University of West Georgia (UWG) dishonest communications in 2024 expose deep academic integrity and research failings. UWG websites currently promote an 88-year-old actress (age as of 1-16-2025), who for decades has charged $20 to $40 a minute fees to access her 'super psychic powers' to contact the dead and murdered. The UWG apparently now accepts her many 'God like' superpowers as authentic. Yet this UWG supported and self-claimed 'psychic detective' is the highly discredited actress Noreen Renier of Florida. But in late 2024 the UWG boasts she "has worked with law enforcement agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, on approximately 600 unsolved cases." However, among UWG's estimated 600 Public Law Enforcement (PLE) cases worked by Renier, no U.S. PLE agency was found holding public documents confirming Noreen Renier for any officially sanctioned PLE case work hiring, nor authorizing her handling of any matching PLE case evidence. Searched dates ran from January 1965 thru July 2024. Even among many North American, European, Asian, and Australian PLE agencies, none reported that Noreen Renier was PLE hired and solved any PLE case.
Renier herself reluctantly testified about her PLE work claims, admitting that she actually has no dated or numbered PLE agency work listings. Nor has she kept any PLE agency names, PLE contact names, or PLE case numbers that match up with her "more than hundreds" of PLE cases that she claims to have worked. And not surprisingly, she could find no previous PLE hiring employment records, nor PLE case payment receipts, nor "more than hundreds" of PLE agency payments on her tax records. And across the last 20 years thru mid 2023 her website posted fees for PLE agency work were rarely discounted below $1000. And they have never been shown or discussed by Renier as free. Indeed, she repeatedly raised her posted on-line fees to PLE agencies, while lowering her posted private party 'missing person locating fees'. This gave an appearance of 'better value' for families over her PLE agency fees. But there is no evidence to support UWG's near 600 worked PLE cases, nor Renier's own "more than hundreds" of PLE cases worked. Just how many UWG faculty and staff are behind this globally massive charade?
In late 2024 the UWG now even claims its Special Collection "includes material on cases that Renier worked on for the FBI." Truthful? No. Because compounding that UWG falsehood is testimony by FBI Special Agent Robert Ressler stating Renier's claim of working for the FBI "is not true. …she does not work on F.B.I. cases… …She never really worked for the F.B.I.” And his senior, FBI Chief Roger Depue, also testified that Renier never did FBI case work. Ever. And neither Renier nor UWG have any PLE 'Chain of Custody' (CoC) chronology logs showing she ever handled PLE case evidence from any of 17,743 U.S. PLE agencies. In October 2024 the new Microsoft 'Co-Pilot' AI option on the Bing search engine produced a false, but revealing statement. It stated that Noreen Renier worked on cases for the FBI by citing the UWG to support that claim. That prompted further Global Net Research funding and activities which uncovered additional UWG concerns. Has the UWG created phoney ties to major global PLE agencies to convince families with lost and murdered children to book Noreen Renier to contact their missing or dead children? If so, did some UWG employees receive financial kick-backs from what appears to be a 'million dollar plus' business? With Renier's PLE numbers "more than hundreds", even just 1000 PLE cases would net $1 million. Toss in over 4 decades of private party phone talks with Renier and decades of private medium sessions, and the dollars raised could easily triple, quadruple, or exceed $5 million. So among these many spinning parts, which and how many are a charade? Did students, including student web script and software writers, assist UWG staff personnel and receive academic credits for doing so?
Critically, Renier and UWG statements also seem to suggest Renier has mystical powers while holding objects, such as while touching PLE physical evidence. Are both the UWG and Renier spinning a claim that touching an object can trigger 'psychometry' paranormal powers? There is of course no scientific evidence that psychometry exists, but even extensive testing directly on Renier hasn't stopped the UWG.
Indeed, Noreen Renier has only catastrophic 'psychometry' touching failures after expert testing by Southern Oregon State College faculty (Click to see Finding #22 at https://www.globalnetresearch.com/findings.html ). Yet UWG personnel offer no UWG method tests of their own, but remain firm in still backing Renier. UWG currently states that "her method involves holding items belonging to the missing person in order to learn information about the place, time, and circumstances of their disappearance." Such items have included the holding of Teddy Bears from missing and dead children. But not a single lost child or adult has ever been located using this mystical UWG 'touch-sense' claim. Yet during a typical Renier 25 to 40 minute medium session to contact the missing or dead, Noreen Renier often suggested along with their $1000 cash or check payment -- no credit cards were allowed -- that clients also send a personal item from the lost family member before Renier made contact using her ghost entities and her sensing of psychic vibrations.
According to retired private investigator Arthur Carmelo, Noreen Renier claims she has touched "thousands" of sensory items. He has spoken with many of her past clients who said Renier had them wrap a "lock of hair" in aluminum foil inside the mailing envelope with their personal or bank cashier's check. He also found many instead sent Renier different personal items including "small stuffed animals, child artwork, small books, hair combs, men's cuff links, dolls, women's scarfs, hand mittens, hair pins, several toothbrushes, and even a partially eaten bag of Cheetos" which, according to feedback from Renier to that client, produced “strong sensory waves” allowing Renier to contact a deceased young boy.
During brief recorded medium sessions, a few samples of which are stored by the UWG in their Noreen Renier Collection #MS-0083, actress Noreen Renier voices both her own voice and projects the responses from "lost souls" reaching out. Her paying clients also heard her medium session live over the phone, and often "communicated" thru Renier with their children or another family member or friend. In a public statement issued in her own published media pack titled "Workshop ESP: An Awareness" Noreen Renier stated even "an optional trance" was available "to make contact with the deceased relatives, friends, or famous people, and questions may be posed to 'Sing' and 'Robert', Noreen's two main spiritual entities, who have something to say about everything!" Now, after her "retirement" in mid 2023, the UWG continues to publicly provide access to its Renier collection. But it does so with no UWG warnings or stated reservations that hearing or relying on such paranormal methods can result in significant costs, just delusionary fiction, and additional emotional harms. Nor does UWG mention that Noreen Renier herself has been shown as not credible by a U.S. federal court, nor that the judgment against her was also supported by four additional U.S. federal judges. Excerpts from those judgements are shown below.
UWG even ignores Renier testimony 40 years ago that she stopped logging PLE agencies, cases, or contacts after her initial "35 to 40" files were "lost" by Renier. So UWG actually has never had any proof to support media stories citing 400 to 1800 PLE cases worked by Renier, resolved by Renier, or even existing. Indeed U.S. federal court subpoenas uncovered one unreported Noreen Renier bank account hidden just weeks before Renier declared her 2nd bankruptcy. Records provided to the federal bankruptcy Court Trustee state that Renier "provided information about seven (7) accounts in her bankruptcy petition: four different accounts at Wachovia Bank in Charlottesville, two retirement accounts (American Funds and Evergreen Investments), and a closed account at Bank of America in Tampa. However, the Debtor [Renier], failed to identify her checking account at the Putt Putt branch of Bank of America in Charlottesville." That hidden account showed cash deposits well over $100,000.00 including many additional payments from families who paid Renier for an over-the-phone missing child medium session. A related question is why were at least 7 different active financial accounts needed by Renier who initially claimed to the bankruptcy court that her total income the year before was just $6371.00? Then where did the funds in the hidden account come from and go to?
Among many families contacted from checks processed thru Renier's hidden bank account, not even one family said Renier had found their child. Many were further emotionally devastated as Renier, using a childish voice, voiced a child speaking thru one or both of Renier's claimed ghost entities. According to multiple witnesses across multiple sessions, Renier's mouth cried out repeatedly with the sound of a child's anguish that they were lost and afraid. This is the reality behind a UWG facade that the UWG showcases as a valued historical collection for academic research.
Instead the UWG is seen by many as providing a global stage for Noreen Renier, a former dinner theatre and lengthy professional playhouse actress. Renier for years worked in entertainment lounges and also operated and acted in her own nightclub. Noreen Renier is a performer who later started a business booking parents of lost and missing children to her own 'spiritual medium' sessions. According to several trade companions, Renier discovered that she could sit in her own home and by phone discuss psychics, spiritual healings, and paranormal events on late night AM radio stations for free. As she became better recognized, radio stations booked her more often including across larger regions of the U.S. and Canada. With this better coverage she also began drawing new clients looking for advice by phone during the day after listening to her at night. Within just 6 years she became an American psychic talk show star, and also expanded from radio to TV. Over the years she evolved into a 'Police Psychic Detective & Medium Contacting the Murdered' further expanding her recognition.
After changing her title to just 'Police Psychic Detective' she even picked up a short luncheon talk at the FBI Training Academy located about an hour from her home. She quickly turned that description from 'a short talk over lunch in front of a few FBI trainees' into a false marketing campaign claiming to be "an FBI psychic medium investigator" who had "lectured at the FBI." This became her story, rather than simply speaking for a few minutes and answering some questions on the same afternoon, split between two trainee back-to-back lunch breaks. The UWG clearly never checked the facts. Her actual discussion was essentially that 'as a police psychic detective I am already on network TV and real. Any questions?' She became a national TV guest, and a limited co-writer fronted by ghost-writers, some who remain unidentified in 2024, for 2 books and a mini pamphlet. By the mid 1980's she had left her work in lounges, playhouses, and her 'sleazy' nightclub attire far behind. Well, almost. (See her own comment in statement #23 below). But she has always remained first and foremost an actress marketing exaggerated tales. And outright lies.
In late 2024 neither interim University of West Georgia President, Dr. Ashwani Monga, nor any UWG senior or UWG legal personnel have halted or revised UWG's dishonest statements and claims as noted on this site. It appears all risks and liabilities distributed about Noreen Renier from UWG websites are now fully transferred to the UWG without any UWG publicly stated reservations. Not even a UWG public disclaimer to cover the dismal research and dishonesty of the cited communications. Those remain posted under various UWG logos.
Renier's federal bankruptcy judge ruled she had misled the federal bankruptcy court, forcing Renier on her third court income filing to revise her income earnings upward by over 10 times even after her second filing. Even so, her major creditor showed further financial deceptions and the judge later ordered the sale of thousands of dollars in Renier's assets to pay her creditors. Deceptions after deceptions even while she stood in a federal court house. And bankruptcy issues were just one of her legal problems as a Washington U.S. District Court had also found that she had breached an earlier Florida State Court settlement agreement, ruling she owed a principal critic over $40,000.00. And even after that, after taking almost a year to twice appeal U.S. federal court judgments against her, she lost both of her appeals. Her legal costs became far greater than her income. All of which, across several years, are completely ignored in any UWG communications. Honest UWG coverage? No.
Using the minimum count tally of Noreen Renier's claimed PLE 'case work' totals, as of July 1, 2023 -- near Renier's "retirement" from case work -- Global Net Research investigators believe that conservatively 1,036 (99.7% to 100%) among her claimed total PLE 'cases worked' are in fact bogus and never existed, and/or are completely autonomous from authentic PLE cases she was never sanctioned or authorized to work, and therefore was never hired or "worked" according to any known PLE agency. If she accurately claimed even 0 to 5 PLE sanctioned cases given to her to work, they would likely be from small townships where that particular office closed and no records were transferred to other PLE cross referencing networks. That would be unusual as even smaller PLE offices would have PLE 'Chain of Custody' (CoC) documentation for the handling of their files and any acquired evidence. Beyond even the slim possibility of five or more such cases being claimed by Renier, all investigators contacted suspect such cases would be found delusional, exaggerated, or improperly recorded.
So why is the University of West Georgia pushing dishonest academic claims while promoting a woman that one writer called a fraud and charlatan in court as early as 1986? Since 1994 Renier has been handed over 120 pages of court judgment rulings against her from multiple U.S. state and federal courts. Class action litigation from other plaintiffs against U.S. institutions who have actively distributed public communications incorporating dishonest claims about Noreen Renier and others, can now proceed. For the University of West Georgia, having distributed such false communications for years, it has uniquely expanded its liabilities beyond the safeguard limits of other public institutions. Shockingly well beyond a professional academic center. Below, further concerns for the University of West Georgia and its related state hierarchy are noted. And even more uncovered deceptions.
The photos above of Noreen Renier (88 years old as of 1-16-2025) span the last 55 years. Noreen Renier has never been sanctioned to work PLE cases under the FBI, CIA, NSA, Scotland Yard, or for any of 38 U.S. state police agencies as she claims.
Only 0 to 5 cases from 4 tiny United States PLE offices MIGHT have been sanctioned for Noreen Renier to work over 60 years. Not UWG's whopping estimate of 600. As a 'police psychic detective for hire' Noreen Renier has preyed on families with lost children by selling them medium readings by phone. Noreen Renier self-claims to contact the dead, the murdered, and the missing using two "ghost entities" and purified crystal pendulums. Cost? Typically $20 to $40 per minute based on Renier's mid 2023 minimum flat rate shown on her website at $1000. The University of West Georgia has corrupted its own ethical, scientific, academic, and research integrity standards in promoting actress Noreen Renier. Clearly this UWG charade shows extreme public community negligence for truth and accuracy. UWG students should be concerned at the educational quality they are receiving as these appalling practices appear allowable under current UWG communication standards. Additionally both UWG donors and grant institutions should be ashamed how their UWG funding is being intermixed beside such globally viewed UWG spirit medium shenanigans.
For more than 2 decades Noreen Renier has posted on her website her own faked academic credentials as an adjunct faculty member across 7 accredited U.S. colleges and universities. Click here to see https://noreenrenier.com/services/academic.htm However, all 7 of these institutions denied her claims that they gave her a "teaching appointment" as a "adjunct faculty member" and many, beginning 20 years ago, requested Renier to remove these deceptive postings. She has never done so. Noreen Renier has never been an accredited adjunct faculty member or received any accredited public college or university faculty teaching appointment. She herself has never earned or received an accredited 2 or 4 year degree. Yet apparently the University of West Georgia has itself ignored these teaching appointment and title deceptions provided on May 18, 2023 to then UWG President Brendan Kelly; many current senior UWG officials and staff; the UWG Office of Legal Affairs; and to Blynne Olivieri Parker, Professor & Head of UWG Special Collections. Now, in December 2024, the UWG adds to the confusion in using the website subject title covering Noreen Renier "Teaching experience, 1978-2014 | University of West Georgia" seemingly linking Renier with UWG teaching. In fact, in federal court testimony as the defendant she could not remember the name of any high school she graduated from. So why is UWG adding more false confusion about Renier teaching with the UWG for 36 years? The UWG just continues to compound its own false and/or misleading and/or sloppy UWG communications about Noreen Renier. It now appears some UWG website writers are completely out of control. Why?
Portraying herself as making contact with the dead, Noreen Renier claims hundreds of cases "when I was paid and hired by the police." Also not true. Instead many of those listed below note Noreen Renier lies and/or wildly distorts. Please note the statements from multiple judges below, including from Judge William E. Anderson, along with two other federal courts who rejected Renier's follow-up appeals. The statements below show how far some recent UWG academic communications and University of West Georgia moral and ethical standards have fallen.
-Washington United States District judge James Robart who ordered judgments against Renier in 2006 and 2007, and also ordered Renier to pay more than $41,000.00 to her principal critic, John Merrell.
-Reference the 4-page article and audio transcripts at https://www.csicop.org/si/show/psychic_detective_noreen_renier
–Revised and updated in London for Ariane Sizemore on August 6, 2024.
-Edited after sixth phone interview on October 14, 2018 and edited with permission from Faith D. Mobley, Aberdeen, Scotland
- Nicole Clarke, Principal Investigator, Hafnarfjörður, Iceland.
-Liam McFarland, Montreal, Canada, and edited with updates in January 2022.
- United States federal Judge William E. Anderson in ruling against Noreen Renier on March 21, 2011.
“A psychic detective for the F.B.I.? The only thing I can say about that is it is not true. …she does not work on F.B.I. cases. . . .She never really worked for the F.B.I.”
–The late Robert Ressler (who died in 2013), during testimony while he was an F.B.I. Special Agent working at the F.B.I. Behavioral Science Unit of the F.B.I. Academy.
- Nicholas Walker, Orlando, Florida (U.S.A) researcher
–Nicolas Rousseau, Nanterre, France.
– Glenn Weatherholtz, Sheriff of Rockingham County and City of Harrisburg, Virginia.
– Kevin Paul, New York City. Compiled and edited in 2005, 2012, 2017, and 2024."
-Federal Circuit Court judges James Harvie Wilkinson III and Andre Davis, and Senior Circuit Judge Clyde Hamilton in their judgment order (Renier's second appeal rejection) rendered against Noreen Renier and issued April 18, 2012 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit [a court immediately under the U.S. Supreme Court]. Their order kept in place an earlier 2011 federal court judgment which found Noreen Renier not credible and having misled a United States federal court.
–Lieutenant J.W. Gibson of the Charlottesville Police Department, Virginia, United States
–Jack Ramsey, Perth, Western Australia.
-Detective Lieutenant Gerald Poirier, of the Gardner, Massachusetts, Police Department, and also Commander of the North Worcester County Drug Task Force.
-Carl Wilber, Gardner, Massachusetts, who according to all four of the responsible Massachusetts police agencies is credited with finding the plane along with his daughter Cheryl. Neither he nor his daughter had ever heard of Noreen Renier until John Merrell interviewed them.
–Cheryl Wilber, Gardner, Massachusetts
-Cricket Johnson, actual eye-witness to the airplane crash near the Gardner Airport.
–Attorney Roxie Cuellar representing Noreen Renier critic John Merrell in 1986. Attorney Cuellar presented facts that were confirmed as ‘keenly accurate and on-the-mark” by GNR researchers in 2014.
–Dr. Gary Posner, M.D., founder of the Tampa Bay Skeptics, Tampa, Florida, United States
–Krystian Truchan, Marki, Poland
-Dave Mitchell, Houston, Texas
[GNR note: Noreen Renier in her book A Mind For Murder on page 58 of her 2008 edition confirms drinking straight Scotch during questioning of a murder suspect at the Hampton Police Department. Multiple law enforcement offices have confirmed she consumed "red wine" and/or "alcohol" while in their offices and was not legally sober to drive when leaving their offices. These are highly unusual allowances for citizens in a law enforcement complex who wish to provide information before officers and suspects. Medium Noreen Renier has repeatedly referenced consuming spirits before visioning spirits of a different kind to contact the dead. In her same book on page 11 she wrote as a "psychic-in-residence. . . . . . I decided to go for the sexy, mysterious angle, and bought an expensive-looking gypsy outfit: a thin, off-the-shoulder blouse tucked into a tight waist-cinched Kelley green satin skirt, and voluminous purple petticoats that rustled when I walked." The two photos shown here were taken from a police video from the Williston Police Department (Williston, Florida, U.S.A.), and secured under the Florida Public Records Act by an attorney. A GNR team concluded that by even before the end of the interview Noreen Renier at a weight of 50 kg would have been legally drunk. That is based on a .08 blood alcohol content under Florida state law. We calculated the wine glass and its contents at a minimum of 12 U.S. fluid ounces (.354 Liter) over the full length of interview time period based on an average "red wine." The video shows the contents dropping and being refilled at least once. This is just one of five references we obtained of Noreen Renier becoming intoxicated during her actual police reporting. In this case "visions" that she furnished while drunk to the Williston Police were found by an independent researcher not to have been so amazing as she claims. A summary of that research can be found at http://www.gpposner.com/Williston.html.
-Burt Kendall, GNR fact checker]
-Retired Virginia (U.S.A.) based senior detective at a major public law enforcement agency. [Name and prior rank withheld as a request but verified by GNR researchers]
-Bill Swanson.
[The events described by Mr. Swanson were confirmed by researchers who were shown an interview with Mrs. Renier from 1981 by newspaper reporter Darrell Laurant. Mr. Laurant wrote that Noreen Renier "opened, of all things, a night club act." Greg Thompson, a Gordonsville former actor confirmed that Mrs. Renier also did solo performances at the Four County Player Playhouse and in the old '12 o'clock High' Theatre. He stated "She had looks and isn't stupid. She could fool anyone if she wanted to commit a murder. And she could start crying in a split second. It was simply amazing. In two seconds she could be in tears and then stop and smile. She used to drive us crazy by doing something and then pretending she'd never done it. She's big on attention but anytime she's caught in the act she goes into her 'I'm really bad about remembering things' act. I'm not surprised she's pushing psychic stories. There's plenty of wobble room there and that's the way she likes it."]
-Noreen Renier.
[Note: On September 30, 2007 Dr. Pamela Health, M.D. of Frederick, Maryland (U.S.A.) posted the statement above from an interview she conducted with Noreen Renier on September 30, 2007. More recently Mrs. Renier stated 'Skepticism is healthy - everyone should have it. What annoys me is when people try to debunk me without listening to the facts."