Brent Koster was 15 years old in the summer of 1972, when two young women from Chicago died in the Kalamazoo area of southwestern Michigan. About a month later a third young woman died as well. The older man with him in each case was Danny Ranes, who was 28. Koster was charged with murder as a juvenile whom a probate court sent to adult court, and in 1975 he pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree murder in exchange for his testimony against Ranes. He was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. He served about 48 years, and in November 2020 the Michigan Parole Board voted to release him.
His case is unusual in three ways. His age at the time of the crimes was 15. His only conviction covers two deaths that happened at the same time, and a further death in August 1972 is on record only through testimony and later descriptions of his admissions. And his release came after a public hearing at which the county prosecutor argued against it.
Very little about Koster's life before 1972 is on record. His age is known: 15 in the summer of 1972, 18 when he entered his plea in June 1975, 64 when the parole board considered his case in 2020. His birth date, his parents and his schooling are not on record, nor is how he came to know Ranes.
Danny Ranes was an adult of 28 in 1972. He was later convicted of the deaths of four women, and Koster was tied to three of them.
Linda Clark and Claudia Bidstrup were both 19 and came from Chicago. Pamela Fearnow was 18. A fourth woman, Patricia Howk, died in Kalamazoo in March 1972, months before the others; Ranes was convicted in her case, and nothing on record places Koster in it.
Almost nothing is on record about the women's lives. Two of Fearnow's sisters said in 2022, after Ranes died, that his death brought the family little comfort. A sister-in-law of Claudia Bidstrup told the parole hearing in 2020 that the family hoped Koster would never be freed.
Clark and Bidstrup died in July 1972, in the Kalamazoo area. They died on or about July 5, 1972. Koster was 15 and Ranes 28.
Fearnow died about a month later. She died on or about August 5, 1972. Koster, then 15, was again with Ranes.
Koster was charged with murder in the deaths of the two Chicago women. Probate authorities waived jurisdiction over the boy so that he could be tried as an adult. The dates of his arrest and of his first appearances are not on record.
The inquiry was led by a detective, Harold Nutter, who had retired by 2020.
On June 11, 1975, when he was 18, Koster pleaded guilty in Kalamazoo County to one count of second-degree murder in the deaths of Clark and Bidstrup. The plea was made in exchange for his agreement to testify against Ranes. On July 21, 1975, he was sentenced in Kalamazoo County to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
The plea covered one count only. Whether a second count of murder was charged and then dismissed as part of the bargain is not on record. The deal took this shape: one conviction on a reduced charge of murder in the second degree, a life term that left the parole board with the final say, and testimony for the prosecution.
Koster's testimony was central to the prosecution of Ranes. A jury convicted Ranes of first-degree murder in the death of Pamela Fearnow, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. The main evidence against him was Koster's testimony that the two of them had acted together in her death. The Michigan Court of Appeals decided Ranes's appeal, People v. Ranes, on August 25, 1975; the panel was Presiding Judge V. J. Brennan and Judges J. H. Gillis and D. E. Holbrook Jr., with Holbrook writing.
His part in Fearnow's death rests on that testimony and is not a conviction. His plea in 1975 was for the deaths of Clark and Bidstrup, and no conviction of Koster for Fearnow's death is on record. He was later said to have admitted involvement in her death and in the deaths of three women; no court has ruled on those admissions.
Ranes was convicted in the deaths of four women and received four life sentences without the possibility of parole. He died on January 29, 2022, at the age of 78 in prison.
Under Michigan's lifer law, a prisoner serving a parole-eligible life sentence can be considered for release by the full parole board after a public hearing. Koster served about 48 years in all. Little of that time is on record.
On August 27, 2020, the Michigan Department of Corrections announced a public hearing. Michael C. Eagen, chairperson of the Michigan Parole Board, would conduct it under the lifer law, by video on September 10, 2020. The notice listed Koster as serving life for second-degree murder under a sentence imposed in Kalamazoo County on July 21, 1975.
Kalamazoo County Prosecuting Attorney Jeff Getting had written to oppose parole on July 30. An assistant attorney general, Scott Rothermel, told the board that some of Koster's remarks were glib. Koster, who had been in prison for nearly half a century, said at the hearing that he had grown tired of prison and, in his closing statement, expressed remorse. A former supervisor testified to his character and to the remorse she had seen in him. The ten-member board also had letters from the prosecutor's office and from the families of the dead.
The board granted parole on November 10, 2020, and Koster's release was set for January 21, 2021. The parole term was 48 months.
Getting said he was very troubled by the decision and that the risk to the community was unacceptable. He told reporters he knew of no other person with such a history who had been released anywhere, and said his office would review what options it had. A parole decision can be appealed by the prosecutor within 28 days of the notice being mailed. Whether an appeal was filed is not on record. He was paroled in January 2021.
In March 2024 the Department of Corrections said Koster had run a ride service without seeking approval or telling his parole agent. The agent shut it down, and a special condition of his parole now bars such work. The department said he would be monitored until his parole ended in January 2025. He lives in southwestern Michigan.
Koster's role in the death of Pamela Fearnow rests on his trial testimony and on admissions later attributed to him; he was not convicted of it. His role, if any, in the death of Patricia Howk is not on record.
March 1972: Patricia Howk dies in Kalamazoo; Ranes is later convicted in her case.
July 1972: Linda Clark and Claudia Bidstrup, both 19, die; Koster, 15, and Ranes, 28, are later tied to the deaths.
August 1972: Pamela Fearnow, 18, dies; Koster later testifies about this death.
June 11, 1975: Koster, 18, pleads guilty to one count of second-degree murder and agrees to testify against Ranes.
July 21, 1975: Koster is sentenced in Kalamazoo County to life with the possibility of parole.
August 25, 1975: The Michigan Court of Appeals decides People v. Ranes, recording Koster's testimony in the Fearnow case.
August 27, 2020: The Department of Corrections announces his parole hearing.
September 10, 2020: The Michigan Parole Board holds the hearing.
November 10, 2020: Parole is granted; release is set for January 21, 2021.
January 2021: Koster is released on 48 months of parole.
January 29, 2022: Danny Ranes dies in prison at 78.
March 2024: A ride service run by Koster is shut down by his parole agent.
January 2025: His parole term is due to end.