6 years for killing a customer while robbing a bank? Good deal. Maybe next time I get a traffic ticket I can claim to be an ex-SLA member too!
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kathleen Ann Soliah (born January 16, 1947) is an American woman who was a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) in the 1970s. She has lived most of her life under the alias Sara Jane Olson. In 2001, she pled guilty to two counts of possessing explosives with intent to murder.
1 Symbionese Liberation Army
1.1 Crocker National Bank robbery and Myrna Opsahl murder
1.2 Los Angeles Police Department bombs
2 Underground existence and capture 3 Plea controversy
4 Sentencing in explosives charges
5 Sentencing in Opsahl murder
6 Present location
7 Judge reduces sentence
8 Notes and References
9 Further reading
10 External links
Symbionese Liberation Army
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. When Atwood and other core members of the SLA were killed in Watts, California, the Soliahs organized memorial rallies.
Crocker National Bank robbery and Myrna Opsahl murder
On April 21, 1975, SLA members robbed the Crocker National Bank in Carmichael, California, killing Myrna Opsahl, a bank customer, in the process. Soliah reportedly kicked a pregnant bank teller before exiting the bank. The woman lost her child as a result of her injury. Patty Hearst, who admitted to being a getaway driver, stated that Soliah was one of the actual robbers.
Several rounds of 9mm ammunition spilled on the floor during the robbery bore manufacturing marks that matched that of ammunition loaded in a 9mm Browning high power automatic pistol found by police in Soliah’s bedroom dresser drawer at the SLA safehouse on Precita Avenue in San Francisco.
Murder while committing an armed robbery is a death penalty offense in many states which have the death penalty.
It’s a shame that the judge in this case ignored the serious nature of the offense and allowed the passage of time to reduce the punishment. Even if not the death penalty, 14 years seems a little light to me.
It’s not as though she had remorse and turned herself in and deserved some consideration for a lighter sentence.