CBS 19 - The Eye of East Texas News - Debunking Silkwood Gravesite

Debunking Silkwood Gravesite

Kilgore's Danville Cemetery is the final resting place of nuclear whistleblower Karen Silkwood.

"On November 13, 1974 Karen Silkwood, an employee at an Oklahoma nuclear facility, was on her way to meet a reporter from the New York Times. She never got there,"said Ronnie Spradlin, Kilgore Historian.

Some say Karen Silkwood, immortalized by Meryl Streep in the movie Silkwood, was killed by the company that employed her for exposing unsafe conditions in the nuclear power plant where she worked.

"Karen the company's got to blame someone otherwise it's their fault,"explained Spradlin.

Since her interrment at Kilgore's Danville Cemetery, ghost stories fueled late night teenage expeditions to her gravesite.

"Because they heard the stories about the grave and how it glew,"said Spradlin.

Kilgore historian Ronnie Spradlin has heard the stories and says like all good ghost stories, there are some facts mixed with fiction.

"The story was that they did a phase one analysis of the property and found her grave was still radioactive,"explained Spradlin.

A glowing gravesite, ooooo.

We looked to Kilgore's resident photography expert O. Rufus Lovett for help proving or disproving this supernatural spectacle.

"We'll do this 2 minute and 15 seconds which'll give us a nice long exposure,"said Lovett.

By leaving his camera shutter open he says all light present will appear, first he photographed Silkwood's grave then another plot away from Silkwood's.

"We're at second location and we're gonna make one exposure here at the same time,"explained Lovett.

Now back to his Kilgore College studio to see what was captured.

"Put in the card reader and call this up on the computer,"said Lovett.

Lovett studied both photographs, identified all light sources and compared the two.

"If there was any kind of visible light to be seen it would be against that dark area,"explained Lovett.

After close inspection he laid to rest the East Texas Haunt of Karen Silkwood's glowing grave.

"As far as any kind of glowing effects or anything around the marker, none to be found at either location,"said Lovett.