Soliah-Olson timeline: Radical, bank robber, mom, inmate

Kathleen Ann Soliah, a fugitive associated with the radical Symbionese Liberation Army, was captured in 1999 after spending two decades living a comfortable life under another name, most of that time in St. Paul.

Soliah, who changed her name to Sara Jane Olson, had been wanted in Los Angeles since 1976, accused of planting pipe bombs under two Los Angeles police cars the previous year.

February 1974 The Symbionese Liberation Army kidnaps Patricia Hearst, a newspaper heiress, and demands that her parents give $2 million in food to the needy. The amount later climbs to $6 million.

May 1974 The SLA leader and five other heavily armed members are killed when they are trapped by police in a house in Los Angeles. The shootout is watched live on television. Two weeks later, Soliah organized and spoke at a Berkeley rally for the SLA.

1975 Pipe bombs are found under two Los Angeles police cars in apparent retaliation for the 1974 shootout with police. The bombs don't explode.

Feb. 26, 1976 Sara Jane Olson is indicted on murder conspiracy and explosives charges for allegedly placing the pipe bombs under the police cars in 1975.

September-October 1976 Olson, under the name Nancy Bennett, appears in two feminist plays in Seattle. She disappears after four performances.

February 1981-September 1982 Olson and her first daughter accompany Peterson to Zimbabwe, where he has been sent by Oxfam to help reestablish rural clinics following the independence war there. Olson teaches English and drama at a secondary school and accompanies her husband on trips into the field.

September 1983-September 1984 While her husband studies at Johns Hopkins University, Olson studies cooking at a culinary arts institute. She graduates with a restaurant skills certificate, but a friend recalls she just wanted "to be a better wife."

June 20, 1998 Olson wins her age group in the Gary Bjorkland Half Marathon in Duluth, finishing in 1 hour, 36 minutes and 39 seconds.

May 1999 The TV show "America's Most Wanted" features Soliah. The FBI offers a $20,000 reward for her on the 25th anniversary of the Los Angeles shootout.

June 16, 1999 Olson is arrested in St. Paul, where she and her family live in an ivy-covered house in the Highland Park neighborhood.

August 1999 Olson legally changes her name from Kathleen Ann Soliah.

September 1999 Trial date set for Jan. 10, 2000.

October 1999 A judge rules that the history of the Symbionese Liberation Army is fair game for prosecutors seeking to convict Olson, saying past crimes attributed to the SLA would be relevant.

December 1999 Olson publishes a 100-page cookbook called "Serving Time: America's Most Wanted Recipes" to raise funds for her defense. She asks that her trial be televised.

May 2000 Trial delayed until Jan. 8, 2001. Patty Hearst violates judge's gag order in case, implicating Olson in a Sacramento-area bank robbery and murder.

January 2001 After President Clinton pardons Hearst, Olson asks district attorney to drop charges against her.

February 2001 Authorities in Sacramento, Calif., say they've reopened their investigation into a fatal 1975 bank robbery that they allege involved Olson and SLA members.

October 2001 Olson pleads guilty in the pipe bomb case, is later sentenced to 14 years in prison.

February 2003 Olson is sentenced to six years in prison for her role in the fatal bank robbery. The other defendants -- SLA cohorts Emily Montague, William Harris and Michael Bortin -- were sentenced to prison terms ranging from six to eight years. In court, Jon Opsahl, the son of the woman killed during the robbery, called the four defendants "monsters" and "a group of pathetic, deranged revolutionaries who simply decided one day to make my mother [Myrna Opsahl] instantly and permanently expendable."

March 17 Olson is released from prison.