Kathleen Soliah
Encyclopedia
Sara Jane Olson, formerly Kathleen Ann Soliah (born January 16, 1947), was a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army
(SLA) in the 1970s. She grew up in Palmdale, California
, the daughter of Palmdale High School
teacher and coach Martin Soliah. She has lived much of her life under the alias Sara Jane Olson, which is now her legal name. In 2001, she pled guilty to two counts of possessing explosives with intent to murder stemming from her SLA activities in the 1970s. She was mistakenly released for five days in March 2008 and then rearrested due to an error made in calculating her parole. She was released again on March 17, 2009.
. When she was eight, her family relocated to Southern California. After graduating from the University of California, Santa Barbara
, Soliah moved to Berkeley, California
with her boyfriend, Jim Kilgore. There, she met Angela Atwood
at an acting audition where they both won lead roles. They became inseparable during the play's run. Atwood tried to sponsor Soliah into the SLA. Regardless, Soliah and Jim Kilgore, along with her brother Steve and sister Josephine followed the SLA closely, but did not join.
When Atwood and other core members of the SLA were killed in 1974 during a standoff with police near Watts, California following their murder of the Oakland school superintendent, the Soliahs organized memorial rallies, including a rally in Berkeley's Ho Chi Minh
Park where Soliah spoke in support of her friend Atwood, while being covertly filmed by the FBI. At that rally, Soliah said that her fellow SLA members had been:
She asserted that Atwood "was a truly revolutionary woman ... among the first white women to fight so righteously for their beliefs and to die for what they believed in."
Now a fugitive, founding SLA member Emily Harris
disguised herself and visited Soliah, who was on the job at a bookstore. Soliah later recalled, "I was glad she was alive. I expected them to be killed at any time." She felt sorry for the group and agreed to help the remaining group hide from the police and FBI. She assisted them by procuring supplies for their San Francisco hideout and birth certificates of dead infants that could be used for identification purposes.
in Carmichael, California
, in the process killing 42-year-old Myrna Opsahl
, a mother of four depositing money for her church. Patty Hearst
, who admitted to being a getaway driver during the crime, provided the original information that led the police to implicate the SLA in the robbery and murder; she also stated that Soliah was one of the actual robbers. According to Hearst, Soliah also kicked a pregnant teller in the abdomen, leading to a miscarriage
.
Several rounds of 9 mm ammunition spilled on the floor and found in Opsahl's body during the robbery bore manufacturing marks that matched that of ammunition loaded in a 9 mm Browning Hi-Power
semi-automatic pistol found by police in Soliah’s bedroom dresser drawer at the SLA safehouse on Precita Avenue in San Francisco. In 2002, new forensics
technology allowed police to link these shells definitively to those found at Crocker Bank prior to charging the former members of SLA, including Soliah, with the crime. Prosecutor Michael Latin said that Soliah was tied to the crime through fingerprints, a palm print, and handwriting evidence. The palm print was found on a garage door from a garage in which the SLA kept a getaway car.
patrol car had been parked in front of an International House of Pancakes restaurant earlier in the day. After the bomb was discovered, all Los Angeles police were ordered to search under their cars, and another bomb was found in front of a police department about a mile away. Soliah was accused of planting the bombs in an attempt to avenge the SLA members who had died a year earlier in the standoff with LA police.
The pipe bomb
s were rigged to detonate as the patrol cars drove away. One police officer present that day described the first bomb as one of "the most dangerous pipe bombs he had ever seen" and went on to say: At Soliah's 2002 sentencing hearing on the bombing, police officer John Hall, who had been in the car on top of the bomb described a little girl who stood feet away with her family:
Soliah was indicted in 1976 for setting the police bombs along with five other SLA members, but vanished before the trial could commence. When Soliah was eventually brought to trial years later, the evidence against her was not considered by prosecutors to be a "slam dunk," although enough to convince a jury of her guilt. Two witnesses who had originally testified in her grand jury indictment had died by the time she was found and brought to trial: a plumber who had sold materials used in the bomb had picked Soliah out of a lineup as one of the buyers, and a bomb expert had stated the explosive could have been built in Soliah's apartment. Police could not identify any fingerprint
s on the devices other than those of the officers who had disarmed them; however, Soliah's fingerprint, handwriting and signature were identified on a letter sent to order a fuse that could only be used for bomb-making purposes, and components matching those used in the police car bombs were found in a locked closet at the Precida Avenue hideout that Soliah lived in with the other members of SLA.
to Saint Paul, Minnesota
, having assumed the alias Sara Jane Olson. She was active in Saint Paul on community issues. Her husband described the family as interested in progressive
social causes.
On March 3, 1999, and again on May 15, 1999, Soliah was profiled on the America's Most Wanted
television program. After a tip generated by the show, she was arrested on June 16, 1999. Soliah was then charged with conspiracy to commit murder, possession of explosives, explosion, and attempt to ignite an explosive with intent to murder.
Shortly after her arrest, Soliah legally changed her name to her alias, Sara Jane Olson. She also published a cookbook
entitled Serving Time: America's Most Wanted Recipes. On October 31, 2001, she accepted a plea bargain
and pled guilty to two counts of possessing explosives with intent to murder. As part of a plea bargain, the other charges were dropped.
Angered by Olson's announcement that she had lied in court, Superior Court Judge Larry Fidler ordered another hearing on November 6, at which he asked her several times if she was indeed guilty of the charges. Olson replied "I want to make it clear, Your Honor, that I did not make that bomb. I did not possess that bomb. I did not plant that bomb. But under the concept of aiding and abetting, I plead guilty."
On November 13, Olson filed a motion requesting to withdraw her guilty plea and acknowledged that she did not misunderstand the judge when he read the charges against her. Rather, she said:
At her sentencing hearing, Olson's teenage daughter Leila, her pastor, and her husband spoke in her defense, while Olson's mother claimed on the stand that Olson had never been a part of the SLA and spoke against prosecutors and police she asserted had harassed the family.
to the 14-year sentence she was already serving.
in Chowchilla
. Her custody status was "Close A," which is reserved for inmates requiring the most supervision. This status limited her privileges and required that she be counted seven times a day. It also prevented her from being able to seek a relocation to a facility closer to her home. David Nickerson, Olson's attorney stated that this status reflected the Department of Corrections' view that she was a potential flight risk.
Olson's husband and three daughters continued to support her during her imprisonment and took turns visiting her frequently in Chowchilla. In an article for the magazine Marie Claire (published by Hearst Corporation
), Olson's 23-year-old daughter Emily Peterson dismissed her mother's radical past with the SLA, saying:
on March 21. She stayed at her mother's home in Palmdale during the brief time she was out of prison and spent some time hiking with her husband.
She was rearrested when it was decided that she had been mistakenly released a year early from prison due to a miscalculation by the parole board. Her attorney said Olson would fight the action and added that the action was a political move. Olson was taken back into custody by the California Department of Corrections and placed in the California Institution for Women
in Corona
.
Symbionese Liberation Army
The Symbionese Liberation Army was an American self-styled left-wing urban militant group active between 1973 and 1975 that considered itself a revolutionary vanguard army...
(SLA) in the 1970s. She grew up in Palmdale, California
Palmdale, California
Palmdale is a city located in the center of northern Los Angeles County, California, United States.Palmdale was the first community within the Antelope Valley to incorporate as a city on August 24, 1962; 47 years later, voters approved creating a charter city in November, 2009. Palmdale is...
, the daughter of Palmdale High School
Palmdale High School
Palmdale High School is located in Palmdale, California and is part of the Antelope Valley Union High School District. About 4,000 students attend Palmdale High School in grades 9 through 12. Palmdale High School was founded in 1956.-Automotive:...
teacher and coach Martin Soliah. She has lived much of her life under the alias Sara Jane Olson, which is now her legal name. In 2001, she pled guilty to two counts of possessing explosives with intent to murder stemming from her SLA activities in the 1970s. She was mistakenly released for five days in March 2008 and then rearrested due to an error made in calculating her parole. She was released again on March 17, 2009.
Symbionese Liberation Army
Kathleen Soliah was born in Barnesville, MinnesotaBarnesville, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 2,173 people, 865 households, and 569 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,032.8 people per square mile . There were 923 housing units at an average density of 438.7 per square mile...
. When she was eight, her family relocated to Southern California. After graduating from the University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a site in Goleta, California, from Santa Barbara and northwest of Los...
, Soliah moved to Berkeley, California
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
with her boyfriend, Jim Kilgore. There, she met Angela Atwood
Angela Atwood
Angela DeAngelis "General Gelina" Atwood was a founding member of the Symbionese Liberation Army , a domestic terrorist group of the 1970s.-Background:...
at an acting audition where they both won lead roles. They became inseparable during the play's run. Atwood tried to sponsor Soliah into the SLA. Regardless, Soliah and Jim Kilgore, along with her brother Steve and sister Josephine followed the SLA closely, but did not join.
When Atwood and other core members of the SLA were killed in 1974 during a standoff with police near Watts, California following their murder of the Oakland school superintendent, the Soliahs organized memorial rallies, including a rally in Berkeley's Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh
Hồ Chí Minh , born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam...
Park where Soliah spoke in support of her friend Atwood, while being covertly filmed by the FBI. At that rally, Soliah said that her fellow SLA members had been:
She asserted that Atwood "was a truly revolutionary woman ... among the first white women to fight so righteously for their beliefs and to die for what they believed in."
Now a fugitive, founding SLA member Emily Harris
Emily Harris (SLA)
Emily Harris was, along with her husband William Harris , a founding member of the Symbionese Liberation Army , a leftist United States group involved in bank robberies, kidnapping and murder. In the 1970s, she was convicted of kidnapping Patty Hearst...
disguised herself and visited Soliah, who was on the job at a bookstore. Soliah later recalled, "I was glad she was alive. I expected them to be killed at any time." She felt sorry for the group and agreed to help the remaining group hide from the police and FBI. She assisted them by procuring supplies for their San Francisco hideout and birth certificates of dead infants that could be used for identification purposes.
Crocker National Bank robbery and Myrna Opsahl murder
On April 21, 1975, SLA members robbed the Crocker National BankCrocker National Bank
Crocker National Bank was a United States bank headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was acquired by and merged into Wells Fargo Bank in 1986.-History:The bank traces its history to the Woolworth National Bank in San Francisco...
in Carmichael, California
Carmichael, California
Carmichael is a census-designated place in Sacramento County, California, United States. It is part of the Sacramento–Arden-Arcade–Roseville Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 61,762 at the 2010 census, up from 49,742 at the 2000 census.-Geography and geology:Carmichael...
, in the process killing 42-year-old Myrna Opsahl
Myrna Opsahl
Myrna Opsahl was a church worker, a mother of four, and a murder victim of the Symbionese Liberation Army. She died in April 1975 during a Carmichael, California, bank robbery...
, a mother of four depositing money for her church. Patty Hearst
Patty Hearst
Patricia Campbell Hearst , now known as Patricia Campbell Hearst Shaw, is an American newspaper heiress, socialite, actress, kidnap victim, and convicted bank robber....
, who admitted to being a getaway driver during the crime, provided the original information that led the police to implicate the SLA in the robbery and murder; she also stated that Soliah was one of the actual robbers. According to Hearst, Soliah also kicked a pregnant teller in the abdomen, leading to a miscarriage
Miscarriage
Miscarriage or spontaneous abortion is the spontaneous end of a pregnancy at a stage where the embryo or fetus is incapable of surviving independently, generally defined in humans at prior to 20 weeks of gestation...
.
Several rounds of 9 mm ammunition spilled on the floor and found in Opsahl's body during the robbery bore manufacturing marks that matched that of ammunition loaded in a 9 mm Browning Hi-Power
Browning Hi-Power
The Browning Hi-Power is a single-action, 9 mm semi-automatic handgun. It is based on a design by American firearms inventor John Browning, and completed by Dieudonné Saive at Fabrique Nationale of Herstal, Belgium. Browning died in 1926, several years before the design was finalized...
semi-automatic pistol found by police in Soliah’s bedroom dresser drawer at the SLA safehouse on Precita Avenue in San Francisco. In 2002, new forensics
Forensics
Forensic science is the application of a broad spectrum of sciences to answer questions of interest to a legal system. This may be in relation to a crime or a civil action...
technology allowed police to link these shells definitively to those found at Crocker Bank prior to charging the former members of SLA, including Soliah, with the crime. Prosecutor Michael Latin said that Soliah was tied to the crime through fingerprints, a palm print, and handwriting evidence. The palm print was found on a garage door from a garage in which the SLA kept a getaway car.
Los Angeles Police Department bombs
On August 21, 1975, a bomb that came within 1/16 of an inch of detonating was discovered where a Los Angeles Police DepartmentLos Angeles Police Department
The Los Angeles Police Department is the police department of the city of Los Angeles, California. With just under 10,000 officers and more than 3,000 civilian staff, covering an area of with a population of more than 4.1 million people, it is the third largest local law enforcement agency in...
patrol car had been parked in front of an International House of Pancakes restaurant earlier in the day. After the bomb was discovered, all Los Angeles police were ordered to search under their cars, and another bomb was found in front of a police department about a mile away. Soliah was accused of planting the bombs in an attempt to avenge the SLA members who had died a year earlier in the standoff with LA police.
The pipe bomb
Pipe bomb
A pipe bomb is an improvised explosive device, a tightly sealed section of pipe filled with an explosive material. The containment provided by the pipe means that simple low explosives can be used to produce a relatively large explosion, and the fragmentation of the pipe itself creates potentially...
s were rigged to detonate as the patrol cars drove away. One police officer present that day described the first bomb as one of "the most dangerous pipe bombs he had ever seen" and went on to say: At Soliah's 2002 sentencing hearing on the bombing, police officer John Hall, who had been in the car on top of the bomb described a little girl who stood feet away with her family:
Soliah was indicted in 1976 for setting the police bombs along with five other SLA members, but vanished before the trial could commence. When Soliah was eventually brought to trial years later, the evidence against her was not considered by prosecutors to be a "slam dunk," although enough to convince a jury of her guilt. Two witnesses who had originally testified in her grand jury indictment had died by the time she was found and brought to trial: a plumber who had sold materials used in the bomb had picked Soliah out of a lineup as one of the buyers, and a bomb expert had stated the explosive could have been built in Soliah's apartment. Police could not identify any fingerprint
Fingerprint
A fingerprint in its narrow sense is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger. In a wider use of the term, fingerprints are the traces of an impression from the friction ridges of any part of a human hand. A print from the foot can also leave an impression of friction ridges...
s on the devices other than those of the officers who had disarmed them; however, Soliah's fingerprint, handwriting and signature were identified on a letter sent to order a fuse that could only be used for bomb-making purposes, and components matching those used in the police car bombs were found in a locked closet at the Precida Avenue hideout that Soliah lived in with the other members of SLA.
Underground life, capture, and prosecution
In February 1976, a grand jury indicted Soliah in the bombing case. Soliah went underground and became a fugitive for 23 years. She had built a life with her husband Gerald Frederick "Fred" Peterson (who was a doctor) and three daughters from ZimbabweZimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
to Saint Paul, Minnesota
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Saint Paul is the capital and second-most populous city of the U.S. state of Minnesota. The city lies mostly on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the area surrounding its point of confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Minneapolis, the state's largest city...
, having assumed the alias Sara Jane Olson. She was active in Saint Paul on community issues. Her husband described the family as interested in progressive
Progressivism
Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...
social causes.
On March 3, 1999, and again on May 15, 1999, Soliah was profiled on the America's Most Wanted
America's Most Wanted
America's Most Wanted is an American television program produced by 20th Television, and was the longest-running program of any kind in the history of the Fox Television Network until it was announced on May 16, 2011 that the series was canceled after twenty-three years, with the final episode...
television program. After a tip generated by the show, she was arrested on June 16, 1999. Soliah was then charged with conspiracy to commit murder, possession of explosives, explosion, and attempt to ignite an explosive with intent to murder.
Shortly after her arrest, Soliah legally changed her name to her alias, Sara Jane Olson. She also published a cookbook
Cookbook
A cookbook is a kitchen reference that typically contains a collection of recipes. Modern versions may also include colorful illustrations and advice on purchasing quality ingredients or making substitutions...
entitled Serving Time: America's Most Wanted Recipes. On October 31, 2001, she accepted a plea bargain
Plea bargain
A plea bargain is an agreement in a criminal case whereby the prosecutor offers the defendant the opportunity to plead guilty, usually to a lesser charge or to the original criminal charge with a recommendation of a lighter than the maximum sentence.A plea bargain allows criminal defendants to...
and pled guilty to two counts of possessing explosives with intent to murder. As part of a plea bargain, the other charges were dropped.
Plea controversy
Immediately after entering the plea, however, Olson told reporters that she was innocent and that she had decided to take a plea bargain due to the climate after the September 11 attacks, in which she felt an accused bomber could not receive a fair trial from a jury. "It became clear to me that the incident would have a remarkable effect on the outcome of this trial ... the effect was probably going to be negative," she said. "That's really what governed this decision, not the truth or honesty, but what was probably in my best interests and the interests of my family."Angered by Olson's announcement that she had lied in court, Superior Court Judge Larry Fidler ordered another hearing on November 6, at which he asked her several times if she was indeed guilty of the charges. Olson replied "I want to make it clear, Your Honor, that I did not make that bomb. I did not possess that bomb. I did not plant that bomb. But under the concept of aiding and abetting, I plead guilty."
On November 13, Olson filed a motion requesting to withdraw her guilty plea and acknowledged that she did not misunderstand the judge when he read the charges against her. Rather, she said:
Sentencing in explosives charges
On December 3, 2001, Fidler offered to let Olson testify under oath about her role in the case. She refused. He then wondered "I took those pleas twice ... were you lying to me then or are you lying to me now?" -- and denied her request to withdraw her plea. Observers expected her to serve only three to five years, but on January 18, 2002, she was sentenced to two consecutive 10-years-to-life terms. Fidler warned that according to California law, the Board of Prison Terms could later change the sentence to a lesser term; at the time, Olson's lawyers asserted that due to discrepancies between 1970s laws and current California laws, their client would most likely serve only five years, which could turn into two years for good behavior. The Board of Prison Terms did later change the sentence.At her sentencing hearing, Olson's teenage daughter Leila, her pastor, and her husband spoke in her defense, while Olson's mother claimed on the stand that Olson had never been a part of the SLA and spoke against prosecutors and police she asserted had harassed the family.
Sentencing in Opsahl murder
On January 16, 2002, first-degree murder charges for the killing of Myrna Opsahl were filed against Olson and five other SLA members: Emily Harris, Bill Harris, Michael Bortin (Olson's brother-in law who had married her sister Josephine), and James Kilgore, who remained a fugitive. Judge Fidler arraigned Olson on the murder charges immediately following her sentencing hearing on January 18. Olson pled not guilty to that charge at the time, but on November 7, she changed her mind and pled guilty. She was sentenced on February 14, 2003 for the maximum term allowed under her plea bargain, which was a six-year term concurrentSentence (law)
In law, a sentence forms the final explicit act of a judge-ruled process, and also the symbolic principal act connected to his function. The sentence can generally involve a decree of imprisonment, a fine and/or other punishments against a defendant convicted of a crime...
to the 14-year sentence she was already serving.
Aftermath of prosecution and sentencing
Olson served her time at the Central California Women's FacilityCentral California Women's Facility
Central California Women's Facility is a female-only California Department of Corrections state prison located in Chowchilla, California. It is across the road from Valley State Prison for Women. It is the largest female correctional facility in the United States. It houses the State of...
in Chowchilla
Chowchilla, California
Chowchilla is a city in Madera County, California, United States. Chowchilla is located northwest of Madera, at an elevation of 240 feet . It is a principal city of the Madera–Chowchilla Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 18,720 at the 2010 census, up from 11,127 at the 2000...
. Her custody status was "Close A," which is reserved for inmates requiring the most supervision. This status limited her privileges and required that she be counted seven times a day. It also prevented her from being able to seek a relocation to a facility closer to her home. David Nickerson, Olson's attorney stated that this status reflected the Department of Corrections' view that she was a potential flight risk.
Olson's husband and three daughters continued to support her during her imprisonment and took turns visiting her frequently in Chowchilla. In an article for the magazine Marie Claire (published by Hearst Corporation
Hearst Corporation
The Hearst Corporation is an American media conglomerate based in the Hearst Tower, Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. Founded by William Randolph Hearst as an owner of newspapers, the company's holdings now include a wide variety of media...
), Olson's 23-year-old daughter Emily Peterson dismissed her mother's radical past with the SLA, saying:
Judge reduces sentence
The state Board of Prison Terms had scrapped her original sentence in October 2002 in exchange for a 14-year sentence, saying Olson's crimes had the potential for great violence and targeted multiple victims. In July 2004, a judge said there was "no analysis" of how the state Board of Prison Terms decided 14 years was appropriate and threw out the sentence. Her sentence was converted to five years, four months.Appeals court panel restores sentence
An appeals court panel restored her full sentence as of April 12, 2007. They ruled that a lower court did not follow procedure when they allowed Olson to appeal.Release from prison and rearrest
Olson was released from the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla on parole March 17, 2008, and was blocked from boarding her flight to Minnesota at Los Angeles International AirportLos Angeles International Airport
Los Angeles International Airport is the primary airport serving the Greater Los Angeles Area, the second-most populated metropolitan area in the United States. It is most often referred to by its IATA airport code LAX, with the letters pronounced individually...
on March 21. She stayed at her mother's home in Palmdale during the brief time she was out of prison and spent some time hiking with her husband.
She was rearrested when it was decided that she had been mistakenly released a year early from prison due to a miscalculation by the parole board. Her attorney said Olson would fight the action and added that the action was a political move. Olson was taken back into custody by the California Department of Corrections and placed in the California Institution for Women
California Institution for Women
California Institution for Women is a female-only state prison located in the city of Chino, San Bernardino County, California.-Facilities:...
in Corona
Corona, California
Corona is a city in Riverside County, California, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 152,374, up from 124,966 at the 2000 census...
.
Release and parole
After serving seven years, about half of her sentence, Olson was released from prison on March 17, 2009, and will serve her parole in Minnesota. Police unions in both Minnesota and California have protested the arrangement, stating that they believe her parole should be served in California, where her crimes were committed. In a letter to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota also protested Olson's being allowed to return to Minnesota.Daughter Competes on 'American Idol'
Olson's 28-year-old daughter, Sophia Shorai, is a contestant in the 2011 season of the unscripted series 'American Idol.'Further reading
- Hendry, Sharon Darby, Soliah: The Sara Jane Olson Story, Cable Publishing, 2002 ISBN 1893088359
External links
- Chronology of the SLA from CourtTV News (only goes up to 2002)
- Profile of Sara Jane Olson
- Full Court TV coverage of the Kathleen Soliah bombing case
- Myrna Opsahl, woman murdered by SLA at Crocker Bank