sara jane olson

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.[1] She has lived most of her life under the alias Sara Jane Olson, which she now uses as 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.[2] She was released again on March 17, 2009. [3] Contents [hide] 1 Symbionese Liberation Army 1.1 Crocker National Bank robbery and Myrna Opsahl murder 1.2 Los Angeles Police Department bombs 2 Underground life, capture, and prosecution 2.1 Plea controversy 2.2 Sentencing in explosives charges 2.3 Sentencing in Opsahl murder 3 Aftermath of prosecution and sentencing 3.1 Judge reduces sentence 3.2 Appeals court panel restores sentence 3.3 Release from prison and rearrest 3.4 Release and parole 4 Notes and references 5 Further reading 6 External links //

Symbionese Liberation Army

Kathleen Soliah was born in Barnesville, Minnesota. 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.[4]

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,[5] the Soliahs organized memorial rallies,[citation needed] 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.[6][7] At that rally, Soliah said that her fellow SLA members had been: “ viciously attacked and murdered by 500 pigs in L.A. while the whole nation watched. Well, I believe that Gelina [Atwood] and her comrades fought until the last minutes, and though I would like to have her with me here right now, I know that she lived happy and she died happy. And in that sense, I'm so very proud of her. SLA soldiers - I know it is not necessary to say; but keep on fighting. I'm with you and we are with you![7] ”

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