CHOWCHILLA, Calif. — A former 1970s radical associated with the group that kidnapped newspaper heiress Patty Hearst finished her seven years in a California prison Tuesday.
Sara Jane Olson, 62, was freed from the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla shortly after midnight and was allowed to serve her year-long parole in Minnesota, the state she adopted during her 24 years as a fugitive.
Olson pleaded guilty to helping place pipe bombs under Los Angeles police cars and participating in a deadly 1975 bank robbery near Sacramento. The crimes took place while she was a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army.
While on the run, she married Dr. Gerald “Fred” Peterson and raised three daughters. She was arrested in 1999 while driving a minivan after she was profiled on the TV’s “America’s Most Wanted.”
