Victim's Son Helped Bring About SLA Arrests

Jan. 17, 2002 -- 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]."

When Olson, as Soliah was now known, was arrested in 1999 to face charges in the Los Angeles case, Opsahl began to think the former SLA member might reveal information that would help revive the investigation into his mother's case.

He began a relentless campaign of pressure. He created a Web site, and used it to accuse prosecutors of ignoring evidence. "We know who pulled the trigger," he said on the Web site. "One of the confessed participants wrote a book and told us."

That book was Every Secret Thing, by Hearst, the kidnap victim who later morphed into a machine-gun-toting radical called Tania who joined her captors in a bank heist. After her arrest, Hearst said she had been brainwashed after being repeatedly raped and tortured by SLA members. Nevertheless, a jury convicted her in the robbery and she served two years in prison before President Carter granted her celemency. President Clinton granted her a pardon just before he left office.

Hearst’s Accusations

In the book, Hearst named Emily Harris as the SLA member who shot Myrna Opsahl. The victim's son found the book both enlightening and upsetting.

"Emily Harris was quoted in Patty Hearst's book as saying 'Her death doesn't matter anyways. She was a bourgeois pig.' Those words have always kind of haunted us," says Jon Opsahl.

Over the years, he says, he often despaired that anyone would ever be charged in her death.

"We had pretty much given up. Killers do get away with murder sometimes. And justice in this life isn't always possible," says Opsahl, now a doctor at Loma Linda University Medical Center.

But justice is certainly more possible if families of victims keep up the pressure, according to Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson.

"There are only two things that can revive a cold case," she says, "new scientific evidence and a push from family members, which is what you had here."

After more than 26 years of pushing, Jon Opsahl is ready to take a seat in the courtroom. He hopes to attend as much of the trial as possible.

"Finally," he says, "the evidence will be presented in court. And justice will be served."