Karen Silkwood died in mysterious circumstances in 1974 after disclosing information to the Atomic Energy Commission about the nuclear power plant, Kerr-McGee's, “cutback’ business practices.
Silkwood, who attended what was then Lamar State College of Technology in 1964, was one of the first high profile whistleblowers in the industry. She was the subject of the 1983 Mike Nichols-directed movie where she was portrayed by Meryl Streep.
Silkwood was born on Feb. 19, 1946, to parents Bill and Merle and had two sisters, Lina and Rose. A bright student, she earned straight A’s and was a member of the National Honor Society.
She was awarded a scholarship from the Business and Professional Women's Club and attended Lamar before eloping with William Meadows.
The couple had three children. However ,when Silkwood and Meadows divorced, she moved to Crescent, Oklahoma and got a job at Kerr-McGee, an oil, natural gas and nuclear power plant.
Soon after, Silkwood joined the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union in November of that year and participated in an OCAW strike to protest poor working conditions.
Kerr-McGee was able to break the strike, and many union members left OCAW for fear of losing their jobs. Silkwood refused to leave the union. Instead, she was elected to the bargaining committee and oversaw investigating health and safety issues against Kerr-McGee. In her investigations, Silkwood discovered many safety violations that had the potential to cause respiratory, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases.
Les Leopold, a friend of Silkwood and author of the book, “The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi,” wrote about a conversation between the former OCAW president and Silkwood where she discussed the unsafe practices she witnessed at work, such as technicians using felt pens to cover cracks in control rod welds, instead of getting them fixed.
Silkwood knew most of the workers at Kerr-McGee were young non-college graduates who had little knowledge of radiation exposure. Silkwood believed Kerr-McGee was taking advantage of its workers' lack of knowledge and making budget cuts that would harm employees.
Silkwood presented her findings to the United States AEC. Silkwood testified in 1974 and also stated the company forged safety records.
A few months after her testimony, Silkwood performed a mandatory self-checkup, which the company required its workers to enact biweekly. Much to Silkwood’s surprise, she discovered her body contained 400 times the legal limit of plutonium contamination.
One day Silkwood was working in the glovebox and discovered that she had high traces of plutonium radiation on the surfaces level of her skin, Silkwood chalked it up to a tear in the gloves, decontaminated herself and got back to work, this time using a different pair of gloves.
While using these gloves she discovered that there were “outside traces” of plutonium, this meant the plutonium was touching her skin directly instead of staying inside the glovebox. Silkwood became suspicious since there were no tears in the gloves.
The next day she was assigned to do paperwork, far away from the lab and yet had higher traces than the previous day. She also discovered she had plutonium in her lungs.
Silkwood’s home tested for high traces of plutonium causing it to torn down. Silkwood believed the executives of Kerr-McGee knowingly contaminated her due to her whistleblowing efforts in the AEC trial. However, Kerr-McGee management stated that she contaminated herself to put the company in a bad light.
On Nov. 13, 1974, Silkwood set up a meeting to meet with New York Times reporter David Burham in Oklahoma City. She was at a union meeting and intended to drive the meeting later that day. OCAW members reported Silkwood was seen with company documents, notebooks and a large binder.
Later that evening, her car was found crashed on the side of the road. Silkwood was found impaled by her steering wheel and pinned to the wall of her car.
During the police investigation, it was discovered all of Silkwood’s material, the documents, notebooks and binders, were missing. The medical examiner labeled her death as an accidental car crash, noting there were traces of the sleeping pill, Quaalude, and alcohol in her system. Due to the lack of evidence, the Crescent Police Department labeled her death as an accident, stating that Silkwood most likely fell asleep at the wheel.
However, OCAW hired A.O Pipkin Jr., a crash investigator who proved that Silkwood did not fall asleep at the wheel but was spooked into swerving off the road, due to the damage in the rear of her car.
Unfortunately for Silkwood’s friends and family, the case has yet to be reopened, and Kerr-McGee went out of business in 1994. Bill Silkwood, Karen’s father, spent years trying to uncover his daughter's death, until his own death in 2004.
"I've always known who killed her,” he said in an interview with TV station KOCO. “My problem has always been proving it.”
Silkwood’s father and siblings sued the company in 1979 for gross negligence. The jury found for the Silkwoods, awarding damages of $505,000 and $10 million in punitive damages. In 1986, Kerr-McGee agreed to settle out of court for $1.38 million without admitting liability.
The full details Silkwood’s death remains a mystery to this day, but she remains an enigmatic symbol of workers’ rights.