The Woman Who Glowed In The Dark

Send us a text

Karen Silkwood's final drive down Highway 74 on November 13, 1974, ended in a crash that silenced a whistleblower and disappeared a folder of evidence that could have shaken America's nuclear industry to its core. This haunting story begins with an ordinary woman who took a job at Kerr-McGee's Cimarron nuclear fuel plant in Oklahoma, hoping for a fresh start after her marriage dissolved. Instead, she discovered a nightmare of negligence that put workers and potentially the public at grave risk.

What Karen found inside those fluorescent-lit halls was chilling: falsified safety records, cracked containment chambers, and most alarmingly, missing quantities of plutonium—enough to construct a dirty bomb. As she began documenting these violations, strange things happened. Radiation appeared in her apartment, contaminating everything from her food to her bathroom fixtures. Doors were found ajar, papers shifted positions, and cars followed her through the Oklahoma darkness. The evidence she gathered became both her shield and her target.

The aftermath of her death triggered investigations by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and congressional hearings that confirmed her allegations. The plant eventually closed, yet justice remained elusive—her family's legal victory was drastically reduced on appeal, and no executives faced criminal charges. Karen Silkwood wasn't perfect; she was stubborn, flawed, and unrelenting. But her courage to speak truth to power, to protect her coworkers and community from invisible danger, transformed her into an enduring symbol of whistleblower courage. Her story raises questions that still burn today: What price do we pay for energy? Who protects workers from powerful interests? And what really happened on that lonely stretch of Highway 74 when a woman carrying secrets collided with silence?

 “Thank you for listening to Things I Want to Know.
You want these stories, and we want to bring them to you — so hit the support link and keep this circus, and the mics, alive.
Then do us a favor and rate and subscribe; it helps the show find more people like you — the ones who like their mysteries real and their storytellers unfiltered.
And if you want to wear a little of this madness, grab some Andrea-approved gear at paulgnewton.com.
We make t

Support the show

Things I Want To Know
Where two stubborn humans poke the darkness with a stick and hope it blinks first. If you know something about a case, report it to the actual police before you come knocking on our door. After that, sure, tell us. We’re already in too deep anyway.

If you enjoy the show, or you just like supporting people who refuse to shut up, grab some merch at PaulGNewton.com. It keeps the lights on and the caffeine flowing.

And when your curiosity needs a breather from all the murder, jump over to my other show, Paul G’s Corner, where history proves that saying it can’t happen here usually means it already did.

Get Bad Ass Merch!

Episode Transcript

Paul G (00:00):
This is a special presentation of Things I Want to
Know, voices brought to you byFMS Studios.
Karen Silk about Kermagee'snuclear fuel plant in Oklahoma.

(00:21):
November 13th 1974, she wasdriving to meet a reporter from
the New York Times.
She was going to tell him shehad a folder filled with
evidence, proof that theyfalsified records, safety
violations and the missingplutonium.

(00:43):
Records, safety violations andthe missing plutonium.
But her little car, barely morethan a tin box with vinyl seats
, wasn't built for dark highwaysor midnight missions.
She drove alone into theblackness with the hum of the
engine and the weight of thefolder being all that she had.
Karen never reached thereporter.
Her car struck a culvert in thedarkness, quietly, violently

(01:11):
Folder the evidence.
Well, it disappeared as thoughit had never existed.
Before she became a headline,karen Silkwood lived an ordinary
life.
She grew up in Longview, texas,where she married young, had

(01:32):
three children and watchedhelplessly as her marriage
dissolved, With her childrenstaying behind with their father
.
Karen moved away, searching forsomething very different,
hopefully a fresh start or maybejust a different set of
problems.
She took a job at Kerr-McGee inCrescent Oklahoma, handling

(01:55):
plutonium rods used in nuclearfuel.
It was supposed to be a newbeginning.
Instead, she stepped into adarker reality.
Fluorescent lights flickeredand hummed, constantly casting
the and hummed constantlycasting the.

(02:18):
The radioactive dust coatedeverything Unseen, silent and
deadly.
Every day, karen slid her armsinto the heavy rubber gloves
attached to her glove box.
Her face inched the planthumming with an industrial

(02:41):
heartbeat.
Somewhere a vent rattled andthe metallic taste never left
her tongue.
She noticed particles driftingin the box, A speck of dust, or
could it be death itself?
Workers joked about glowing inthe dark, but it was more
resignation than humor.

(03:04):
Radiation badges were dismissedby supervisors as irrelevant
inconveniences.
Safety was compromised.
Chambers meant to protectworkers from contamination were
cracked and leaking, as theywere the only barrier between
the humans and the plutoniumthey worked on.

(03:25):
And when they failed, poisondrifted into the air.
Records were routinelyfalsified, plutonium
disappearing more than enough toraise alarms at the Pentagon
and enough to make a nuclearweapon, if it ever left the

(03:47):
plant.
Cairns crashed.
Then the Nuclear RegulatoryCommission and the Government
Accountability Office dug in.
Agents in suits and gloveswalked the plant floor, counting
, testing and documenting allthe failures.

(04:10):
In a congressional hearing room, before the rows of silent
faces, a member of Congressasked Are you telling this
committee.
You lost track of ounces ofplutonium.
We don't believe it left theplant.
That's not what I asked.
Well, the findings were dandy.
A culture of negligence, acompany that had lost track of

(04:32):
its own nuclear material andworkers contaminated without
protection.
Kerr-mcgee's nuclear operationswere a liability too big to
ignore.
The Cimarron plant closed in1976, with its gates chained and
its reputation shattered.
Karen's contamination it beganslowly.

(04:55):
It started with dust on herface.
By the end, plutonium wasdetected in her lungs, her blood
, even in her digestive tract.
Not only that, but herapartment was radioactive the
food in her fridge, bathroomsink, the toilet seat, all hot.

(05:19):
She hadn't even worked in thefaulty glove box on her last day
.
Emanations seemed to follow heras if someone, as if someone

(05:40):
was extermination.
She would stare in front of herfridge looking at the butter
leftovers.
She didn't touch anything.
She just closed the door slowly, like it could explode.
She said doors were left ajar,papers shifted, cars tailed her.

(06:03):
She made sure she made copiesof everything and hid them again
and again.
On November 13th she attended aunion meeting, met with her
lawyer, ate dinner alone anddrove south on Highway 74.
That folder of evidence was hershield as well as her target.
She drove with the windowscracked, the road empty, the

(06:27):
fields on either side silent.
Her badge had read normal thatmorning and for a moment she let
herself believe maybe the worsthad passed.
And as that road stretched flatand her headlights lit, she hit
a culvert head-on, with no skidmarks, both hands still on the

(06:49):
wheel, yet the evidence was gone.
Her autopsy blamed quaaludes,said she fell asleep, but on
review the dose in her systemwasn't enough to stop her from
fighting to the end.
Now the fallout went far beyondone crash.
Karen's contamination and theinvestigation it triggered

(07:11):
uncovered the kind of negligencethat could have fueled a
disaster beyond Crescent.
Ounces of plutonium weremissing, enough material to
build a dirty bomb.
Or worse, federal agents incongress kermagee the plant
closing quietly.
In 1976 Karen's family won a$10.5 million judgment against

(07:34):
Kerr-McGee, but then it wasoverturned on appeal, finally
settling for just over a million.
The executives faced no jailtime and no one answered.
A Hollywood movie with MerylStreep, but no film could
capture the dread of the planwhere every breath could kill

(07:57):
you, or the knowledge that thesame material fueling America's
nuclear power could also vanishinto the shadows.
So Karen Silkwood wasn't perfect.
She was stubborn, flawed,unrelenting.
She asked the questions no onewanted to ask and for that maybe

(08:19):
she died on a lonely road.
As the closed, her chair at theunion meeting was never filled
again and the missing documentsnever recovered.
She didn't ask to be a symbol.
All she did is ask to be heard.

(08:41):
But the truth still lingers inthe dust and the records and in
the silence that followed.
The woman who glowed in thedark.
A story of contamination, callsof Congress and still burn like

(09:04):
a fuse.
Thank you for listening.
If you like this little story Itold, send me an email A good
narrator.
If you hated it.
Send me an email, a goodnarrator.
If you hated it, send me somehate mail.
I'm okay with that too.
I'm Paul G.
No-transcript.

(12:15):
No-transcript.