Scout Camp
Sex, Death, and Secret Societies Inside the Boy Scouts of America
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
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, 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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Investigative journalist Renner (Little, Crazy Children) examines the death of a Boy Scout leader in this disturbing account. In 1995, Mike Klingler, the director of Ohio's Seven Ranges Boy Scout Reservation, died of a gunshot wound under mysterious circumstances. After Klingler was accused of raping the camp's nature and crafts director, he was dismissed before the summer session ended. Soon after, he was found in a field near his home with a bullet in his chest. In 2022, Renner—a former summer counselor at Seven Ranges—reconnected with a fellow Scout, with whom he shared his suspicions that Klingler might have been murdered. Their conversation prompted Renner to reexamine his experiences at Seven Ranges and dig into Klingler's death. Renner buttresses his search for the truth with a searing look at the history of sexual assault in the Boy Scouts, which he notes has prompted nearly eight times as many abuse claims as those against the Catholic Church. His research turns up no easy answers, but his blend of dogged reporting and first-person recollection of the uncomfortably sexualized rituals he experienced as a young scout lends the proceedings a fierce immediacy. It's a chilling study of unchecked power. Photos.
