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In September 2017, 59-year-old Phillip Lee Terry was doing routine maintenance on a forklift at an Amazon warehouse near Indianapolis when the forks and heavy metal platform suddenly came down and killed him. Just a few feet away from the site of the accident was a device that would have saved his life. Why didn’t he use it? 

This was John Stallone’s question when he began investigating the case for the Indiana state Occupational Safety and Health Administration. He found serious lapses in safety training and protocol at the warehouse. But all citations against Amazon eventually were dropped, and the global company ultimately paid no penalty for Terry’s death. Stallone describes a cozy relationship between Indiana officials and Amazon. He shared his story with Reveal reporter Will Evans for the first time. 

In the second of a two-part series with PBS NewsHour, Reveal closely follows a trail of documents and witnesses to investigate why an Amazon worker was blamed for his own death.

Rachel de Leon is a reporter and producer for TV and documentaries for Reveal. She’s worked as a videographer and producer for investigations about caregiver wage theft, fatal accidents at Amazon warehouses, and modern-day redlining. In 2018, she began researching cases of police arresting and charging young people with lying about rape, despite incomplete investigations and the use of questionable interrogation tactics. This became the Netflix original Victim/Suspect, which was released in 2023. De Leon graduated with a master’s in journalism from UC Berkeley and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from California State University, Northridge. She’s based in the Bay Area.

Will Evans was a senior reporter and producer for Reveal, covering labor and tech. His reporting prompted government investigations, legislation, reforms and prosecutions. A series on working conditions at Amazon warehouses was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize and won a Gerald Loeb Award. His work has also won multiple Investigative Reporters and Editors Awards, including for a series on safety problems at Tesla. Other investigations exposed secret spying at Uber, illegal discrimination in the temp industry and rampant fraud in California's drug rehab system for the poor. Prior to joining The Center for Investigative Reporting in 2005, Evans was a reporter at The Sacramento Bee.