Karen Roberts

artistic interpretation of Karen by Kiran (@audio-enthusiast on tumblr)

**Karen** is a secondary character in the third season of Within the Wires. She was an employee of the Oslo office of the Society's European government and owner of KR Development Inc.

## Biography

Karen ran KR Development Inc., the largest construction firm along the Gulf of Mexico, in Houston. According to Director of North American Trade Michael Witten, she seemed dedicated to obtaining a position in government in South America.

KR's factories were former arms manufacturing sites, although their use became dismantling war machines for use in non-military construction. The company's slogan was "Swords to Plowshares". While Karen was working with Michael on North American reconstruction projects, there were rumours circulating that KR was supplying weapons to southern militias along the old Mexican border. She apparently had a history of mistreating her workers.

In 1952, Roberts testified against Global Secretary of Trade Vishwathi Ramadoss during preliminary hearings about domestic espionage in Vancouver. Director Witten claimed there were no documents to support her claims, and if there were, the things that Secretary Ramadoss could have revealed about Roberts would have destroyed her career.

In 1953, restructuring of personnel in Oslo headquarters of the European government included Karen working in the Western European Office for Global Trade as Regional Director of Trade. From her position, she relocated the entire Western European Labour Department into the Communications office. Although this greatly concerned Director Witten because of the lack of protection for workers, she did not return his efforts at communication. He also made calls to the KR office in Houston, and did not receive confirmation that she had sold her interests in KR upon taking a government position, which was against the Society's ethics bylaws.

As of February 15, 1954, Roberts was quite popular with both her staff and the general public in Europe. Believing that public opinion was not strengthening against her fast enough, Director Witten sent Leena Mäkinen into the Western European Office to gather intel on Roberts. He did not find this particularly effective, although Leena's intuition and analysis indicated to her that Roberts was funneling money into an army, militia, or police force in Western Europe. Leena also reported to Michael that a man named Daniel Lindström arrested for gun possession had told investigators that he purchased the weapons from Matthew Forsberg, an employee of KR Development who worked in the Gothenberg factory. Lindström was later found dead in his cell.

During a project of Director Witten's to redevelop former government buildings in Washington D.C., the details were leaked and in the delays that followed, an unnamed private company attempted to buy the buildings. The bidders disappeared, and instead Witten was forced to partner with KR Development, which had contracted rights to the project - he accused Sarah Chisholm of signing off on this. Director Witten was reluctant to work with KR because the company did not treat its workers fairly or give them good pay. He also resented that KR was not sharing the full plans of their development plans, and noted the absence of public housing in the plans he had available.

Léonie Sirois allegedly worked for Roberts in the Western European Trade Office, and possibly had something to do with an incident where actors found recording devices in their hotel rooms.

In March of 1954, Director Witten became convinced that Roberts was making active moves against him personally. He seemed to have suspected that she had hired the men in hats and sunglasses, smoking cigarettes and with an unpleasant dog to spy on him, and later break into his house (she apparently knew where he lived). On the same night that his cat was mutilated, he found Leena Mäkinen's European ID card cut in half with a pair of scissors, in amongst his and his wife Vivienne's personal documents in his home office.

On March 29, Witten was called into a meeting with Roberts and Ramadoss, where it was revealed that the latter was backing the former's plans in Washington, and that they would be using Witten as a scapegoat for their illegal activities. Witten later drafted a letter to Roberts telling her that he would not be going down without a fight.

On April 20, Witten tried to secure Sima Choudary as the project manager for the New Conversion Project in Chicago, as she also disliked Karen Roberts. Witten assured Choudary that she would be reporting directly to Toronto, bypassing Roberts entirely despite her close eye on the Trade Office in Chicago.

In September of 1954, Witten suspected that Roberts was behind the manufacture of illegal weapons stockpiled in Sundsvall. The guns were identical to police weapons, and many of the guns used by police were unregistered, implying that KR Development was supplying to both sides of the conflict which resulted in twelve deaths. Witten believed that Roberts would come to trial for these events, but she was still active in her business in 1961.

At some point, Roberts hired Ramadoss onto the KR Development Advisory Board. On June 21, 1961, Witten read in the business section of the newspaper that KR Development had purchased a 150,000 acre plot of land near Chesapeake Bay, but could not find out explicitly why. He did suspect, however, that it was going to be used as the site for Amy Castillo's Institute, which had been rejected in the planning stage by the government - in fact by Witten himself.

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Sometime in the early 80s, Roberts contacted a cargo pilot who worked for KR to fly her to Houston from New Orleans. The pilot speculated that she was in a hurry, since she wasn't taking a more upmarket passenger plane, and promised that a car would be ready to take her to the office when they landed. The pilot spoke at length about the positive impact he believed Karen's work in KR Development had done on the world, particularly in the Gulf, Washington, and Chicago, as well as the new projects in Toronto. Before landing, the pilot asked Roberts if she might be able to put him in touch with someone who could help him find his wife, who he believed had gone to a Cradle in the Ouachita Mountains.

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## Additional info

* The name "Karen" means "pure, unsullied"

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Season 3, Reel #2: August 13, 1953
2. ↑ Season 3, Reel #1: July 3, 1953
3. ↑ Season 3, Reel #4: February 15, 1954
4. ↑ Season 3, Reel #5: March 2, 1954
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Season 3, Reel #8: April 20, 1954
6. ↑ Season 3, Reel #6: March 24, 1954
7. ↑ Season 3, Reel #7: March 29, 1954
8. ↑ Season 3, Reel #9: September 13, 1954
9. ↑ Season 3, Reel #10: June 21, 1961
10. ↑ Black Box Cassette #7: MSY to HOU