[News] Kilgore given six years for his role in SLA killing

Tue May 11 11:28:32 EDT 2004

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This story is taken from 
<http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/courts_legal/v-print/story//content/news/courts_legal>Courts/legal 
at sacbee.com.

Kilgore given six years for his role in SLA killing

By Mareva Brown -- Bee Staff Writer - (Published May 11, 2004)

Justice caught up with James Kilgore on Monday, when a judge sentenced the 
South African academic and acclaimed author to a six-year state prison term 
for his part in the Symbionese Liberation Army's murder of a Carmichael 
bank patron 29 years ago.

In an anticlimactic 15-minute hearing, the SLA case was officially closed.

"I know no apology or penance can begin to compensate you for your loss," 
Kilgore said, turning to look at Myrna Opsahl's husband, Trygve, and son, 
Jon, who sat in the second row of Sacramento Superior Court Judge Thomas M. 
Cecil's courtroom. "If there was one day in my life I could live over 
again, that would be it."

Jon Opsahl, who prodded prosecutors to file charges in his mother's 
unsolved case with a Web site dedicated to her memory, said he was glad to 
see the case end Monday. But he called Kilgore's apology, which was a 
requisite of the plea agreement, "empty."

"It's the best we can hope for," he said with a shrug. "But at this point, 
I'm glad it's over with and we won't have to worry about it."

The arrest of Kilgore, 56, last November stunned the South African academic 
community. More than 100 colleagues and friends wrote letters to a federal 
judge describing the fugitive as a man of honor and courage, who diffused 
volatile situations in the strife-torn country and never hesitated to help 
someone in need.

An inch-thick stack of testimonials from Desmond Tutu and other South 
African dignitaries outline a lifelong commitment to social justice.

"Despite his fugitive status, during those years he dedicated himself, not 
to frivolous pursuits, but to using his abilities in the service of 
underprivileged people in our region," wrote Tutu, the former archbishop of 
Cape Town and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. "Mr. Kilgore touched many lives 
in an everyday, undramatic sort of way. By all accounts, he is a humble man."

In a 26-page autobiography he wrote to a judge, Kilgore describes his 15 
months with the SLA as "the darkest period of his life," and expresses deep 
remorse for what he calls a misguided attempt to advance the interests of 
the poor.

Although Kilgore was not an original member of the group, he was drawn into 
it out of a desire to avenge the death of a friend, Angela Atwood, who died 
in a fiery shootout with Los Angeles police on May 13, 1974.

Once he and his then-girlfriend, Kathleen Soliah, along with another 
friend, Michael Bortin, agreed to help the remaining SLA members, he said 
he saw no way to simply walk away.

Eventually, the group - which included kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia 
Hearst - ran out of resources and turned to bank robbery in order to 
survive, he said. It was during their second heist, on April 21, 1975, that 
Myrna Opsahl was killed with an errant blast from Emily Harris, now Emily 
Montague.

Five months later, when Hearst, Montague and her then-husband Bill Harris 
were arrested, Kilgore fled with Bortin and Soliah - now Sara Jane Olson. 
The three split and regrouped in Minneapolis, where Kilgore and Olson 
stayed for several years. Bortin moved on to Colorado.

In 1982, wanting to help in the transition from apartheid, Kilgore assumed 
the name of a dead infant - Charles William "John" Pape - and obtained a 
passport so he could slip out of the United States and enter Zimbabwe. 
Later he went to Australia and then South Africa.

His passport, which was renewed twice, is the basis of a federal case 
against Kilgore, which was resolved last month. He also pleaded guilty to a 
federal charge of possessing explosives.

Despite his high-profile crimes, some officials - and at least one of 
Kilgore's former comrades - say the tidy, balding, low-key educator may be 
the most interesting of all the former comrades because the man that he 
became after the SLA was so different from the radical who planted bombs to 
make political statements.

"It's incredible to get your life together like that after this (SLA) 
disaster," said Bortin, who is serving a six-year sentence for the Opsahl 
murder. "Here, while they're speculating he's (committing new crimes) in 
America, he's in South Africa writing textbooks and teaching middle school."

After leaving the United States, Kilgore earned a doctorate in philosophy, 
founded an adult evening school for domestic workers in South Africa and 
ran a remedial college for adults who were unable to compete academically 
in the post-apartheid country.

He wrote books about South Africa's delivery of basic services to the poor, 
and one textbook he co-wrote was widely distributed throughout the country. 
His proceeds were used to fund scholarship programs and build a home for a 
former student who was raising her eight children alone.

When he was arrested in November 2002, Kilgore was earning $18,500 a year 
as a researcher for a University of Cape Town policy think tank.

Letters from friends and colleagues describe Kilgore as intellectually 
stimulating and "passionately committed to improving the conditions of 
those less fortunate" in nonviolent ways.

Several colleagues describe his ability to pacify volatile situations and 
the value of his mediation skills in a country caught in a massive 
political upheaval.

"I would describe (Kilgore) as a man of deep humanity, ideals and a man 
with sincere concern for others, often to his own detriment," wrote a man 
who taught alongside Kilgore during the early 1980s in a Zimbabwe high 
school that had no electricity. Others praised his commitment to his wife 
and children.

But that was not the man Becky Fischer saw in court Monday.

Fischer was a teller in the Carmichael branch of the Crocker National Bank 
when four masked members of the SLA burst through the front door shortly 
after it opened on April 21, 1975. One of the men - she believes it was 
Kilgore - shoved a pistol in her face, yelling that he would kill her if 
she didn't open her cash drawer quickly.

"Because of your decisions and the actions you took, my mind and my nervous 
system broke down," said Fischer, who was 19 at the time.

Kilgore, dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit and wire-rimmed glasses, 
appeared to recoil and then steel himself against her words, but he looked 
at her as she spoke.

His murder sentence will begin after he serves his 4 1/2-year federal 
prison term.

Additionally, the five convicted SLA members must pay the Opsahl family 
$11,913 in restitution, a sum that is nearly collected, according to 
attorney Stuart Hanlon, who represented Montague in the case.

"Who you see now is who he is," said Hanlon, who believes that for Kilgore 
the SLA period was a tragic aberration. "He's tried to make amends for what 
happened with the way he's led his life."

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Other SLA sentences

Four former Symbionese Liberation Army members were sentenced last year for 
second-degree murder in the killing of Myrna Opsahl during a Carmichael 
bank robbery on April 21, 1975.

William Harris: 7 years - California State Prison, Solano

Michael Bortin: 6 years - Mule Creek State Prison

Emily Montague, aka Emily Harris: 8 years - Valley State Prison for Women

Sara Jane Olson, aka Kathleen Soliah: 6 years - Central California Women's 
Facility

The Freedom Archives
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