THE RANES FAMILY: DEADLY KIN

Article BY LORI BELL

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Family is everything, they could make or break you for the rest of your life. For the Ranes family winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. They fought over everything . It actually was a mortal sin to lose, especially when competition heats up among themselves. When one family members chooses to push the extremes, a Midwestern town is forced to come face to face with multiple rounds of pure evil.

In the 1950s Kalamazoo, Michigan was an ever growing vibrant city that values it’s roots as a small town. Kalamazoo was a quiet town. The neighborhoods were always kept up nice and people felt safe. But not everyone is fortunate enough to feel that sense of community.

For two young brothers in the Ranes household, nine year old Danny and eight year old Larry, family principles were different than those taught in their neighbor’s home. Their mother worked an afternoon shift, and this was not during a time when both parents worked.

Usually in homes like this the mother was the nurturing force, the one who is always there, but in this case she apparently married a man who was not able to support them so she had to pitch in and work as well.

Their father was the role model, so they looked to him to understand what it meant to grow up to be a man, but he was sort of a mean person even when he drank. The boys are given little choice but to look up to their father.

At an early age he forces them to compete against each other for just about everything. Since they were already close in age they were naturally competitive, but he would just up the stakes. He thought that they should always win a fight if they got into a fight in school, they should always be a winner.

Then one day when the boys were just nine and ten years old, their father walks out on their mother to take up with another woman in Florida. And despite the man basically torturing them their whole lives, he was their dad and they still felt that sense of abandonment.

The damage done by an erratic, unpredictable home life when you're very young would be processed in different ways, but in them it was processed by having to control and having to win, and having to get attention. Now they really have no sense of direction.

When the boys reach their teens, Danny and Larry seek out their father, hoping to reconnect. He kicked them out and said “ get out of here, I never want to see you again.” They realized there was never any love there. They must have felt worthless.

Their respective reinforcement issues by the male figure in their lives doesn’t do much to help the hostile relationship between the two boys. It kind of pitted them against each other without this opportunity to have someone to say this is love, or this is a winner or loser.

They grow with this sibling rivalry and the most important piece is gone now and so it’s really never ending. The competition permeates into their personal lives, but when it comes to dating the Ranes boys are just plain vicious.

When the boys were teenagers they both started dating the same girl, the girl was a little younger than them named Paula. The last thing these two guys needed was to have affection for the same woman because that was just another competition they couldn’t lose or else.

Paula was jumping back and forth between the two brothers. She seemed to be really interested in both, liking qualities in both. Larry was cooler, he was more introverted and tended to be a little shy. Danny was a lot more outgoing, an extrovert.

In 1962, younger brother Larry announces he plans to enlist in the army, leaving a shocked Paula heartbroken. He was the brother she liked the best and it felt as if now he was gone. Danny is pretty pleased he’s leaving because now he can move in on Paula which he does. They date and get serious.

Meanwhile, in the army Larry runs into trouble. Larry got himself drunk while out with a bunch of guys. One of his buddies stole his bag of potato chips and Larry went completely crazy. He stole a knife, he chased people around, threatening to kill people.

Eventually he had to be dragged off by the Military Police kicking and screaming. Larry spends the last part of his army stint in the stockade. Larry is discharged, and in the fall of 1963, now 18, he returns to Kalamazoo, but things aren’t quite the same as when he left.

Larry comes back in disgrace, he’s done badly, he’s back with nowhere to go, no sense of direction. Since being back he runs into Danny and Paula, and she asks him how he’s doing, rekindles her feelings for him, and wondered if there was any hope for something in the future, but she was with Danny.

This must have really, really irritated Larry, but he bounces back and he starts dating an older woman. He moves into her house, takes care of her kids, cleans her house, he thinks he’s doing things that will win him love, but she still goes out at night. Larry can’t go with her and he knows that she’s with older men. Still Larry’s love for her is unwavering and one day he proposes. Her rejection of his proposal leaves Larry devastated.

Larry is a person who shuts himself into a small world with few options, and even though his options fail to play out, he feels as if all doors are shut. He decides it’s time to end it all. He’s decided that he doesn’t want anymore to do with life.

It’s been a long exhausting day for 30-year-old high school teacher Gary Smock. He was driving around Michigan looking for sites for a future church youth convention. He stopped and had a meeting with Chamber of Commerce.

Gary knew he had to be at his in-laws for dinner that night, when he realized he was running late. He called his wife and told her he would not make it to dinner, but he would be there as soon as he could. After that he went back to his car, he took the raggedy old map the Chamber of Commerce gave him, found out where he was headed, and hit the road.

Along his journey Gary notices a lonely hitchhiker. For Gary, offering a bit of charity seems like a great way to end the day. It would be the worst decision he ever makes. When he doesn’t make it home as planned, his wife knows something isn’t right. The next morning Gary’s wife heads straight to the Kalamazoo police station to file a missing person’s report. She was so worried and so fearful. She had no idea what had happened.

While she's there filing out the report, a call comes in from a trooper who says that he spotted an abandoned car by the side of the road. The trooper saw blood stains on the bumper and in the front seat are personal papers. He told the officers there that he was going to have it towed to look into things a bit further.

Gary’s wife over hears the disturbing details and claims it’s her husband’s car. She must have been terrified wondering why he wasn’t with the car. Within a few hours the investigators canvas the car for evidence. They are going over every nook and cranny of the vehicle.

Immediately they were drawn to the horrific sight of a dead body. The victim is identified as Gary Smock. During the autopsy of Gary it was discovered that he was shot in the head just below his ear with a .22 caliber. He had been tied up.

What is a killer doing working in the shadows of Kalamazoo? They had a cold-blooded murder on their hands, and there was a cold-blooded murderer in their midst’s. The vicious attack has the whole town wondering who would kill a school teacher.

Detectives begin their investigation by piecing together the last days of Gary’s life. They discover he has done exactly what he said he was going to do. Gary’s phone call to his wife around 6:00 pm was the last time anyone has spoken to him. What happened after 6:00 pm?

Investigators needed to look deeper for further clues. The Crime Scene Investigators were working on the car when they found a palm print, and they are very hopeful at that point that it will belong to someone other than Gary. It’s a hopeful thought that it belongs to the killer.

Police have little idea that more trouble is on the horizon. That same Saturday morning while Gary’s wife is reporting him missing, a group of fishermen are heading out for a day on the lake, 60 miles away in Elkhart, Indiana.

They stop in at a gas station and nobody comes out to pump the gas, so they go in to look and find the gas station attendant had been shot to death behind the counter, and they find the cash register door was open.

When investigators reported to the scene they identified that Charles Snyder had been shot with a .22 caliber gun behind the head and that there was $100 missing out of the cash register. They assumed that this was a robbery. Road blocks were set up to contain the area. Each car and driver were screened as they passed through. Surrounding agencies are also told to be on the lookout, including officials in Kalamazoo , Michigan.

Once detectives took a closer look at the evidence , they wondered if Gary’s murder in Kalamazoo and Charles’ murder in Elkhart could be linked. Robbery was a motive in both murders, along with the .22 caliber shot to the back of the head. They think it’s possible it’s somebody doing some kind of spree. As investigators pieced the puzzle together, certain details remind them of an unsolved murder two months earlier .

Vernon LeBenne, a 23 -year -old Air Force Airman stained at Fort Custard Training Center 14 miles east of Kalamazoo, worked part time at a local gas station. He had been working alone at the station, when someone got into the station, robbed Vernon, and shot him. When Vernon is found the next morning he’s in a coma, he dies 12 hours later before police in Battle Creek can question him.

So now police have three murders that appear to be related. “Who’s next?”, is the question. The police had no clues or witnesses . Then on June 4th, five days after Gary and Charles ‘ murders, detectives in Kalamazoo get an unexpected call.

What the caller reveals leads them to a psychotic killer with a disturbing past, and it’s only part one of the evil that swept through this town. The man on the line tells police that the person they are looking for is at the caller’s house. He said the guy had just confessed to a bunch of murders, wants to see a priest, and is going to commit suicide.

When police arrived at the caller’s home, the perpetrator was still there. His name is Larry Ranes. Turns out he was still alive and living in Kalamazoo. They arrested him. Larry didn’t resist and was almost catatonic. When police questioned Larry he spoke without resistance, and admits to killing Gary and Charles. He was sure not to miss a single chilling detail.

Larry said when Gary offered him a ride, he got in the car and ordered Gary to get in the trunk at gun point, then starts to drive away. Larry was upset Gary was making noise so he pulled over, stopped the car, and killed him. He told investigators he then decided to go south to Elkhart, Indiana.

The next thing Larry did was go into a gas station, he robbed it, and ended up shooting and killing his next victim. Larry said he was waved through the road blocks at the gas station with Gary’s body in the trunk of the car. Immediately after he made it through the road blocks he went back to the crime scene and abandoned the car.

This is an individual with a calculating mind. As Larry continued with his confession, investigators discovered even more gruesome acts. Larry then tells them he killed gas station attendant, Vernon LeBenne, a man in Death Valley, and another gas station attendant in Kentucky. Police realized they captured a serial killer.

After extensive questioning Larry declined a lawyer. The prosecutor requested a psychiatric evaluation, but before the evaluation occurs Larry changed his mind and demanded a lawyer, which fell on deaf ears. The evaluation happened before he was provided a public defender. He should not have been evaluated without representation.

Larry told the Psychiatrist his issues were deep rooted. He thought his life would never amount to much, and he wanted to commit suicide. He has no sense of direction, he was missing something, the very part of psyche that makes people human, and that was sort of his lack of self worth. Being turned down the only time he ever proposes to a woman made him feel even less than worthless. That sent Larry to a real bad place.

Larry was unsuccessful in his attempt to take his own life. A Michigan State Trooper found him, and he ended up going to a hospital for two weeks. Larry complained that no one paid attention to his needs, if they had maybe what happened next would not have happened .Once discharged from the hospital, Larry refused to return to his home town and decide to wonder, hitchhiking back through Kentucky.

Kalamazoo detectives only charge Larry with Gary’s murder. When the trial finally began it centered largely on the question of Larry’s sanity. His lawyer told the jury that Larry was not insane, but he was insane when he killed Gary. The defense found a couple of psychologists who were willing to testify that Larry was temporarily insane at the time of the murder. The defense argued that because of his father’s brutal nature, in Larry’s mind he was actually killing his father over and over. The jury didn’t buy it and on October 9, 1964, Larry is convicted of Gary’s murder. Less than two months later, he is sentenced to life in prison.

When Larry’s childhood sweetheart, Paula, who is still in high school, learned about his conviction she was devastated. She followed the trial with her mother beside her. As she navigated down this sad path, she knew that she would never see Larry again. The love triangle between Paula, Larry and Danny was now over with Larry behind bars. Paula then fully devoted herself to Danny.

Danny moved in with Paula while she was in her senior year of high school, and was pregnant. He proposed to her. Paula’s parents didn’t want the marriage to happen at all, but Danny was persistent he wanted to do the right thing and marry Paula. At first she didn’t accept his proposal, but eventually gives in. At that point Danny felt like a winner, He’s got the girl. It seems the competitive nature between the Ranes brothers has never gone away.

Over the next several years, Paula and Danny have two children, but she still finds herself daydreaming about her old flame, Larry. She wrote him letters in prison, and Larry wrote her back. Danny discovered they wrote love letters. This created a riff in an already unsteady marriage and they begin to have terrible fights. One night in 1967 the fighting came to a head. Things got out of control, got loud, and got violent, so Danny decides to leave. Danny thought he was going to leave everything behind and go to Alaska, but he ended up in Wyoming. A month later Paula learned that Danny was in a prison in Wyoming.

Along the way Danny committed a crime. He was going to abduct a couple of kids, had a change of heart, took the teenagers home, and turned himself into police. For Danny the thought was that this could get his wife’s attention back on him, because he thought she loved a guy in prison maybe this would be a way of getting Paula back. Maybe she would love him more because he was also a bad boy and also in prison.

After a short trial, Danny was sentenced to 18 to 24 months in prison. When he got out he went to Paula, she had waited for him. Things didn’t stay happy for very long before they were fighting again. Danny goes out and commits a crime again, this time abducting and assaulting a teenage girl. Danny pleads guilty and is sentenced to four years in prison for erroneous assault.

During that time Paula, who had his third child now, had filed for divorce. So now he has lost the life he had, and now he lost his self esteem if he had any. A lot of doors will be closed to him when he gets out of prison. And just when it seemed Danny and Paula’s story had reached an end, an even more bizarre chapter was starting to unfold.

Seven years after his conviction, Larry Ranes appealed his case and was awarded a new trial, because his psychological evaluation happened before the public defender ever had the opportunity to speak with him. So Larry returned to Kalamazoo for his retrial. When he arrived he remained in jail hoping his conviction would be overturned. The new paper played him as this infamous murderer. Headlines splashed on the front page that he was back on town. This must have driven Danny crazy.

As fate would have it, five days later Danny was released from prison and also headed back to Kalamazoo. Within days of each other these notorious serial killers are both back in their hometown. When dead bodies started appearing, once again the town is rocked by a new sinister monster. No one was prepared for what soon followed.

Neil Howk arrived at the Kalamazoo Police Department to file a missing persons report. It had been over eight hours since he had seen his 28 – year – old wife, Patricia , and their 17 -month -old son. She went shopping and never came home. Neil knew something bad had happened.

The police started looking for Patricia, searching here, there, and everywhere, but nothing showed up. The next day police got a call. A woman had stumbled across a young boy wondering the streets by a local elevator company. The boy was covered in blood. This woman had followed the boy and had discovered the body of a woman who clearly was murdered.

Police quickly arrived and investigated the body of the woman just behind the building. The victim was identified as Patricia Howk and authorities discovered her wallet was missing. Their first thought was that it was a robbery, and that there might have been a sexual component to the attack. Patricia had last been seen the previous day so they figured whatever happened to her happened around the time she went shopping.

As the news hit the papers, the small town was shocked by her murder. Police investigated Patricia’s murder, but found no suspects, no leads, no nothing. She had no enemies and there was no reason why she was accosted in that way. The case went cold until a few months later.

A group of motorcycle riders came across an abandoned car about a dozen miles north of Kalamazoo. As they took a closer look they identified that there were decomposing bodies inside the vehicle. Later that day, the victims were identified as Linda Clark, and Claudia Bidstrup, both 19 years old. They had been reported missing to the Chicago Police and the local police had information from Chicago that they had left the Chicago area and were going to Ann Arbor.

Their autopsies didn’t reveal the cause of death, but the detectives believed the murders may have been tied to Patricia’s. They all had been robbed, their purses were found empty, and they were bound in a similar way. Unfortunately, Linda and Claudia’s bodies were too decomposed for forensics to tell whether or not they were raped. With no leads, no real evidence, and no killer, the cases seemed unsolvable.

Given Larry’s notoriety in the papers, was there a copycat killer on the loose? Detectives wondered, but it was a theory they could not prove. All that changed when the Kalamazoo Police received a tip that threw the investigation into full swing. It had been over eight years since Larry had terrorized the town of Kalamazoo.

A young man called the police and told them he knew who killed Linda and Claudia. It was a 15 – year – old named Brent Koster. The caller said Brent had told him what he had done. After confirming a lot of the information with the evidence the police had, detectives questioned Brent. He admitted his involvement in the violent rapes and murders, to which he claimed he was just an accomplice. The man in charge was a friend of his named Danny Ranes. When they found out that Danny was Larry’s brother, all of a sudden they realized they had a serial killer in prison and another who just happened to be his brother.

Brent told investigators it all started one evening when Danny bragged about his first attack six months earlier. Around 6:30 pm, Patricia was going into a discount store with her baby boy. She had no idea that someone was watching her. Danny told Brent that he parked right next to her car and waited for her to come out.

When she came out he watched her very carefully, and at that point made his move. Patricia fell back into the front seat of her car to get away from his knife and to put her between Danny and her son. He tried to strangle her, but she fought and scratched his face. At that point they fell together to the ground beside the passenger side of his van. Danny stuck his knife in her back, but she kept wiggling ,so he twisted the knife until she was dead. Danny loaded Patricia into his van, then grabbed her little boy, and drove to the outskirts of town where he dumped her body.

Brent goes on to tell police how Danny bragged about how well that method worked and suggested that they do something similar together. They hung out where Danny worked and fantasized about it. As they fantasized Linda and Claudia had pulled up to the gas station.

Brent filled up their tank while Danny was under the hood pretending to check the oil. Danny took one of the spark plug wires off and put the hood back down. When Brent finished filling the tank the girls tried to start the car but it didn’t run right. Pretending to be concerned about the sound, Danny told the girls to pull around to the back of the station.

As they pull into where it’s dark, Brent and Danny both pulled knives, telling them if they don’t scream, no one gets hurt. One would rape one of the girls while the other was a lookout, then they would switch. Brent told the investigators that in a few hours both girls were murdered, placed in their car, and dumped near the Kalamazoo River.

Based on his confession, Brent was arrested and placed in juvenile detention. Several hours later police found Danny at home. He refused to admit to any of the murders. Still he is arrested and charged with the rape and murders of the three women.

Over the next six weeks, Brent met with his attorney and was offered a deal in exchange for his full cooperation. Brent says, “I have one more murder to tell you about and that is Patricia Fearnow, who was hitchhiking on the campus of Michigan University. At this point she was just a missing persons case, they didn’t know she had been murdered as well.

Because of Brent’s cooperation, he was allowed to have a lesser charge, which is one charge of second degree murder. Even though Brent assisted the prosecution, he was sentenced to life, but only for the murder of Linda Clark.

Meanwhile, Danny continued to claim his innocence, but two separate juries disagree. The first trial was for Patricia Howk’s murder of which he was convicted, and the second trial was for Patricia Fearnow’s murder of which he was also convicted. Danny then changed his plea to no contest in the double slayings of Linda Clark and Claudia Bidstrup, and he received two more life sentences. By now Danny had become as infamous as his brother Larry. Larry’s insanity defense was pretty weak so he came clean and pled guilty to the murder of Gary Smock, and then was sentenced yet again to an additional life sentence.

In 1975, Paula married Larry in a prison ceremony. She divorced him four years later in Michigan. Both Larry and Danny remain in prison in Michigan, with no opportunity for parole.

For Larry and Danny Ranes, brotherly rivalry sent them both down a dark and evil path no one could have expected. I don’t think there are any other families with two serial killers within the same family, that killed alone not as a team, killed at different periods of time, years apart, with different methods. The result was the same, but the purpose for doing it was entirely different.

In the end, neither brother could overcome the desperate need to be the winner. A lot of what happened to them came out of a family that was unstable. Their family life was unpredictable. Both of them had a victim mentality. Both of them thought they were owed something, and they translated that into their own criminal behavior.