William E. “Bill” Kuykendall
Biography
William E. “Bill” Kuykendall was a control-room operator trainee at Virginia Electric and Power Company’s Surry nuclear plant. After repeatedly raising safety and security concerns, he and coworker James A. Merrill Jr. poured sodium hydroxide on 62 unused fuel assemblies on April 27, 1979 to demonstrate the plant’s vulnerability. They surrendered on June 19, were convicted of damaging public-utility equipment, and received two-year sentences. Kuykendall entered custody in October 1980 and was released on September 10, 1981.
Identity and duration limits
The original Supreme Court journal, printed page 71, names William Everett Kuykendall alongside James Alfred Merrill Jr. The October 1980 admission is MONTH precision, so the calculated 344-day total is not exact documented custody and is removed. The original NRC notice establishes surrender and jury proceedings, not a precise later admission. The previously stored September 1981 endpoint is not newly independently verified in this pass. Contemporary reporting makes November 27 a review-date lead, not independent confirmation of the stored formal sentencing day. That conflict remains open; no exact substitute is invented. An individually captioned newspaper-photo lead remains unavailable through ordinary access; namesake portraits are excluded.
Original case-record clarification
NRC Information Notice 79-12A, dated November 9, 1979, records the June 19 surrender and October 17 jury verdict for intentional damage to an electric-service facility under Virginia Code 18.2-162. The judge dismissed the conspiracy, breaking-and-entering and misdemeanor-damage charges for insufficient evidence; the jury fixed punishment at two years. Those events are distinct from the later formal sentencing and October 1980 prison admission already recorded. The notice does not supply an actual release date.
Contemporary confirmation of actual Surry release
The original December 12, 1981 newsletter, page 2, separately identifies Jim Merrill and Bill Kuykendall in the Surry nuclear-plant case and explicitly reports that Bill Kuykendall was actually released on September 10, 1981. This is completed-release wording, not a projected discharge or court-decision date, and independently corroborates the endpoint already stored here. The report says they began serving their two-year sentences in fall 1980 but does not supply an exact admission day. That seasonal account does not upgrade the existing October MONTH-precision admission or establish a precise served-day counter. The article recounts Bill’s post-release chaplain-assistant work and differing parole-contact conditions; those conditions are not continued physical imprisonment. The formal-sentencing-date question remains separate.
National No-Nukes Prison Support Collective newsletter No. 9, December 12, 1981, original page 2.
