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Prison Error Leads to Former Militant's Early Release
March 24, 2008 12:55 PM
by
findingDulcinea Staff
Sara Jane Olson, terrorist turned housewife, served six years for murder and an attempted bombing. She was back in custody Saturday after a few hours’ freedom.
30-Second Summary
Sara Jane Olson, formerly known as Kathleen Soliah, was released from prison on Friday, a year earlier than the authorities intended. Olson had won a reduced sentence for good behavior. But the authorities never intended to reduce her 14-year sentence by so much.
The police rearrested her on Saturday, after it was discovered that she was on record as being sentenced to only 12 years. Her earliest release date is now March 17, 2009.
In the 1970s, Olson became involved with militant radical movement the Symbionese Liberation Army, a group mostly remembered for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patty Hearst in 1974.
Olson spent 24 years on the run after murdering suburban bank teller Myrna Opsahl in Sacramento, Calif., in 1975. She was put on trial in 2002 and imprisoned for second-degree murder and bank robbery
At the time of her release, CBS affiliate WCCO described the release as “surprised” and reported that the Los Angeles Police Detectives League disapproved. "She needs to serve her full time in prison for these crimes and does not deserve time-off for working in prison,” said Tim Sands, a spokesperson for the group.
Born in Fargo, N.D., and raised in California, Olson spent her time on the run in the Midwest, settling in Minneapolis in 1977, where she married a doctor and was active in community theater, church and in politics. She assumed the alias Sara Jane Olson, the surname being one of the most common in the local phone book.
A tip-off to the FBI following a profile on “America’s Most Wanted” led to her arrest in June 1999.
The police rearrested her on Saturday, after it was discovered that she was on record as being sentenced to only 12 years. Her earliest release date is now March 17, 2009.
In the 1970s, Olson became involved with militant radical movement the Symbionese Liberation Army, a group mostly remembered for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patty Hearst in 1974.
Olson spent 24 years on the run after murdering suburban bank teller Myrna Opsahl in Sacramento, Calif., in 1975. She was put on trial in 2002 and imprisoned for second-degree murder and bank robbery
At the time of her release, CBS affiliate WCCO described the release as “surprised” and reported that the Los Angeles Police Detectives League disapproved. "She needs to serve her full time in prison for these crimes and does not deserve time-off for working in prison,” said Tim Sands, a spokesperson for the group.
Born in Fargo, N.D., and raised in California, Olson spent her time on the run in the Midwest, settling in Minneapolis in 1977, where she married a doctor and was active in community theater, church and in politics. She assumed the alias Sara Jane Olson, the surname being one of the most common in the local phone book.
A tip-off to the FBI following a profile on “America’s Most Wanted” led to her arrest in June 1999.
Headline Links: A day of freedom and back to jail for Olson
Officials described Olson’s release on Friday as an administrative error. The New York Times reported that Olson’s lawyer said, “It’s like they make up all new rules when it comes to her. It’s like we are in some kind of fascist state.”
Source: The New York Times (subscription may be required)
Olson had only served six of her 14-year sentence. Her husband said he was “relieved” that she was out of prison. WCCO carries video coverage of Olson’s release.
Source: Minneapolis-St. Paul CBS affiliate WCCO
Background: The SLA and the Soliah trial
“The SLA adopted its rhetoric from Communists and South American revolutionaries,” according to a 2002 article from Slate. The group of “Berkeley radicals” was very small in comparison to 1960s and 1970s radical organizations like the Black Panthers, and they were not “of real historical significance." A seven-headed cobra was the group’s symbol, and the word “symbionese” was coined to suggest a “symbiosis” of classes and races.
Source: Slate
The 2002 trial and sentencing of Sara Jane Olson brought new attention to the dismantled group that created so much controversy in the 1970s. An LA Weekly piece about the Soliah trial says, “There are those who will declare that, three decades after the fact, a generation is being put on trial.” But the article argues that that is exactly the “myth” that the SLA had always tried to “exploit.”
Source: LA Weekly
Key Players: Kathleen Soliah/Sara Jane Olson
Kathleen Ann Soliah was born in Fargo, N.D., and grew up in Palmdale, Calif., in a conservative household. In high school she was the head of the pep squad. When in college at the University of California-Santa Barbara, she became involved in leftist politics. She moved to Berkeley in 1971 and joined the counterculture. After the death of her friend Angela Atwood, who turned out to be an SLA member, she took up the SLA’s cause, helping carry out bank robberies and bombings. She moved to Minneapolis in 1977, took up the alias Sara Jane Olson and married Gerald Peterson, a doctor, in 1980. The two of them worked in a clinic in rural Zimbabwe. They moved back to Minnesota two years later.
Source: Court TV
The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune has a timeline for Olson’s life.
Source: Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
Opinion & Analysis: ‘Soliah Sprung after Six Years’
Blog Hot Air writes that “six years for domestic terrorism and murder is a joke. This is a woman who murdered a bank employee simply because she got in the way of their ‘revolution’ and who attempted to murder Los Angeles police officers.”
Source: Hot Air
Reference: Reformed rebels of the 1960s and 1970s
“Soliah: The Sara Jane Olson Story,” a biography of the former SLA member, is available from findingDulcinea’s bookstore.
Source: findingDulcinea’s Bookstore
Hari Kunzru’s book “My Revolutions,” is a fictional account of a former 60’s radical terrorist who reformed his ways in a quiet family.
Source: findingDulcinea’s Bookstore
In new novel “His Illegal Self,” Peter Carey describes the life of Che Selkirk, a seven-year-old boy raised by his grandmother on New York’s Upper East Side, and the trials he faces after his fugitive leftist terrorist mother, Dial, comes to reclaim him.
Source: findingDulcinea’s Bookstore
Related Topic: Patty Hearst
On Feb. 4, 1974, members of the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped Patricia Hearst, granddaughter of newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst. It was the beginning of a nearly two-year drama that captivated the nation.
Source: findingDulcinea
In a New York Times opinion piece from February 2002, Brent Staples asserts that in the 1960s, “A substantial number of these children of privilege clearly saw ‘the revolution’ as a fashionable game that would be forgiven once timeout was called.” According to Staples, “The only difference between Patricia Hearst Shaw, witness for the prosecution, and those at the defendants' table is that she had more money and influence.”
Source: The New York Times
Patty Hearst’s French bulldog Diva, also known by its champion’s name of Shann’s Legally Blonde, won “Best of Opposite Sex” at the 2008 Westminster Dog Show. A male dog won her breed’s category, and Diva was judged the best female French bulldog.
Source: New York Daily News
© 2009 Dulcinea Media, Inc.
