The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "Tom Renner Award Category" ...
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Fire Mark: Did prosecutors wrongfully convict a 17-year-old of triple homicide in the 1995 blaze that killed three firefighters?
The Innocence Institute of Point Park University looked into the conviction of Greg Brown who was charged with arson in a fire that lead to the death of three firefighters. Through their reporting efforts, the Innocence Institute the fire was not started by Brown - it was cause by a natural gas leak, not arson. And that some of the main witnesses had been paid as much as $10,000 to testify.
Tags: wrongful conviction; arson; crime; Innocence Project; FOIA; ATF; Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
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Looting the Seas: How Overfishing, Fraud and Negligence Plundered the Majestic Bluefin Tuna
"A groundbreaking, multimedia expose on the $4 billion black market in bluefin tuna, the world's most coveted source of sushi." From professional fisheries to tuna farms in the Mediterranean and N. Africa, the business was "riddled with fraud, negligence, and criminal misconduct."
Tags: environment; fraud; fishing; bluefin tuna; sushi; black market; fisheries; overfishing; commercial fishing
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The Other Side of Mercy
"On Nov. 29, 2009, Maurice Clemmons shot and killed four Lakewood police officers in a Pierce County coffee shop, committing one of the worst crimes in the history of the Pacific Northwest. "The Other Side of Mercy" chronicles Clemmons' criminal history, exposing a variety of system breakdowns that set the stage for this shocking ambush."
Tags: Maurice Clemmons; police; murder; criminal history; criminal record; violence
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Who Killed Aiyana Stanley-Jones?
LeDuff investigates who death Aiyana Stanely-Jones, a seven-year-old who was shot and killed when Detroit police raided an East Side home where she slept on the couch. Police were looking for a murder suspect, and Aiyana ended up dead. The story "is a powerful heartbreaking elegy for a child, a city and our civic duties."
Tags: crime; murder; Detroit; poverty; police reports; FOIA; homicide
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Barry Minkow 2.0
The LA Weekly found that Barry Minkow was duping investors for the second time, while the media looked the other way. Using thousands of pages of court documents, public companies' financial reports, and real estate records, the Weekly discovered a pattern of Minkow shortening stocks his Fraud Discovery Institute was about to issue critical reports on, sending the stocks plummeting.
Tags: Barry Minkow; fraud; extortion; libel; SEC
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Blood Brother
Dale Jameton was highly ranked in the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, a white supremacist prison gang that ordered killings and ran a sophisticated drug distribution network inside the prison walls. The story shows how prison can change a man for the worse, shown through Jameton's story of how he killed two people within weeks of being released from a decade in prison.
Tags: jail; incarceration; murder; cartel; smuggling; racism;
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The Grim Sleeper
Pelisek's story details a secret the Los Angeles police were shielding from the public: "that a serial murderer had begun killing Angelenos since 1985, taking a 13-year hiatus before recently resuming his bloody assaults almost exclusively in a poor, black sector of the city." DNA evidence linked a single killer to several murders of mostly young women, drug users and prostitutes. It was Pelisek that informed families of some of the victims that their daughters' murder was the work of a serial killer.
Tags: police; serial killer; Los Angeles; body dump; murder; cold case; public records; police documents; court documents
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From Russia with Hate
Putzel traveled to Russia to "find the source of the viral videos" online that come from Russian neo-Nazis. In Russia immigrants are often attacked, and these videos posted on the Internet were being used to spread propaganda. While there, Putzel also went to a camp where Russian neo-Nazis "train for an anticipated uprising."
Tags: Russia; immigrants; neo-Nazi; skinheads; training camps; Internet; viral videos; videos
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The Big Eddy Club
The book re-investigates the "stocking stranglings, the murders of seven white women in Columbus, Georgia, that took place over an eight-month period 1977-8." The author has collected fresh evidence that the convicted Carlton Gary, may be innocent.
Tags: civil rights; evidence; DNA; semen; teeth marks; Georgia; stocking stranglings; murder; Thomas H. Brewer; Carlton Gary; re-investigate; wrongful conviction
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Flash and Cash
"Eurasian organized crime members are funding their international empires by defrauding government health and welfare programs in the United States out of tens of billions of dollars."
Tags: crime syndicate; welfare; fraud; government; national; FBI; ICE; murder; launder; La Cosa Nostra