Victim's Son Helped Bring About SLA Arrests

Jan. 17 -- Nearly 27 years have passed since Jon Opsahl's mother was gunned down during a bank robbery near Sacramento, Calif. Now, in large part due to his relentless efforts, five former members of the Symbionese Liberation Army have been charged with murder in her death.

Myrna Opsahl, the 42-year-old mother of four children, was in the bank to deposit receipts from her church when she was shot in the abdomen on April 21, 1975.

"She was a genuine pillar of the society," says her son Jon, "and certainly deserves the justice that she is finally going to get."

That justice was slow in coming, and due in large part to the nonstop pressure Opsahl placed on authorities to prosecute in his mother's case.

On Wednesday, Sacramento County prosecutors announced the arrests of Emily Harris, her ex-husband Bill Harris, Michael Bortin and Sara Jane Olson — a former fugitive once known as Kathleen Soliah. Charges were also filed again a fifth defendant, James Kilgore, who remains at large.

All five are allegedly former members of the SLA, a domestic terrorist group that became infamous in 1974 when it kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst. The group had long been blamed for the robbery of the Crocker National Bank in Carmichael, Calif., that claimed Mrs. Opsahl's life.

Olson Case Inspired Action

Olson was sentenced to 10 years to life in prison on a charge of possessing explosives with intent to murder in a separate case. She pleaded guilty to the charge, which stems from allegations that she plotted to bomb Los Angeles police cars in 1975. The bombs never exploded.

Authorities had wanted her in the case for years. She had been afugitive for more than two decades before she was arrested in St. Paul, Minn., were she had been living a quiet life as a homemaker, wife and mother to three daughters.

Opsahl says he was particularly enraged because he felt Olson had taken on the very persona of his mother.

"The kind of parallel life that Kathleen Soliah assumed was disturbing," he says. "She participated in a crime that took her [Mrs. Opsahl's] life, and then kind of assumed [that life]."