the case.

But how the plutonium got into her system — including her lungs and her digestive tract — was as mysterious as the cause of the crash. Not only had she recently set off plant monitors that tested for radioactivity — and been scrubbed clean — but plutonium contamination had been found in her apartment as well: in her kitchen, her bathroom and in a bologna-and-cheese sandwich in her refrigerator, according to a 1979 TIME report.

Lawyers for Kerr-McGee hypothesized that Silkwood had intentionally taken plutonium home to contaminate herself. As TIME reported:

Defense Attorney William Paul argued last week that she was emotionally unstable and possibly had been affected by the use of tranquilizers. Paul said she had become deeply involved in a bitter fight between her union andthe company, and charged that she had set out to prove that the plant was dangerous by making herself seriously ill. She was, he suggested, kinky.

Still, she became a posthumous celebrity, inspiring a 1983 movie, Silkwood, in which she was played by Meryl Streep. While some critics took issue with her glorification — a New York Times review of “Silkwood” concludes that “the evidence in the case suggests that Miss Silkwood was not a nuclear Joan of Arc but an activist (who) … became a victim of her own infatuation with drugs” — her death galvanized the anti-nuclear community and led to new scrutiny of nuclear facilities.

The Kerr-McGee plant closed the year after Silkwood’s death, partly vindicating her claims. According to TIME, “Westinghouse, which had been buying its