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CNN Live At Daybreak

Three SLA Suspects Arrested Yesterday

Aired January 17, 2002 - 06:01   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And five former members of the Symbionese Liberation Army have been charged with first-degree murder in a 27-year old California case. Three of the suspects were arrested yesterday, a fourth turned herself in, a fifth remains at large.

The 1975 bank robbery and shooting death of a mother of four gained national prominence due to the participation of kidnapped newspaper heiress Patty Hearst. Hearst, who drove the getaway car, will not be prosecuted. She was given immunity for testimony she gave two years ago. She also served time in jail already.

Now for more on the new charges from that '70s case we were just talking about, baby boomers, here's CNN's national correspondent Frank Buckley.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If this is the face of the SLA we remember, a kidnapped Patty Hearst turned bank robber, this may be the face of one of the SLA's least remembered moments, a moment this man, however, John Upsall, could never forget.

April 21, 1975, John's mother Myrna was bringing church collections to deposit in this bank in Carmichael, California when she was shot to death during a takeover robbery committed, say investigators, by members of the SLA. Now authorities, a quarter of a century later, said those responsible for the crime were Sara Jane Olson, known then as Kathleen Solia, and Michael Borton. Still at large, James Kilgore, here as he was in the '70s and as he may appear today.

But in custody finally, as John Upsall sees it, this woman, Emily Harris, who Patty Hearst once identified as the shooter of John's mother.

JOHN UPSALL: Emily Harris was quoted in Patty Hearst's book as saying that her death doesn't matter anyways. She was a bourgeois pig. Those words have always kind of haunted us, because having the killers, the known killers, never be held accountable kind of kept ringing true, that her death didn't matter.

BUCKLEY: Of course, it mattered to John, who had a website dedicated to the crime to insure that no one would forget. And it mattered to investigators and prosecutors who began reexamining the case in 1999, after the arrest of Kathleen Solia who was featured in an episode of America's Most Wanted, then discovered living as one, Sara Jane Olson, a soccer mom in Minnesota living the kind of life, as John sees it, his mother was living before she was murdered.

UPSALL: And it was kind of the parallel life that Kathleen Solia assumed that was disturbing. How she had participated in the crime that took her life, and then kind of assumed it.

BUCKLEY: Solia, or Olson, as she is known now, turned herself in at her attorney's office in Los Angeles today, her lawyer saying she is innocent of the murder charge.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They've got one witness, and that's Patty Hearst. There is a memo in the file from the U.S. attorney who interviewed her in connection with the investigation in Carmichael and that memo says this witness is in no way believable.

Prosecutors say they do have a case against the former SLA members, based in part on new evidence.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For example, using forensic testing procedures not available until recently, the FBI laboratory linked the lead pellets that killed Mrs. Upsall to shotgun shells found in an SLA hideout in San Francisco.

BUCKLEY: Formal charges against the 1970's radicals who became soccer moms and middle-class dads will come later this week, all of them to be charged with the murder of another mother whose son never gave up.

Frank Buckley, CNN, Sacramento, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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