Nancy Ling Perry (September 19, 1947 – May 17, 1974, born Nancy Ling) was also known as Nancy Devoto, Lynn Ledworth, and Fahizah while a founding member of the

Symbionese Liberation Army The United Federated Forces of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) was a small, American far-left organization active between 1973 and 1975; it claimed to be a vanguard movement. The FBI and American law enforcement considered the SLA to be the ...

(SLA), a small leftist terrorist group based in northern California. Considered one of its chief theorists and activists, she died in a shootout with the

Los Angeles Police Department The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), officially known as the City of Los Angeles Police Department, is the municipal police department of Los Angeles, California. With 9,974 police officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the third-large ...

at an SLA safehouse in that city.

Background

Nancy Ling was born in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

in 1947 to an upper-middle-class family. She attended Montgomery High School in Santa Rosa, where she was a cheerleader. She also served as a Sunday school teacher at her church. In 1964, while in high school, she was a campaign worker for

Barry Goldwater Barry Morris Goldwater (January 2, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was an American politician and United States Air Force officer who was a five-term U.S. Senator from Arizona (1953–1965, 1969–1987) and the Republican Party nominee for presiden ...

. While in high school, Ling was also involved in

Job's Daughters Job's Daughters International is a Masonic affiliated youth organization for girls and young women aged 10 to 20. The organization is commonly referred to as simply Job's Daughters or Jobies, and sometimes abbreviated as JDI (or IOJD, referring to ...

(Bethel #16) and served as their Honored Queen. She began university at

Whittier College Whittier College (Whittier Academy (1887–1901)) is a private liberal arts college in Whittier, California. It is a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) and, as of fall 2022, had approximately 1,300 (undergraduate and graduate) students. It was ...

. After a few semesters at Whittier, however, she transferred to the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. At Berkeley she majored in English. Ling met black jazz musician Gilbert Perry when he was working for a state employment office, and the couple were married December 26, 1967. Married for six years, they had a relationship described as a "love-hate affair". It ended when Gilbert left Nancy, but she remained deeply interested in black culture. Retaining her married name, Ling Perry worked as a topless blackjack dealer in San Francisco. During this period, she was deeply involved in using

psychedelic drugs Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary states of consciousness (known as psychedelic experiences or "trips").Pollan, Michael (2018). ''How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of ...

and

amphetamines Substituted amphetamines are a class of compounds based upon the amphetamine structure; it includes all derivative compounds which are formed by replacing, or substituting, one or more hydrogen atoms in the amphetamine core structure with sub ...

Symbionese Liberation Army

Perry became politically active and joined other students serving in a university-sponsored prisoner outreach program through the

Black Cultural Association The Black Cultural Association (BCA) was an African-American inmate group founded in 1968 at the California Medical Facility at Vacaville, a California state prison, and formally recognized by prison officials in 1969. The primary purpose of the B ...

(BCA) at

Vacaville Prison Two prisons are located in Vacaville, California, United States: * California Medical Facility (CMF) () * California State Prison, Solano () These two prisons are located together at the base of several hills on the outskirts of Vacaville. These ...

. The program was organized by

Colston Westbrook Colston Richard Westbrook (1937–1989) was an American teacher and linguist who worked in the fields of minority education and literacy. At the University of California, Berkeley, he established a program of prison outreach and approved students ...

, a professor at

. At Vacaville, Perry formed a relationship with black inmate

Donald DeFreeze Donald David DeFreeze (November 16, 1943 – May 17, 1974), also known as Cinque Mtume and using the nom de guerre "General Field Marshal Cinque", was known as the "spokesman" of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), a small, American far-left gro ...

, who was active at the prison. He was given permission to see her in

conjugal Conjugal rights may refer to: *Rights in marriage, related to conjugal responsibilities *Conjugal visits * Restitution of conjugal rights In English law, restitution of conjugal rights was an action in the ecclesiastical courts and later in the Cou ...

visits. This was unusual, as authorities generally authorized such visits only for married couples. DeFreeze was transferred to

Soledad Prison Correctional Training Facility (CTF), commonly referenced as Soledad State Prison, is a state prison located on U.S. Route 101, north of Soledad, California, adjacent to Salinas Valley State Prison. Facilities The institution is divided into ...

for good behavior. He escaped from there in March 1973 and made his way to Oakland, where he contacted Russ Little and some other white associates he had met through the BCA at Vacaville. Little put him in touch with

Patricia Soltysik Patricia Monique Soltysik (May 17, 1950 – May 17, 1974) was an American woman who was best known as a co-founder and activist in the Symbionese Liberation Army, a far-left militant group based in Berkeley and Oakland, California. She participat ...

, and he started living at her apartment. They formed a sexual relationship and were co-founders of what became the

. Perry is also considered a co-founder. Others in the small group were

Thero Wheeler Thero Lavon Wheeler (1945–2009), aka Bruce Bradley while a fugitive (1973-1975), was a founding member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, an American left-wing organization in the San Francisco Bay area. He left the group in October 1973 as he o ...

, a black convict who escaped from Vacaville in August 1973; Chicano

Joe Remiro Joseph Michael Remiro (born 1947) is an American convicted murderer and one of the founding members of the Symbionese Liberation Army in the early fall of 1973. It was an American leftist terrorist group based in the Bay Area of California. He use ...

(classified as white by the ''New York Times''), and

Angela Atwood Angela DeAngelis Atwood (February 6, 1949 – May 17, 1974), also known as General Gelina, was a founding member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), an American terrorist group which kidnapped Patricia Hearst and robbed banks. She was ki ...

, another white woman. They were soon joined by a white married couple,

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 b ...

and her husband

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

. All but DeFreeze, Wheeler and Remiro were white and mostly educated, from middle and upper-class families. With Soltysik, Perry is considered to have been a chief theorist and driver of the SLA. She was the only one to identify publicly as SLA, and wrote a five-page letter to ''

The San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The pa ...

'' in 1974 affirming this. Initially Wheeler and Remiro, a veteran, began training the whites in the use of weapons. None hd any experience with them. Wheeler was increasingly opposed to the radical plans for violence formed by SLA leaders. He believed it was the wrong direction, and withdrew in October 1973 with his heiress girlfriend

Mary Alice Siem Mary Alice Siem was a student at the University of California, Berkeley when she became involved in 1973 with a prisoner outreach program at Vacaville Prison. She became the girlfriend of Thero Wheeler, an inmate who escaped in August 1973. He was ...

. After the two separated, he lived as a fugitive for two years before being apprehended. The SLA first made headlines by claiming credit for the murder on November 6, 1973, of

Marcus Foster Marcus Aurelius Foster (March 31, 1923 – November 6, 1973) was an American educator who gained a national reputation for educational excellence while serving as principal of Simon Gratz High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1966–1969), ...

, Superintendent of

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

Public Schools. He was the first black superintendent of any major urban school system. This act outraged the black community, which had strongly admired him.In a public statement, the unknown group SLA claimed that the bullets used were tipped with the poison

cyanide Cyanide is a naturally occurring, rapidly acting, toxic chemical that can exist in many different forms. In chemistry, a cyanide () is a chemical compound that contains a functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of ...

. This was confirmed by the city coroner and the police realized they had a new group to monitor. Perry narrowly avoided arrest a few days later on November 11. A

serial rapist A serial rapist is someone who commits multiple rapes, whether with multiple victims or a single victim repeatedly over a period of time. Some serial rapists target children. The terms ''sexual predator'', ''repeat rape'' and ''multiple offending ...

appeared at the front door of her house and attempted to assault her. She stopped this and talked to police on the front lawn after they were alerted by neighbors. She avoided police entering her house and finding the many SLA materials inside. The rapist was later apprehended. In an effort to evade police attention after the attack on Foster and his deputy, Perry rented a house for the SLA under a false name in

Concord, California Concord ( ) is the largest city in Contra Costa County, California. According to an estimate completed by the United States Census Bureau, the city had a population of 129,295 in 2019 making it the eighth largest city in the San Francisco Ba ...

, east of the Berkeley hills. Little and Remiro were stopped in that area in early January 1974 by police and exchanged shots with them. They were both arrested. In an effort to destroy evidence linked to the SLA, Perry set the house on fire and fled. But the fire was discovered and put out, and police found numerous documents, illegal weapons, lists of target public figures, and other materials connected to the SLA. Little and Remiro were both charged and convicted of the murder of Foster and wounding of his deputy. They were sentenced to prison and assigned to

San Quentin San Quentin State Prison (SQ) is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in Marin County. Opened in July 1852, San Quentin is the o ...

. Little's conviction was overturned on appeal, but Remiro remained in prison in 2023, the only member of the SLA still incarcerated. Parole has been repeatedly denied. During the next several months, the SLA undertook increasingly risky actions, including kidnapping heiress

Patty Hearst Patricia Campbell Hearst (born February 20, 1954) is the granddaughter of American publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst. She first became known for the events following her 1974 kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army. She was found a ...

in February. In April they conducted an armed robbery of a bank. By this time Hearst had publicly declared she had joined the SLA; she was filmed in videos at the bank brandishing an assault weapon. In May 1974 Nancy Ling Perry, DeFreeze,

and two other founding members of the SLA had taken refuge at a safe house in south central Los Angeles, at 1466 East 54th Street. On May 17, 1974, the

surrounded the house with a SWAT team and a shootout began. The house accidentally caught on fire. and the group hid in a crawlspace. As the hideout burned, Perry and SLA member

Camilla Hall Camilla Christine Hall (March 24, 1945 – May 17, 1974) was an American artist, college-trained former social worker, and a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). She is best known for her membership in the SLA, a very small radical gro ...

exited the house. Police claimed that Perry was the first to come out. When police ordered her to freeze, Perry turned and began firing a revolver; police fatally shot her in response. Perry was shot twice; one shot hit her right lung, the other shot severed her spine. Camilla Hall emerged after Perry, and police said she was brandishing a pistol. She was fatally shot once in the forehead.

pulled Hall's body back inside the house. Investigators working for Perry's parents later claimed that Perry had left the house intending to surrender.Bryan, John
''This Soldier Still at War''
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975. . DeFreeze committed suicide by gunshot in the house as the fire raged. Soltysik and Atwood also died in the house.

Background

Symbionese Liberation Army

References

Further reading