← The Prosecutors
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- [00:00]
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- [01:05]
Alice
Residents have been plagued by unexplained drones flying overhead.
- [01:08]
Brett
Is there intelligent alien life? And if so, has the government been covering it up?
- [01:13]
Alice
All right. UFO sightings the military can't explain, Congressional hearings, Pentagon whistleblower.
- [01:20]
Brett
What does it all mean?
- [01:21]
Ancient Aliens Host
What does it all mean? We are here to try and figure it all out with our new Ancient Aliens podcast. There is a doorway in the universe. Beyond it is the promise of truth. It demands we question everything we have ever been taught. The evidence is all around us. The future is right before our eyes. We are not alone. We have never been alone. Alone. Listen to the Ancient Aliens podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts.
- [02:05]
Brett
I'm Brett.
- [02:06]
Alice
And I'm Alice.
- [02:08]
Prosecutors Host
And we are the Prosecutors.
- [02:20]
Brett
Today on the Prosecutors, how far will a corporation go to hide its secrets? And how far will one woman go to uncover them? Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of the Prosecutors. I'm Brett and I'm joined as always by my radioactive co host, Alice. Alice, you practically glow.
- [03:10]
Alice
Well, thank you. You know what it's like, Alex Mack. That was one of the best shows of the 90s. Was that the 90s? Something like the 90s. Didn't she touch some nuclear material and then she could turn into water?
- [03:22]
Brett
Sorry?
- [03:22]
Alice
Oh, well, I guess.
- [03:23]
Brett
Did she turn into water?
- [03:25]
Alice
That was the whole thing. She could Turn into water and then, like, you know, go into. Under the doors. That's how she could get places where she was radioactive, could go under the doors.
- [03:35]
Brett
I mean, water would be, you know.
- [03:37]
Alice
It was very smart because then you're invisible. But, like, you could see it as the Nickelodeon watcher. But the reason we're talking that is smart, isn't it smart? So, like, technically, she's invisible, but she's water. So we see it. But, you know, if you're next to her, you don't see it because that's how TV works. True suspension of reality. But, Brett, I'm so proud of you for being punerific, because it's not about me. It is about the radioactive yeti. Not about the radioactive yeti, in fact. But we do have a radioactive case today. And. Okay, I know you probably did way better in science than I did. I. I was not great at science. But radioactivity and nuclear weapons, all of these things, all I can think of is I'm scared. And when you put true crime in there, Talk about mystery of mysteries.
- [04:28]
Brett
Radiation is scary. It's one of those things that we don't understand very well that we only really got to know about in the last 200 years, that the first person who really studied it died of radiation poisoning. So, you know, there's that and something that those of us growing up in really any of the 20th century, constantly afraid of nuclear annihilation. It was something that we were afraid of, but that wasn't always true. In fact, right after World War II, there was a big push that radiation was our friend. You had, like cartoons about radiation. Disney was doing radiation things at Disney World and Disneyland to explain sort of how this, the atom and harnessing the atom was the future. And we were going to have unlimited power, relatively clean, relatively cheap, not dependent on fossil fuels. It was going to be amazing. And a lot of people were very excited to be a part of that. And one person who wanted to be a part of this revolution was Karen Silkwood, a woman from Oklahoma. She lived in Oklahoma. She was originally from Texas, but I'm told there's no difference, so no big deal there. And she wanted to be on the cutting edge of this revolution, and she would take a job that some would say cost her life when she began to uncover some of the dangers that you were just talking about.
- [05:48]
Alice
Absolutely. This is going to blow your mind, guys, and talk about a timeline really mattering here. And if you are a scientist and you understand how these things we're going to start Talking about, obviously, a lot of science things, if you have an expertise in it. I'd actually love to hear how this works, how people actually study these things without dying. I mean, I know a lot of the scientists before we understood how to not be contaminated by these radioactive materials, but what did they do? They just died. That's pretty much. I would say that's scary.
- [06:18]
Brett
They took a lot of precautions. Except for, you know, I told that story about the guy with the demon core. There was a core of uranium. He was keeping the core open with a screwdriver because as long as it was open, the radiation, low levels of radiation, could escape. And it didn't cause a criticality incident. So the core didn't start to go critical, didn't start a chain reaction, which leads to a big burst of intense, ionizing, killing radiation. And he accidentally knocked the screwdriver loose and the two halves closed, which started essentially a nuclear reactor in the middle of this lab. And the only thing he could do was yank the top off. And when he did that, he got blasted with radiation. He died a few days later. He was the first person, I think, to die of radiation poisoning in that way in the United States. But those are the kind of stories you hear, and we're going to be talking a lot about that. And Alice is right. Paying attention to the timeline is important here. It's going to inform a lot of this mystery. And it is a mystery. Maybe a murder mystery, maybe an accidental death, but whatever it is, is tied to some pretty interesting things. So let's go ahead and dive in. Karen Silkwood was born February 19, 1946, in Longview, Texas. So just after the detonation of the two nuclear bombs in Japan, which sort of introduced the world to nuclear power. She was the oldest of three girls and grew up in Nederland, Texas. Her sisters described her as caring and gutsy, with a love for science. In high school, she developed an interest in chemistry and had a real skill for it. And this is all very interesting. She will continue to be a pioneer. She was basically the only girl in her chemistry class at the time. Women just were not expected to study science. You know, now you might go to high school or even middle school, and you're required to take certain science classes like chemistry, physics, biology, that sort of thing. Well, at the time, women were directed towards sort of more home economics type stuff where whereas boys were expected to take sciences because they were the ones who were going to grow up to be the scientists. But that wasn't her. She was sort of A trailblazer. And as part of that, she's really interested in this thing that a lot of people would say, why are you here? You know, girls don't do science. But she was, and she was talented. So much so that she received a full scholarship to study medical technology at Lamar College in Beaumont, Texas, which, once again, was a rare feat for a woman at that time. And I think this also speaks to her character, because you gotta have some fight to do that, right? I mean, to be somebody who's willing to do the things that no one expects you to do. And not only do they not expect you to do, but they kind of look down on. They discourage you. They're like, why are you doing this? But she kept pushing forward. And you're going to see that that's a through line in this story. She never backs down, and she keeps pushing even when people are trying to stop her. Now, when she was only 18, she met an oil pipeline worker named Bill Meadows. And like so many of us, love derails our previous plans. A year later, she's 19, she drops out of college so that she can marry Bill. Now, I know this is kind of funny. They're 19 and 18, and this just tells you how things are different, I guess, in, like, the early 60s. Yeah, because they were 19 and 18, even though they're adults, no one would marry them. They basically were like, we'll only marry you with your parents permission. And both sets of parents said, no, we're not gonna give you permission to do this. So like many a young couple before them, they just said, okay, never mind. Will just be in a sort of common law marriage situation. They don't actually get married. They just live together as a married couple. And for all practical purposes, they are sort of common law spouses. We should do a legal brief on common law marriage at some point and how it doesn't really exist. It's kind of not a real thing people talk about all the time. But it's kind of. It's kind of fake.
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Alice
Kind of doesn't. But it kind of does too.
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Brett
It depends on the state. I mean, it's very.
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Alice
Basically, you just have to get all your friends to say you were married. You have to get at least one friend who's like, what? They weren't.
- [10:26]
Brett
Actually, we just lost the. You know, we thought we had recorded that certificate.
- [10:31]
Alice
It's like adverse possession of relationships.
- [10:34]
Brett
Yeah, pretty much. And how. If you hold yourself out to be married. I know this is a complete aside, but if you hold yourself out to Be married enough. It's like estoppel. You're treated as if you're married. You can't just all of a sudden say, never mind, we're not married. All this property is mine. And the court's like, no, we're gonna treat you as if you were married for the purposes of your separation or whatever, anyways. But they were common law spouses, and, you know, married life started off exciting. By the time Karen was only 24 years old, she had welcomed three children. Christie, Michael, and Dawn. But probably not surprising, the marriage between. This started at 18 and 19, between sort of a fiery young lady interested in science and a guy working in the oil fields. Had some issues, and they had a tumultuous relationship. And it reached a point where it just wasn't. It wasn't working anymore. There were. Karen would attempt to leave Bill, and he would sort of go get her and force her to come back into the relationship, which, once again, it's the 60s. It's just not that uncommon. A lot of debate over exactly what was going on in this relationship. Was it abusive? But what I think everyone agrees on is at some point, Bill started cheating on Karen. And at that point, he was fine with her going. He moved on to another woman, and he was fine with going. But one thing he was not fine with was her taking the kids. So she was sort of in a really terrible position where Bill is ready to kick her to the curb, but he wants to keep the kids, and she really has no choice. But she ends up leaving. Bill keeps the kids, and she, frankly, doesn't really even get to know her children like her children who are still alive today and are still sort of investigating what eventually happens to her. Never really had a relationship with her because of this broken family. An early tragedy in her life.
- [12:30]
Alice
Yeah, that must be. She's really lived a lifetime. By the time she's 24, she has, you know, this common law marriage, has three young children, a tumultuous relationship that she ends up leaving. And in leaving him, of course, leaves her children, which I think, for any parent would be difficult. Doesn't matter if you're the mother or father. But that same month, Karen moved to Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, to pursue a job at Kerr McGee's nuclear plant, where she would work to make plutonium fuel rods for nuclear reactors. So she is still gifted in science. And now after leaving this marriage, leaving her children as well, she steps back into this field. Karen is really excited about this opportunity because she is eager to pursue a career in science. This is what she was doing when she met Bill. It got derailed for a few years, but now that she was free of that tumultuous relationship, she could step right back to where she was. But it quickly became apparent to Karen that things at this nuclear plant were far from her expectations. Shortly after starting, Karen joined the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union and participated in a nine week strike. She became a member of the union's bargaining committee and began to monitor the plant's health and safety practices, which she found lacking. She began to see evidence of spills, falsification of records, inadequate training, health regulation violations, and even, very disturbingly, some missing amounts of plutonium, which is a highly radioactive material. And these were just some of the problems that she identified starting out this whole monitoring process. As you can tell the Karen that we kind of just met. This tenacious young woman in an age when women were not in the sciences. She continues to be tenacious. She gets involved right away. She doesn't just join the union. She becomes, you know, one of the leaders within the union, the bargaining committee. She is wanting to make sure that things are right where she is working. And so by being on this monitoring committee, she begins to see that there are a lot of problems at this plant that she's working at. And this is not just your typical like, oh, there wasn't a cleanup on aisle five at the grocery store. Someone might slip. These are really serious problems. Because these types of violations can really lead to devastation at a nuclear plant. This is not just looking for problems for the sake of looking for problems. These lackadaisical safety practices at the plant were enough to convince Karen and two other union members that they needed to do something about it. They were going to testify in front of the Atomic energy Commission, the AEC in Washington, D.C. and they were going to expose basically all of these bad practices at their employer, Kerr McGee. Karen was not just going to stop there. She wasn't just going to blow the whistle. She wanted to expose Kerr McGee publicly for the danger they imposed on their employees. So she made a plan to take matters into her own hands and go to the New York Times. She wanted this to not just go into the black box of, you know, some committee who would write down notes. And that was the end of that. She wanted to actually make a difference. Because this is where she went to work every day. This is where her friends went to work. And like I mentioned before, these safety violations could truly lead to devastation. So on the evening of November 13, 1974, Karen was headed to meet with a New York Times reporter when she got into a fatal car crash. But how exactly that accident occurred and who was responsible are still widely disputed today.
- [16:16]
Brett
And obviously quite the coincidence. She's on her way to talk to a New York Times reporter when she dies in this accident. What the highway patrol would say was an accident. And it's not difficult to understand why a lot of people immediately question that. And Alice mentioned she's a member of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union. The atomic workers part was sort of a recent addition. These were oil well workers. This is a heavily male dominated union, a male dominated field. Same thing with the atomic workers. There weren't that many women working there. And in fact, she was the first woman in leadership in the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union. I mean, this is the kind of person who is a hero in the labor movement. A lot of people in the labor movement know about her. There are songs about her sort of those I know, like labor union songs. They're kind of like Irish songs. Like right, there's all these labor songs. They all sound like they're sung by somebody by like Joan BAEZ in the 60s, right? They've all got that feeling. And there's one about her. So this is somebody, she really makes her mark and people remembered her. And for the last 50 years, because this happened 50 years ago last November, people have been debating, was this an accident or was she killed before she could reveal the secrets that she new.
- [17:42]
Alice
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- [17:56]
Prosecutors Host
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- [18:57]
Alice
And you guys, even if you think you've heard something before, Jason is able to bring out things you never thought about. Just check out these recent episodes. He had an interview with Kimberly Loring, the sister of a 20 year old missing Montana woman, Ashley Loring, heavingwriter, and about her search for her sister, finding faith in God and forgiving those who harmed Ashley. You'll have to check out this incredible interview he had about journalists in Minnesota and Iowa who are still advocating for and searching for Jody Hussen Truitt, a broadcast journalist who disappeared in 1995. And then there's this interview with a friend of a domestic violence victim who was murdered in 2023 in Minnesota about what friends can do to be non judgmental and supportive of those who are facing interpersonal abuse. You guys have got to check out this incredible podcast, Silver Linings Handbook. You can get it wherever you listen to podcasts. Homes.com knows when it comes to home shopping, it's never just about the house or condo. It's about the home. And what makes a home is more than just the house or property. It's the location and neighborhood. If you have kids, it's also schools, nearby, parks and transportation options. That's why homes.com goes above and beyond to bring home shoppers the in depth information they need to find the right home.
- [20:16]
Brett
And when I say in depth, I'm talking deep.
- [20:19]
Prosecutors Host
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- [20:39]
Brett
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- [20:46]
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- [21:39]
Alice
So a few things to note just before we really dive into the nitty gritty. She dies in 1974. She left Bill in 1972. So she starts a whole new life and basically rises to the top of this whistleblowing phenomenon that's happening within two years. I mean, call her spitfire, right? So when you move that fast. And I'm sure Kermagee and these safety violations didn't just start when she arrived on the plant, likely had been going on for some time as these things happen and probably a lot of people knew about them. But until she kind of arrived on the scene, not much was being done about it. So a couple things stick out to me. She's a woman in a male dominated field, so she sticks out just by virtue of who she is. Even if she were a wallflower, she would stick out because of being a woman. Second, she rises to the top of being a whistleblower really fast. And she gets a lot of clout being on the bargaining committee, being with these other two union committee members, being ready to testify at committees in D.C. and gathering information to go talk to the New York Times. These are all big moving things and they're happening fast. And whether people are ready for her to move that fast or not is something that I'm seeing swirling around. So kind of a rocket shot to the top, which she's always done because she's bright, being different than the typical person who works in this field. Also standing out is to me already putting a massive target on her back.
- [23:08]
Brett
And look, the way this story is usually told is that that target was solely Kerr McGee. But I think it is worth remembering as we talk about this. Unions are controversial even within plants. And this union was controversial at this plant. There were plenty of people who worked there who were not union members. There were attempts while she was there to ban the union. That where the union barely survived, it would almost fail. So there were a lot of workers who wouldn't necessarily have appreciated what she was doing because they would have viewed it as her threatening their job. You're making all these complaints. You're going to get this place shut down. We're going to lose our jobs. And I feel like that's something that people don't really talk about. There's a podcast called Radioactive Karen Silkwood Mystery. It's by abc. It's really good. Two reporters from Oklahoma, but I mean, and they're. I give it to them. They're upfront about it. I mean, from the very beginning of the podcast, they're Basically, like, we really like her. We think she was murdered by Kermit Key. That's basically what they say in the first 20 minutes. Right. So they spend the rest of the podcast trying to prove that. And I will give them credit that they also, when evidence comes up against that theory, they don't try and hide it. So good podcast. They make it clear where they're coming from, going in. But I felt like that was something they talked about. But they're so focused on the idea that she was murdered by the company that they don't really consider other alternatives, which I think are equally interesting. So that's just one to remember. She is someone who was outspoken, who would have made enemies both for what she was arguing and probably just because she was a woman who was being a loudmouth. Right. I mean, it's the 70s. It's not hard for you guys to imagine sort of the circumstance that she's in, it probably wasn't the most supportive place. So let's start the timeline because the timeline is going to tell us a lot. So 1965, the Cimarron fuel fabrication site was opened in Crescent, Oklahoma. The site was originally licensed for uranium fuel fabrication and was used to fabricate enriched uranium fuel for nuclear reactors. So just to give you a quick and dirty, probably mostly wrong, background on nuclear energy. So uranium is a rock. It's. Lots of different places have it when you find it used to be perfectly useless. But at some point when we started to understand the way nuclear reactions work, we realized the uranium was a really good fuel for nuclear reactions, and you can't have it. Iron is not really a great thing for nuclear reactions. You need something that's already radioactive, which uranium is. It decays, it emits radiation naturally, but low levels. And just uranium itself is kind of like unrefined gold, right. Or diamonds that haven't been polished up. Yeah, it's interesting, but it's not that great. Enriched uranium, basically, as I understand it, you bombard it with certain particles and you get different isotopes. If you. Uranium. I think uranium 238 is the uranium that you use in nuclear reactors. But so the original atomic bombs, you were uranium bombs. That's how they worked, was with uranium. And that's how sort of nuclear reactors started off. They were fueled by uranium and uranium is great, but it doesn't give you as big a bang as maybe you would like. It's not as efficient as another fuel which was eventually developed. Uranium is naturally occurring, but using uranium, you can create something called Plutonium and plutonium is far more radioactive, far more unstable, far more dangerous, far more explosive, and far more energy packed than uranium. And so in 1972, the Cimarron fuel fabrication site, which is owned and operated by the Kerr McGee Corporation, was awarded a $9.6 million contract, which doesn't sound like a lot, but at the time was a lot from the Atomic Energy Commission to produce fuel rods for experimental nuclear reactors using plutonium instead of uranium. These reactors were called breeder reactors. And so what was really sort of amazing about them was you could put plutonium in, bombard the plutonium, generate the energy, create the steam, create the electricity, but you actually produced more plutonium while you were doing it. So the idea was you could essentially have using a limited amount of plutonium because it's creating more plutonium as it goes. Number one, you can use those that plutonium for nuclear weapons, which is important for national security, because you can't build a nuclear bomb these days without plutonium. Right? So that was important. And it makes it much less expensive to operate the plant because your fuel, you're generating new fuel for the plant as you're generating energy, which is, you know, the idea of getting more energy than you put in. I mean, that's the stuff of science fiction, right? So this was a huge deal. And a lot of people really thought this is the answer to our. Our energy problems. Because, remember, it's the 70s. We're going towards a point where you're going to have the oil crash, where the price of energy is going to get much higher. People are starting to become much more concerned about the effect of burning fossil fuels, what that's doing to the environment, acid rain, all that stuff. You know, in England, you've just had the killer fogs that have that kill, like, thousands of people. Because everybody's burning coal in London, and there's just this smog sitting over the city, and people are looking for ways out. And nuclear power really seemed like that at the time. So this is very exciting, and it's very important. Kerr McGee was a huge corporation in Oklahoma. You know, every street's the Kerr street of the McGee Street. At one of them, I forget which one was the United States senator from Oklahoma. I mean, these guys really matter. The company they built employs a lot of people. It's very powerful, and what it's doing is very important. So at the time, this was one of the largest employers in the area. And most people didn't know about the dangers of working with plutonium. Plutonium is one of the most toxic substances known to man. It takes very little of it to kill you. But they weren't that forthcoming about that, about what plutonium could do, both in the short term with exposures that could lead to radiation poisoning and in the long term with an increased risk of cancer. So this is something that really we're sort of just alighting all these dangers and really focusing on the potential benefit of plutonium. So August 1972 is when Karen Silkwood gets a job at the Kerr McGee plutonium plant. And she's working as a lab technician. And her job would entail making plutonium pellets. So they're making these little pellets of plutonium that you feed into these nuclear reactors. And that's how you're going to fuel the reactor. Now she becomes a member of the Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers union. It's the first time that she's ever really been a part of a union. And she gets into it almost immediately. There's a contract negotiation going on, there's going to be a strike. She becomes really involved in this. It was unlike anything she'd ever experienced. She'd never been involved in sort of on the ground politics like this. And she really liked it. The strike failed. And whenever a strike fails, it's always a blow to the union. And frankly, a lot of people who were in the union credited Karen with keeping the union together. There were a lot of people who said, why even have the union? We did this whole long strike, nothing came of it. We should just abandon this. She kept the union together and as part of that, she gets elected to the negotiating team. She is now in leadership in the union, as I said, the first and only woman in the union and who is in leadership. And she is responsible in her job for the health and safety of union workers. And it was something that she took very seriously.
- [31:12]
Alice
So fast forward just two years after she joins the plant. Karen and her fellow committee members met with the Oil, Chemical and Atomic worker union's leaders in Washington D.C. in September of 1974. Now, the group presented charges to the AEC, the Atomic Energy Commission, of over 40 health and safety violations by Kerr McGee. So the a listen to their claims, but they require that the committee members provide documentations of the alleged charges. Because how do they know that there's any teeth to these allegations? These are serious allegations, but they could just be disgruntled workers. In fact, they had just had a strike that failed. So how do they not know that this may just be them trying to make Trouble. So they say, okay, well, we need evidence and documentation of what you are alleging here. So Karen Silkwood is put in charge of collecting this documentation. This is a big deal again, she's in charge of basically proving the case that there is a case to be made at all. And over the next two months, in addition to doing her job, Karen would work to compile this information both in notebooks and on tapes. And she was working on all of this non stop until her untimely death in November. Karen Silkwood, as well as OCAW officials discussed handing over the evidence collected to the New York Times to expose Kerr McGee. So I just envision her quite literally having these notebooks of information, right? This is not the time of like computer. She's not stealing files, she's documenting things and, and her observations. That is the evidence. But what do you do with that? Now as she's collecting this information that could potentially think or get Carmagee into a lot of trouble, they decide to turn. Who do you turn over to? Plutonium police. That doesn't exist. But what you do have potentially in your power is the public and public outcry. Hence going to the New York Times.
- [33:16]
Brett
And look, they really didn't trust the Atomic Energy Commission. They thought the AEC was captured. Which happens a lot with regulatory agencies. Regulatory agencies. Often the people who make up those agencies are people who are experts in their field, who typically, before they became members of the agency, were employed by the companies they are now called upon to regulate. So a lot of times they are captured. And so they felt like, number one, they already felt like they were blowing them off. They're coming to them and they're giving sort of eyewitness evidence. They're saying, look, we've seen this. We're seeing what they're doing here are the violations. And the AC is like, sorry, we need documentation. And there are two things I think that are worth pointing out here. Number one, the bravery of Karen to say, I will do it. I will be the one that will collect this information. She has to know, obviously, she's putting her job at risk. She will later tell someone. That's fine. Because when this is finished, she's leaving Kerr McGee. And if she has to, she'll shut the place down if she walks out the door. I mean, she is committed to this, right? But it also was incredibly stressful for her. As we're going to see. She couldn't sleep. She became paranoid, frankly. You know, we're going to see some things that may or may not have happened where she was very concerned about things that were going on around her and in her life. And she was eventually put on medication to help her sleep because she was so stressed out by this. So this was a huge burden on her that she was doing this. And she understood that this was not sort of an everyday thing that just anybody's going to do. It took a lot of bravery for her to do it, and it put her in a position where there was some danger.
- [34:58]
Alice
So here she is collecting the evidence. And in October 1974, so a month into collecting this evidence, Karen called a friend, another Kermac employee, James Knoll, and told him that 40 pounds of plutonium had gone missing from the plant. 40 pounds is a lot. Her job has been making pellets, small little pellets, right, that fit into your hand. 40 pounds, this would have been enough to make a nuclear weapon. Obviously, this goes beyond just worker safety. This goes into national security, because whoever has access to that, whether it's an individual or a sovereignty, would be able to have a device that could threaten nuclear war. And it's not clear how Karen knew this or why she hadn't reported it to any officials, because obviously this would be incredibly dangerous and criminal. It's also unclear if there was any truth to this statement. On December 30th, after her death, someone called into Coma Radio in Oklahoma City during an open forum, and the person said that she worked at Kermagee and had reason to believe that 60 pounds of plutonium was missing from the facility and had been sold to Russia. She went on to say that Karen Silkwood's knowledge of this fact led to her death. So while we don't know if what she reported to James Null was true, at least someone unidentified reported after her death that Karen knew this, that there was indeed pounds and pounds of plutonium missing enough to make a nuclear weapon. And because Karen knew this information, that is why she died.
- [36:34]
Brett
And you may be thinking to yourself, that's impossible. It's impossible for that much plutonium to disappear. I mean, obviously there's stringent security protocols would prevent that. And it is a testament to what a different time it was that there were no security protocols. There were no checks, There was nothing. The people who worked at Kermagee after the SNR asked, is this possible? Would say, absolutely. You could easily just walk out of the plant with a sack full of plutonium and no one would even notice. Like, this would not have been a big deal to do this, which is mind blowing because as Alice said, there's a major. A major national security issue. It doesn't really make sense that you'd sell it to Russia. They had plenty of plutonium, but there are lots of people you could sell it to in this mid-70s. I mean, there were a lot of sort of revolutionary organizations or just sovereign nations. That would have loved to have that much plutonium for their. The. Their production of a nuclear weapon. Because it's not easy to make plutonium. It's one of the. One of the things that prevents. There's a reason that Even today, in 2025, there's only a handful of nations that possess an atomic bomb, Even though there are several that really want it, because it's really hard to do. And this is a major issue. But it's also very strange because she handles us in almost like a. I don't want to call it lackadaisical, but she doesn't. For instance, she had been in constant communication. With the union people in Washington. Talking about the various things at Kerr McGee. She does not tell them this. She does not tell the union people, oh, by the way, 40 pounds of plutonium walked out the door. She only tells a friend of hers. And apparently another friend or someone gets wind of this, Multiplies the weight a little bit. And then is calling into an Oklahoma radio station. And if you read the transcript. I wish I had the tape, but if you read the transcript of this call, the guy, the radio guys was like, okay, he's just going through this. And she's like, I'll call back later. And he's like, okay, talk to you soon. Because he has no idea what to say about this. It sort of seems mind blowing, but it's definitely something that was a rumor of some sort. Either started by Karen or picked up by Karen. They call it some speed.
- [38:45]
Alice
And I think the fact that there were no protocols. Is exactly why Karen was doing what she was doing. Right? She was seeing kind of these massive holes. In security and safety protocols. And she wanted to do something about that. And so on November 1, 1974, Karen called the Okaw officials in Washington, D.C. to inform them that what they asked for, they wanted evidence, documentation of these allegations. Well, she had collected all of the documentation she needed. And she was ready to turn over this proof. To a New York Times reporter, David Burnham. Now, the Okaw officials tell her to just lie low for a few days. Until David can come together the evidence. I don't know if I'd be lying low If I thought there were all these safety violations or not. Why Lie low as opposed to sounding the alarm. Because every single day, if you believe these allegations, is a potentially disastrous day.
- [39:38]
Brett
So after she has this conversation. And these next few facts are only from a couple sources. So take them for what you will, but I don't think they're wrong. So she goes on a trip. She's laying low. So she goes to visit some friends. She stays with them for a couple days. It's out of town. Then she comes back to work. And when she comes back to work, she's reprimanded. And she's actually temporarily removed from her job. For allegedly taking a prescription medication and not reporting it to Kerr McGee. This prescription medication will be Quaaludes, which she is taking for the fact that she can't sleep. The problem with Quaaludes is they induce drowsiness. That's why they help you sleep. And then. And it can come on pretty quickly. So if you were taking those. And working in a nuclear plant might not be the best thing, the kind of thing, maybe at least Ker McGee would say, you should let us know if you're using that kind of medication.
- [40:33]
Alice
That's really interesting. Right. Because Karen is tasked with kind of reporting them for all these safety violations. And it's like, all right, I'm calling you on it, Karen. If you're gonna nitpick all of our safety violations, let me slam you for one. Not to say that she wasn't, in fact, maybe in violation of it. But it is interesting that her job is to basically report on these lackadaisical practices. And she's being slammed for one of them.
- [40:56]
Brett
And this is interesting what Alice is bringing up. Because it may point to exactly that, which is that Kerr McGee is on to her. They already know she's a union leader. They don't like that. They don't like the fact that she's organizing people. They don't like the fact that she kept the union there. But there's no real evidence that they knew about her secret plot. Right. If they had, they could have had her fired. They could have had her arrested. Right. But they clearly have their eyes on her. They're paying attention in a way that maybe they wouldn't be paying attention to other people.
- [41:25]
Alice
And to 40 pounds of plutonium.
- [41:27]
Brett
Exactly. And the fact that this happens heightens her concern. Because she thinks, okay, they are. They're on to me in some way, and they're coming at me in some way. This is important and could be significant. It's hard to say how significant it is. So Everything is going to start accelerating now. So. November 5, 1974, at 1:20pm Karen reports to work at the fabrication site, as was required per McGee policy and AAC licensing requirements. Before and after taking a break, she monitored herself with plutonium detecting devices. Ideas? You go into, we'll call it the hot part of the plant where the plutonium is. When you go in, you do your work. Before you leave, you monitor yourself to see whether or not you've picked up any radiation, any contamination. Contamination is contagious. So if you were contaminated, it's kind of literally is like, like a disease. If you have radiation on your hand and you shake someone's hand, they now have radiation on their hand. So it's important to prevent that spread. As I've talked about before, I've been to Chernobyl. And when you go to Chernobyl, it's still, there's an exclusion zone. So a certain area around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, no one is allowed to live, no one is allowed to enter unless you have certain permissions. Everything you do. So when you go to lunch, you eat lunch at the cafeteria at Chernobyl because there's still a bunch of people who work there on various things. And they have cafeteria. That's the only place to eat in chernobyl. There's no McDonald's. So when you go to eat, before you go in, you go through this radiation detector and it scans you to see whether or not you've picked up any significant radiation. And after you eat, you go back out. Before you leave the restricted area, you do it again. I have pictures of me doing this and it was never clear what happens if you set it off. The people you're with, whether to scare you into being careful or because it was true. We're basically like, well, if it goes off, then they burn all your clothes and they put you in a shower and they like spray you down to get rid of the radiation. So never set it off. So that was good. But that's essentially what she's doing every time she leaves the hot zone. She is scanning herself to make sure that she hasn't picked up any radiation that she is now going to carry out into the world. So 2:45pm she takes her first break. She monitors herself. No contamination was detected. So she returns from her break at 3:15 and once again, no contamination is detected.
- [44:06]
Alice
Still on the same day after she has checked in from her first break at 3:45pm Karen's working in two glove boxes that contain plutonium and A glove box is supposedly, it's like an impervious box that surrounds the plutonium processing equipment which has glove holes. So obviously this has to all be contained. So think of like an ironclad box and you have two gloves that allow you to work within it and work with the equipment. And the plutonium is inside while you're working from outside the box to touch it. At 5:30pm, Karen takes another break. Again, she monitors herself. No contamination was detected. She's on for about 15 minutes. When she comes back at 5:45, she returns, she detects herself again. Again, no contamination was detected. So first two breaks, she leaves, no contamination. Comes back, no contamination. At 6:30pm Karen is monitored for plutonium again. But this time, even though she had just monitored herself 45 minutes earlier and had no contamination at 6:30 contamination found. And according to that detector, she had been contaminated with almost 400 times the legal limit for plutonium contamination. It doesn't take a lot to get get there because of how powerful plutonium is, but it's very dangerous. So something must have happened between 3:45 and 6:30 that night. After a more thorough check of the laboratory, because she's been back from the break, she hasn't left the lab. They're trying to find where she was contaminated. They find that the contamination was inside the gloves of that glove box where Karen had been working, polishing and cleaning plutonium, as well as in other places throughout the lab. Like we said, once you have the plutonium, say on your hands, if you touch something else, you'll then contaminate that other surface. Now this is from. So there was actually a lawsuit, Silkwood versus Kerr McGee Corporation. And this is from the 10th Circuit opinion. Contamination was found on Silkwood's left hand, right wrist, upper arm, neck, face, hair and in her nostrils. In other words, probably she sounds like she was touching herself. That's probably what happened. It starts on her hands, but then eventually you touch your face if you don't know that there's contamination. Now, pursuant to regulation, Silkwood was immediately decontaminated and placed in a five day voiding collection program and furnished urine and fecal kits to take home for the purpose of obtaining samples which would be sent to the United States testing laboratory for analysis. So Karen got back to work that same evening and she avoided working in the glove box.
- [47:01]
Brett
So I think one thing that's important to start paying attention to, like we said, timeline matters. Why do we point out all those times that she wasn't contaminated? Because we're trying to isolate when the contamination occurred. Now, here's the thing. She was working in that glove box at 3:45pm after that, she's scanned. She has no contamination. She comes back later working in the same glove box, and this time, she is going to have contamination. Where did that come from? Now, obviously, the first thought everybody's gonna have is the glove box. So it's 1:10am when she clocks out the next day, November 6th. At this point, she's tested for contamination, and none is found. I mean, she has been decontaminated, which, as I was saying earlier about burning your clothes and making you take a bath, basically at the time in particular, it's a very harsh experience. They blast you with high pressure water. You bathe with Clorox and, like, lie. I mean, you're essentially trying to strip the skin off the top layer of skin to get rid of the plutonium. You know, you're irrigating your nostrils to get it out of your nose. You need to get it off, because otherwise you're going to carry it with you. And the longer it's on you, the more damage it's going to do. It's constantly radiating this energy that is damaging your cells. That's how you get cancer. So she is decontaminated, and when she clocks out, she has no more radiation on her. The AAC is going to investigate this laboratory, and they're going to find no leaks present in the glove box where she had been working. And there was no significant airborne contamination in the lab. Now, this is interesting for a couple reasons. Number one, there's at least one worker at the plant who would report to the FBI that there was a hole in the glove. And this would obviously explain it. If there's a hole in the glove and you're handling plutonium, you're going to get contamination on you. But remember earlier that day, just earlier that day, she'd been in the same glove box and had not gotten any contamination. So what you need to be thinking about in your head is, okay, there's a few options here. One is, okay, fine. The first time she worked on it, the hole had not developed. Something happened in between. There's a hole. It got fixed somehow. Nobody recorded that because Kermagee is not great at recording their safety procedures. Anyway, it got fixed later. Okay? That's option one. Option two is, somehow she was contaminated with this stuff, either accidentally somewhere else, which doesn't really seem to make sense because she wasn't anywhere else that has this kind of radiation, or intentionally, someone contaminated her and remember, she's already. She's in a mindset where Kermigree is focused on her. And you can imagine why. She's paranoid because of everything she's doing. But that is another possibility. And it's one that you need to keep in your head as we go forward. Okay? So at 7:50am she clocks back into work. Note that is only six hours later. So Kerr McGee at the time, was under immense stress. To produce this fuel as quickly as possible. They needed a lot of it. They didn't have as many employees as they needed. They were trying to get new contracts. They needed to satisfy the contracts they had. So people were working 12 hour, 18 hour, 24 hour shifts. Which not great when you're dealing with plutonium. Right.
- [50:22]
Alice
Especially remember when she was in trouble for taking Quaaludes that make you drowsy? You know what makes you drowsy? Working for like 18 hours a day as well.
- [50:30]
Brett
Right, exactly. So she's working a lot. She's stressed out. You know, she's getting home. And I don't know if y'all are like this, but I can have a really long day. We come and record, and after we record, I can't go to sleep, even if we get done pretty late. Like, I have to stay up for a little while. And I can imagine she's working all the time. She's getting home. She wants to go to sleep. Because she's got to be back to work in six hours. She's not able to sleep. So that's why one of the reasons she's taking the Quaaludes. So she checks back into work at 7:50am she works on paperwork in the lab for about an hour, at which point she tests herself again. And this is a shocking sort of moment because contamination is found on her hands. She also has contamination on her right forearm, face and neck. How did this happen? She had been decontaminated when she left. She had no contamination. When she gets back, all of a sudden, she's contaminated again. She goes back to the area where they do decontamination. They decontaminate her again. She says, can I go to this union meeting? And they say, sure, you should be clean now. And she goes, guys, we're excited to.
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Prosecutors Host
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Brett
But typical.
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- [52:34]
Alice
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- [54:33]
Prosecutors Host
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Brett
With all these plastic bottles.
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Alice
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- [58:12]
Brett
And I just want to point out, and somebody correct me if I'm wrong. We have no knowledge of her ever being contaminated. Before now. She obviously thought there were holes in Kerr McGee's procedures. She thought their safety processes were lax. She thought there were danger. There were a lot of dangers to workers. But she herself had never been through this contamination thing. She's now been contaminated two times in a row. I mean, the last time she was in the lab, she's contaminated. She goes home, she comes back, she's contaminated again. She now goes off to this union meeting. Where presumably they're not having this in the middle of a reactor or anything. She gets done with the union meeting. She comes back at 4:30. She returns to the plant once again. As she's going in, she's tested again. And they find contamination on her right forearm, neck and face and in her nostrils. So now three straight times she's been tested. And three times she's had contamination. And in between each of those times she was tested and found not to have contamination. So somehow she is being contaminated, getting decontaminated and then getting contaminated again. Even though it doesn't seem like during any of these times. She's actually anywhere where she should be open to contamination.
- [59:29]
Alice
And this one is particularly interesting because the first two times she's found contaminated. She in the lab then tests and gets the positive response for contamination. This time it's when she's entering into the lab, Right? It would make sense if there was going to be contamination. It would be inside the plutonium lab. But when you're Coming from outside, inside. And you were previously decontaminated. That's confusing, because any plutonium should be inside the lab.
- [59:55]
Brett
So she's decontaminated once again. And remember, these are. Every one of these is rough. Just terrible experiences every time she has this happen. So she's now concerned. And so she asks Kerr McGee. To check her locker and her car for possible contamination. Because she's trying to think, where could I have gotten this? So they test her locker, they test her car. And neither are found to be contaminated. So in neither of the places that she had been. Do they find any of the contamination. That you might have expected she would have gotten.
- [60:28]
Alice
So this is really interesting to me because, remember, she left to go to a union meeting. Which presumably she drove to the meeting. I don't have any indication she didn't. Maybe she walked. But my thought is she's asking for her car. Because that was one of the places she was from the time of leaving the plant. When she was decontaminated. And coming back and getting the positive contamination notification. And so the fact that there's no contamination in the car is really interesting. So it. Presumably that contamination would have happened somewhere from the time she parked the car and walked into the lab. Which is not a very far distance.
- [61:05]
Brett
Another thing that's interesting is around this time, and I mentioned this earlier. We don't know the exact date this happened. Because it was something she said in passing to someone. That they only really thought of after she died. But Karen will report to a friend that she believes she's being followed. Now, as I said before, she is under a lot of pressure. She feels like kermigee is focused on her. She has reason to think they might be looking at her. She starts to think she's followed. And to the extent that she does. Like some evasive maneuvers from a movie she'd seen or something. To lose this person who's following her, which she does. She loses them, quote, unquote, loses them if they're actually following her. But that's in her mind. She's not only having these contamination problems. She's not only getting rebuked by Kerr McGee. But she thinks someone is following her. At this time. On this day. The same day where she's been contaminated. She goes back to her apartment. Her boyfriend will stay with her. That evening of November 6th. And she shared her apartment with another laboratory analyst from Kermagee, Sherry Ellis.
- [62:04]
Alice
And this is, of course, important because, as we said before. It's very easy to pass contamination. So that's why, presumably, we're seeing it on her hand and then all over her face, because we naturally touch our face, you know, I think dozens of times each, you know, few minutes. And so it's relevant that there are other people that she's staying with as she's going through kind of this whole saga. It's really only been about 24 hours since we had the first contamination, by the way. So at 7am on Nov. 7, Karen's boyfriend leaves her apartment after staying there that night. And later testing would show that neither him nor his car nor his home were contaminated with plutonium. And this would matter because if Karen had contamination and had gone home and she was around her boyfriend sleeping next to him, you would think that he would also show signs of contamination. And then if he was contaminated, getting into his car, car would also show contamination. But there's none of that. From 7 to 7:50am sometime between that time period, Karen claims that she spilled the urine sample she had taken in the apartment bathroom. Remember, she had to take home fecal and urine samples to test herself for five days to ensure that in addition to the decontamination process, everything that she was voiding had to be tested for contamination. So she's doing one of these urine tests, and at home, she claims that she spills this urine sample on the bathroom floor. At 7:50am Karen arrives at the plant for work yet again, another early morning. And at the time she arrives, she immediately goes to the health office with her kit containing the four urine samples and one fecal sample because they have to ship it off for testing. So she's doing all the things she's supposed to do at home. And the very first thing she does when she gets to work, she doesn't, you know, sit down and do paperwork or go work in the glove box. She gets in work, delivers the samples. And when she delivers the sample, she also has her nose swabbed. And when they do that, it showed that she has significant plutonium levels in both nostrils and around her nose. And they also find that plutonium is present in other areas of her body, namely her hands, arms, chest, back, neck, and right ear, basically all over her in such a way that if she were, say, hugging her boyfriend goodbye that morning, really just an hour earlier, or sleeping next to him or sharing the same apartment as her roommate, you would think that with that much plutonium on all surfaces of her body, it would have contaminated other people or other surfaces as well.
- [64:47]
Brett
So at 8:00am her roommate Sherry left Ker McGee. So, you know, they're on different shifts. So she had not been at the apartment. She had been working. So as Karen's coming in, Sherry is leaving. She gets scanned. She is not contaminated. At the same time this is going on, you know, Karen's being decontaminated yet again. They are checking her locker and car yet again. And neither one are found to be contaminated. So Kerr McGee is really pulling their hair out here. Trying to figure out how this is happening. And they decide, we're sending a team to Karen's apartment. So they send a team to the apartment. And they find it to be contaminated. Significant levels of plutonium were found in the bathroom. And on a package of bologna and cheese in the refrigerator. Lower levels were found to be present. In other rooms of the home at its height. Searchers found levels of 400,000 disintegrations a minute. Not great, not terrible. It's actually pretty bad. That's.
- [65:49]
Alice
That's a very bad.
- [65:51]
Brett
That's a very high level of radiation. Particularly for someone's apartment. That's not something they expected. Even though they thought, we're going to find something here. They didn't expect to find that. So they're thinking, okay, this is. This is much more significant than what we thought.
- [66:09]
Alice
And by the way, earlier, we just have Karen's version of it. But if Karen did spill a urine sample. And let's say that the urine sample is what had the plutonium. If you've ever done a urine sample or you know how much you pee. It's not insignificant. But it's not like a massive bucket. Where you could just be, like, spraying it all over the apartment for purposes.
- [66:30]
Brett
Speak for yourself, Alice.
- [66:31]
Alice
Okay. Okay. We're getting way too personal over here. But you would imagine. Imagine a spilling, right? Even if it's the entire jar of the urine sample on the floor. You would probably wipe it up. You probably. Because you can see urine. And urine is not something you usually leave on the floor. You're probably not patting it all over the bologna and the cheese. And the rest of the apartment. I note that because we do have one indication of why maybe there's plutonium contamination in, say, the bathroom. But all these other areas, including in the refrigerator. Or, you know, food that's kept in a refrigerator as well as the rest of the apartment is much more puzzling.
- [67:09]
Brett
So, Sherry, remember, she's been home. She's going back to the apartment. She was clean when she left the plant. She's retested now, and she is positive for the plutonium on her hands and buttocks.
- [67:18]
Prosecutors Host
I would expect that probably happened in the bathroom.
- [67:20]
Brett
She went to use the bathroom. It has been heavily contaminated, probably partially because the Sheeran spill is a little unclear. And now she has plutonium on her as well. And the only option at this point, Given the amount of radiation that's been detected. Is to strip this place down. So they basically rip this place apart. They decontaminate the whole apartment. They seize all this property and they destroy it. Because it's all so heavily contaminated. They can't just leave it there. They got to get rid of it. The very same day Kerr McGee lawyers begin talking with Karen. They have taken a look at the situation. And the position of Kerr McGee is pretty straightforward. This couldn't have happened naturally. Like, I don't care what you say about her safety protocols. There's no way that all this contamination could have happened to you. It seems like you did this to yourself. And so that's their position. You did this to yourself. No. Not sure how. Maybe you're just incompetent. Maybe you're trying to accomplish something. We don't know. But you did this. Did. You did this to yourself. Take responsibility for it. And she refuses to do that. She says, absolutely not. That is not what happened, and I'm not going to say it did. So at this point, the contamination levels are so high. That the. The company is essentially forced to send Karen. To the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico for further testing. Which at the time, I think even now is the world's premier hospital. For any kind of. And scientific location. For any kind of radiation, anything like that. I mean, this is the place to go. They have access to that. So they send Karen. They also send Karen's boyfriend and Sherry Ellis. Since they had all been in the apartment. To Los Alamos to look into what is happening. Okay, we're gonna leave you there for now. So this contamination problem has become serious. We're seeing things that we just shouldn't see. We're seeing things that don't seem like they're possible. Even Kerr McGee is now concerned that this is impossible. And it makes you wonder. What exactly is going on here? And why does it seem like Karen is the target of this? They're testing every employee in that plant. Whatever's going on, it seems to be focused on Karen. However this is happening, it seems like it's happening to her. The only other people who are testing positive are people around her. What is going on here? And in the days that follow this, this story will continue to accelerate. Until it leads one way or the Other to Karen's death. And we're going to talk about that next week. Alice, do you have any initial thoughts before we. Before we hang it up?
- [70:01]
Alice
Oh, it is. It's such an interesting. It's like following footprints, but we're following contamination and trying to figure out what's happening. And there are all these, like, crumbs of clues. Obviously, Karen is no longer here. She is going to end up dying quite soon. And whatever answers there may be, it seems like this timeline is all we have. And it's like sparse crumbs trying to lead us to the truth. But it is a difficult path to follow.
- [70:30]
Brett
Okay, now, Alice, what's your situation? Do you have time for a question, or should we go ahead and wrap it up?
- [70:35]
Alice
I'll do one quick question. Someone's getting a little antsy, but this one's pretty quick.
- [70:39]
Brett
I think we can do this. Okay, so this is from MJ Cooley, and MJ wants to know how many of the 50 states in America have you been in, if even for a couple hours? And have you ever traveled outside the country for a case? Which. The answer for me is no. I don't know if you have.
- [70:58]
Alice
Not country. I got. I got an official United States, and they're all United States passports, but, like, a government. Whatever passport to go to Canada, because the witness was there, refused to, like, travel the five miles into the United States for the deposition. And we're about to go, which was really cool because there's actually so many protocols to have to go do as an official act of the United States to go take someone's deposition in another country. And we're about to go. I was really excited about the whole thing, except maybe not, because horrible things happen that would have been bad. And the whole deposition had to be called off. So I did not. But I got the official passport and everything to do it, which is kind of cool because it's a different color and everything. You can't, like, even use your usual one. Just leave it at home on the other one.
- [71:45]
Brett
Are we counting airports or are we not counting airports?
- [71:47]
Alice
Yeah, let's count. You even touching it. Maybe not if you can see it, but if you touch it in any way, even if it's an airport, Touch.
- [71:53]
Brett
It in any way.
- [71:54]
Alice
Okay, I have counted this at one time because I would love to go to all 50. What's your number? I don't know. I have to think about my number.
- [72:00]
Brett
I'm in the 41.
- [72:02]
Alice
Wow. I can't come up with the number, but I think I'm just below 40. I would love to go to all 50, although.
- [72:10]
Brett
So the states I have not been to, Alaska and Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
- [72:22]
Alice
And those are all like big states that you couldn't just like. Like Knockout two and one. Really?
- [72:27]
Brett
Yeah, it's all those. All those sort of Northwest Pacific coasts like that. I would love to go to all those places because I've heard they're all incredible.
- [72:35]
Alice
So I did a lot of cases out in that area of the country. We didn't have like regions or anything, but I just had a lot of cases in that area. And that's the only. So I only saw like the insides of courtrooms and, you know, like La Quinta Inns. That was it. But they were gorgeous from what I could see.
- [72:51]
Brett
In Michigan. I've only been to the airport, which is why I asked that question that.
- [72:55]
Alice
That works.
- [72:56]
Brett
We've only been to the airport. I would love to go to Michigan, but I.
- [73:01]
Alice
Look, I think there's. I think there are so many beautiful places, even just within the United States. And I've told you this before, part of the reason I wanted a minivan is eventually, as our kids get older, let's go, like to all the national parks. We're gonna road trip there.
- [73:16]
Brett
Let's road trip to Washington, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Sophie. I also walked across the bridge between Fargo and Minnesota, so whatever. The town is across the river from Fargo, I've been there too. All right, we're gonna have to come visit all you guys in all these states, so you get those invitations together. Okay, well, look, I think if. If you haven't heard this case, I'm sure you're already fascinated by it. Like I said, ABC has a really great. I think it's a five part, relatively short, deep dive on this case. Very enjoyable. Radioactive, the Karen Silkwood Mystery. There's a movie with Meryl Streep in it. She plays Karen Silkwood from the early 80s. I think Cher's in the movie too. So check that out. I think it won an Oscar or Meryl Streep got nominated for an Oscar. I don't know. This is one of those stories that I feel like in the 70s and 80s everybody knew and now I don't know if many of you have heard of it at all. The only reason I've heard of it is because somebody wanted us to cover that. This isn't one of those. Somebody emailed and said, hey, check this out and check it out. And I was like, wow, this is really Interesting. So that's why we're here. So be that person. Sheet us an email prosecutors podmail.com. that is the very best way to suggest cases. Reach out to us on Twitter, x Facebook, on the gallery, Instagram, even TikTok such that it is reach out to us in all those places. We'd love to hear from you. And don't forget, we've got the substack going. A lot of great stuff being written on there by both us and other people. I hope you'll check it out. True crime times links are all over the place, so take a look out for that. You'll enjoy that. Okay, Alice, well, anything else before we sign off?
- [74:56]
Alice
No, there's still a lot of the timeline left, guys. So come back next time and let's try to make sense of this 50 year old mystery.
- [75:04]
Brett
Let's do it. All right, we'll be back next week with part two of this story. But until then, I'm Brett.
- [75:12]
Alice
And I'm Alice.
- [75:14]
Brett
And we are the prosecutors.
- [75:37]
Alice
Lord. I spent all morning at an ortho urgent care.
- [75:43]
Brett
Oh, yeah, that sounds.
- [75:45]
Alice
Not for me, for a child, but it's fine. Okay, I'm ready. This is the crazy.
- [75:51]
Brett
We all want to hear that story.
- [75:53]
Alice
But this is a crazy case.
- [75:55]
Brett
Trying to rush. It is. It is a crazy case.
- [75:57]
Alice
We're not, we're not rushed now that you helped me move up 30 minutes.
- [76:00]
Brett
Now we're like, you know, now we're like, good.
- [76:02]
Alice
We, we. We can go at our own pace.
- [76:04]
Brett
Our normal leisurely pace. I think this is going to be two episodes.
- [76:07]
Alice
Yeah, I mean, well, it's just two. There's a lot to digest there.
- [76:10]
Brett
There's a lot. I have a complex theory. So podcast, Truth and justice?
- [77:17]
Alice
No, I think it's. I think it's actually our. Our best. Our best advertiser. What's her name?
- [77:25]
Brett
Ravia. Ravia.
- [77:26]
Alice
Yeah. Oh, yeah, we should know. Thank you. Now, did you. Did you sign the card yet?
- [78:11]
Ancient Aliens Host
Pluto TV has all the shows and movies you love streaming for free. That means laughter is free with gut busting comedies like the Neighborhood Boomerang and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Bueller Mystery is free with countless cases to crack from Criminal Minds Tracker and Matlock.
- [78:29]
Brett
I'm a lawyer like the old TV.
- [78:31]
Ancient Aliens Host
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