'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle

Summary

Podcast Summary: “Radioactive” - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle

Title: Radioactive
Episode: Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
Host/Author: ABC News
Release Date: December 17, 2024
Podcast Series: 20/20
Description: Delving into unforgettable true crime mysteries with exclusive interviews and investigative reports. This episode features The 20/20 True Crime Vault.

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Introduction

In the fifth episode of the "Radioactive" series, ABC News revisits the tragic and enduring mystery surrounding Karen Silkwood’s fatal car crash fifty years ago. The episode, titled "The Phantom Vehicle," brings together Silkwood's family and expert accident reconstructionist Steve Irwin to shed new light on the circumstances that led to her untimely death.

Re-examining the Crash

The episode opens with Steve Irwin, a seasoned accident reconstructionist with 37 years of experience, addressing the Silkwood family via a Zoom call. Dressed in a professional light gray suit coat and tie, Irwin presents a thorough analysis of the crash that killed Karen Silkwood, a whistleblower at the Kermagee plutonium plant.

Notable Quote:

Steve Irwin [05:10]: "Hi Karen. I don't know if we've ever met after all this time."

Steve Irwin’s Analysis

Irwin and his team embarked on a meticulous examination of the original accident reports, photographs, and physical evidence, including the critical bumper of Karen’s Honda Civic. Utilizing modern technology, they simulated various scenarios to understand the forces involved in the crash.

Key Findings:

• Impact Analysis: The front of Karen's car was severely damaged, indicating a high-force impact that was consistent with the car colliding with the concrete wall.

  Quote:

  Steve Irwin [06:19]: "So, like this damage on the front that jumps off the page, even to, you know, a team that's been doing it this long, like, that's the impact everything else has to serve that. There's no doubt about that. That's the best evidence we have."

• Tire Marks and Steering: Contrary to the Highway Patrol’s initial conclusion that Karen was asleep at the wheel, Irwin found evidence of braking and steering. Tire marks indicated that Karen attempted to regain control of the vehicle just before the impact.

  Quote:

  Steve Irwin [10:50]: "There's not evidence here that would say Ms. Silkwood was asleep all the way to that head wall. I don't find support for that in the work that I've been able to do. Quite the opposite."

• Speed Considerations: The analysis suggested that Karen was driving at the speed limit (55 mph) before crashing, rather than at a slower speed due to drowsiness or sedation.

  Quote:

  Steve Irwin [09:48]: "Under the presumption that she left the road at 55 miles an hour, then right now the evidence is very strong that she goes over the wall at about 30. And it's not the kind of deceleration that she would achieve if she just took her foot off the throttle."

• Phantom Vehicle Hypothesis: While investigating the possibility of another car causing the crash, Irwin concluded that the dents on Karen's bumper were unlikely to have been caused by another vehicle. The scratches were longitudinal and insufficient in force to alter the car's path significantly.

  Quote:

  Steve Irwin [17:10]: "Is that a big enough force to cause the Honda to go out of control all by itself? My answer to that's no, it's not a big enough force. It's not an intense dent."

Family Reactions and Insights

The family's reactions to Irwin’s findings were mixed, reflecting a blend of gratitude and ongoing frustration. While they appreciated the clarification that Karen was likely awake at the moment of impact, the lack of definitive evidence regarding the cause of the crash left many unanswered questions.

Notable Quotes:

Rosemary Silkwood Smith [20:36]: "I just want to believe my father was accurate because he, this was just such a big story for him, and he believed it till the day he died."

Christy Riddles [21:40]: "I'm sorry, I don't understand what caused the accident then. If you're saying there was not a car that bumped her car or caused her to run off the road, you just think it was distraction."

Christy Riddles expressed disappointment that the analysis did not point to a second vehicle or another clear cause, emphasizing the emotional toll of unresolved mysteries on the family.

Conclusions and Legacy

Irwin concluded that while Karen Silkwood did lose control of her vehicle, the exact cause remains undetermined. This finding challenges the initial law enforcement theory that solely attributed the crash to Karen falling asleep at the wheel. However, without concrete evidence of a phantom vehicle or another specific factor, the mystery persists.

Final Thoughts:

Steve Irwin [22:11]: "This is an honor to do. You all are a big part of that sensation of the importance of this job. So I wanted this to really be something that helped and that maybe gives the family members a sense of a more complete image and maybe just a pause and a moment of peace for that greater clarity."

Despite the lack of definitive answers, the episode underscores Karen Silkwood’s enduring legacy as a whistleblower who fought for safer working conditions and raised awareness about the dangers of nuclear power. Her story remains a symbol of courage and the relentless pursuit of truth, inspiring ongoing discussions about worker safety, environmental risks, and corporate accountability.

Legacy Highlights:

• Impact on Nuclear Industry: Karen's activism contributed to heightened scrutiny of nuclear power plants, ultimately influencing policy and industry practices.

  Quote:

  Bob Sands [31:19]: "Karen Silkwood's story, the publicity around her contamination, death, and the civil trial were all part of that. There was also the partial meltdown of a big nuclear reactor in Pennsylvania, Three Mile Island, in 1979. It was a huge story that really frightened a lot of people altogether."

• Family’s Continued Search for Truth: The Silkwood family remains committed to uncovering the full story behind her death, reflecting the broader struggle for transparency and justice faced by whistleblowers.

  Quote:

  Christy Riddles [24:04]: "It's a tough spot and the family's not. We're not trying to put you in that... So we appreciate all your work, whether we got the answers that we were looking for or not."

Closing Remarks

The episode concludes with a poignant reflection on Karen Silkwood’s role as an underdog and a feminist symbol, emphasizing her contribution to labor rights and environmental safety. While Steve Irwin’s analysis provided significant insights, the full truth behind the crash remains elusive, continuing to fuel the narrative of Karen Silkwood as a martyr for a crucial cause.

Closing Quote:

Steve Irwin [39:02]: "The Karen Silkwood story is a labor story and a feminist story at root."

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Contact and Further Investigation: As Bob Sands and Mike Boettcher hinted, the investigation is not entirely closed. They invite listeners with new information to reach out via a dedicated phone line, emphasizing their ongoing commitment to uncovering the truth behind Karen Silkwood’s tragic demise.

Contact Information:

Phone Line: 347-901-9102

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Final Thoughts: "Radioactive" Episode 5 provides a comprehensive and emotionally resonant exploration of Karen Silkwood’s fatal crash, blending expert analysis with heartfelt family perspectives. It serves as both a tribute and a continued quest for understanding, highlighting the complexities of unraveling historical mysteries with modern technology.

Transcript

[Bob Sands]

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[Steve Irwin]

Wanted to say hello. I'm Steve Irwin. I just get an idea who everyone is. Oh wow, there's a lot of everyone's.

[Bob Sands]

Yeah, there's a bunch of us. There's a bunch of us. Steve Irwin peers into a zoom screen. A couple rows of faces stare back at him. It's not his usual audience.

[Christy Riddles]

Hi Linda.

[Mike Boettcher]

Hi Michael.

[Bob Sands]

Is that Rosemary over there?

[Mike Boettcher]

Hi Michael.

[Bob Sands]

Okay, we got the whole fam family.

[Mike Boettcher]

Steve's an accident reconstructionist. He's used to speaking to juries in courtrooms. He's dressed the part today in a light gray suit coat and tie.

[Steve Irwin]

Anyway, I just feel better knowing who I'm talking to.

[Bob Sands]

But today he's presenting to members of the Silkwood family. They've gathered to hear what he has to say about the fatal crash that killed Karen Silkwood 50 years ago. Maybe Steve Irwin will finally have some of the answers they've been waiting for.

[Mike Boettcher]

Why did Karen's car leave the road that night and crash into a concrete.

[Bob Sands]

Culvert seven miles into her trip? Exhausted, stressed out from her multiple contaminations and scrub downs, maybe clouded by her prescription sedative? Did she fall asleep at the wheel, as law enforcement has always said?

[Mike Boettcher]

Or did another vehicle try to scare her or run her off the road? We were pretty late in the reporting process for this podcast when we tracked down the bumper of Karen's Honda Civic. And that set this whole accident reconstruction idea in motion. We scrambled to find someone who could do the work. And ABC News hired Steve Irwin and his team to review all the evidence we could pull together for them.

[Bob Sands]

And it's the culmination of weeks worth of effort that drive to Albuquerque to photograph the dent in the bumper, collecting every scrap of original evidence we could find from all the different accident reports from Troopers Fagan and Owen A.O. pipkin and the FBI. We took all the photographs, diagrams, hand drawn sketches, witness interviews and report narratives and uploaded them to Steve's team in Dallas to see if new tools and technology could tell us something that wasn't possible to know in Karen's day.

[Mike Boettcher]

In this episode, what we learned how it sits with the family and where.

[Bob Sands]

We go from here.

[Mike Boettcher]

From ABC Audio, this is Radioactive, the Karen Silkwood Mystery, Episode 5 the Phantom Vehicle Our last episode. I'm Mike Boettcher.

[Bob Sands]

And I'm Bob Sands.

[Mike Boettcher]

This zoom call, it's pretty strange when you think about it. Fifty years after Karen's death, her three adult children, her two sisters, even one of her granddaughters who never got to meet her, can beam in and watch a guy run computer models simulating the path her car took that night, its velocity, angle and final moment of impact. They watch this little digital version of her car smash into a wall on a loop as if it's backing up and hitting the wall once, twice, three times.

[Bob Sands]

Steve Irwin feels the weight of this moment.

[Steve Irwin]

You know, I felt all of Yalls presence the entire time that we were doing this work.

[Mike Boettcher]

Steve's been in the business for 37 years. He actually worked with A.O. pipkin back in the 80s and Pipkin was an important person in Steve's life.

[Steve Irwin]

So I feel a little bit of a connection to that case because of it. And it's a story that requires my science to help tell part of it, you know, that's part of kind of, you know, feels like, wow, this is really interesting. And in part because it is that kind of national tale.

[Mike Boettcher]

Steve's long ago work with Pipkin meant something to Pipkin's daughter Karen. Pipkin Guerrero too. You met her in the last episode when we drove to her home in Albuquerque to see the bumper.

[Bob Sands]

We invited Karen to be on the Zoom too. Given how she had held onto the Silkwood bumper, waiting for the moment it might be needed. She and Steve hadn't met before.

[Steve Irwin]

Hi Karen.

[Mike Boettcher]

Hi there.

[Steve Irwin]

I don't know if we've ever met after all this time.

[Mike Boettcher]

I've heard a lot about you through the years. I'm glad you worked with him. I'm glad. Three generations of Karen's family are here today. Her sisters, Rosemary Silkwood Smith and Linda Silkwood Vincent, along with her son Michael Meadows. And for the first time we're joined by Karen's daughters, Christy Riddles and don lipsey. Don's 20 year old daughter Riley is sitting by her mom.

[Bob Sands]

Steve stands by a big screen where he can display his simulations or magnify the smallest scratch in photos.

[Mike Boettcher]

Steve begins with the indisputable facts of the accident that Karen's car collided with the cement wall of that culvert. The moment of impact.

[Steve Irwin]

So this is her car. It's taken.

[Mike Boettcher]

He displays a photo of the front End of Karen's tiny white Honda, jagged and crumpled. The hood is collapsed toward the steering wheel like a crushed soda can.

[Steve Irwin]

So, like this damage on the front that jumps off the page, even to, you know, a team that's been doing it this long, like, that's the impact everything else has to serve that. There's no doubt about that. That's the best evidence we have.

[Bob Sands]

Steve's team created an animation showing how the car could have smashed into the cement wall and came to rest on its side in the red mud.

[Steve Irwin]

The damage on the front of the vehicle tells a tale that cannot change.

[Bob Sands]

So we have a pretty good sense of the moment of impact. Now Steve and his team must work their way backwards to think what set of forces acted on the car to get it to this crumpled state. And here's where the evidence gets thinner.

[Mike Boettcher]

What happened in the moments after the car drove off the road, before it hit the wall? And the question we're all wondering what caused Karen's car to leave the road in the first place?

[Bob Sands]

Remember, the highway patrol thought that Karen had been unconscious, possibly under the influence of a sedative, and asleep at the wheel. And that's the reason for the crash. Lt. Larry Owens said that there was no evidence of braking or trying to steer after the car left the road.

[Mike Boettcher]

What did Steve find?

[Steve Irwin]

It's kind of easiest to look at the tire marks.

[Bob Sands]

First he pulls up a photo Pipkin took a couple of days after Karen's crash of tire marks in the grass next to the highway. The highway patrol and Pipkin measured marks once Karen drove off the road that ran 255ft. Imagine 85 yards on a football field. But it's hard to see much detail in Pipkin's photos.

[Steve Irwin]

A couple things about those marks. There's photographs of them. They aren't great. If these were photographs Today, we'd take 50 of them, and we'd march right down those tire marks, and we'd record what's there.

[Mike Boettcher]

Steve and his team look for signs that Karen might have been trying to regain control after she left the road. Was she steering or braking? He found signs of both.

[Bob Sands]

Trooper Rick Fagan, one of the first officers on the scene, reported that just before impact, the tire tracks appeared to turn right.

[Mike Boettcher]

That would set up the next sequence Steve is looking at. After Karen's car hit the wall and came to arrest, its nose was pointed toward the roadway.

[Steve Irwin]

That is, a steer to the right would provide the vehicle position at impact to create the rotation. We see for the vehicle. The front of the vehicle Pointing at the roadway.

[Bob Sands]

So there was a final steer to the right, an action.

[Mike Boettcher]

Then there's the question of speed. The speed limit on the highway was 55, and Steve believes it's a reasonable assumption that she was going the speed limit. The alternative would be that she was drowsy or sedated and driving slower than the speed limit Pipkin calculated. By the time Karen hit the wall, she was going 30. Steve says that matches their modeling, too.

[Steve Irwin]

Under the presumption that she left the road at 55 miles an hour, Then right now the evidence is very strong that she goes over the wall at about 30. And it's not the kind of deceleration that she would achieve if she just took her foot off the throttle.

[Bob Sands]

It wasn't passive coasting. And here's where we want to remind you that Karen was a skilled driver. She'd gotten into car racing with her boyfriend Drew, and she raced that little Honda, Even won a trophy that we saw at her sister Rosemary's house.

[Mike Boettcher]

So the drop in speed after leaving the road, to Steve, that indicates the driver took action.

[Steve Irwin]

If she slowed from 55 to 30, there's brake pressure, and the 255ft is plenty for her to get that done.

[Bob Sands]

The evidence Steve finds of braking and steering are important. Remember, the highway patrol thought that Karen was asleep at the wheel.

[Mike Boettcher]

Steve comes to a different conclusion.

[Steve Irwin]

There's not evidence here that would say Ms. Silkwood was asleep all the way to that head wall. I don't find support for that in the work that I've been able to do quite the opposite. It feels like this idea of braking and steering feels pretty well supported by the evidence that we're confident in now.

[Bob Sands]

Could Karen have fallen asleep and been woken up by going off the road? It's possible.

[Steve Irwin]

Steve says the ground can wake her up. Right. It's the change in surface as you get off road. But the idea that she was asleep at the switch the whole way, I don't think is supported by the evidence. And remember, it's the best evidence we have.

[Mike Boettcher]

So Karen was awake at the moment of impact. That's the opinion of one expert. Using the latest in accident reconstruction technology. The idea that Karen was asleep, maybe even in a stupor, as law enforcement once said, that doesn't necessarily check out. And Steve's findings challenge at least one theory that placed the blame for the accident solely on Karen Silkwood. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol didn't have any comment on the new assessment, and they told us there are no plans to reopen the investigation.

[Bob Sands]

So what made Karen drive off the road in the first place?

[Narrator]

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[Bob Sands]

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[Mike Boettcher]

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[Steve Irwin]

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[Mike Boettcher]

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[Bob Sands]

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[Mike Boettcher]

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[Bob Sands]

The murkiest part of this crash has always been what happened to Karen while she was on the road. To make her lose control, Steve has.

[Mike Boettcher]

Created simulations of three possible scenarios. In one, the car veers off the road to the right, then overcorrects to the left and loses control.

[Bob Sands]

In another, she goes off the road to the left and can't get back on the road.

[Steve Irwin]

Just a simple absence of control of the vehicle and it goes left. That is truly just a single vehicle accident.

[Mike Boettcher]

These are both single car accidents. But what we've all been waiting for Steve to tell us about is the bumper.

[Steve Irwin]

This is the area of the car that has caused so much interest. With that dent right there.

[Bob Sands]

He pulls up A.O. pipkin's original photograph showing the damage to the rear of Karen's car. Two dents. One is on the fender just behind the left rear tire. The other is on the bumper. But first, there's something else in the photo that catches Steve's eye.

[Steve Irwin]

And then to Karen Pipkin alone, there is orange reflections in that bumper. And AO Pipkin always wore an orange jumpsuit top to bottom when he was investigating a crash. And so, Karen, I kind of feel like that's your reflection of your dad in that photograph. It's not what I expected.

[Mike Boettcher]

It's a nice moment, but looking at the rest of the photo Steve breaks with his old mentor. He doesn't see what Pipkin saw in these dents.

[Steve Irwin]

This dent is less descriptive. It's less intense. It's in kind of a weird spot. It's very low, and it doesn't reflect a high force. My anecdotal description is I could go do this with my foot so I could kick the back of that car and I wouldn't move it. I could create the damage, but I wouldn't move the car.

[Mike Boettcher]

So Steve thinks it's unlikely that these dents were created by another car. What he poetically refers to as a phantom vehicle. That's a vehicle that's alleged to have been present but leaves behind no physical evidence. But he doesn't totally dismiss the possibility of a phantom vehicle. He zooms in on the dents, those scratches.

[Steve Irwin]

To me, there's two things about those areas. Number one, they're scratched, and they're scratched longitudinally. Like the scratches kind of go forward on the length of the vehicle.

[Bob Sands]

Then Steve shows us a simulation of what it would have looked like if a second car comes up behind Karen, taps her from behind and keeps going.

[Steve Irwin]

There's evidence that supports the notion that these scratches were created starting from the back and going to the front. So if they were created by a passing vehicle, that vehicle's going faster.

[Mike Boettcher]

In the simulation, the phantom vehicle sideswipes Karen's car on the driver's side.

[Steve Irwin]

Then they have to be parallel for a period of time. She can't go left until that vehicle's gone.

[Bob Sands]

Then there needs to be some kind of force that's powerful enough to make Karen's car go over to the left hand side of the road. That force could have been her steering. Maybe she's scared and reacting to what's happening, or maybe she hit the brakes. But when it comes to a phantom vehicle dinging Karen's bumper and fender and forcing her to go left. Here's the question Steve asks.

[Steve Irwin]

Is that a big enough force to cause the Honda to go out of control all by itself? My answer to that's no. It's not a big enough force. It's not an intense dent.

[Mike Boettcher]

Steve actually looked to see if he could find a car that would have been on the road in the early 1970s that had a bumper low enough to cause the kinds of dents we see in Karen's left rear bumper and fender.

[Bob Sands]

And while he said he didn't do an exhaustive search, Steve could not find a car with a bumper that was low enough to do the job.

[Mike Boettcher]

I've always said we follow where the facts lead us. I was convinced that a close up look at the bumper was going to unlock this thing. But in the end, that's not what I was hearing from Steve.

[Steve Irwin]

You know, I've had 50,000 dents in photographs for 37 years. Right. So I have this broader array of photographs to compare or dents to compare this one to. It's not the kind of dent by itself that would cause a loss of control. It's not that big.

[Bob Sands]

Steve goes back to this idea that law enforcement had that maybe the dent was caused by the tow truck driver who pulled it out of the culvert that night. Pipkin and the FBI tested it for cement residue and didn't find any. But Steve is skeptical.

[Mike Boettcher]

Steve says even if a phantom vehicle didn't hit her or didn't hit her hard enough to push her off the road, there's still the possibility that Karen was startled and then overcorrected. The intimidation factor, of course.

[Steve Irwin]

If you just got hit by a vehicle and it's speeding by you, then you know, the idea that you might steer right or left is certainly a possibility. Right. Just out of fear alone.

[Mike Boettcher]

So what does it all add up to? Steve says there's no evidence to definitively prove or disprove the presence of a phantom vehicle.

[Steve Irwin]

What is it that substantiates the presence? Right. There's nothing. It's the harsher way to go about it. Like, you know, could there been another car? Sure. I mean, there's no way to eliminate that possibility. But is there something you can point at after what we've done that says it was there? And right now I'd say no, there's not a thing that by itself or even taken in the collection with the rest of the evidence, it says there.

[Bob Sands]

Was one where Pipkin thought there was circumstantial evidence to suggest a second car. Steve doesn't see it again. He can't definitely rule it out. But as he spoke, I felt the phantom vehicle get even more shadowy.

[Mike Boettcher]

Two hours later, Steve pressed pause on his PowerPoint and opened it up for questions and reactions. People's faces were drawn. This didn't seem to be the definitive closure we were hoping for. There was this uncomfortable pause where no one said anything.

[Bob Sands]

And then Karen Zilkwood's sister Rosemary spoke up. But her question wasn't for Steve. It was for A.O. pipkins daughter.

[Mike Boettcher]

I'd like to hear what Karen Pipkins has to say. I just want to believe my father was accurate because he this was just such a big story for him, and he believed it till the day he died. So, you know, I'm a little disappointed that Steve didn't really find anything conclusive about the mark on the bumper. Yeah, I kind of thought that bumper would have some answers in it, and sounds like maybe not if it not another car. So I'm a little disappointed in that.

[Narrator]

Yeah.

[Mike Boettcher]

He always told dad that he thought that's what he thought, that there was another car involved. Yeah, yeah, he. He never let up on that. So maybe it was something else. Then Karen's daughter, Christy Riddles, jumped in. She asked a question I think a lot of us had.

[Narrator]

I'm sorry, I don't understand what caused the accident then. If you're saying there was not a car that bumped her car or caused her to run off the road, you just think it was distraction.

[Steve Irwin]

I wouldn't phrase it that way, but globally, you'd say loss of control, that's the cause. And I know that's unsatisfactory, but that's as much as I can say sitting here today.

[Mike Boettcher]

What it comes down to, Steve explained, is that Karen lost control of the car, but we still don't know why.

[Bob Sands]

Steve acknowledged the heaviness in the room. For the last two hours. He was explaining Karen Silkwood's fatal car crash in technical terms, the way he might typically do in a courtroom. Now he was speaking to family members who knew the driver of this car loved her. Family members who for years had been grasping for some kind of resolution that kept evading them.

[Steve Irwin]

This is an honor to do. You all are a big part of that sensation of the importance of this job. So I wanted this to really be something that helped and that maybe gives the family members a sense of a more complete image and maybe just a pause and a moment of peace for that greater clarity.

[Bob Sands]

Steve has told us that's why he does this work. The science can help families know more about what happened and maybe give them some sense of peace. He wasn't able to answer all the questions we had going into this, but he did answer one big one. And Karen's sister Rosemary, was grateful for that. I'm just glad that you said that she was awake.

[Mike Boettcher]

That means a lot, because I've always said that she's. There is no way she fell asleep within seven miles or even 30 miles, whatever the case may be. Karen Silkwood's son, Michael Meadows, shared what I think a lot of us were feeling. This mix of gratitude, appreciation, but also some disappointment.

[Christy Riddles]

It's a tough Spot and the family's not. We're not trying to put you in that. I mean, everybody wants. You want a bad guy. You know, we want to point to a bad guy and say, this guy did it, that guy did it. And it's hard to hear that it may have been a single car accident. Whether that's what we're stating or not. I mean, it's just a fact. It could, could have been a single car accident. So it's tough for the family to hear. You know, I have trouble believing that there wasn't someone there intimidating her because of her skills behind the wheel. And I never thought she was asleep. It doesn't sound like you believe that she was asleep. So obviously that piece of the puzzle is ruled out. We'll never know whether there was a second vehicle or not. I'm kind of, after seeing your video recreation in the, in the boat, that maybe the concrete wall and the record did create that low of a dent. I mean, that just, that's a very real possibility. So maybe there was no contact, but maybe there was another vehicle there doing some intimidation. So there's, there's a lot of what ifs that we have to run through. I mean, there's just so many scenarios that could have happened in that case. And we appreciate all the work that you've done, but it's, you know, as, as a son or a sister where we're looking for that. Aha, you know, here's, here's the bad guy we want somebody to point to. So we appreciate all your work, whether we got the answers that we were looking for or not. I mean, your team did an amazing job and I appreciate that.

[Mike Boettcher]

There was a chorus of thank yous and goodbyes.

[Narrator]

I'm very grateful to all of you. I just wanted to say thank you. It means the world to me. I love mom and we all did. And I just like to know, just like to know the truth. But thank you very much for all of this research and testing and all your models. Thank you very much.

[Mike Boettcher]

You did an excellent job.

[Steve Irwin]

Thank you.

[Mike Boettcher]

Thank you, Steve, for re examining everything. Hopefully we can get something more concrete in the future. We were hoping Steve Irwin, with his analysis of the bumper and all the other evidence would solve the mystery that.

[Bob Sands]

With 50 years of technological advances since Karen died, Steve could now tell us without a doubt what happened in the moments leading up to the crash.

[Mike Boettcher]

I think it's fair to say that's what Karen's family was hoping for too. Confirmation of a second car or at the very least, some definitive answer to why her Honda Civic left the road and crashed into a concrete wall as she was driving to what was arguably one of the most important meetings of her life.

[Bob Sands]

We wanted that closure for them, for everyone.

[Mike Boettcher]

It turns out that while technology can do a lot of remarkable things, at least in this case, firm answers weren't part of the deal.

[Narrator]

At least not in the dry states of the Southwest. There's a group that's been denied a basic human right in the Navajo Nation.

[Bob Sands]

Today, a third of our households don't.

[Narrator]

Have running water, but 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?

[Mike Boettcher]

Our water, our future. Our water. Our future.

[Narrator]

That's in the next season of Reclaimed, the lifeblood of Navajo Nation. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

[Mike Boettcher]

Get now streaming on Hulu.

[Steve Irwin]

This guy is an evil genius. He's the best serial killer that ever existed.

[Mike Boettcher]

He compared himself to Ted Bundy, the serial killer.

[Bob Sands]

You don't know.

[Steve Irwin]

Who is this guy?

[Narrator]

Pure evil.

[Mike Boettcher]

This is not just any killer.

[Bob Sands]

In his own way, words put my.

[Mike Boettcher]

Head right up to her ear, and I said, you knew this was coming. The hit true Crime series returns. Wild crime. Eleven skulls. I'm more sane than most Americans.

[Bob Sands]

Now streaming on Hulu.

[Mike Boettcher]

The day after our session with Steve, one of our producers got a text from Karen Silkwood's older daughter, Christy Riddles. Christy was eight when her mom died. She was the oldest of the three kids and the one with the most memories of her mom. Christy was the one on the zoom call who asked if Steve could pinpoint why Karen lost control of her car the night she died. Unfortunately, Steve couldn't give her that piece of the puzzle.

[Bob Sands]

But Steve's presentation brought up some feelings for Christy. She wanted to remind us about some of the fundamental questions in this story that continue to matter, and how our attempts to try and get definitive answers about Karen's fatal car crash might actually not be the way forward. As we think about where we want to go next in our own investigation, we ask her to record part of the message she sent us.

[Narrator]

I don't think we will ever know the truth. And stirring up more questions just distracts us from the real wrongdoing. Kermogy. They were tried in federal court and found negligent. Don't put the car crash before the exposure to plutonium. So much aftermath from greed. Finding my mom smoker seems almost petty. Getting lost in the data from 50 years ago invites even more questions. And on the topic we were not able to bring into the courtroom, Mom's car crash was not to be discussed by either side. Per the judge, the wreck was never the crime anyway. It was the contamination and how it happened. For me, searching for the answer seems to hurt more than it helps. If the wreck was completely Mom's fault, who does that exonerate? No one. Karen Silkwood's story played a tiny part in the world's fight for nuclear power. And it is a friendly but deadly reminder to all of us. She was significant, a catalyst for awareness, and that is more than most.

[Mike Boettcher]

Karen Silkwood did play a role in raising awareness about the risks and dangers of nuclear power.

[Bob Sands]

She wanted safe working conditions, and she tried to do something about that.

[Mike Boettcher]

About a month before she died, Karen told the union leader, Steve Watka, that she was going to be gone from Carnegie and that she was going to shut things down before she left.

[Bob Sands]

Well, in the end, the Kernegee plutonium plant did shut down. It wasn't long after Karen died. Actually, the company couldn't reach a deal for a new contract to keep manufacturing its fuel rods. So on November 13, 1975, on the first anniversary of Karen's death, Kerm McGee announced it was closing the plant. And by the end of that year, most of the workers were laid off.

[Mike Boettcher]

One of those workers was Jim Smith. He'd been a manager at the plutonium plant from day one. He told some documentary film producers that before everything closed down, there'd been talk of Ker McGee re upping their fuel rod contract. But that would have required a major cleanup effort.

[Bob Sands]

I'm confident in my own mind at this time now that they had no intentions of bidding another contract to start with. They were getting too much adverse publicity and they wanted out. That was obvious. Everybody knew that. Well, at the end, everybody laid their badges on the table, scraped their windshield stickers and drove out the gate. That was it. Karen probably wouldn't have wanted her friends and co workers to lose their jobs. But I've come to see the closure of the Kermogee plant as some kind of vindication for her. That in the end, maybe she got what she wanted, even if it wouldn't have been how she wanted it. She wanted a safe plant, and she wanted the rest of us to know about the hazards that alarmed her. Well, consider that a mission accomplished.

[Mike Boettcher]

Still, even after the plant closed, Kermgy continued to operate as an energy company for more than 30 years. After it was acquired, Kermuggee and its new parent company agreed to pay a $5 billion settlement with the Department of Justice to clean up contaminated sites from its oil, gas and chemical operations across the country. This included radioactive waste from the plant where Karen worked at the time. In 2014, the DOJ called it, quote, the largest payment for the cleanup of environmental contamination in history. Carnegie wasn't the only company that ultimately abandoned its nuclear investments. That big vision the US government had for this bountiful plutonium economy, one that supplied this evergreen source of cheap energy. Well, that dream started to tarnish by the late 1970s. There were these big questions about the safety of nuclear power plants and what to do with radioactive waste. And those questions cooled the plutonium economy. Over time, the construction of new nuclear reactors in the US slowed to a trickle.

[Bob Sands]

I think it's fair to say Karen's story, the publicity around her contamination, death and the civil trial were all part of that. There was also the partial meltdown of a big nuclear reactor in Pennsylvania, Three Mile island, in 1979. It was a huge story that really frightened a lot of people altogether. The late 70s was a time when the risks and potential health issues of nuclear power started to feel real to the American public. Visible, tangible in ways they hadn't before.

[Mike Boettcher]

How would Karen have felt about this shift away from nuclear power and her role in that shift? I wonder what she'd think of this new interest we're seeing in nuclear energy today. All of those big tech companies need sources of energy to fuel their hungry servers, especially with AI on the rise. Companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Google are all making serious investments into nuclear power in search of an emission free source of electricity. The industry that Karen blew the whistle on could very well be on the brink of a comeback.

[Bob Sands]

Karen's friends and family told us she wasn't necessarily anti nuke, or at least she didn't start out that way. I think of her more as an underdog fighting for other underdogs. That's the way I'll always remember her.

[Mike Boettcher]

Throughout our reporting, we asked the people we spoke with what Karen meant to them, why her story still resonates 50 years after her death. We collected what they told us, along with bits of archival tape that spoke to Karen's legacy to people who are opposed to nuclear power. Your daughter has become a symbol. She has become a martyr to a.

[Christy Riddles]

Lot of people and yet to others.

[Mike Boettcher]

She was a rebel. She was a troublemaker. She caused trouble. How do you describe your daughter and what she did? Well, none of those. She was an ordinary person like you and I. She seen something there that had to be done. And she did it for the union.

[Christy Riddles]

For a woman, 5 foot 4, 102 pound woman, to stand up to a corporation in 1974 is almost impossible to wrap your brain around. You know, it just didn't occur.

[Mike Boettcher]

I think she knew it needed to be exposed. You know, it was a threat, not.

[Narrator]

Only to the workers there, but to the community. She never meant to harm anybody. She wanted to help.

[Mike Boettcher]

I think for union activists, she became a symbol of what a union should be all about, that it should care more about just, you know, what the paycheck is, that the health and safety of the workplace is just as important as anything else. And without question, she was trying to do something about that.

[Bob Sands]

Health and safety is a priority on any job. And people doing those jobs do deserve safety for them and their family.

[Mike Boettcher]

And that's not what you got back in the early and mid-1970s.

[Bob Sands]

No, Mel.

[Steve Irwin]

The Karen Silkwood story is a labor.

[Mike Boettcher]

Story and a feminist story at root.

[Steve Irwin]

We all rose up in her defense and demanded to know the truth and told her message to the whole world. The stakes were huge in terms of.

[Mike Boettcher]

The dollar potential of building a plutonium economy.

[Steve Irwin]

I'm glad they didn't build a plutonium.

[Mike Boettcher]

Economy, but that was on the table.

[Christy Riddles]

The whistleblower story has never stopped occurring. Mom was one of the first to be brought into light. But it occurred before Mom. It's occurred after Mom. It just never stops. It's a cycle that repeats itself.

[Mike Boettcher]

There are Karen Silkwoods out there today who have said and done the right thing, but, you know, are afraid to come forward. They're going to lose their jobs or what have you.

[Steve Irwin]

You know, there should be an environment.

[Mike Boettcher]

In this country where people can come forth, you know, without free of being of a reprisal coming after them.

[Steve Irwin]

I just want the world to know that she wasn't.

[Mike Boettcher]

Crazy.

[Steve Irwin]

She didn't go out and do something. I loved her to pieces and it killed me when she died. And I miss her ever since. But she was a good woman. She's got a good heart.

[Bob Sands]

A good woman with a good heart.

[Mike Boettcher]

So we're going to pause our investigation into the death of Karen Silkwood here. We don't have any more episodes planned, but I say pause because Bob and I have been working on this story for years and I can't quite imagine not working on it.

[Bob Sands]

We're both in our 70s, but we're going to keep chasing any leads that need to be chased. I guess we don't know any other way. So if you know something About Karen Silkwood, her work as a whistleblower at Kermagee, her contamination, her death, whatever it might be. Get in touch with us. We've set up a phone line where you can leave a message. The number is 347-901-9102. That number again. 347-901-9102. That's all for now. Thanks for listening.

[Narrator]

In a Kermagee factory in an Oklahoma town worked a legend of a woman wise for her Danes the factory made fuel rods up to tony hum Karen Silkwood knew the dangers of those deadly rains she was driving down the road to close a deal Files in her hands for the New York Times the.

[Bob Sands]

Cops they said she fell asleep at.

[Narrator]

The wheel Union private eyes said she.

[Mike Boettcher]

Was hit from the night Oklahoma highway.

[Narrator]

Scene of pain Winter sadness was someone's.

[Steve Irwin]

Game.

[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 Ginny Wagner. Courts chief investigative reporter Josh Margolin, reporter producer Sasha Pesnick and associate producer Alexandra Meyer. This podcast was written and produced by senior producer Nancy Rosenbaum and Vika Aronson. Tracy Samuelson was our story editor, associate producer and fact checker Audrey Mostak. We had production help from Meg Fierro, story consultant Chris Donovan, supervising producer Sasha Aslanian. Original music by soundboard thanks to Pat and Texla Mountain for the use of their song Karen Silkwood 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 Journalists. Josh Cohan is ABC Audio's director of podcast programming. Laura Mayer is our executive producer. Now streaming on Hulu.

[Steve Irwin]

This guy is an evil genius. He's the best serial killer that ever existed.

[Mike Boettcher]

He compared himself to Ted Bundy, the serial killer.

[Bob Sands]

You don't know. Who is this guy?

[Narrator]

Pure evil.

[Mike Boettcher]

This is not just any killer.

[Bob Sands]

In his own words.

[Mike Boettcher]

Put my head right up to her ear and I said, you knew this was coming. The hit true crime series returns. Wild crime. Eleven skulls. I'm more sane than most Americans.

[Bob Sands]

Now streaming on Hulu.