>> tonight, silkwood. a mystery so riveting. it inspired the oscar nominated film starring meryl streep. >> they're trying to kill me. they want me to stop what i'm doing. >> 50 years after karen silkwood died in a car crash, her family's still looking for answers. >> my heart knows there's a hole there. >> inside the renewed investigation into her death from never before heard audio tapes. >> my life could possibly be in

danger. >> it's a high tech examination of evidence. was it really an accident or something more sinister? >> that young lady was murdered, as far as i'm concerned. >> plus the two by two church. the major conviction of one of the secret of sex elders. >> there were 87 files that were determined to be child sexual abuse material. >> why? experts say it could be just the tip of the iceberg. >> i have notified the fbi of over a thousand accounts of child sex abuse and sex assault. >> i was a little girl. there was nothing womanly about me. >> why? one alleged victim of the sect told us she wanted to come forward. >> if my sharing my story protects one child, just one child, anywhere, i'm willing to tell my story. >> and last christmas. last christmas. beloved pop duo wham's holiday tune hitting an amazing milestone. amazing milestone. >> nightline will be right back

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the way your retinal scan connects to your blood sugar? at kaiser permanente all of us work together to care for all that is you. ening. thank you for joining us tonight. recently unearthed clues breathing new life into the investigation of karen silkwood's death. five decades after the nuclear facility, workers total car was found along a stretch of oklahoma highway on her way to meet a reporter to discuss the plans. allegedly dangerous conditions. here's abc's senior investigative correspondent

aaron katersky. so, how are you feeling? >> well, i'm trying to stay centered. don't get your hopes up too high. and. and it would be nice to have some informatio. hopefully, it'll give us some closure. >> michael meadows has been waiting for this moment for nearly his entire life. >> i don't get to see you again. watch your steps. here. >> for 50 years, he has been haunted by the memory of his mother, karen silkwood. >> i hear you, brant. i don't see you. >> and the unanswered questions surrounding the car crash that killed her. was it really an accident or something far more sinister? >> i don't know what their intent was to kill my mother. i know that's the result of their actions that they took that night.

>> i'm sorry, karen. i don't know if we'll ever finally, on this day, he may get some answers. >> the back end of the vehicle is exposed to the wall. >> karen silkwood claimed there were safety problems at the plant. >> she was on her way to deliver documents to a new york times reporter. >> michael was just five years old when his mom died so young that when he closes his eyes to remember her, it's not always her face that he sees. instead, it's meryl streep. streep played karen silkwood in the oscar nominated 1983 film based on the story of a 28 year old oklahoma woman trying to expose secrets some wouldn't want revealed. >> they're killing me. they're trying to kill me. >> they want me to stop what i'm doing. >> this is the door. your mom would have walked through. going to work every day. >> michael's hopes for answers are pinned on these two men.

investigative journalist mike boettcher and bob sands ready to break through roadblocks that generations of journalists, investigators, even family have not. tonight, inside the renewed investigation into karen silkwood's death, unearthing never before heard audiotapes. >> mike, you found it. what? silkwood. storage. vegas. >> dallas, and a high tech examination of evidence from the crash. >> this isn't over yet. >> how does this local story, the death of a 28 year old woman in a car crash on some rural highway suddenly become national news with a congressional investigation. fbi involvement, and talk of nuclear secrets. >> yeah, that's the question, isn't it? paul says the silkwoo. okay, there we go. >> my name is joe royer, and i'm an investigator. i'd like to

know if i could come by and speak with you. what case is that? the karen silkwood case. >> it all came to a head on this two lane stretch of highway in oklahoma. it's pretty rural out here, and it's dark. >> there's no circumstantial evidence there to indicate that somebody may have another vehicle, may have hit the car in the rear as her son. >> i would like to have a definitive answer of what really took place. >> if we don't learn from stories like karen silkwood, we're doomed to repeat them. >> karen started at the kerr-mcgee plant back in 1972. it was designed to make the fuel rods that powered a new kind of nuclear reactor, which meant processing uranium and plutoniu. she worked with what was called a glove box designed to protect workers from radiation, while they handled tiny plutonium pellets. >> the first few months she was a very happy camper. she was doing exactly what she had wanted to do with her whole

life. but then she started to see reality around her. she started getting contaminated. >> it wasn't clear to most people the health effects of radiation. >> you're dealing with something that's so many millions of times more toxic than anything else i know. >> steve latka first met karen in the early 70s, when he was a young staffer working for the labor union that represented karen and other workers at the plant. the oil, chemical and atomic workers union. >> i said, you know, karen, i can't take notes on this. i got to tape you up in the laborator. >> we've got 18 and 19 year old boys, you know, and 20 and 21. i mean, and they don't they didn't have the schooling, so they don't understand what radiation is. >> kerr-mcgee argued it complied with existing regulations. toward the end of 1974, production had ramped up at the plant, and employees say so had safety issues. karen volunteered

to gather evidence about the safety concerns at the plant and report back to union leaders. >> she started snooping and she came across a lot of very important stuff. >> watkiss says karen claimed that important procedures were ignored, that factory reports were being falsified, and she'd been compiling a long list of radiation exposures. wadkar and karen decide it's time to go public. he sets up a meeting with the new york times reporter on november 13th, 1974, but she never made it. on the drive over her small honda civic ended up smashed on the east side of the highway, jammed into a concrete culvert. karen was declared dead at the scene very quickly. law enforcement said they knew the cause. >> it appeared at the scene and from the physical evidence at the scene that she ran off the road by herself. >> the oklahoma state highway patrol had always maintained that karen silkwood lost control of her car after falling asleep,

something other investigators and those who knew her never accepted. >> no, wait a minute. you don't understand. she was just on the highway for a few minutes. she couldn't have fallen asleep. >> in recent years, bob and mike have uncovered recordings about what may have happened in those final weeks of karen's life. >> there's two sets of tapes here. the first one was this impromptu investigation by a former highway patrolman who, just through circumstances, wound up finding himself in the middle of the karen silkwood case. >> this could become very dangerous, and that my life could possibly be in danger if we got deeply involved in this. >> the voice on those tapes, larry dellinger. >> that young lady was murdered. as far as i'm concerned, in the early 90s. >> dellinger recorded those tapes while he was a state trooper. in his investigation, he says he was told that some local police officers had been

working off duty for the kerr-mcgee company, and the crash that killed karen silkwood didn't happen the way authorities said it did. >> he advised that they had run her off the road and killed her. >> dellinger says an attorney told him that a former oklahoma city cop said he and three other off duty officers were tailing karen the night she died. >> well, he is, one of the four said. they had been drinking a little bit and they were following her. they bumped her, knocked her off the road, probably with no intentions necessarily, of killing her. but she runs off the road and hits this big concrete abutment and kills her instantly. and he says that he's scared to death that he knows someday somebody's going to come in with a warrant and arrest him. >> eventually, larry got names and he says he took them to the fbi and the oklahoma state bureau of investigation. but soon the investigation went cold and nothing ever happened. when

abc news reached out, the fbi and oklahoma city police did not comment, and the other state agencies also declined to comment. >> i wish the truth would come out. i wish names would come out. i don't have any doubt that it occurred. and she was murdered. it's just not fair. and the people involved are all dead now. all four of them that were allegedly in the car. >> to date, there has still been no official confirmation of these allegations. >> our thanks to erin for much more on this story. watch what happened to karen silkwood, the lost tapes, streaming now on hulu. when we come back, a lifelong member of the secretive two by two sect found guilty of a shocking crimes against children, why some familiar with children, why some familiar with the church say this might only plaque psoriasis symptoms define me... emerge as you, with clearer skin.

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>> welcome back. an elder of the. under the radar. two by two. christian sect. sentenced to the rest of his life behind bars. former members have told us the two by twos deep secrecy and other unusual practices allowed many crimes against children like his to go unchecked. here's abc's kyra phillips. >> for each count. count 112 years in the department of corrections. count 612 years in the department of corrections and count 1012 years in the department of corrections. >> raymond zwiefelhofer was a leader in the secretive and isolated two by two church until earlier this fall. he was convicted of possessing child

sexual abuse material. >> there were 87 files that were determined to be child sexual abuse material, or sometimes known as child pornography. the ten charged files were all depicting children under the age of 15. >> zwiefelhofer was convicted of ten counts and sentenced to 120 years in prison. >> it's illegal simply to possess and for the defendant to know about it. in arizona, if you're convicted on one count, it's a minimum of ten years in prison. >> zwiefelhofer maintains his innocence and not guilty. >> again, i'd like to make that clear. i would love to know how the jury found that i knowingly did this. >> zwiefelhofer, who is 61, had been a tech ceo. ex-members tell us he was also a two by two church elder on and off for decades. the church is so secretive and isolated. most people haven't even heard of it. we've been investigating the

christian sect for more than a year now, specifically looking at the allegations of widespread child sexual abuse and the coverup of the abuse has been ongoing. >> in the two by two church for decades. >> cynthia liles is a private investigator who's been digging deep into the church and says she works regularly with the fbi. >> raymond zwiefelhofer is one of most likely thousands. i have notified the fbi of over a thousand accounts of child sex abuse and sex assault. >> what makes the two by two church so unique is the way it operates. ministers of the church are known as workers and live with members in their homes, usually for days at a time. >> we're getting reports of child sex abuse and sex assault committed by the highest level in leadership, down to the regular members. >> while zwiefelhofer is the first member of the two by two

church to be convicted and sentenced to prison in the u.s, since our original investigation aired, some members claim there's been a deep history and pattern of abuse for decades. as for the former and current overseers with whom we did speak, all of them denied knowing anything about the widespread sexual abuse taking place within the two. by two community. in a rare exclusive interview in june, we sat down with the fbi at the omaha field office that's now leading the worldwide investigation. let's say you arrest one person, two people, is that it? >> the fbi focuses in general on bringing cases from local to global. the fbi doesn't stop at just an initial arrest. we will follow the evidence wherever it leads. >> we spoke to dozens of alleged

victims of child sexual abuse across more than 30 states. many of the ex-members we spoke to say that some of the church leadership knew about the abuse allegations, but didn't report any of it to the authorities. rather than calling in, the cops alleged abusers kept on working, but in different states. >> all these institutions think they're above the law because god is on their side. these institutions are havens for sexual abusers, and the child cannot protect the child. >> sherri autry says she was 14 when a worker named steve rose moved into her home. >> so steve rose moves into your house. >> what happened? so the first night. hey, sherri. let's go down to the barn and tell scary stories. feed the dogs and started kissing me. >> what happened next

>> it went from just kissing him coming to my there was touching clothes. when we went to his room is when it was more explicit. and then what? he'd have me grab his penis. he'd be touching me everywhere. kissing me. >> you were 14. he was 28. >> i was a little girl. i hadn't started my period. there was nothing womanly about me. >> rose stayed in sherri's home for two months. she says the abuse happened every day. rose later wrote a letter to his overseer admitting to the abuse. >> i would like to say and make very clear, we did not have sexual intercourse. we did kiss

and touch each other intimately. this did not happen with anyone else. >> members of the church leadership never reported steve rose's abuse to the police, but his overseer, elden tenniswood, recognized the abuse in a letter he wrote to rose, saying, remember steven, at that time you were 28 years old and she was 14 years old, which would make what you did a felony. we tried severalo call steve rose. we did get him on the phone. he hung up on me. so we're now in minneapolis. tony has me miked up, and we're going to head over to his work. that right? >>im. yep. that's him. >> i wou say start approaching him. >> ready? >> steve rose, kyra phillips with abc news. i'd like to ask

you about these letters that you wrote. cherie autry's parents and also your overseer. yes. did did you sexually. did you sexually abuse sherry autry when she was 14 and you were 28? no comment. sherry has been trying to find justice, but when we reached out to the tulare county district attorney's office, we got this statement. any potential crime falls outside of california's statute of limitations. >> if my sharing my story protects one child, just one child, anywhere from being sexually abused, i'm willing to tell my story. >> our thanks to kyra when we come back. it's far from the last christmas for this holiday pop classic special. last christmas, i gave you my heart. christmas, i gave you my heart. >> but theuffed up again? so congested! you need sinex saline from vicks. just sinex,

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>> and finally, tonightham's classic christmas tune makes it big. well, even bigger last christmas. last christmas turning 40 this week. landing the top of the spotify's holiday chart with a mind blowing 8.6 million streams in one day. the holiday favorite also getting a new salute from k-pop star rosé of blackpink in a bbc one live lounge cover. after performing it many times at shows. hey, you gave it away. and that's nightline for this