Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

Fifty years later, what can that original bumper tell us about the cause of Karen's accident? In our final episode, an accident reconstructionist combs through the original evidence, creates a computer simulation of the crash, and reveals his findings to the Silkwood family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

Hi, Linda. Hi, Michael. Is that Rosemary over there? Hi, Michael. Okay, we got the whole fam family. 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.

Anyway, I just feel better knowing who I'm talking to. 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. Why did Karen's car leave the road that night and crash into a concrete 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? 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. 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. In this episode, what we learned, how it sits with the family, and where we go from here. From ABC Audio, this is Radioactive,

The Karen Silkwood Mystery. Episode 5, The Phantom Vehicle. Our last episode. I'm Mike Boettcher. And I'm Bob Sands. This Zoom call, it's pretty strange when you think about it. 50 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. Steve Irwin feels the weight of this moment. You know, I felt all of y'all's presence the entire time that we were doing this work. 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. 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. 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. We invited Karen to be on the Zoom, too, given how she had held on to the Silkwood bumper, waiting for the moment it might be needed. She and Steve

hadn't met before. Hi, Karen. Hi there. I don't know if we've ever met after all this time. 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 Lipsy.

Don's 20-year-old daughter, Riley, is sitting by her mom. Steve stands by a big screen where he can display his simulations or magnify the smallest scratch in photos. 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. So this is her car. 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. 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.

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. The damage on the front of the vehicle tells a tale that cannot change. 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. What happened in the moments after the car drove off the road before it hit the wall? 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? 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. Lieutenant Larry Owen said that there was no evidence of braking or trying to steer after the car left the road. What did Steve find? It's kind of easiest to look at the tire marks 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 255 feet. Imagine, 85 yards on a football field. But it's hard to see much detail in Pipkin's photos. A couple things about those marks. There's photographs of them. They aren't great. But it's hard to see much detail in Pipkin's photos. 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.

Steve and his team looked 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. Trooper Rick Fagan, one of the first officers on the scene, reported that just before impact, the tire tracks appeared to turn right. That would set up the next sequence Steve is looking at. After Karen's car hit the wall and came to a rest, its nose was pointed toward the roadway. 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. So there was a final steer to the right. An action. 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. 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. 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, 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. So the drop in speed after leaving the road to Steve, that indicates the driver took action. If she slowed from 55 to 30, there's brake pressure. And the 255 feet is plenty for her to get that done. The evidence Steve finds of braking and steering are important. Remember, the highway patrol thought that Karen was asleep at the wheel.

Steve comes to a different conclusion. There's not evidence here that would say Ms. Silkwood was asleep all the way to that headwall. 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, could Karen have fallen asleep and been woken up by going off the road? It's possible, 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. 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. So, what made Karen drive off the road in the first place?

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 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. In another, she goes off the road to the left and can't get back on the road. Just a simple absence of control of the vehicle and it goes left. That is truly just a single vehicle accident. These are both single car accidents. But what we've all been waiting for Steve to tell us about is the bumper.

This is the area of the car that has caused so much interest with that dent right there. 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. And then to Karen Pipkin alone, there is orange reflections in that bumper. And A.O. 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.

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. 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. 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, to me, there's two things about those areas. the possibility of a phantom vehicle. He zooms in on the dents. Those scratches, 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. 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. 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. In the simulation, the phantom vehicle sideswipes Karen's car on the driver's

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

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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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, 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. 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. What is it that substantiates the presence?

There's nothing. It's the harsher way to go about it. Like, you know, could there have 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 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. 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. And then Karen Silkwood's sister, Rosemary, spoke up. But her question wasn't for Steve.

It was for A.O. Pipkin's daughter. I'd like to hear what Karen Pipkin has to say. I just want to believe my father was accurate because 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's not another car. So I'm a little disappointed in that. Yeah, he always told Dad that he thought that's what he thought, that there was another car involved. Yeah, yeah, 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.

I'm sorry. I don't understand what caused the accident. And 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? 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. What it comes down to, Steve explained, is that Karen lost control of the car, but we still don't know why. Steve acknowledged the heaviness in the room.

Why? 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. 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. 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.

That means a lot because I've always said that 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. It's a tough spot. 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 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 rolled out. We'll never know whether there was a second vehicle or not. I'm kind of after seeing your video recreation

in the boat that maybe the concrete wall and the record did create that low of a dent. I mean, that's a very real possibility. So maybe there was no contact, but maybe there was another vehicle there doing some intimidation. 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 a son or a sister, we're looking for that aha, you know, 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. I appreciate that. There was a chorus of thank yous and goodbyes. I'm very grateful to all of you. I just wanted to say thank you. It means the world to me because 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. You did an excellent models. Thank you very much. You did an excellent job.

Thank you. Thank you, Steve, for reexamining 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 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. I think it's fair to say that's what Karen's family was hoping for too. 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. We wanted that closure for them, for everyone. 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. At least, not yet. 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. 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. I don't think we will ever know the truth, and stirring up more questions just distracts us from the real wrongdoing. Kermadee, 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's bunker seems almost petty. Getting lost in the data from 50 years ago invites even more questions, and on a 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. He was significant, a catalyst for awareness, and that is more than most.

Karen Silkwood did play a role in raising awareness about the risks and dangers of nuclear power. She wanted safe working conditions, and she tried to do something about that. About a month before she died, Karen told the union leader, Steve Watka, that she was going to be gone from Kermagee and that she was going to shut things down before she left. Well, in the end, the Kermagee 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 13th, 1975, on the first anniversary of Karen's death, Kerr-McGee announced it was closing the plant. And by the end of that year, most of the workers were laid off.

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 Kerr-McGee re-upping their fuel rod contract, but that would have required a major cleanup effort. I'm confident in my own mind at this time now that they had no intentions of bidding another contract 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 Kermagee 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. Still, even after the plant closed, Kermagee continued to operate as an energy company for more than 30 years.

for more than 30 years. After it was acquired, Kermagee 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. Kermagee wasn't the only company that ultimately abandoned its nuclear investments. That big vision the U.S. 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 U.S. slowed to a trickle. 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. 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. 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. 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 lot of people and yet to others she was a rebel she was a troublemaker she caused

trouble how do you describe your daughter and what she did 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 for a woman you know five foot four 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. I think she knew it needed to be exposed. You know, it was a threat. Not only to the workers there there but to the community. She never meant to harm

anybody. She wanted to help. I think for union activists she became a symbol of what a union should be all about, that it should care more about just 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. to do something about that. Health and safety is a priority on any job and people doing those jobs do deserve safety for them and their family. And that's not what you got back in the early and mid-1970s.

No, no, no, no. No. The Karen Silkwood story is a labor story and a feminist story at root. 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 the dollar potential of building a plutonium economy. I'm glad they didn't build a plutonium economy, but that was on the table. 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. 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. There should be an environment in this country where people can come forth without fear of a reprisal coming after them.

I just want the world to know that she wasn't crazy. 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. A good woman with a good heart. 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. 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 Kerr-McGee, 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. In a Kermagee factory in an Oklahoma town Worked a legend of a woman, wise for her days The factory made fuel rods of plutonium Karen Silkwood knew the dangers of those deadly raids She was driving down the road To close a deal Biles in her hands

For the New York Times The cops, they said She fell asleep at the wheel Union Private, I said she was hit from behind Oklahoma Highway, scene of pain Winter sadness was someone's game What did they have to hide? What did they have to hide?

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 Donis. Thanks to the ABC News investigative unit and investigative producer Jenny Wagnon-Kortz, chief investigative reporter Josh Margolin, reporter-producer Sasha Pesnik, and associate producer Alexandra Myers. 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 Mostick. We had production help from Meg Fierro, story consultant Chris Donovan, supervising producer Sasha Aslanian, original music by Soundboard. Thanks to Pat and Tex LaMountain 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 Dendos, Cindy Galley, and the University of Oklahoma's Gaylord College of Journalism.

Josh Kohan is ABC Audio's Director of Podcast Programming. Laura Mayer is our Executive Producer.