Middle-Aged Radicals, Plucked from Suburbia

How shotgun pellets from a 1975 killing aided a new roundup of ex-S.L.A. figures

On Jon Opsahl's website there is a photograph of his mother Myrna. She wears a sensible bob and a dimpled smile. Her gingham blouse is buttoned all the way to the top. The grainy black-and-white image is a throwback to an earlier time. But her son's words running beside it are both clear and current: "We know who was there when she was shotgunned to death... Twenty-six years is long enough to have waited."

That wait finally ended last Wednesday, when police charged five former figures in the Symbionese Liberation Army, a violent band of '70s radicals, with the murder of...

Want the full story?

Subscribe Now

Subscribe
Subscribe

Learn more about the benefits of being a TIME subscriber

If you are already a subscriber sign up — registration is free!