Journalist. Palindrome. Writer.

Tag: true crime book

Scout Camp is here!

My newest true crime book, Scout Camp: Sex, Death, and Secret Societies Inside the Boy Scouts of America is finally here! Find it at your local bookstore or online here.

If you live in Cleveland and would like a signed copy, drop by Loganberry Books or order directly from them here.

In this timely and deeply personal true crime memoir, acclaimed journalist, author, creator of the True Crime This Week podcast, and former Boy Scout James Renner, explores the dark side of an American institution, its pervasive culture of sexual abuse, and the traumatic—even deadly—repercussions of its long-buried secrets.

In the summer of 1995, at the largest Boy Scout camp in Ohio, a night of sexual violence ended with one counselor dead and another hospitalized. The death was ruled “accidental.” It wouldn’t be the last death associated with Seven Ranges Reservation.

James Renner, too, was a counselor at Seven Ranges that year. He was always sure there must be more to the story of Mike Klingler’s death, because Renner also knew firsthand that the 900-acre camp was not the safe getaway it was portrayed to be. On Friday nights the boys were ushered into the woods for a frightening ceremony in which they learned the rules for becoming good young men—and, above all, that keeping secrets was a scout’s duty. No matter how dark the secrets were.

Determined to face his demons, Renner embarks on a journey back to that tumultuous summer and exposes a clandestine society that left indelible scars on the scouts and the staff who were there. For Renner himself, it meant opening up about his twisted upbringing, his issues with trust and sexuality, and a lifetime of self-medication. The result is a deeply personal, no-holds-barred, and vitally important true crime memoir.

New Audiobook!

My collection of unsolved true crime stories, The Serial Killer’s Apprentice, is now available as an audiobook for the first time! Get it on Audible here.

Investigative reporter James Renner reopens cold cases that have baffled Clevelanders for years, including:

Murder—Beverly Jarosz, just sixteen years old, felt a dark foreboding in the months before she was stabbed to death in her quiet Garfield Heights home. It all started with an anonymous gift.

Stolen Identity—Joseph Newton Chandler was not who he claimed to be. Some think he was the Zodiac killer; others say he was D. B. Cooper, or even Jim Morrison.

Suicide or murder?—Joseph Kupchik hid gambling problems from friends and family until he was found at the bottom of a nine-story parking deck in downtown Cleveland—with multiple stab wounds.

Heist—In 1969, Lakewood bank employee Ted Conrad nabbed $215,000 from the vault one day after his twentieth birthday. The FBI still shows up at his high school reunions.

Controversy—Jeffrey Krotine was thrice tried for the grisly 2003 murder of his wife and ultimately acquitted, to the frustration of prosecutors, detectives, and jurors.

These stories venture into dark alleys and strip clubs, as well as suburbs and small towns, where some of the region’s most horrendous crimes have occurred.

© 2025 James Renner

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