Last SLA Fugitive Pleads Guilty to Federal Charges

Political dissident James William Kilgore became the last of five aging former Symbionese Liberation Army members to finally face justice when he pleaded guilty here Friday to federal explosives and passport fraud charges.

A bespectacled, gray-haired Kilgore ended a quarter-century on the run with a brief statement admitting the possession of a 12-inch pipe bomb found in his Daly City apartment in 1975. He also acknowledged that during his years eluding authorities, he made false statements to obtain a U.S. passport.

The 55-year-old Bay Area native is a former member of the 1970s revolutionary gang responsible for at least two killings, a rash of bomb attacks and the kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst.

In December, Kilgore was extradited from Cape Town, South Africa, where he had created a life as a college professor and lived under the alias Charles William Pape.

He faces 10 years for the bomb charge, plus five years and a $250,000 fine for using the birth certificate of a dead child to obtain a passport in Seattle under a false name, according to court documents.

Kilgore also faces charges in Sacramento as a participant in the robbery of a suburban bank that ended in the shotgun killing of Myrna Opsahl, a 42-year-old mother of four.

For their part in Opsahl’s death, four other former members of the radical group were sentenced last week to between six and eight years in prison for second-degree murder. At the sentencing, Opsahl’s son Jon referred to the group as “pathetic, deranged revolutionaries.”

Emily Montague, 56, who admitted accidentally killing Opsahl, received eight years. Her ex-husband, William Harris, 58, the admitted leader of the group, was given seven years. Michael Bortin, 54, and Sara Jane Olson were both sentenced to six years behind bars.

After Kilgore’s guilty plea Friday before Chief Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, prosecutors referred to the group as terrorists and warned that similar acts of violence, no matter how long ago committed, will not be forgotten by authorities.

U.S. Atty. Kevin V. Ryan reiterated in a prepared statement the government’s “commitment to bringing terrorists, be they domestic or foreign, to justice. We will never forget their acts, and the passage of time will not diminish our resolve or our vigilance.”Kilgore was offered no plea bargain and instead pleaded guilty to all charges, according to the news release. He will remain in custody without bail until his sentencing, which is scheduled for June 30.

Kilgore was raised in Marin County and graduated from UC Santa Barbara in 1969 before joining the radical group. Court documents allege that he helped plan several SLA bombings in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area, including the Marin County Civic Center.

Authorities say Kilgore later helped write a communique to police taking responsibility for several bomb attacks. The letter read, in part, that “the next bomb may be under the seat of your car” and concluded with the exclamation: “Death to the Fascist Insect that Preys on the Life of the People,” documents allege.

After fleeing the United States in 1975, Kilgore taught school in Zimbabwe and earned a doctorate through correspondence courses.

He spent several years as a neo-Marxist researcher and activist. He was teaching at the University of Cape Town when he was finally hunted down.