I came across this article while reading a column by Jonathan V. Last in The Bulwark. It originally appeared in a publication called The Plough.

It was written by a childhood friend of Renee Good, who knew her as Renee Ganger.

Please open the link and read it.

She begins:

I grew up with Renee Good – Renee Ganger, as I knew her. We lived in Colorado Springs; she was two years older than me. We went to church together; our parents were in a home group together, and we spent many Sunday afternoons playing in various basements and backyards while the grownups talked. We listened to Backstreet Boys. We jumped on her parents’ trampoline. We were in youth group together, the strange and frenetic evangelical youth group of the early 2000s.

After high school, we completely lost touch. I moved away for college, and she stayed in Colorado Springs. I hadn’t seen Renee in almost twenty years; all I knew about her life was that she had several children and no longer lived in Colorado Springs. Then one day, my computer screen was full of headlines about a woman who had been fatally shot by an ICE agent; I read one article, and it seemed like no one knew much yet, so I closed the computer.

The next morning, my brother texted me: The woman shot by ICE in Minn was Renee Ganger. I opened my computer and saw a flood of pictures: professional photos of Renee, smiling and pretty in a dark-red formal dress; iPhone snaps of Renee sitting in the front seat of a burgundy minivan; blurry stills of Renee’s face through a windshield… I stopped there. She looked exactly the same.

Please open the link and read on.