Carter Roy

Her sisters finally have proof.

Meanwhile, Raymond Barry has found a way to get around the statute of limitations.

He argues that the two-year timer starts when the girls were diagnosed with radium poisoning, not when they left the company.

Remember, many of the girls were thought to have syphilis or other diseases.

It wasn't until Edwin Lehman, the chief scientist, died that doctors even considered the possibility of radium poisoning.

Some of the girls didn't get their formal diagnosis until May 1927.

When Raymond Berry makes his argument, it's June 1927, well under the statute of limitations.

So the case is allowed to go forward.

In January 1928, the Radium Girls make their first court appearance.

Two of the women are bedridden.

None of them can raise their arms to take the oath.

Grace Fryer is unable to walk and has lost all her teeth.

The press goes wild.

Newspapers across the country cover the case.

They dub the women the Radium Girls and the Living Dead.

And as the case unfolds, damning details emerge, including the fact that in the same building where the dial painters were told to lick their brushes, the company's scientists were protecting themselves with lead screens, tongs, and masks.

Same building, same radium.

One group gets protection, the other gets told the paint is harmless.

The hypocrisy enrages the public.

Raymond Berry then runs into his next problem in April, three months into the trial.