Bill Harris, a prominent member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) who played a role in the 1974 kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst, died of a heart attack on September 10 at a San Francisco hospital. He was 81.
Born in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, Harris served in the Marines before attending Indiana University. There, he became involved with Vietnam Veterans Against the War and moved toward radical politics. He later moved to the San Francisco Bay Area with his then-wife, Emily Schwartz, where they joined the SLA, a far-left group known for its violent activities.
The SLA gained national attention in February 1974 when Harris and two other members abducted Patricia Hearst, then 19, from her Berkeley, California apartment. Hearst, a granddaughter of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, was held captive for weeks. The group initially called her a "prisoner of war" and later demanded her family finance a food giveaway program for the poor. Harris stated that Hearst was a "symbolic target" whose family controlled a media empire he viewed as propaganda.
During her captivity, Hearst appeared in photos with an SLA rifle and recorded an audiotape denouncing her family and the establishment, adopting the name "Tania." She later participated in SLA bank robberies, including one at Hibernia Bank in San Francisco. Hearst claimed she was coerced into joining the group, a contention Harris disputed.
The SLA's activities led to a violent confrontation with law enforcement. In May 1974, an attempted ammunition theft by Harris and his wife led police to an SLA safe house in Los Angeles. A subsequent shootout and fire at the safe house resulted in the deaths of six SLA members, including leader Donald DeFreeze.
In April 1975, during another SLA bank robbery at Crocker National Bank near Sacramento, Myrna Opsahl, a 42-year-old mother of four, was killed. Harris and his ex-wife, Emily Harris, were arrested in San Francisco in September 1975 along with Patricia Hearst.
Bill Harris and Emily Harris served approximately eight years in prison for the kidnapping before their release in the early 1980s. Patricia Hearst was convicted of armed bank robbery in 1976, but her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 and later pardoned by President Bill Clinton.
More than 25 years after Opsahl's death, Bill Harris, Emily Harris, and other former SLA members pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2002. At his 2003 sentencing, Harris apologized to Opsahl's family and received a seven-year sentence, serving about four years. He reflected on the nature of revolution, stating, "If you do something and you succeed, then you’re a revolutionary of high quality and you get to be George Washington, the father of the country. But if you challenge power and you’re rubbed out, you’re in the trash bin of history."
After his release from prison, Harris worked as a private investigator. He remarried Rebecca Young, a defense lawyer, and they raised two sons. Harris is survived by his wife and sons, Cody and Shane.