Sarah Jane Olson Released

Back in '98, when I was still living in Minneapolis, I did a show w/ the Theatre in the Round...a community theatre w/in the city. It was A Fair Country. Playing opposite me was Sarah Jane Olson...as my mum. It was a wonderful, intimate experience (a small cast and I think some of my best acting), and the only show I did in my brief stay in the Twin Cities. Once I moved to Chicagoland, it was a few months later that a friend of mine sent me info on her arrest. She was just released. She was a great actress, a fabulous hostess, talented cook (she hosted the final cast party)...but honestly; always a bit distant. I wish her well in her return to her family and her life. Here's the story:

Kathleen Soliah, ex-radical with St. Paul ties, released from prison
Joel Rubin
Los Angeles Times - 03/21/2008

Kathleen Soliah, a former member of the radical Symbionese Liberation Army, was released on parole this week from a California women’s prison after serving about six years for her role in a plot to kill Los Angeles police officers by blowing up their patrol cars.

Soliah, 61, had been sentenced to 12 years in prison but served only half that time. Like most California inmates, Soliah earned credit against her sentence for working in prison. She served on a maintenance crew that swept and cleaned the main yard of the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, prison officials said.

Released Monday, Soliah must serve a three-year parole period, although prison officials declined to provide the conditions of her release.

Reached at her family’s home in Palmdale, Calif., Soliah refused to comment. Her husband, Dr. Gerald Peterson, said only that he was “relieved.”

The child of a middle-class Palmdale family, Soliah joined the violent band of radica ls best known for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patty Hearst in the mid-1970s. She was charged for taking part in a 1975 plan to plant pipe bombs beneath police cars in retaliation for a shootout with Los Angeles police that left six SLA members dead.

The nail-packed bombs never detonated when the triggering device on one malfunctioned. Soliah didn’t wait around to make her case in court and disappeared.

She changed her name to Sara Jane Olson, left California and married Peterson, an emergency room physician. The couple lived in Zimbabwe before settling in St. Paul. Soliah, mother of three daughters, lived in a Tudor-style home in an upscale neighborhood near the Mississippi River and performed roles in a local theater’s Shakespeare productions.

Soliah’s second life ended abruptly in 1999, when she was apprehended soon after being featured on TV’s “America’s Most Wanted.”

Soliah pleaded guilty to two charges of possessing a destructive device with the intent to murder and also struck a deal in a separate case, in which she pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for participating in a Sacramento, Calif., bank robbery, where another SLA member killed a customer. For the murder conviction, she received a one-year sentence. For the botched bombings, Soliah initially was sentenced to five years and four months, but that term was extended to 12 years by a state prison board, after it determined she fell into the category of a “serious offender.”

Soliah had no discipline problems while in prison, according to Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Now on parole, she must remain in Los Angeles County, Thornton said, but already has submitted a request to be allowed to live elsewhere — presumably Minnesota, where her husband still lives.