Mike Boettcher
Appearances
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
What it comes down to, Steve explained, is that Karen lost control of the car. but we still don't know why.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
We were hoping Steve Irwin, with his analysis of the bumper and all the other evidence, would solve the mystery.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
Unfortunately, Steve couldn't give her that piece of the puzzle.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
Karen Silkwood did play a role in raising awareness about the risks and dangers of nuclear power.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
Still, even after the plant closed, Kermagee continued to operate as an energy company 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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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 US government had for this bountiful plutonium economy, one that supplied this evergreen source of cheap energy, well, that dream started to tarnish.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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,
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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 Mostek. We had production help from Meg Fierro, story consultant Chris Donovan, Supervising producer, Sasha Aslanian. Original music by Soundboard.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
Thanks to Pat and Texla Mountain for the use of their song, Karen Silkwood. Mixing by Rick Kwan. Ariel Chester is our social media producer. Special thanks to Liz Alessi, Katie Dendoss, Cindy Galley, and the University of Oklahoma's Gaylord College of Journalism. Josh Cohan is ABC Audio's Director of Podcast Programming. Laura Mayer is our Executive Producer.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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. It's taken. 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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
What happened in the moments after the car drove off the road, before it hit the wall? And the question we're all wondering, what caused Karen's car to leave the road in the first place?
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
So the drop in speed after leaving the road to Steve, that indicates the driver took action.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
Why did Karen's car leave the road that night and crash into a concrete culvert?
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
These are both single-car accidents. But what we've all been waiting for Steve to tell us about is the bumper.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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 stents.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
20/20
'Radioactive' - Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
What it comes down to, Steve explained, is that Karen lost control of the car. but we still don't know why.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
There was a chorus of thank yous and goodbyes.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
We were hoping Steve Irwin, with his analysis of the bumper and all the other evidence, would solve the mystery.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
Unfortunately, Steve couldn't give her that piece of the puzzle.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
Karen Silkwood did play a role in raising awareness about the risks and dangers of nuclear power.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
Still, even after the plant closed, Kermagee continued to operate as an energy company 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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
And that's not what you got back in the early and mid-1970s.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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,
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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 Dendoss, Cindy Galley, and the University of Oklahoma's Gaylord College of Journalism. Josh Cohan is ABC Audio's Director of Podcast Programming. Laura Mayer is our Executive Producer.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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. It's taken. 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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
What happened in the moments after the car drove off the road, before it hit the wall? And the question we're all wondering, what caused Karen's car to leave the road in the first place?
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
So the drop in speed after leaving the road to Steve, that indicates the driver took action.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
Why did Karen's car leave the road that night and crash into a concrete culvert?
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
These are both single-car accidents. But what we've all been waiting for Steve to tell us about is the bumper.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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 stents.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
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.
Radioactive: The Karen Silkwood Mystery
Ep. 5: The Phantom Vehicle
In the simulation, the phantom vehicle sideswipes Karen's car on the driver's side.