Emily Harris

Emily Harris (born February 11, 1947 as Emily Montague Schwartz) was, along with her husband William Harris (1945–), a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), an American left-wing terrorist group involved in murder, kidnapping, and bank robberies. In the 1970s, she was convicted of kidnapping Patty Hearst.

In 2003, she was convicted of murder in the second degree for being the shooter in a 1975 slaying that occurred while she and other SLA members were robbing a bank in California. She was sentenced to eight years in prison for the murder.

Early life

Born in Baltimore, Maryland,Th
FBI poster
gives some biographical details. Place of birth is given as Baltimore, Maryland, although with the note "not supported by birth records" and raised in Clarendon Hills, Illinois, Emily Montague Schwartz was the daughter of Frederick Schwartz, an engineer, and his wife, and had a middle-class upbringing. She graduated from Indiana University with a bachelor's degree in language arts.

Founding the Symbionese Liberation Army

She married William Harris, whom she had met at the university in Bloomington. They moved to Berkeley, California in 1973, traveling with friends Gary Atwood and Angela Atwood. They soon joined a left-wing group organized through the university in Berkeley that, among other things, visited inmates in prisons in northern California. Late that year the Harrises met an escaped prisoner, Donald DeFreeze, who was staying with white leftist activists in Berkeley.

He and Patricia Soltysik, a white woman also called Mizmoon, co-founded what became the Symbionese Liberation Army, a leftist group that promoted joining all the progressive causes. Other founding members were Nancy Ling Perry, Joe Remiro, Russ Little, Willie Wolfe, Angela Atwood, Thero Wheeler, and Camilla Hall.

Emily Harris took the ''nom de guerre'' of Yolanda as an SLA "soldier". On November 6, the SLA committed its first public act, the assassination of popular Oakland, California school superintendent Marcus Foster, the first black superintendent of any major public school system. SLA activists mistakenly thought Foster approved a plan to require student identification cards for Oakland high schools, which they denounced as fascist.

In February 1974 they kidnapped Patty Hearst, the college student heir to the Hearst newspaper chain.

Later SLA and Opsahl murder

After six other SLA members died on May 17, 1974 in a Los Angeles shootout with police and the house fire it triggered, Emily and Bill Harris took over the leadership of the SLA. They spent more than a year eluding the authorities with Hearst, who had joined the SLA, and new members Kathleen Soliah and her boyfriend Jim Kilgore, Soliah's sister Josephine Soliah and her husband Mike Bortin, their brother Steven Soliah, and Wendy Yoshimura.

Hearst had become a participant in SLA crimes. Yoshimura, Patty's closest friend while underground, was a fugitive because explosives had been stored in a garage she rented. During that year the SLA committed a string of crimes, including an April 21, 1975, armed robbery of Crocker National Bank in Carmichael, California.

During the robbery, customer 42-year-old Myrna Opsahl, a mother of four, was shot to death. Opsahl was depositing a church collection at the time. Hearst stated in her 1982 autobiography '' Every Secret Thing'' that Emily Harris was the shooter. Hearst stated that Harris said, "Oh, she's dead, but it doesn't really matter. She was a bourgeois pig anyway. Her husband is a doctor." Other SLA members had urged Harris not to bring the shotgun to the robbery, as it had accidentally discharged twice during preparations.

The Harrises were eventually arrested and served eight years in prison for the Hearst kidnapping. They were represented by attorney Leonard Weinglass. Imprisoned at the California Institution for Women in Corona, California, Emily Harris spent the first half of her term in solitary confinement. Emily learned computer programming in prison.

Life after first prison term

After her release from prison in 1983, Harris became a computer programmer. She began a successful computer consulting company. She worked at MGM Studios until her second conviction. She and her husband divorced.

Opsahl murder charges

For over 25 years no one was charged in the Opsahl murder. The SLA wore wigs and masks during the Crocker Bank robbery, and left little evidence behind.

However, with new forensics techniques, the FBI was eventually able to link shotgun pellets removed from Opsahl's body to shotgun shells found in an SLA hideout. Additional evidence mounted. In January 2002 Harris and three other SLA members were charged with the Opsahl murder. Harris's bail was set at $1,000,000, which her supporters quickly gathered.

Three former SLA members who had been granted immunity – Hearst, Steven Soliah, and Wendy Yoshimura – were set to testify for the prosecution in the Opsahl case.

Facing a possible conviction, Harris and the others pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in November 2002. Emily Harris was sentenced to eight additional years in prison; Bill Harris was sentenced to seven years, and Kathleen Soliah and Michael Bortin were each sentenced to six years for their roles.

Emily Harris was paroled in February 2007 after having served four years in prison.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, Emily
Living people
1947 births
People from Baltimore
Indiana University alumni
American people convicted of murder
American female murderers
American female criminals
Symbionese Liberation Army
20th-century American criminals
Prisoners and detainees of California