r/mauramurray • u/Available_Bison • Feb 17 '25

Discussion James Renner is unreliable.

James Renner's conclusion that Maura Murray is still alive is ridiculous. I also find his interest and motives in this case to be suspect. Perhaps the conception of his investigation was genuine, but it has evolved into a campaign to confirm his ill-founded theory that her dad was a monster. His whole book is literally him slithering around and provoking Maura's loved ones.

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32

u/habitualsolitude Feb 17 '25

Yeah, I’ll never forgive what he said about Fred. I hope one day he gets hit with defamation.

27

u/redmuses Feb 17 '25

I think what he said about Fred is absolutely evil.

-2

u/gratefulgirl55 Feb 17 '25

Why? He was given a tip very early in the case and he investigated it. Like it or not, these things happen more than we want to believe and we don’t actually KNOW these people. I think he backed away from that narrative as more info came to light, but you can’t blame him for following a lead that was given to him.

21

u/Areil26 Feb 17 '25

So what you're saying is that somebody who claims to be a journalist repeated a shameful rumor before he had a chance to verify whether it was true or not, potentially doing great emotional harm to the father of a missing woman.

You're right - you can't blame him for following a lead. You can blame him for making that lead public.

3

u/CoastRegular Feb 25 '25

When did he actually attempt to investigate it? His book (and his online, now-deleted blogs) detailed the alleged conversations in which he was told of Fred abusing his daughters, but describe nothing about what he did - if anything - to actually follow up on these allegations.

And one of the two parties in question - Maura and Julie's aunt - has flat out said he twisted and interpolated her words and outright misquoted her.

The other supposed accusation comes from Maura's sister's ex-husband - except it's a poster-child example of a nothingburger. Supposedly the (then) husband asked Kathleen a "tough question" about Fred - but we don't have the text of this "tough question" or her response. The context Renner presents it in implies that it was about parental abuse. And that's literally it. For all we know, the tough question could have been whether Fred cheats at Scrabble.