Lost Valley - Lost Innocence: The True Story of Best Friends Trapped in an International Boy Scout Sex Ring

About this book

From 1964 to 1967, Kenny Tipton and Greg Connor were groomed and sexually exploited as child prostitutes through an international sex ring run through the Boy Scouts of America.What started at the Lost Valley Boy Scout Camp outside St. Louis led the boys to twenty-three states and into the beds of Scoutmasters, assistant Scoutmasters, Scout volunteers, and businessmen, law enforcement officers, politicians, priests, educators, and other influential men.To survive, Kenny and Greg relied on each other. They established their own rules, maintained secret records, negotiated with pedophiles, and used intelligence, loyalty, and dark humor to retain some sense of control. As the danger intensified, they found themselves entangled in a web of blackmail, betrayal, and murder that would haunt Kenny for decades.Lost Valley - Lost Innocence is Ken Tipton's personal account of stolen childhoods, institutional failures, buried secrets, and the lifelong consequences of survival. But at its heart is something the men who exploited them could not take away: the friendship between two boys who protected one another when the adults around them would not.Decades later, Ken finally breaks the silence.Told with raw, brutal honesty and unexpected humor, this survivor memoir explores friendship, resilience, guilt, and the courage required to confront the past.For over 100 years, the Boy Scouts covered up child sexual abuse until they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.Over 82,000 claims of child sex abuse were filed. It is estimated that 300,000 additional claims went unreported for two reasons: half of the men found the abuse pleasurable and regarded it as a "rite of passage" into puberty. The other half didn't come forward because they didn't want their children, grandchildren, or anyone else to know what had happened. Consequently, they will carry the guilt and shame of their dark secret to their graves.1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men were sexually abused as children; that's over 58 million Americans.Lost Valley - Lost Innocence gives voice not only to the abused Boy Scouts, but to all sexually abused people who were forced to carry guilt and shame that was never theirs to begin with. Read more