James Renner | |
---|---|
Born | |
Alma mater | Kent State University (2000) |
Occupation(s) | Writer, director, producer |
Years active | 2000–present |
Children | 2 |
Website | jamesrenner |
James Renner is an American author, investigative journalist, producer, and director. He worked as a reporter for Cleveland Scene and was editor of the alternative newspaper The Cleveland Independent. [1] He is known for his work in the thriller, science fiction, and true crime genres. In 2019, Renner founded The Porchlight Project, a nonprofit dedicated to offering support for the families of the missing and murdered.
Renner is from Akron, Ohio,[ citation needed ] and is a 2000 graduate of Kent State University. [2] He worked as a reporter for Cleveland Scene and was the editor of the alternative newspaper The Cleveland Independent. [1] He was also a founding member of Last Call Cleveland, a sketch comedy troupe.
In 2003, Renner began working as a reporter for Cleveland Scene and was editor of the alternative newspaper, The Cleveland Independent. [2] At Cleveland Scene, he investigated the cases of Tina Harmon [3] and Amy Mihaljevic. [4]
Harmon was a 12-year-old girl who disappeared from Creston, Ohio in 1981. [3] After pressure from her family, authorities tested DNA evidence found on Harmon's body with new technology in 2008. [4] In 2010, the tests linked Harmon's death to Robert Anthony Buell, a convicted murderer sentenced to death for the 1982 murder of Krista Lea Harrison. Although he was executed for Harrison's death in 2002, Buell was never tried or convicted of Harmon's murder. [3]
In 2005, Renner published a Cleveland Scene cover story revisiting the 1989 abduction and death of 10-year-old Amy Mihaljevic from Bay Village, Ohio. [4] [5] Renner credits Mihaljevic's death for his work in true crime; he became dedicated to finding her killer. [5]
On August 8, 2006, Renner began a blog chronicling his investigation of Mihaljevic's murder. [6] Later that year, he published Amy: My Search for her Killer. [7] In 2007, Renner donated his materials related to his search to Kent State University's Special Collections Archive.
In April 2009, a story written by James Renner about then-gubernatorial candidate Kevin Coughlin's use of campaign funds to purchase private hotel rooms, which appeared in Cleveland Scene, was spiked by the CEO of Times Shamrock who claimed it "did not meet management’s basic standards of journalism." [8] Renner was fired after sending an email to the CEO refuting these claims and the article was circulated among other journos and the statehouse. [9] Renner sued Cleveland Scene for wrongful termination and the company settled out of court. [10] Renner returned to Scene in 2014 after Times Shamrock sold the company. [11]
In January 2011, Renner announced his plans to delve into the disappearance of Maura Murray, a nursing student who went missing after a car accident in Haverhill, New Hampshire. [12] His book on the case, True Crime Addict , was published in May 2016. [13]
In May, 2018, Renner released the first season of a new podcast, The Philosophy of Crime. [14]
Renner is currently the host of the ID Discovery series, Lake Erie's Coldest Cases. [15]
In August 2019, Renner announced the launch of his nonprofit, The Porchlight Project, which provide funding for forensic genealogy testing for cold cases in Ohio. Its first case would be the 1987 unsolved murder of 17-year-old Barbara Blatnik in Cuyahoga Falls. [16] On May 6, 2020, Cuyahoga Falls police announced the arrest of 67-year-old James Zastawnik of Cleveland for her murder. The Porchlight Project paid for the testing of DNA samples taken from under Blatnik's fingernails and the forensic genealogy research provided by Colleen M. Fitzpatrick and her team at Identifinders International. [17]
Renner's first novel, The Man From Primrose Lane , was published by Sarah Crichton Books, an imprint of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, in March 2012. [18] The novel follows a best-selling author as he investigates the murder of a mysterious recluse known as "the man with a thousand mittens." [19] In 2013, Warner Bros. optioned the rights to adapt The Man From Primrose Lane as a film starring Bradley Cooper. [20] When the deal failed to proceed, Renner worked with Working Title Films to pitch a television series pilot that was picked up by Fox in 2017. [21] Feature director Alexandre Aja ( The Hills Have Eyes, The 9th Life of Louis Drax ) will direct and produce the series. [22]
His second novel, The Great Forgetting, was released November 10, 2015. [23] The sci-fi thriller, set in the fictional town of Franklin Mills, Ohio tells the story of history teacher Jack Felter as he returns to his pastoral childhood home to care for his ailing father and is pulled into a grand conspiracy involving the rewriting of American history. [24]
In 2004, Renner directed an adaptation of Stephen King's short story "All That You Love Will Be Carried Away". [25] King granted Renner the rights to adapt this story as part of his Dollar Baby program for aspiring filmmakers. It was an official selection at the 2005 Montreal World Film Festival. [26]
In 2005, Renner visited reclusive author J.D. Salinger at the author's home in New Hampshire. Renner released a documentary about The Catcher in the Rye and his road trip to visit Salinger in 2009. It is available online, in serialized form. [26]
Renner's stories have been published in The Best American Crime Reporting and The Best Creative Nonfiction anthologies. [27]
The Boston Strangler is the name given to the murderer of 13 women in Greater Boston during the early 1960s. The crimes were attributed to Albert DeSalvo based on his confession, on details revealed in court during a separate case, and DNA evidence linking him to the final victim.
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Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia, was an American woman found murdered in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, on January 15, 1947. Her case became highly publicized owing to the gruesome nature of the crime, which included the mutilation of her corpse, which was bisected at the waist.
Samuel Holmes Sheppard was an American osteopath. He was convicted of the 1954 murder of his pregnant wife, Marilyn Reese Sheppard, but the conviction was eventually overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, which cited a "carnival atmosphere" at the trial. Sheppard was acquitted at a retrial in 1966.
Amy Renee Mihaljevic was a ten-year-old American elementary school student who was kidnapped and murdered in the U.S. state of Ohio in 1989.
They Won't Forget is a 1937 American drama film directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starring Claude Rains, Gloria Dickson, Edward Norris, and Lana Turner, in her feature debut. It was based on a novel by Ward Greene called Death in the Deep South, which was in turn a fictionalized account of a real-life case: the trial and subsequent lynching of Leo Frank after the murder of Mary Phagan in 1913.
Thomas Lee Dillon was an American serial killer who shot and killed at least five men in southeastern Ohio, beginning April 1, 1989 and continuing until April 1992. He was nicknamed "Killer" for boasting about shooting hundreds of animals.
1st to Die is a 2001 crime novel by American author James Patterson that is the first book in the Women's Murder Club series. The series is about four friends who pool their skills together to crack San Francisco's toughest murder cases. The women each have different jobs: Lindsay Boxer, a homicide inspector for the San Francisco Police Department, Claire Washburn, a medical examiner, Jill Bernhardt, an assistant D.A., and Cindy Thomas, a reporter who just started working the crime desk of the San Francisco Chronicle.
Casey, Crime Photographer was an American media franchise that lasted from the 1930s until the 1960s. Created by crime writer George Harmon Coxe, the photographer Casey was featured in radio, film, theater, novels, magazines and comic books, and television. Launched in a 1934 issue of the pulp magazine Black Mask, the character Jack "Flashgun" Casey, was a crime photographer for the newspaper The Morning Express. With the help of reporter Ann Williams, he solved crimes and recounted his stories to friends at The Blue Note, their favorite tavern.
Colleen M. Fitzpatrick is an American forensic scientist, genealogist and entrepreneur. She helped identify remains found at the crash site of Northwest Flight 4422, that crashed in Alaska in 1948, and co-founded the DNA Doe Project which identifies previously unidentified bodies and runs Identifinders International, an investigative genetic genealogy consulting firm which helps identify victims and perpetrators of violent crimes.
Edward Wayne Edwards was an American serial killer and former fugitive. Edwards escaped from jail in Akron, Ohio, in 1955 and fled across the country, holding up gas stations. By 1961, he was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
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Tina Marie Harmon was a 12-year-old American girl who was abducted, raped, and murdered on October 29, 1981, after being dropped off in Lodi, Ohio. After the discovery of her body, she was later buried at the Maple Mound Cemetery. Two men were originally convicted of her murder on circumstantial evidence but were eventually released when the conviction was overturned. Harmon's murder was solved in 2010 when DNA from the individual who raped her was matched to Robert Anthony Buell.
Barbara Ann Barnes was an American schoolgirl who was murdered in December 1995 at the age of thirteen. The case remains unsolved. Many have speculated that her uncle may have been responsible for her death, but others believe that the crime was committed by someone local to the area. Journalist James Renner has published his theory that the case may be connected to the murders of Tina Harmon, Krista Harrison, Deborah Kaye "Debbie" Smith, and Amy Mihaljevic.
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The Man From Primrose Lane is an adult science-fiction thriller novel by American author and investigative journalist James Renner. It was published by Sarah Crichton Books in 2012. A television adaptation of the novel was picked up by 20th Television and Working Title Films in 2017.
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