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- [00:04]
Mike Boettcher
A couple of months ago, Bobby and I set out on an epic road trip from Oklahoma City to Albuquerque, N.M. eight hours through a lot of flat, dry land. For most of the way, there wasn't much to see except giant windmill farms, a few antelope, and some rest stops. Okay, well, we got about three hours more to Albuquerque. What do you think we're going to find there?
- [00:30]
Bob Sands
Well, I am hoping that we actually find some of the keys we need to begin to put a close on this case. I mean, you and I have been chasing this thing for years, and it took a lot to dig out this information that's in New Mexico that we're hoping is what we think it is. And I'm just really anxious to get there and start looking.
- [00:57]
Mike Boettcher
We decided to drive all this way.
- [01:00]
Bob Sands
I mean, we could have flown, but I do hate flying.
- [01:03]
Mike Boettcher
Yeah, I was tempted to say meet you there, but eight hours in a car, that's nothing. When you think about the thousands of hours we put into investigating Karen Silkwood's story.
- [01:16]
Bob Sands
At the end of this road trip, there was a crucial piece of evidence we wanted to see. Evidence that had been passed down in a family from one generation to the next. Our journey to uncover that piece of evidence had finally brought us here.
- [01:34]
Mike Boettcher
Hi. Nice to see you here. We met another Karen in this story. Karen Pipkin Guerrero greeted us at the front door.
- [01:43]
Karen Pipkin Guerrero
Welcome to Albuquerque.
- [01:44]
Bob Sands
It's really good to be here.
- [01:46]
Karen Pipkin Guerrero
Come on in, guys.
- [01:47]
Mike Boettcher
Thank you. Go ahead, Bon. She has long, flowing dark hair and was wearing brown knee high leather boots. She's retired and lives in this split level home with her husband and two rescue dogs. It's a beautiful spot surrounded by mountains with lush greenery all around.
- [02:07]
Bob Sands
I first talked to Karen Pipkin Guerrero on the phone about a year ago. When I heard that she might have this piece of evidence. It took some convincing, but she agreed to let us come see it. Go ahead, you go first.
- [02:20]
Karen Pipkin Guerrero
Oh, you want me to go first?
- [02:21]
Bob Sands
Okay.
- [02:22]
Mike Boettcher
Karen led us through a door and into her garage.
- [02:25]
Bob Sands
Oh, my. That's it right there? Yeah.
- [02:28]
Mike Boettcher
Oh, my gosh.
- [02:30]
Bob Sands
I feel like it should have gloves on to touch it. What we were looking for was perched on top of a refrigerator underneath some fishing rods, next to a jug of windshield wiper fluid.
- [02:41]
Mike Boettcher
Can I take it down?
- [02:42]
Bob Sands
Sure.
- [02:43]
Karen Pipkin Guerrero
Oh, yes, please take it down.
- [02:46]
Mike Boettcher
Okay. And just like that, we were holding the bumper From Karen Silkwood's 1973 Honda, the car she was driving the night she died on that Oklahoma highway 50 years ago. I had this vision that it was going to be in some hermetically sealed glass case, you know, here was this key artifact of the Silkwood story. And there it was, more than 500 miles from the crash site, gathering dust in a garage in Albuquerque, New Mexico. My God.
- [03:24]
Bob Sands
Holy mackerel. There's black stuff in it still.
- [03:27]
Mike Boettcher
Yeah, let me.
- [03:29]
Karen Pipkin Guerrero
Is that good?
- [03:30]
Bob Sands
Yes.
- [03:30]
Mike Boettcher
Yeah, it's good.
- [03:31]
Bob Sands
Yeah, that's exactly what they were talking about.
- [03:33]
Mike Boettcher
The reason Karen Pipkin Guerrero has this bumper is because her dad was an accident investigator. And Karen Silkwoods union, the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union, hired him to look into what caused the fatal crash.
- [03:50]
Bob Sands
His name was A.O. pipkin. He ran an accident reconstruction business out of Dallas, Texas. Pipkin was a big guy who wore bright orange jumpsuits no matter the occasion, even when he was eating in a five star restaurant. A reporter once described him as looking a little like an orange balloon.
- [04:10]
Mike Boettcher
And this bumper, he thought it was important enough that he held onto it for the rest of his life. And just before he died in 2011, he asked his daughter Karen to hang on to it too.
- [04:22]
Karen Pipkin Guerrero
So what did he think was going to happen to this when he asked me to bring it home with me? That's my thing is did he think something was going to come up and that might be important?
- [04:35]
Mike Boettcher
I mean, was there any other case where he asked you to guard these papers or keep that item? Never.
- [04:44]
Karen Pipkin Guerrero
Never. The only time he ever asked me to hold onto anything was that Silkwood bumper when he was close to passing and he said, you've got to promise me you will take it. And I don't break promises to anyone, but much less my dad. No. And of all the cases that he did, this was the most important one to him. There was a reason it was important to him.
- [05:12]
Bob Sands
What was that?
- [05:13]
Larry Dellinger
What?
- [05:14]
Bob Sands
What was it that just.
- [05:15]
Karen Pipkin Guerrero
Well, something bothered him about it.
- [05:20]
Mike Boettcher
Karen's wondering, and we're wondering if there's something more that Pipkin's investigation files could tell us. So we've made a plan to have the bumper re examined by an accident reconstruction expert. And then we'll share whatever new information we find with the Silkwood family.
- [05:42]
Bob Sands
We're hoping that a fresh look at all of the evidence, the photographs, diagrams, the original accident reports. And now the bumper might turn up new information. Maybe even get us one step closer to understanding how Karen actually died that night.
- [05:59]
Karen Pipkin Guerrero
He was so into this case and getting it reconstructed. So maybe this will help prove my dad was right. Yeah, with the new technology. Technology is so advanced today than it was in the 70s, you know, and I And I want to know that. Yeah, I want to know that.
- [06:20]
Bob Sands
So do we.
- [06:27]
Mike Boettcher
From ABC Audio, this is radioactive. The Karen Silkwood Mystery Episode 4 the Investigators I'm Mike Boettcher.
- [06:39]
Bob Sands
And I'm Bob Sands.
- [06:45]
Mike Boettcher
So let's start at the beginning. The night Karen died, Oklahoma State Highway Patrol trooper Rick Fagan got a call from his dispatcher about a car wreck on a two lane state highway, possibly a fata.
- [07:00]
Bob Sands
Fagan was a baby faced newbie. He'd been a trooper for just five months and Karen's death was reportedly one of the first fatal car crashes he'd ever investigated.
- [07:11]
Mike Boettcher
Fagan drove directly to the crash site and by the time he arrived around 8:15, there were several bystanders. Two men and a 14 year old boy had been driving by when they noticed a car tilted on its side in the muddy ditch. They stopped, tried to shine headlights at the scene and called out. No one answered. They approached the car and could see a hand visible out the driver door. All three reported papers were strewn around the accident scene. All three said they watched as the patrolman gathered them up and placed them back in the car.
- [07:52]
Bob Sands
Fagan got down into the ditch. He and a couple of other people tipped the car back on its wheels and pried the driver's side door open so they could pull Karen's body out. Here's how Fagan described the scene to ABC News in 1975.
- [08:09]
Rick Fagan
At that time I found a white female pinned behind the steering wheel of a small foreign car and she appeared to be dead at that time.
- [08:19]
Mike Boettcher
All in all, he stayed at the crash site for about an hour. Then he drove home.
- [08:25]
Bob Sands
By the time Steve Watka, Karen's friend and union contact, arrived at the crash site around 11pm Everyone was gone. The car had been towed and all that was left was Karen's kermogee paycheck in the mud. Eventually Steve went back to his hotel.
- [08:42]
Mike Boettcher
And then sometime after midnight, Trooper Fagan got a phone call from the local police department over in Crescent saying the Atomic Energy Commission wanted to inspect Karen's car for radio.
- [08:56]
Bob Sands
Steve wasn't there, but here's what he's pieced together about that late night inspection.
- [09:01]
Steve Watka
They open up the garage and these three people show up. Well, only two of them were with the AEC.
- [09:08]
Mike Boettcher
The third was a Kerr McGee representative. Fagan said the men spent about 20 minutes going through Karen's car, including her papers. They waved around a Geiger counter to check if anything was hot or contaminated. Steve thinks this would have given the kernegee employee the Chance to look at every single piece of paper.
- [09:31]
Steve Watka
In order to survey things for plutonium. Like a spiral notebook with 50 pages in it. You just can't just wand the top of it and say it's clean. You've got to go page by page by page. To see if there's any contamination in it.
- [09:47]
Bob Sands
As Steve sees it, if someone from Kerr McGee. Had discovered documents that were damaging to the company. Then this would have given them the opportunity to disappear. Those documents. Poof, gone.
- [10:08]
Mike Boettcher
The next morning, Fagan returned to the crash site. And checked the road for skid marks. He found no marks, and it suggested to him she had fallen asleep.
- [10:20]
Bob Sands
That same morning, Steve Watkill went to see Fagan. Steve says he initially had no reason to doubt Fagin or his investigation. But that feeling didn't last very long.
- [10:31]
Steve Watka
Fagan tells me right off the bat that she fell asleep and went off the side of the road. I said, no, wait a minute, wait a minute. You don't understand. She was just on the highway for a few minutes.
- [10:45]
Bob Sands
Steve was suspicious. How could Fagan have reached this conclusion so quickly. Less than 24 hours after she died? Why wasn't this being investigated more thoroughly? Steve tried explaining to Fagin that there was more to the story. Karen was on her way to a really important meeting. This idea that she'd fallen asleep. It didn't make any sense to Steve.
- [11:10]
Steve Watka
And I'll never forget Fakin saying, look, in my mind, she fell asleep at the wheel of the car. Unless you can prove it differently. And that started in my mind. The fact that. Now, wait a minute. The fix is in. Something is going on here. How could this guy just shut the door in my face? He's supposed to be an investigating officer.
- [11:38]
Mike Boettcher
Steve became even more suspicious when he retrieved the box of Karen's things. That had been recovered from her car. Remember, he'd been waiting for Karen to show up that night. To meet the New York Times reporter. She was supposed to deliver the evidence she'd been collecting. Evidence that would support her allegations that Kerr McGee was falsifying quality control reports. Steve was eager to see if the papers he was looking for. Were among the belongings recovered from her car.
- [12:10]
Steve Watka
And we ripped the box open and went through everything. And there was nothing in there about quality control.
- [12:18]
Mike Boettcher
The way Trooper Fagan described the documents was strange, too. Remember, three witnesses described scene documents scattered around the crash site. And how a patrolman gathered them up and put them in the car? Trooper Fagan later told an FBI agent. That the night of the crash. He saw a thin, red Spiral notebook in the back of Karen's crushed car, along with two stacks of paper in the backseat. And that description of two stacks of paper sounded off to Steve Watka.
- [12:54]
Steve Watka
Now this is. This car had hit this concrete wing wall going 40 to 45 miles an hour. Silkwood was impaled on the steering wheel. But yet, he says, there's these two piles of paper sitting on the. On the back seat. It defies the law of gravity.
- [13:15]
Bob Sands
Another thing that didn't quite make sense. The red spiral notebook that both Fagan and Karen's co worker Gene Young said they'd seen the night Karen died. The only papers in the box of things from Karen's car were notes from a union bargaining session. And there was something about the look of those papers that didn't add up.
- [13:36]
Steve Watka
This is a muddy crash site. There is this reddish Oklahoma mud on the left hand driver's side of the car. You got these three guys sitting there, papers scattered all over the place. Not one piece of the papers that were given to us had any mud on them. No mud whatsoever on the stuff that was given to us.
- [14:13]
Bob Sands
Steve smelled a rat, and so he told his bosses that the union needed to hire its own investigator to look into the crash. That's where A.O. pipkin enters the story. He'd analyzed thousands of crashes, including the one that killed Hollywood starlet and model Jayne Mansfield. That was in 1967.
- [14:34]
Mike Boettcher
The union wanted A.O. pipkin to see if the Oklahoma State Highway Patrol's version of events held up. So when A.O. pipkin arrived in Oklahoma on November 16, 1974, he started assembling his puzzle pieces. One by one. He inspected every inch of Karen's car. He walked the accident scene and measured Karen's tire marks on the grass. He read Fagan's accident report. He took photographs. He drew diagrams. And he hired outside experts to review his work.
- [15:10]
Bob Sands
When he put all the puzzle pieces together, there were a few things that really stood out to him.
- [15:16]
Mike Boettcher
One, Karen's car had crossed the center line and veered off the left side of the road. Pipkin wrote in his Revol that typically when a driver falls asleep at the wheel, they drift to the right, not to the left. That's because the road has a little peak or crown at the center. It slants so the rain will run off. So that was his first takeaway. The way the car had gone from the right to the left hand side of the road. That didn't mesh with the highway Patrol's sleepy driver theory.
- [15:53]
Bob Sands
Second, Pipkin examined the tire tracks in the muddy grass and noted the direction the car appeared to follow once it left the road. He thought if Karen had been asleep, her car would have drifted down a grassy slope away from the road and eventually stopped. She never would have smashed into a concrete wall. But the path the car actually took, staying relatively parallel to the highway, suggested to Pipkin that Karen was likely trying to steer the car back onto the road. Here's Steve Watka again.
- [16:26]
Steve Watka
If she truly had fallen asleep at the wheel, she'd be alive. She would have lived. So only by being awake and trying to hold this car on course would you have the trajectory that she did.
- [16:44]
Bob Sands
The third thing that caught Pipkin's eye was damage to the left rear of Karen's car. Two dents, one on the bumper and one just below on the fender.
- [16:56]
Mike Boettcher
Now, there were other dings on Karen's car. She'd been in a minor accident a couple of weeks earlier that damaged her right rear tail light. But what interested Pipkin was on the left. The dent on the bumper was about 2 inches long and less than an inch wide.
- [17:17]
Bob Sands
Fagan believed the dents could have been caused after the crash when the car was dragged out of the ditch by a tow truck driver. The bumper could have hit one of the concrete retaining walls.
- [17:29]
Mike Boettcher
Ted Sebring, the tow truck driver, said he was confident he didn't dent the car. And when Pipkin had outside experts look at the dent under a microscope, they didn't find any traces of concrete. Neither did the FBI, though the agency still thought it was possible the dent could have been caused after the crash. But there was something else wedged into one of the dents. Metal particles. And Pipkin thought those particles could possibly have come from another vehicle.
- [18:02]
Bob Sands
And he thought other evidence suggested the presence of another car, too. When he examined the tire tracks Karen's car left in the muddy grass, he thought they suggested Karen had lost control of the car before it ever left the road. The car was rotating instead of tracking in a straight line. And Pipkin wrote in his report that suggested, quote, either an impact by an unknown vehicle or a combination of an impact by an unknown vehicle and then driver overreaction and subsequent loss of control.
- [18:41]
Mike Boettcher
So Pipkin's puzzle was complete. And the picture he saw looked different from the Oklahoma State Highway Patrol's explanation of the crash. Here's what he told ABC about his findings.
- [18:55]
A.O. Pipkin
In my opinion and the people that.
- [18:56]
Bob Sands
I've had working with me, there's no.
- [18:58]
A.O. Pipkin
Circumstantial evidence there to indicate that somebody may, another vehicle may have hit the.
- [19:03]
Bob Sands
Car in the rear.
- [19:05]
Mike Boettcher
Pipkin's evidence suggested that a second car could have hit Karen from behind. On November 18, five days after Karen's death, Pipkin called Steve and his bosses to report his findings. He told them the same thing he later told National Public Radio.
- [19:25]
A.O. Pipkin
I do not believe that the accident was caused by Karen Silkwood falling asleep.
- [19:31]
Rick Fagan
At the wheel and the car just.
- [19:34]
A.O. Pipkin
Going off the road by itself.
- [19:38]
Bob Sands
Karen wasn't asleep. Pipkin's finding was explosive.
- [19:44]
Mike Boettcher
The OCAW immediately sent a telegram to the US Attorney General and to the Atomic Energy Commission, or aec, demanding an investigation.
- [19:55]
Bob Sands
Now Oklahoma law enforcement and Kermagee were the ones being looked at under a microscope. A higher up in the Highway Patrol was assigned to reinvestigate the crash. A guy named Lieutenant Larry Owen. He doubled down on the conclusion that this was a one car accident. And in January 1975, about two months after Karen's death, he also added a new detail. Karen had been under the influence of drugs that night. Here's Owen in an interview with abc.
- [20:30]
Rick Fagan
I would either put her probably either totally asleep or in some state of stupor induced by the medication she was taking.
- [20:41]
Mike Boettcher
The medication, it was those quaaludes Karen had been prescribed to help her sleep. The state medical examiner said that she was probably under the influence of them when she crashed. Fagan would later say in a deposition that two of Karen's coworkers had told him she'd been quote, exhausted, unable to sleep, very fatigued.
- [21:05]
Bob Sands
And these co workers both allegedly told Fagan they'd offered to drive her home that night.
- [21:11]
Mike Boettcher
But Fagan's account didn't square with another important eyewitness. As you heard earlier in the series, Karen's co worker and friend Gene Young had also been at the union meeting that night. As far as we know, she was the last person to see Karen Alive.
- [21:29]
Bob Sands
In a 1980 interview for a documentary about the nuclear industry, Jean Young described her recollection of Karen as they were leaving the union meeting and she was alert.
- [21:41]
Gene Young
You know, Karen was very much alert that night.
- [21:44]
Mike Boettcher
Media reports after Karen's death also challenged the idea that her medication would have put her to sleep.
- [21:51]
Bob Sands
A toxicologist we spoke with said, we can't draw any conclusions about what the levels found in her body might have meant. There are too many unknowns, like whether Karen had developed a tolerance for the medication. Reporters also questioned other elements of the Highway Patrol's investigation. Here's NPR's Barbara Newman talking to Lieutenant Larry Owen about why he hadn't inspected Karen's car.
- [22:17]
Gene Young
But you could have asked for it. You never did.
- [22:20]
Rick Fagan
We checked to try to find where it was.
- [22:23]
Bob Sands
We could not locate it in either.
- [22:26]
Rick Fagan
Crescent, Edmond or Oklahoma City.
- [22:28]
Gene Young
Are you saying that the investigative work of the Oklahoma State Highway Patrol couldn't find this car that I, a reporter from Washington, D.C. could find?
- [22:35]
Rick Fagan
We should have kept the car in our custody. But that's strictly in hindsight.
- [22:41]
Gene Young
But you could probably still even get the car right now.
- [22:45]
Rick Fagan
Yes, but from the standpoint, if two parties have scrapings, surely one of them is going to give us the information or at least release the information to the press at some point on what they found.
- [22:55]
Gene Young
You wouldn't think you would have do your own.
- [22:57]
Rick Fagan
Well, at this point, you know, in.
- [22:59]
Bob Sands
Time, I'm not really sure, you know.
- [23:03]
Rick Fagan
Two months hence, what good.
- [23:05]
Bob Sands
We reached out to the Oklahoma State Highway Patrol about their investigation, but they didn't have any comment. But I was able to get Larry Owen on the phone. He's retired now, but stands by his conclusion that Karen Silkwood fell asleep at the wheel. He said that nothing had changed in 50 years. Last month, he spoke about his investigation with KOCO, a local television station in Oklahoma. He said that Karen's car covered almost a football field before she crashed and.
- [23:39]
A.O. Pipkin
Made no attempt to steer, made no attempt to break.
- [23:43]
Steve Watka
And you know, that's.
- [23:45]
A.O. Pipkin
That's not somebody that is awake and alert trying to keep from having a wreck.
- [24:00]
Bob Sands
The FBI did its own investigation into Karen's death. And in the spring of 1975, they told the New York Times that Karen's death, quote, didn't appear to be a murder. No foul play, they said. Case closed.
- [24:20]
Mike Boettcher
In congressional testimony, the FBI's lead agent on the case said his agency was satisfied with the thoroughness of its investigation. But a congressional attorney criticized the FBI's handling of their investigation, saying it was, quote, in essence, a character assassination of Silkwood and that the agency was blatantly taking the word of Kerr McGee and government officials instead of doing their own independent work.
- [24:52]
Bob Sands
It wasn't only Silkwood's reputation that got attacked. Pipkin's credentials were questioned, too. And once Pipkin's name came out in the papers as being part of investigation, his daughter Karen Pipkin Guerrero says he started getting menacing phone calls.
- [25:10]
Karen Pipkin Guerrero
He just got threats that were, like, scary. Like, you know, death threats type things. Who they came from or I don't know. I have no idea. But my dad wasn't afraid.
- [25:26]
Mike Boettcher
Pipkin was convinced that Karen Silkwood hadn't been asleep at the wheel. But not much happened with his findings and his daughter said he never forgot this case. And remember, this was a guy who'd investigated thousands of car wrecks. There was something about this investigation that got under his skin.
- [25:48]
Karen Pipkin Guerrero
He was 100% positive that Karen Selquid did not die from falling asleep at the wheel, and he believed that till the day he died.
- [26:02]
Bob Sands
Other people thought there was more to the story too, and new investigators started digging.
- [26:16]
Mike Boettcher
Now AT T Mobile get four 5G phones on us in four lines for $25 a line per month when you switch with eligible traders. All on America's largest 5G network. Minimum of 4 lines for $25 per line per month with auto pay discount.
- [26:31]
Bob Sands
Using debit or bank account, $5 more.
- [26:32]
Mike Boettcher
Per line without autopay plus taxes and.
- [26:34]
Rick Fagan
Fees and $10 device connection charge phones.
- [26:36]
Mike Boettcher
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- [26:44]
Bob Sands
CT mobile.com in the dry states of the Southwest, there's a group that's been denied a basic human right in the Navajo Nation. Today, a third of our households don't have running water. That's not something they chose for themselves. Can the Navajo people reclaim their right to water and contend with the government's legacy of control and neglect?
- [27:05]
Mike Boettcher
Our water, our future. Our water, our future.
- [27:09]
Bob Sands
That's in the next season of Reclaimed, the lifeblood of Navajo Nation. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. There's another person in this story. We want you to meet someone else who held onto things he'd collected in the Silkwood case until the day he died.
- [27:31]
Rick Fagan
My name is Joe Royer and I'm an investigator. I'd like to know if I could come by and speak with you or if you'd be interested in talking to myself and one of the other investigators on this case we're working on. What case is that? The Karen Silkwood case. About your involvement in your investigation of Drew Stevenson and Karen Silkwood.
- [27:53]
Bob Sands
Joe Royer was a private investigator based here in Oklahoma City. Joe and I actually used to work together at a radio station here in town. He did sales and our nickname for him was snake oil salesman. That's because he was always so well groomed. Joe had this full head of thick dark hair that he liked to slick back. He just looked like a million bucks every time he walked into a room. I never knew that Joe had been a PI back in the day. I actually used to be a PI myself. I dug around on Bill Clinton and Benjamin Netanyahu, so you'd think us both being PIs is something we would have talked about. But Joe kept that part of his past completely private, at least from me. And that included his work on the Karen Silkwood case. I only found out about that years later, after he died. He was even tight lipped with his wife Jenny. And they were married for 45 years.
- [28:53]
Gene Young
Joe wasn't afraid to share anything with me. He liked to talk about his goings on. Except one case, and Joe didn't want to talk about it, and that was Karen Silkwood.
- [29:09]
Bob Sands
Why do you think he kept that so secret?
- [29:11]
Gene Young
I don't know why Joe did that. I really don't. Except he thought maybe there was some underlying issues, dangers. I don't know. I don't know why he would share everything else.
- [29:28]
Bob Sands
But not this one.
- [29:31]
Gene Young
No.
- [29:33]
Mike Boettcher
Here's some of what we've been able to put together about Joe's investigation into the Silkwood case. In the fall of 1977. We know that Joe was hired by lawyers who were working on the Silkwoods civil trial that you heard about in the last episode. As far as we can tell, he had a specific task to investigate whether Karen had been surveilled before she died.
- [29:59]
Bob Sands
Where did this idea come from? A journalist who reportedly had a special relationship with the FBI told a congressional attorney that she had transcripts of what appeared to be phone taps and bugs of Karen's telephone calls, though she never produced those documents. And we know from interviewing Karen's co worker and friend, Don Gummo, that Karen had been afraid someone had been following her. Remember, a few weeks before she died, she went to see Don late at night, and she told him she was rattled because a car had been tailing her.
- [30:35]
Mike Boettcher
So Joe wanted to get to the bottom of who might have been listening in on Karen. If Joe could find evidence that Kerm McGee had been involved in the alleged surveilling of Karen before she died, then the Silkwood lawyers would try to use it in court. If someone had been following Karen, could they have been involved in her death? So just like Karen had done at the Kermogee plutonium plant, Joe started snooping around, looking for proof. And he secretly recorded his conversations on these little cassette tapes.
- [31:12]
Bob Sands
Those were the tapes we found in a storage warehouse in Oklahoma City just over a year ago. Joe's wife Jenny gave us access right here.
- [31:22]
Mike Boettcher
Bobby, what'd you find? It says Silkwood investigation tapes. Here they are.
- [31:30]
Bob Sands
Holy mackerel. Here's a bunch this is priceless. As we listened to the tapes, we discovered that Joe's investigation was rather narrow.
- [31:43]
Mike Boettcher
We don't know why, but most of Joe's investigation focused on one subject. A group of people who were more often doing the investigating rather than being investigated.
- [31:55]
Bob Sands
The Oklahoma City Police Department.
- [31:58]
Mike Boettcher
Joe spent most of his time looking at whether the OKCPD had been involved in surveilling Karen. We know that the head of security at the Kerneggee plant where Karen worked had ties to the police. In the 1960s, Jim Reeding worked as a detective for the Oklahoma City Police Department and led the department's intelligence unit when Kerr McGee did its own investigation into Karen's death. Reading led the charge.
- [32:28]
Bob Sands
When Joe started asking if the OKCPD had been surveilling Karen before her death, the department said, absolutely not.
- [32:37]
A.O. Pipkin
I think our conversation is over.
- [32:40]
Rick Fagan
You're fishing something, and you're not going.
- [32:43]
Bob Sands
To get it here.
- [32:44]
Rick Fagan
Well, I'm not fishing for anything.
- [32:46]
Bob Sands
Joe talked to IG Purser. He'd been the chief of police for Oklahoma city back in 1974, the year Karen died.
- [32:55]
Mike Boettcher
Now, as far as Silkwood Deal goes.
- [33:01]
Bob Sands
There was no illegal wiretaps or anything.
- [33:03]
Rick Fagan
Like that ever on my part of proof, through me, or even with my knowledge at all.
- [33:10]
Bob Sands
So that's the next question for you, too. No illegal wiretaps, the former police chief said.
- [33:17]
Mike Boettcher
Illegal because in the 1970s, some states had laws on the books that allowed local and state law enforcement enforcement to do wiretaps. But Oklahoma wasn't one of them. In Oklahoma, that kind of surveillance was forbidden. The only people who could do it legally were federal agents who had a court order.
- [33:39]
Bob Sands
But Joe wasn't the only one wondering if the OKCPD was crossing a line.
- [33:44]
Mike Boettcher
Around the same time of his investigation, the local paper reported that the OKCPD had, quote, sophisticated electronic hardware and that they were capable of doing illegal electronic surveillance. But a PD spokesman denied using illegal wiretaps. They said most of their equipment was boxed up in storage.
- [34:11]
Bob Sands
We listened to Joe as he tried to get information out of Oklahoma City police officers.
- [34:17]
Rick Fagan
Have you ever been involved with police intelligence work? I doubt that I know anything would be of any help. Just curious. Would you be interested in talking to us about it?
- [34:29]
Bob Sands
No. Let's see.
- [34:29]
Mike Boettcher
The attorney's here, you know.
- [34:30]
Rick Fagan
Yeah, well, I can understand.
- [34:33]
Mike Boettcher
He even pretended to be in the market for surveillance equipment to figure out where the OKCPD could be buying theirs.
- [34:42]
Rick Fagan
J. Hand. Okay. Yeah, I'm. I'm in the security business. And I had talked to a Few of my friends that are on the police force, and they suggested that I try to contact somebody in this area about, you know, the equipment and what was involved.
- [35:01]
Bob Sands
He didn't have much luck. Then finally, he found someone who let in a little bit of sunlight. Enough.
- [35:11]
Rick Fagan
This is Joe Royer. Did I wake you up? Yes, I'm sorry. Hey, listen, I'll tell you what. If I can bother you for five minutes.
- [35:20]
Bob Sands
Joe had found a source who in 1970, had worked as a secretary for the Oklahoma City Police Department's Intelligence Unit. She'd left by the time Karen died. And we're not naming her because she told Joe she did not want her name attached to his investigation. She'd agreed to talk to Joe, but she was reluctant.
- [35:42]
Rick Fagan
And I don't want any trouble, okay? I don't want any trouble in my job, and I don't want any trouble with my car or anything else. Well, don't worry about that.
- [35:52]
Mike Boettcher
You know, Joe's source said that when she was with the police department, her bosses asked her to type up records of recorded phone calls. Joe was trying to get to the bottom of whether those calls were illegal wiretaps.
- [36:08]
Rick Fagan
But you do know that they were doing illegal wiretaps at that time, and that's important. No, I won't say they were. I said I think they were. Yeah, well, at least you were transcribing telephone conversations with two parties on the conversation. Right. That neither one of the parties were police officers. Right. I'll say that over the phone, but I won't say it in court. Exactly. And I won't, Joe. Okay, well, whatever you say, I'll do anything to avoid it. Okay, well, I just want you to realize that the information you gave me was valuable, hopefully.
- [36:45]
Mike Boettcher
And the reason why this information was valuable because Joe thought he'd finally gotten someone to talk about how the OKCPD not only had the tools to do wiretaps, but also that they might have used those tools. There could have been other explanations for these calls. Maybe they were conversations involving police informants. But Joe clearly thought he'd caught them doing something they weren't supposed to do.
- [37:16]
Rick Fagan
And I don't know if you're aware of this or not, but that is against the state laws for an agency such as the Oklahoma City Police Department to be involved in wiretapping. Only federal officials or federal law enforcement people can engage in this. You know, the information you gave to me was to illustrate that they. Yes, they were involved in it. Well, what are you trying to prove? What are you and Your attorneys trying to prove? Well, we're trying to find out who exactly tapped Karen Silkwood. And it looks like right now that the most logical person in line would be the ocpd, because they had all the equipment available at that time in 1974. And it's obvious that they were capable of doing this because of what you told me about transcribing what you refer to as the log tapes. Haven't you talked to any of the other secretaries? I've tried to.
- [38:06]
Bob Sands
Joe's source has just told him that in the early 1970s, when she worked for the police department's Intelligence unit, that police officers had recorded telephone conversations between two people where one person was not a cop.
- [38:22]
Mike Boettcher
The puzzle pieces were coming together, but Joe never finished his investigation.
- [38:29]
Bob Sands
As he was sniffing around the police in the spring of 1978, he started to suspect that someone was sniffing around him and his family, too. His wife Jenny, was out shopping for clothes for her kids and noticed she was being followed by a couple of men with suits, hats, and ties. She told Joe about it. And there was another time when she and Joe heard some loud noises outside their home late one night as they were getting ready to go to bed.
- [39:00]
Gene Young
And I thought somebody was throwing rocks at the house, but it sounded a little different. And I said, did you hear that? He said, yeah. Did you hear that? Yeah. He said, well, that's gunfire. And sure enough, he walked outside, and you could see the smoke in the air that had shot several holes in our house, whoever they were.
- [39:27]
Bob Sands
We don't know if Joe Royer ever reported these threats. But he was evidently rattled enough that a couple of months later, Joe packed up his family and moved them to Florida. He was adamant that no one should know their whereabouts. For over a year, they kept it a secret.
- [39:46]
Gene Young
He said, we are not telling anyone where we are. No address, no phone number. Your mother cannot know. And my mother and I talked every day, and I couldn't tell anybody.
- [40:04]
Bob Sands
As far as we can tell, Joe never found the hard evidence. He was looking for that the Oklahoma City Police had Karen Silkwood under surveillance.
- [40:13]
Mike Boettcher
Oklahoma City police replied with a no comment. When ABC News reached out about allegations of surveillance of Karen Silkwood.
- [40:22]
Bob Sands
For Joe, there was no smoking gun, and none of what he gathered ever ended up in court. The judge limited the case to Karen's contamination.
- [40:33]
Mike Boettcher
But what Joe was sniffing around, more than a decade later, someone else would pick up the scent, now streaming on Hulu.
- [40:52]
Rick Fagan
This guy is an evil genius. He's the best serial killer that ever existed.
- [40:56]
Bob Sands
He compared Himself to Ted Bundy, the serial killer.
- [40:59]
Mike Boettcher
You don't know.
- [41:00]
Bob Sands
Who is this guy? Pure evil.
- [41:02]
Karen Pipkin Guerrero
This is not just any killer.
- [41:04]
Bob Sands
In his own words, put my head.
- [41:05]
Larry Dellinger
Right up to her ear and I said, you knew this was coming.
- [41:09]
Mike Boettcher
The Hitch True Crime series returns. Wild crime 11 skulls. I'm more sane than most Americans.
- [41:17]
Rick Fagan
Now streaming on Hulu.
- [41:26]
Bob Sands
All righty. This is Tuesday morning, the 15th of November, and replacing a call to Larry Dillinger. Important call. And here we go.
- [41:47]
A.O. Pipkin
Hello?
- [41:48]
Bob Sands
Mr. Dellinger?
- [41:49]
Larry Dellinger
Yes.
- [41:50]
Bob Sands
Yes, sir. I don't believe we've ever met. My name is Bob Sands. Well, have you got just a minute to chat?
- [42:00]
Larry Dellinger
Yeah, I suppose so.
- [42:01]
Bob Sands
Okay. In the early 1990s, this guy named Larry Dellinger worked as a trooper for the Oklahoma State Highway Patrol. I explained that we had a friend in common. And this friend gave me a tape recording years ago and swore me to secrecy.
- [42:23]
Larry Dellinger
I know where this is going.
- [42:25]
Bob Sands
Yeah, I kind of figured you'd figure this out pretty quick. Back in 1992, Larry stumbled into some information about Karen Silkwood's death that troubled him. So he started taping himself, making a record of what he was doing, just.
- [42:40]
A.O. Pipkin
In case this could become very dangerous and my life could possibly be in danger if we got deeply involved in this.
- [42:52]
Bob Sands
Larry gave the tape to a friend for safekeeping. A year later, it was passed to me with instructions that I wasn't supposed to do anything with it until certain people named in the tape were dead. Those people are gone now. Because of the seriousness of what's being alleged on this tape, we're not going to share their names here. One day In September of 92, Larry was down at the county courthouse here in Oklahoma City when a man struck up a conversation with him in the elevator. Now, Larry, he didn't know this guy from a hole in the wall, but they got to chit chatting, made a friendly connection. Then a week or two later, Larry ran into this same guy again. This time, he asked what Larry thought about one of the higher ups in Oklahoma law enforcement, someone they both knew.
- [43:46]
Mike Boettcher
Now, Larry was honest. He said he didn't really like this person. Then out of nowhere, the guy says this higher up was involved in the death of Karen Silkwood and that some other Oklahoma City police officers were involved, too. Larry, he was stunned.
- [44:05]
Larry Dellinger
I thought, is this guy nuts or does he know what he's talking about? Or I'm in awe. But this was just unbelievable.
- [44:17]
Mike Boettcher
Almost so unbelievable that Larry decided to start making secret tape recordings so he could document what he was hearing. Some police officers who'd Been working off duty for kermagee.
- [44:31]
A.O. Pipkin
He advised that they had run her off the road and killed her. And they had done it in an Oklahoma city police car. It didn't state if it was a marked unit or detective car or what, but it was an Oklahoma city car. I've thought about this for quite a while. So today is September 15, 1992.
- [44:54]
Bob Sands
As part of his job, Larry kept something called a day book. It's where he took field notes on things like arrests and accidents. To this day, Larry has held on to all of his day books, along with copies of his accident reports. When we interviewed him in 2024, we asked him to read from the day book he was keeping in the fall of 1992.
- [45:18]
Larry Dellinger
I see on Tuesday, September 15, in 92, I have entered here, met with.
- [45:28]
Bob Sands
And here he lists the source's name.
- [45:31]
Larry Dellinger
In reference to the silkwood murder.
- [45:35]
Mike Boettcher
Larry didn't mince words. That's how he made sense of what he was hearing. Again, to recap, this source Larry had become acquainted with told him that back in 1974, some Oklahoma City police officers allegedly had side jobs working security for kermagee.
- [45:55]
Larry Dellinger
And they had been hired by someone at kermagee to scare Karen silkwood. They were allegedly following her when she left this restaurant in guthrie. They had been drinking, I was told, and they were supposed to scare her. But they ran up behind her and pushed her a little bit. Lo and behold, she lost control and went off in the ditch, and it killed her.
- [46:23]
Bob Sands
Larry took these allegations seriously. If they were true, then this was a crime, a big one, Possibly a murder case.
- [46:33]
Mike Boettcher
Like a lot of other people who've investigated Karen's death, Larry started seeing smoke. But where was the fire? Exactly.
- [46:42]
Bob Sands
So Larry started to sniff around the Oklahoma city police department. He was circling some of the same territory that private investigator Joe royer had been circling around in the late 1970s.
- [46:55]
Mike Boettcher
Larry and Joe, they were investigating different things. Joe was trying to find evidence of any police surveillance.
- [47:04]
Bob Sands
Larry was looking into whether Karen may have been murdered.
- [47:08]
Mike Boettcher
But Larry had a big leg up on Joe because he worked inside law enforcement.
- [47:14]
Larry Dellinger
So then I kind of got to asking around Oklahoma city officers just in casual, and they say, you didn't know that kind of common knowledge around the police department.
- [47:29]
Mike Boettcher
Common knowledge. Well, if that was the case, Larry had never heard about it before.
- [47:35]
Bob Sands
So Larry arranged to meet with his source to get more information. And the source said he knew someone who had even more details about what had happened to Karen. So Larry kept recording, and they are.
- [47:48]
A.O. Pipkin
Supposed to meet me Tomorrow for dinner to give me the whole complete story. I don't know who he is supposed to know tomorrow.
- [47:58]
Mike Boettcher
Larry's source warned him about the danger of looking into the Silkwood case. So he took some precautions.
- [48:06]
Larry Dellinger
I started carrying a gun almost everywhere I went. Very rarely did I go anywhere without a gun, and I'd never done that before.
- [48:13]
Mike Boettcher
Despite the possible danger he was being warned about, Larry pressed ahead.
- [48:19]
A.O. Pipkin
Today is Wednesday, October 7, 1992. I had dinner.
- [48:24]
Mike Boettcher
He went to that dinner meeting and got more details, including the names of some of the officers who were allegedly involved.
- [48:32]
Bob Sands
In the days and weeks that followed, Larry took this information up the chain to his supervisor and then to a district attorney.
- [48:41]
Larry Dellinger
He said, well, that's a federal deal. We don't know anything about it. That's federal deal. They're doing it all. You need call the FBI.
- [48:48]
Mike Boettcher
So Larry was eventually connected with an FBI agent and they talked on the phone. Afterward, Larry recorded his thoughts.
- [48:56]
A.O. Pipkin
He appeared to be very interested and said it would be followed up on and that he'd probably get back with me. Also asked if he might if I minded if he used my name when interviewing people, in which I told him no, that was just fine.
- [49:09]
Mike Boettcher
Later that month, Larry heard back from the FBI agent. The agent said he'd sent the information Larry had shared up the chain and that in his opinion, it did warrant an investigation. But still, Larry was skeptical, even suspicious, that the higher up in law enforcement, one of the targets of the investigation, might know someone in the FBI and have figured out what Larry was up to.
- [49:36]
A.O. Pipkin
And I'm getting concerned that he may very well know about this already. I'm becoming increasingly concerned about security at the FBI office and that, as I was told in the beginning, I might be in danger again. At this point, it's all the information I have.
- [49:56]
Bob Sands
Larry's investigation went cold. He didn't hear anything back from the FBI until the following year, 1993. That's when he made his last recording. The FBI agent said he'd turned over the information Larry had shared to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, or OSBI. In April 1993, Larry met in person with an OSBI agent.
- [50:22]
A.O. Pipkin
On the 19th of April, met with me at my office, and I gave him all of the information I've had. We was very interested.
- [50:33]
Mike Boettcher
The OSBI agent was so interested, he called one of the sources who'd originally told Larry about these allegations, and he set up a meeting so he could interview that person. The agent said he'd keep Larry informed. So Larry waited and waited and Nothing ever happened.
- [50:55]
Larry Dellinger
And when you get shuffled around and I finally. I just realized, this old highway patrol lieutenant out here, you're not going to get anywhere. You might as well just forget it. And that's pretty much. I never forgot it.
- [51:12]
Bob Sands
I tracked down that other source Larry met with, the one he had dinner with back in 1992, the one who gave him more details about what might have happened to Karen and who alleged that OKCPD was involved. Well, that person didn't want to do a recorded interview with me, but he did talk to me. He said the people who'd originally told him this story didn't have solid evidence. It was nothing more than whiskey talk, not admissible in court. He didn't put a lot of stock in it. And that's what this source told the OSBI agent, who did show up to interview him, by the way. But once this source said whiskey talk, the OSBI agent reportedly closed his notebook. Once again, case closed.
- [52:02]
Mike Boettcher
When we reached out to the OSBI to ask about their meeting with Larry and what they did with the information he gave them, we didn't get an answer.
- [52:11]
Bob Sands
The FBI said it didn't wish to comment on the questions we sent them. But a spokesperson for the Oklahoma City Police Department did get back to us. He said that the OKCPD didn't investigate Karen's death, and so, quote, it would be inappropriate for us to comment on a case we had nothing to do with. In response to a question about whether police officers were allowed to take security jobs when they were off duty, he said there was no way to know what the policies were on outside employment back then or who was working extra jobs at that time.
- [52:54]
Mike Boettcher
It's been more than 30 years since Larry Dellinger struck out, trying to find if there was any truth to the chatter that off duty Oklahoma City police officers were allegedly involved in the death of Karen Silkwood. It still bothers him.
- [53:10]
Larry Dellinger
I just think the poor girl got a raw deal. She got killed, she got murdered, and these guys got away with it. And they're all gone now, I guess so. You can't put them in jail, but we can vindicate her. And I just think that's important, I guess maybe just the way I am. I just think that's important. You know, she's got children that have grown up without their mother. She had no life. She was born in 1946, same year I was born. I just turned 78. She'll be 78 sometime. Why should these guys have gone on and lived their life? I don't know. It's just not right.
- [54:11]
Mike Boettcher
We put this theory to Steve Watka, Karen's union confidant. Remember? Steve has spent his retirement doing his own investigation into Karen's death. And this idea that Kerm McGee was somehow responsible for her death. Steve has long been skeptical. It just doesn't make sense to him. He said that if Kerm McGee had figured out what Karen was up to, carrying those company documents out of the plant, they could have just fired her. After all, she'd stolen company property.
- [54:46]
Steve Watka
To me, it was more like an amateur job. Somebody else who much, much lower. Someone who didn't have access to the corporate power. Someone whose job would have been directly on the line. Realized what was going on with the documents. I think that they probably had the most to lose.
- [55:11]
Bob Sands
That makes sense to us. But again, it's just a theory. A theory informed by countless hours reading, researching and thinking about what happened to Karen Silkwood on November 13, 1974. But still just a theory.
- [55:33]
Mike Boettcher
Steve is part of a small army of people who've tried to investigate this case. Law enforcement. The accident investigator, A.O. pipkin. The private investigator Joe Royer. The state trooper Larry Dellinger. Karen's son, Michael Meadows. They've each carved off their own piece of this mystery and given us something to build on.
- [55:57]
Bob Sands
I guess we can add our own names to that list now, too. Our investigation is wrapping up, but we have one thing left to do. And it's a big thing.
- [56:10]
Mike Boettcher
As we mentioned at the start of this episode, we've asked an accident investigator to review the case file we've gathered on Karen's accident. The new photos we took of the bumper in New Mexico law enforcement reports, and A.O. pipkin's original investigation materials. His photos, diagrams and measurements of the crash site. After weeks of waiting and wondering, praying, hoping that he'd be able to make the deadline for our final episode, we finally got the call that he was ready to talk.
- [56:45]
Bob Sands
So we gathered Karen's children and sisters and A.O. pipkin's daughter to hear the accident investigator's presentation and what he told us. It wasn't what we were expecting. That's next time.
- [57:07]
Mike Boettcher
Radioactive the Karen Silkwood Mystery is a production of ABC Audio in collaboration with Standing Bear Entertainment. I'm Mike Boettcher. My co host Bob Sands and I served as consulting producers on this podcast along with Brent Dones. Thanks to the ABC News Investigative Unit and investigative producer Jenny Wagner. Courts chief investigative reporter Josh Margolis, reporter producer Sasha Pesnick and associate producer Alexandra Myers. This podcast was written and produced by senior producer Nancy Rosenbaum and Vika Aronson. Tracy Samuelson is our story editor, associate producer and fact checker Audrey Mostek. We had production help from Meg Fierro, story consultant Chris Donald, supervising producer Sasha Aslanian. Original music by soundboard mixing by Rick Kwan. Ariel Chester is our social media producer. Special thanks to Liz Alessi, Katie Das, Cindy Galley and the University of Oklahoma's Gaylord College of Journalism. Josh Cohan is ABC audio director of podcast programming. Laura Mayer is our executive producer. Now streaming on Hulu.
- [58:51]
Rick Fagan
This guy is an evil genius.
- [58:53]
Bob Sands
He's the best serial killer that ever existed.
- [58:55]
Mike Boettcher
He compared himself to Ted Bundy, the serial killer. You don't know.
- [58:59]
Bob Sands
Who is this guy? Pure evil.
- [59:01]
Karen Pipkin Guerrero
This is not just any killer.
- [59:02]
Bob Sands
In his own words, put my head.
- [59:04]
Larry Dellinger
Right up to your ear and I.
- [59:05]
Mike Boettcher
Said, you knew this was coming. The hit true crime series returns. Wild crime. Eleven skulls. I'm more sane than most Americans.
- [59:16]
Rick Fagan
Now streaming on Hulu.