company and Renee was in graduate school online.

“They lived frugally, they cooked at home, that kind of thing,” she said. “They didn’t go out and spend money a lot.”

The couple didn’t talk politics, but Ferguson said her understanding when they left Kansas City was that they planned to move to Canada. The couple broke the lease on their home on East 78th Terrace in Waldo and moved out in December 2024, she said. The families exchanged Christmas cookies as a parting gift.

“I guess they made the decision that if Trump won the election, they were going to get out before the inauguration,” she said.

Ferguson said she didn’t see the two as political activists.

“I can’t see this having been a premeditated thing on their part,” she said. “I think it’s senseless. I just pray that we don’t have more violence over it.”

Good died Wednesday after an ICE agent fired into her Honda Pilot as she appeared to be driving away. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said at a news conference that one of the agent’s vehicles had become stuck in some snow and they were attempting to push it out when Good “weaponized her vehicle” and tried to run over them. Noem called it an act of domestic terrorism and defended the shooting as self-defense.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz disputed the government’s claims. They said the videos showed Good driving away from agents, not trying to hit them. At a Wednesday news conference, Frey angrily told ICE to leave the city.

“This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody getting killed,” he said. “Your only reason for being in our city is to create some kind of safety, and you are doing the opposite.”

Members of the Minneapolis City Council released a statement after Wednesday’s shooting.

“Renee was a resident of our city who was out caring for her neighbors this morning and her life was taken today at the hands of the federal government,” the statement said. “Anyone who kills someone in our city deserves to be arrested, investigated, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas issued a statement Thursday morning.

“Kansas City mourns the loss of a former neighbor, Renee Nicole Good,” Lucas said. “Two things that our country desperately needs are justice and decency. I will put my faith in authorities in Minnesota to conduct a thorough and fair investigation.

“Kansas Citians will extend our condolences to Renee’s family and friends. And, we all will hope Congress actually works to prevent more tragedies like this one.”

A GoFundMe account was set up Wednesday for Good’s wife and the young son who lived with them.

“Please support the wife and son of Renee Good as they grapple with the devastating loss of their wife and mother,” it said. “Renee was pure sunshine, pure love. She will be desperately missed.”

The account had raised $1.4 million by midnight Thursday. Nearly 35,000 donors had contributed, with one giving $50,000.

“From Nebraska — what happened to Renee has been witnessed and felt far beyond one place,” wrote Gonca Cacan, who donated $200. “Many of us are outraged and heartbroken. She was a strong woman who continued to raise her children and contribute goodness and hope to the world. Her life had meaning, and her loss will not be forgotten. My deepest condolences to her family.”

A poet and a writer

Good was born in Colorado Springs on April 2, 1988. Her two older children, ages 15 and 12, live in Colorado. The third child, a 6-year-old son, was living with Good and her partner. The boy’s father, Timmy Macklin Jr., was an Air Force veteran and a standup comedian. He died in 2023 at age 36.

Good’s parents live in Valley Falls, Kansas, about 65 miles northwest of Kansas City.

Good’s mother, Donna Ganger, told the Minnesota Star Tribune that “Renee was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known.”

“She was extremely compassionate,” Ganger said. “She’s taken care of people all her life. She was loving, forgiving and affectionate. She was an amazing human being.”

The description on Good’s Instagram site said she was a “Poet and writer and wife and mom and sh---- guitar strummer from Colorado; experiencing Minneapolis, MN.”

In 2020, Good won an Old Dominion University College Poetry Prize for her poem, “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs.” The award was administered through a creative writing program at Old Dominion and the Poetry Society of Virginia.

According to her bio on Old Dominion’s Facebook post about the award, Good was from Colorado Springs at the time and was studying creative writing at the university. She graduated in December 2020 with a degree in English.

“Her poetry has been published in Metrosphere and Coronado Literary Review, and she currently co-hosts a podcast with her husband, comedian Tim Macklin,” the bio said. “When she is not writing, reading, or talking about writing, she has movie marathons and makes messy art with her daughter and two sons.”

Old Dominion University President Brian O. Hemphill said in a statement Wednesday that the university “mourns the loss of one of our own.”

He called the deadly shooting “yet another clear example that fear and violence have sadly become commonplace in our nation.”

“Indeed, this tragedy reflects the deep strain being felt in countless communities across our nation,” Hemphill said. “As citizens, it is our duty and right to call upon leaders and officials to restore civility in all facets of our lives, especially at the hands of those who are entrusted to protect and serve.

“May Renee’s life be a reminder of what unites us: freedom, love, and peace. My hope is for compassion, healing, and reflection at a time that is becoming one of the darkest and most uncertain periods in our nation’s history.”

The mood in Valley Falls

It was not until Wednesday night, from local news broadcasts, that residents in Valley Falls discovered that the shooting in Minneapolis had come to touch their community. Television news crews and reporters, including from The Washington Post and The New York Times, began arriving on Wednesday evening and on a rain-soaked Thursday.

Valley Falls is a 170-year-old town in Jefferson County, some 30 miles northeast of Topeka. It is home to about 1,000 people, where the Gangers’ neat home, with its brick porch and white clapboard, stands on a red brick street under a 70-foot-tall oak tree. Two red rocking chairs sit on their porch, perches for two black cats.

Good’s parents, Tim and Donna Ganger, who neighbors estimated came to live in town about five years ago, were either not home or did not answer their door on Thursday. A woman parked outside the family home said she wanted to make no comment. Until given the news, one neighbor, directly across the street from the Gangers, was unaware and shocked to learn that his neighbors’ daughter was the person killed in Minneapolis.

By Thursday, people knew. The Rev. Mike Kirby, pastor of the Valley Falls Christian Church, where the Gangers attend, said he received a call on Wednesday evening. He said he was able to speak to the couple but chose not to relate what they shared.

“Right now, we’re just trying to love and protect them,” Kirby said. Asked whether he would refer to the shooting in his upcoming Sunday sermon, he said, “I don’t think that I’ll address this specifically. My message this week is about not letting our hearts be troubled, and Jesus is the way. It’s what was already scheduled, and I think it’s pretty appropriate.”

He reflected on the tragic national news coming to Valley Falls.

“We live in a broken world,” he said. “You know, that’s why Jesus came. We live in a broken world. There are broken people. Jesus came and he died for that. That’s what I preach every week, just that He’s the comfort that we need in these times. It’s a turbulent world. It comes to big cities and it comes to small towns and everybody needs the love of Christ.”

Neighbors react to the news

Neighbors Mark and Patricia Stone, who live across from the Gangers, said that although they did not know the couple well, they were nonetheless outraged at the Minneapolis shooting. Long-haul truckers, they have lived in Valley Falls for 40 years. Patricia Stone, disabled, spoke from her hospital bed in their living room.

“I think about Minneapolis and it sickens me,” she said, quickly turning her comments political. “We are going to hell in a handbasket, and that president is completely out of control. I’m saying it like it is.”

Mark Stone said, “When we heard last night that the parents lived here in Valley Falls, we didn’t know her (their neighbor) as her last name, Good. We didn’t even know who her parents were.”

Now, he said, “It’s in our backyard.”

“It’s ridiculous,” Patricia said, and then referred to the actions by ICE agents. “They’re pushing their boundaries. They’re cowards that hide behind masks. If they’re so almighty godly and doing justice, then why are they wearing masks? I would vote for the mayor of Minneapolis in a New York minute for what he said. I don’t care if he cussed. He had every right to.”

She spoke of Good, backing up her vehicle and driving forward before being shot in the seat of her car.

“Even if she did take off in the car, you don’t kill somebody,” she said. “You don’t shoot them through the head because they tried to get away.”

The Stones had yet to give thought to what they might say when they see their neighbors again.

“Give them their space right now,” Mark said. “They’re going to need it. I mean I would imagine they’re on the way to Minnesota.”

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