a.k.a. Kathleen Soliah  
The Secret Life of Sara Jane Olson

Chronology of Key Events

• May 17, 1974--six members of the SLA killed in a shootout with police in Los Angeles.
• June 2, 1974--Kathleen Soliah gives eulogy in Berkeley for the six dead members of the SLA.
• August 21, 1975--Two bombs planted under L.A. police squad cars, allegedly in retaliation for the earlier deaths of the SLA members.
• February 26, 1976--Kathleen Soliah indicted for these attacks.
• June 16, 1999--Kathleen Soliah, now known as Sara Jane Olson, arrested in Saint Paul, Minnesota for these attacks.
• July 20, 1999--Sara Jane Olson released on bail after extradition to California. She is subject to an electronic monitoring program.
• October 27, 1999--Prosecution indicates their desire to include evidence of all SLA-related crimes in the trial. Thus they indicate the basic weakness of the underlying charges.
• January, 2000--Judge Ideman bans television cameras from the proceedings. Indicates through his statement that having cameras would be like raping Patricia Hearst again that he is biased towards believing her testimony.
• February 4, 2000--Judge Ideman (the judge in the case) temporarily denies request for emergency testimony from Jack Scott.
• February 6, 2000--Jack Scott dies rendering defense request moot.
• April 11, 2000--Gag order against all parties in Sara Olson case made more strict.
• May 4, 2000--Susan Jordan leaves the defense team for medical reasons. Both Susan Jordan and Stuart Hanlon had represented Bill and Emily Harris in the 1970's. The new defense team consists of Shawn Chapman, a former attorney for O.J. Simpson, and Tony Serra, a somewhat controversial attorney from San Francisco. Trial pushed back to January 8, 2001.
• June, 2000--Patricia Hearst, angry about being forced to testify and having her credibility attacked, gives an interview in Talk magazine in violation of the gag order.
• July, 2000--Judge Ideman says he has no jurisdiction over Patricia Hearst. Rather than punish her, he says he has no choice but to lift the gag order entirely. Defense remains somewhat reluctant to discuss the case.
• November 11-19, 2000--Book signing/promotion tour in California to promote Serving Time, a cookbook written by Sara Jane to raise funds for her defense. Includes a November 17 court hearing where the prosecution will ask for a doubling of her $1 million bail for briefly posting information about police officers (phone, address info) on the Sara Olson Defense Fund site.
• November 17, 2000--Judge Ideman declines to double Sara's bail or find her in contempt, but warns her that activity of the defense committee on her website may be hurting her case. It is not clear whether this refers to the criminal case or the civil case which her alleged victims from 1975 have filed.
• December 9, 2000--Reports are that defense attorney Shawn Chapman will ask for another delay in the trial, and/or that Judge Ideman will agree to appoint another three attorneys to assist her. The broad scope of the trial is causing preparations to take a long time. Judge Ideman is reported to have been adamant that the trial start without further delay. The matter will be resolved at a hearing on December 11.
• December 11, 2000--Judge Cecil Mills, filling in for Judge Ideman, announces that Judge Ideman will be transferred and will be leaving the case. Judge Larry Fidler is named as Judge Ideman's likely, but not certain, replacement. The trial is pushed back until April because of Judge Fidler's unavailability until then. The move takes defense and prosecution by surprise. Defense had asked for a delay but not for this reason.
• December 14, 2000--Prosecution accuses defense of trying to delay trial by failing to adequately prepare. The latest trial delay had been caused by a change in judge, but defense had indicated they might need a delay anyways. Shawn Chapman seems to be the only active member of the defense team. Tony Serra, also officially on the defense team, didn't show up for the December 11 hearing and has been rumored to not be returning phone calls from prosecution, and even fellow defense, attorneys.
• December 18, 2000--Judge Mills sets a trial date of April 10. Also orders Serra to appear in court to explain his absences and to justify why he should not be taken off the case.
• April 10, 2001--Sara Olson to go on trial in Los Angeles.

Decades after the Symbionese Liberation Army made its name by kidnapping newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst, officials are engaged in an unusual, high-stakes dispute over whether to prosecute one of the leftist group's most heinous crimes -- the April 21, 1975, holdup of a Carmichael bank that killed a mother of four who was depositing her church collection.

It's a crime that has been linked to Sara Jane Olson, the St. Paul woman who is charged in Los Angeles with plotting to kill police officers in 1975.

Prosecutors with the Los Angeles County district attorney's office are pressing hard for Sacramento County officials to file charges, and Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard Parks is lobbying for action on new evidence in the case.

But Sacramento County District Attorney Jan Scully's office says the new evidence still is not strong enough to produce convictions in the shotgun slaying of 42-year-old Myrna Lee Opsahl.

"This is a legal decision based upon our evaluation of the evidence," Scully spokeswoman Robin Shakely said Tuesday in a two-page statement released in the case. "It does not arise from a lack of desire for justice for the victims. This remains an open case."

The pressure that Los Angeles officials are exerting to make the Sacramento case active is extraordinary.

Four Sacramento County district attorneys have looked at the case in the past 25 years and decided not to prosecute for lack of evidence.

Authorities in Los Angeles are facing their own SLA-related trial now set for April 10, with the prosecution of Olson, the former fugitive who was known in the 1970s by her birth name Kathleen Soliah.

Olson, who was masquaring as a Methodist Minnesota soccer mom for 24 years until she was caught in June 1999, is charged in connection with an August 1975 incident in which two pipe bombs were placed under an LAPD patrol car in a plot to kill police officers. Neither device exploded.

Olson, who after her arrest took the Olson alias as her legal name, also is suspected of having taken part in the Carmichael bank robbery months earlier, and Sacramento authorities had at one point dangled a promise of immunity in exchange for her testimony about that crime.

Officials here believe that Los Angeles authorities urgently want the Sacramento case filed to help them in their prosecution of Olson. LAPD Chief Parks has taken the unusual step of calling former Sacramento County Sheriff Glen Craig and current Sheriff Lou Blanas to try to persuade them to lobby Scully on the case.

"(Parks) was under the impression there was a considerable amount of new evidence that had not been considered before, and also under the impression that the District Attorney's Office was giving them the runaround and not willing to meet with them," Craig said.

Butdespite claims by Los Angeles authorities that there is critical new evidence in the Carmichael case, Sacramento prosecutors say the information uncovered in recent months still is not conclusive.

Among the evidence, sources say, is the analysis of a palm print discovered at a Sacramento garage where SLA members had stored their getaway vehicles, including one used in the Carmichael robbery. That print turned out to be Olson's, sources said.

Forensic experts using new technology also are trying to link 19 live shells dropped inside the bank with ammunition found in the apartments of SLA members when they were arrested in San Francisco.

Particularly tantalizing to some officials is the prospect of having Hearst testify in the Sacramento case. In her 1982 book on her life with the SLA, Hearst said that she was in a car outside the bank during the robbery and that SLA member Emily Harris fired the blast that killed Opsahl. Hearst also says Olson played a role in the robbery.

Several other SLA members were allegedly involved in the Carmichael heist, and officials in Los Angeles have argued that O'Mara should prosecute them all, except for Hearst, who was granted immunity after testifying before a Sacramento County grand jury in 1990. Olson's brother Steve Soliah was acquitted in the heist in a federal trial more than 20 years ago.

Los Angeles officials do have one ally in their push for a prosecution attempt in Sacramento -- Opsahl's son, Jon. He has written Gov. Gray Davis asking for help in getting the case prosecuted. "I am angry that her murder has gone almost unnoticed by the authorities," Jon Opsahl wrote.

Gary Delsohn and Sam Stanton
Sacramento Bee

SafeHouse Beautiful  - Parody

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