Suspicious whistleblower deaths/What happened to David Bocks?

In light of the recent whistleblower deaths and in honor of all those who have given their lives to attempt to make ours safer, I am starting this thread about suspicious deaths of whistleblowers, or possible suspicious deaths of possible whistleblowers. I have always been haunted by the spectre of dying in the manner David Bocks died and that is who I am going to make my post about.

To understand the possible conspiracy behind Bocks' death, we have to learn about his employer NLO also known as Fernald.

Fernald was a uranium processing facility in Ohio founded in 1948 by the Atomic Energy Commission, in 1984 it was discovered the plant was releasing radioactive dust at high levels which eventually prompted a government investigation and subsequent lawsuit in 1986, the same year control of the plant changed from NLO to Westinghouse by 14,000 Ohio residents against NLO alleging that they had allowed radioactive material to leak into the community.

The result of the investigation into the super fund site was a stunning admission by the DOE.

Quotes from www.nytimes.com...

But in court documents discussed today at the hearing and reported last week by the Cincinnati papers, Government officials acknowledged for the first time that ''the Government knew full well that the normal operation of the Fernald plant would result in emissions of uranium and other substances'' into water supplies and into the atmosphere.

How bad was the problem?

In written testimony for the hearing, Dr. Richard Shank, director of Ohio's Environmental Protection Agency estimated that about 12.7 million pounds of uranium waste had been disposed of in pits since the plant opened in 1951. He said an additional 167,000 pounds had been discharged into the Great Miami River and 298,000 pounds had been discharged into the air.

Representative Thomas A. Luken, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Transportation, Tourism and Hazardous Materials said regarding the admission

''The allegations of D.O.E. in the court action constitute a statement that D.O.E. was waging a kind of chemical warfare against the community of Fernald,'' Mr. Luken said. ''It admits that it knew for over 20 years that its waste pits were leaking. It now admits that it knew that the plant's pollution control system was obsolete and deteriorated for years before it was refurbished. And it now admits that it knew that heavy rains swept uranium-contaminated water into a nearby stream and then into the groundwater. And most important of all, it now admits that for most of the last 35 years, it sat on its hands and did nothing to fix these serious and potentially life-threatening problems.''

A contemporary report made by the GAO said that underground water supplies were contaminated by radioactive material hundreds or thousands of times above safe levels.

The story of this plant is really a saga I could go on about but I am more focused on possible whistleblower and in my opinion definite murder victim David Bocks. All of this began in 1984 and picked up a lot of steam in 1986 then by 1990 the plant was approved for closure. David Bocks was murdered on June 19, 1984.

David was a pipefitter and worked at the FMPC at Fernald. He worked the night shift as a maintenance person. The plant was shut down at night and the only people present were maintenance and security. He went missing while in the plant. A witness says that at their meeting he was told to go to plant 4, however later that night he was seen having a heated conversation in a car with his supervisor, the witness could not hear the conversation because the windows were rolled up on the car, which he thought was odd since it was so warm outside. After he exited the car, the witness says he walked in the direction of plant 8 instead of plant 4 and after this, he was never seen again.

At approximately 5:15 a temperature gage on a furnace at the plant registered a drop in temperature. This is how it was realized that David may have gone into the furnace. The only remains found of David, which were so radioactive they had to be sealed in a drum and kept on the plant property were some bone fragments, a piece of his eyeglasses, partially melted keys, a clip from his name tag, part of his boot, part of a walkie talkie and an odd piece of wire twisted into 3 loops. As if someone had been hung by their feet and lowered Terminator style into the furnace.

The keys are what make it odd. His coworker who he rode to work with said that when he left that morning without seeing David, he assumed he was working overtime since his keys were still in his padlock in his open toolbox. The next night this coworker says he saw a supervisor put the padlock on the tool box and take the keys, which he never saw again until they came out of the furnace. The keys were only slightly melted. The furnace took 3 days to cool down once they had the thought that Dave may have gone into it.

What to make of the oddly looped wire? It certainly seems like it was intended to suspend someone by their feet and lower them into the furnace. What other reason would he have this with him? Would he have really done this to himself? Could it have been an accident. My opinion is no. I think David was going to blow the whistle on all the problems at NLO in 1984 and he had to be silenced.

unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com...

If anybody has any other suspicious whistleblower deaths please contribute them!

a reply to: Shoshanna

Willie Mcrae. Nuclear whistleblower. The paperwork that caused him to say, 'I've got them now!' missing. Shot in the head, a nurse who saw the x-ray said two bullets were visible. Wrong gun at the scene, and every other red flag you can think of.

a reply to: Shoshanna

Are they sure it was Bocks they found?

Other than bone fragments, which one assumes were well charred in the heat of the furnace and would thus make DNA identification very difficult (was DNA sequencing even a possibility back then? Has it been done since, to try to verify the remains as those of David?), all the other "evidence" could have easily been sourced without Bocks being necessarily deceased.


Witness protection, perhaps?

originally posted by: Mantiss2021
a reply to: Shoshanna

Are they sure it was Bocks they found?


Witness protection, perhaps?

Anybody know where Hilary was that day....jk.

One would like to think witness protection...but call me jaded.

a reply to: TimBurr

WOW! I never heard of this case before and I just read a couple of articles about it and it does really seem that he was murdered. The gun being found so far away, the prior burglaries and his missing documents. Everything is weird about this one. Seems to be a lot of possibly murdered nuclear whistleblowers. Made me think of Karen Silkwood also:

oklahomacoldcases.org...

On November 13th, while on her way to meet with a New York Times journalist, Karen was involved in what has been termed a one car accident. Her vehicle swerved off of highway 74 colliding with a concrete wall and killing Karen Silkwood. The documents and pictures she was reportedly bringing with her to the meeting were never found. An autopsy would show that at the time of her death. Karen had traces of alcohol and prescription sedatives in her system, leaving police to conclude she had fallen asleep at the wheel and caused the accident herself.

The oddest part of Karen’s story, however, is likely what happened in the days before her death. Given she worked at a nuclear facility, there was an alarm system in place to detect radioactive matter either coming into or leaving the facility. On November 5th, an alarm went off showing Karen herself was contaminated with plutonium. Testing would show that the plutonium had come from inside the gloves she had been using to work. After medically monitoring her for the next several days, it was discovered that not only was Karen heavily, internally contaminated- but so was her apartment. More specifically, a sandwich inside her apartment was contaminated. A private investigator for the union Karen was working with would also say that upon inspection of her vehicle there were dents and scrapes along the back bumper that appear to show someone hit her vehicle sending her into the concrete wall and killing her.

Karen’s death and the events prior and after remains a matter of conjecture. She is either celebrated as a stop at nothing whistleblower or condemned as a martyr who manufactured the problems she was so determined to solve.

a reply to: Mantiss2021

I never considered that but you're right. I'm gonna hope that's what happened. It seemed to me that the things would be more melted but I don't know anything about melting points of different metals. I'm pretty sure I read that the furnace was 1300 degrees? Not 100 percent sure though. They make it seem like the keys and things are still identifiable but slightly melted from everything I've read but I don't know enough to know how plausible that is. I do think 1300 degrees would destroy DNA though.

originally posted by: Mantiss2021
a reply to: Shoshanna

Are they sure it was Bocks they found?

Other than bone fragments, which one assumes were well charred in the heat of the furnace and would thus make DNA identification very difficult (was DNA sequencing even a possibility back then? Has it been done since, to try to verify the remains as those of David?), all the other "evidence" could have easily been sourced without Bocks being necessarily deceased.


Witness protection, perhaps?

Or fake death because he hated his life.

"what happened to David Bocks?"

Sounds like he was put in a box.

a reply to: Shoshanna

Hilda Murrell.

Hilda had been in correspondence with Dr Ross Hesketh, a senior safety scientist in the CEGB, who had just been sacked for revealing that plutonium from British reactors was being secretly supplied to the Americans for nuclear weapons.

wikispooks.com...

I was told by a courageous lady who had been a human shield for Ross Hesketh that Ross had also supplied documents to Willie Mcrae.

A Thorn in Their Side: The Hilda Murrell Murder has a chapter devoted to other anti-nuclear campaigners who were killed or intimidated because they spoke out about contentious nuclear issues. Some were killed because they were trying to get information to Hilda Murrell’s nephew Robert Green about her murder.

hildamurrell.org...

Fyi I'm not sticking up for modern education, it's a joke. My daughter Just graduated College at 17. I homeschooled her, she finished all requirements at 14 and got into a good college. Not a brain drain one, a good one.

originally posted by: TimBurr
a reply to: Shoshanna

Willie Mcrae. Nuclear whistleblower. The paperwork that caused him to say, 'I've got them now!' missing. Shot in the head, a nurse who saw the x-ray said two bullets were visible. Wrong gun at the scene, and every other red flag you can think of.

Totally forgot about that one Tim .

I worked in Dounreay doing a refit of the Hvac system when I was young and saw first hand just how lax any safety was , Our badges were turning red in 3 to 4 days which meant we should have left the site for 9 months but we binned them and put on new ones from our secret stash and just carried on working .

The one ton door to the pit they stored all the waste material was blown nearly a mile away and the stuff that was getting binned in the sea was a open secret to all there .

More than once i have been bombed with radiation in the oil rig yards when they were checking the welding at nights and if you report it you were instantly sacked , so we just carried on regardless