Danny Ranes and Brent Koster

Danny Ranes and Brent Koster are serial killers and rapists in michigan who killed four women between March 19, and August 6, 1972.

Danny Ranes
Danny Ranes was one of four children born to an alcoholic father who worked as a gas station attendant who later abandoned the family when Danny was ten to take up with another woman in Florida, he has an older sister, a younger brother and a younger sister.

When Danny was a child, his father made Danny and his brother Larry physically fight each other over everything, he also taught the boys to fight other people as he thought that they should always win a fight especially if they got into a fight in school, they should always be a winner.

In high school, Danny dated a girl named Paula who went back and forth between dating him and Larry, After high school Danny married Paula and had 2 children with her but Paula still has feelings for Larry and wrote to him while he was in prison. Danny eventually found the letters between his brother and Paula and the two of them began fighting regularly; Danny later left the marriage and decided to move to Wyoming, although he later moved back to Michigan and Paula and Danny tried the relationship again and had a third child but it didn’t work and he divorced Paula.

During his time in high school Danny and Larry sought out their father, hoping to reconnect. He kicked them out and said “get out of here, I never want to see you again.“

Before starting his murder spree, Danny had been imprisoned for an assault he had committed in Wyoming.

His brother Larry also became a serial killer.

Brent Koster
Brent Koster was raised by a mother who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and an alcoholic father who both often neglected Brent, his family also moved around frequently.

Koster ran away from home in the summer of 1972.

Koster first met Ranes in between May and June 1972 after being introduced to him by Ranes girlfriend who was Kosters friends mother.

Patricia Howk
On March 19, 28-year-old Patricia Howk left home with her seventeen-month-old son, Cory, to do some shopping. seen the woman go into a Topp's department store and had parked his blue Corvair van next to her car to wait. An hour went by and she came out and put her son into the passenger seat. As she came around to the driver's side, where the van was, Danny got out, walked up to her and pulled a knife. She panicked and fell into the car, but he pulled her out and forced her to get into his van, where he bound and raped her. He left her bound with her hands in front of her as he forced her into the front. He tried to strangle her but she fought him, scratching his face. They struggled so hard that they fell out of the van to the ground, Rane's then stabbed her in the back but he said that "it didn't seem to have much effect," so he gave the knife a twist to wreak more damage. "That did it," he claimed. Somehow the child had gotten out of the car and was standing near the van, crying. Danny figured that the boy wouldn't recall anything because he was too young, so he left him alone. Finally Howk stopped struggling and died. Howk's son wandered aimlessly until an elderly woman found him the next day and called the police. The boy had blood on him, so they searched for his mother and found Howk's body behind the Independent Elevator Company building. Her husband had reported her missing. Her wallet was missing, so robbery seemed a possible motive. Koster later said that Danny bragged about having committed the murder.

Linda Clark and Claudia Bidstrup
On July 6, 19-year-old Linda Clark, and Claudia Bidstrup (also 19), pulled into a gas station that Ranes worked at to get gas, Koster filled the tank while Ranes popped the hood, both of them preparing for what they were going to do. Ranes dismantled a wire to the spark plugs, making the car sound as if it had a problem, He then had the girls drive the car into the bay so he could have a closer look. When they did so Ranes assaulted both and told them not to scream and they wouldn't be harmed. He then instructed them to get into the back seat and he drove the car to the back of the station, where the lights were off. Koster and Ranes tied them up. One of them kept watch on girls while the other attended to customers. Koster saw Ranes assaulting Linda, and said later that Ranes had told him that he'd also had sex with Claudia. Koster than had sex with Linda in the van. Ranes put Claudia back into the car and Koster killed her there, because Ranes had told him it was time for him to "taste the medicine." He attempted without success to strangle her with a rope, so as she struggled to live, Ranes assisted and together they killed her. Koster then killed the other girl by himself. They put both women into the back seat of the Opel, covered them with a blanket, and Koster drove the car himself to a wooded area near Galesburg. He poured gasoline over it and lit a cigarette. This he placed on the floor of the car and left before he knew if it had ignited the accelerant. He hitchhiked back. Ranes then showed him money, two rings, a pair of earrings, and some photographs that he had taken from the victims. On July 17, their bodies were discovered by motorcycle riders.

Pamela Fearnow
On August 6, Ranes and Koster kidnapped Pamela Fearnow, as they were riding around, they saw her hitchhiking on the Western Michigan University campus, a common practice for college students in those days. They picked her up and used a knife to take her against her will to a wooded area. Koster tied her up in the back of the van, covered her with a sleeping bag, and then lay next to her as Danny drove. Over a period of six hours, both of them raped her and when they were finished, they tied her up again and took her to different wooded area near a lake. Koster claimed that while they drank beer, she had a glass of wine, and by the end of the day had finished the bottle. When they went to a third area, Fearnow began to scream and struggle against her bonds, so Ranes slugged her hard in the stomach which failed to subdue her, so Koster placed a plastic bag over her head to suffocate her.

Ranes left the van, and when Fearnow fell quiet, Koster followed him. Then Ranes looked at the inside of the van. The woman was dead so they placed her a ways away from the van onto the ground. Ranes said that he'd seen a police cruiser, so Koster ran away. Apparently the police stopped to check Ranes' ID and let him go. He encountered this same patrol officer four times before he returned to the trailer where he and Koster resided together. Koster called him later to get a ride home. (Koster was a runaway, so it wasn't clear where he lived during this time.)

They went back the next day to move the body to a more secluded area at Morrow Lake, at which time Koster found two ropes around the victim's neck. He recalled placing only one there and believed that Danny had added the second one.

Arrest and legal proceedings
Not long after Fearnow's murder, Ranes and Kosters relationship ended, and on September 4, they were arrested for the double homicide of Clark and Bidstrup. Upon investigating service stations close to where the car had been found, they noted Danny's record: in 1967, he was convicted in another state of pointing a gun at a couple and the following year he had served time for a felony in connection with the abduction of a 17-year-old student. Investigators learned that Koster often hung out at the service station with Ranes, so they brought both in for questioning. Koster was assigned an attorney, James Hills, who told him that if he offered details truthfully he would be allowed to plead to second-degree murder to one of the homicides, which came with a lesser sentence, and the other charge would be dropped. Koster said he was bothered by what they had done. However, it took until October 18 before he showed them Fearnow's body, not yet found. The police already knew that she was missing because her friends had reported that they had not heard from her since August 5 after she went out on an errand. Her remains at this point were in skeletal condition, but her jawbone assisted in making an identification. The location proved to be at Morrow Lake, less than a mile from where the other two girls had been dumped. Koster named Danny Ranes as the instigator. He said that shortly after this murder in August, he had broken off with Ranes because Ranes wanted him to steal a car and go to Florida. Koster was afraid that Ranes had in mind to kill him, too. He also told detectives about Ranes' confession to him of the murder of Patricia Howk. Ranes was charged that day with this fourth murder. On July 30, 1973, Ranes was sentenced to life without parole for the first degree murder of Fearnow and on August 9, Ranes was given two life sentences for the second degree murders of Clark and Bidstrup and on August 31, 1981, He was given another life sentence for the murder Howk.

As part of his plea deal, Koster agreed to testify against Ranes in the murders of Linda Clark, Claudia Bidstrup, Patricia Howk and Pamela Fearnow in exchange for only being convicted of one count of second degree murder and a life with parole sentence. On July 21, 1975, Koster was sentenced to life with parole and was granted parole on November 10, 2020.