I suspect it's your unequivocal use of the word "had". All we know for sure that they had was one unreplicatable experiment which has since been shown to be deeply flawed in both execution and observation.
It was a big scandal at the time (late 80s), and a cautionary tale shared quickly with us Utah phd students. Cold fusion is (or was) synonymous with research break throughs promoted too early that are later found to be BS.
