What public records exist about custody orders involving Renee Nicole Good and her ex-husband?
Executive summary
Public records reporting on custody involving Renee Nicole Good and her ex-husband are limited but not absent: mainstream reporting cites a court-awarded custody arrangement for Good’s two older children after her 2015 divorce, while multiple fact‑checks and public‑record searches have not found evidence of criminal charges, child‑abuse filings, or broader custody litigation tied to the viral allegations circulating after her death [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. Court reporting: a 2016 custody award for the two older children
Local reporting in the Star Tribune states that Renee Good married Justin Sheppard in 2009, filed for divorce in 2015, and that “he was granted custody of their two kids the following year,” a claim the paper attributes to court records rather than social media posts [1].
2. Fact‑checkers: no public records of criminal charges or custody loss tied to abuse claims
Several fact‑checking outlets and public‑records searches found no court filings showing Good was charged with child abuse, lost custody through criminal proceedings, or faced related criminal charges in the states searched; Limitless Media reported no arrest or custody records in Colorado, Minnesota or Missouri and noted only a civil vehicle‑registration matter and a prior name‑change filing [2], while PolitiFact likewise did not locate court records showing child‑abuse or endangerment charges in Colorado, Missouri or Virginia [3].
3. Other news accounts and statements: reporting that the older children are in their father’s custody
Beyond the Star Tribune’s citation of court records, several outlets — including the Hindustan Times and other national stories — relay that Good’s two older children are “reportedly in custody of their father, Good’s ex‑husband,” a point often attributed to Associated Press reporting or family statements made after Good’s death [5] [6].
4. Public records that are documented: name‑change and residency filings, not child‑welfare cases
What is verifiable in court dockets cited by multiple outlets are non‑custody filings: Good filed a petition in Jackson County, Missouri, in October 2023 to change her last name, an item confirmed in local court records reported by regional outlets [7]. Fact‑checkers emphasize that searches turned up the name‑change and routine civil motor‑vehicle matters but did not turn up court dockets alleging child abuse or formal custody revocation on the basis of abuse [2] [4].
5. Reconciling apparent contradictions in reporting and the limits of available public records
The reporting landscape shows a specific custody award for the older children cited by the Star Tribune and other outlets, while separate fact‑checks focus on debunking viral claims that Good had an arrest record or that she lost custody because of abuse and say they could not find supporting court records; this is not necessarily a direct contradiction if the custody grant was a result of a divorce proceeding (a family‑court custody order) rather than criminal child‑welfare actions — but the publicly available summaries and the fact‑checks do not publish the verbatim custody docket entries, so direct verification here is limited to the media accounts that cite court records [1] [2] [3] [4].
6. What is certain, and what remains unverified
What can be stated with confidence from the available corpus is that multiple reputable outlets report a 2016 custody award to Good’s ex‑husband for the two older children and that public‑record searches have not substantiated viral claims that Good had an arrest record or lost custody through criminal child‑welfare charges; what cannot be independently reproduced from the sources provided here is the full, original custody docket text or a complete set of filings across every jurisdiction, so absolute closure on every possible custody‑related document is beyond the current reporting [1] [2] [3] [4] [7].