Julie Scharper
enterprise reporter
Julie Scharper is an enterprise reporter for The Baltimore Banner. Her feature stories contemplate religion, gender, parenting, nature and serendipity, among other topics. Scharper is also an investigative journalist who led a team of Banner reporters in uncovering allegations of inappropriate behavior by Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker. She collaborated on a series of stories about allegations of sexual abuse at a Baltimore-based megachurch and exposed a culture of abuse and harassment at Gunpowder State Park which led to an overhaul of state park leadership. Her work has received an Investigative Reporters & Editors award, a Dart Award for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma, a Collier Award for Ethics in Journalism and a National Headliner Award.
The latest from Julie
Justin Tucker is returning to the NFL. His accusers are furious.
Former Ravens kicker Justin Tucker, who was accused by 16 women of inappropriate sexual misconduct during massage therapy, has been signed by the Kansas City Chiefs.
She chronicled her struggle with cancer. Her husband said it was all made up.
Lexi Thomas’ husband filed for an annulment this month, accusing her of fabricating her cancer diagnosis.
Hattie Stone poisoned her 15-year-old son. Her story still haunts Havre de Grace.
For nearly a century, a notorious case has haunted Havre de Grace. Nurse and midwife Hattie Stone was convicted of murdering her son — and accused of poisoning her elder son, husband and in-laws.
Step into a forbidden 1930s drag show in ‘Pansy Hour’ immersive play
A new immersive play from Submersive Productions allows audience to explore a drag show in a 1930s speakeasy.
The day that changed their lives forever
Seven Marylanders describe how the 9/11 terrorist attacks changed their lives.
Hear ye, hear ye: Renn Fest rules change spurs furry furor
Maryland's Renaissance Festival has banned fursuits, saying members of the furry subculture distract from the festival and don't abide by guidelines for courteous behavior. They say they are being unfairly attacked.
A pioneering Black educator saved his ancestors’ cemetery. Now he rests among them.
Dr. Paul Freedman Scott Jr., a local elementary school principal who started a nonprofit to care for his family’s cemetery in perpetuity, died Aug. 10 at age 80.
The fight to save one of Baltimore’s last gay bars
Many in the queer community have been rallying for the reopening of the shuttered bar Leon’s, fearful of losing a living link to Baltimore’s LGBTQIA+ history. Dozens of queer-centered bars and nightclubs have closed in the city in recent decades, part of a national trend fueled in part by greater acceptance of LGBTQIA+ people and the rise of dating apps.
‘Maybe I’m meant to take care of all these kids in heaven’: Hospice nurse Erin Batton Bull dies at 44
Erin Batton Bull, a pediatric hospice nurse who comforted hundreds of dying children and their families, dies at 44 of breast cancer.
A Baltimore nurse comforts dying children — while fighting to stay alive for her sons
A pediatric hospice nurse, Erin Bull, has guided hundreds of families through the uncertain territory between life and death. After a Stage 4 breast cancer diagnosis, Bull faces her own mortality while caring for her two young sons.
Black Aggie, Black Aggie, come back to Pikesville!
Pikesville leaders are seeking to summon the statue of Black Aggie, subject of local legends, back to historic Druid Ridge Cemetery.
How scientists are helping mysterious, beneficial eels reclaim Maryland rivers
A newly-installed eel ladder, one of the first in Maryland, helps endangered American eels pass over Harford County's Eden Mill dam — and benefit the surrounding ecosystem.
Jennifer Driban named National Aquarium’s president and CEO
Longtime National Aquarium employee Jennifer Driban will become the cultural institution’s first female president and CEO, charged with steering the city’s top tourist attraction through a massive renovation.
Musical chairs: UMD professor elicits ethereal tunes from plastic seats
UMD professor Dan Ortiz Leizman is going viral for instruments they create from unlikely materials — the cheap plastic chairs known as Monoblocs.
Jill Smokler, author and creator of Scary Mommy blog, dies at 48
Jill Smokler turned her tales of wrangling three small children in suburban Baltimore into a blog, website and series of books that made millions of mothers feel less alone. Smokler died Monday at age 48.
Steamy summer reading: How Maryland readers are falling for romance novels
Two new bookstores devoted solely to romance books have opened in the Baltimore area in recent months — a sign of the genre's surging popularity.
Man charged with threatening family of Cockeysville crash survivor with gun
A Timonium man is being held without bail after allegedly threatening and brandishing a semiautomatic gun at the family of Liam O’Donoghue, a 16-year-old Calvert Hall student who lost an arm in a car crash that killed two of his friends last month.
A crash took his arm. His community is carrying him forward.
Liam O’Donoghue lost his arm in a Cockeysville car crash that killed two of his friends. Friends, family, doctors and others are rallying around him.
The National Aquarium has big plans, old bones and dolphins to move
The National Aquarium in Baltimore is beginning to show its age. The autumn maintenance crises forced the Inner Harbor institution, which normally closes only on Thanksgiving and Christmas, to shut its doors for five days for repairs, triggering an estimated $400,000 in lost revenue.
Need to knead NeeDoh? Squishy toy craze sends parents scrambling.
TikTok spawned an obsession for NeeDoh — brightly colored, textured, squishy toys that parents are desperately seeking for Easter baskets.
