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Speaker 2: This is a rip Current bonus episode. You don't need
Speaker 2: to listen to follow the Rip Current storyline, but it
Speaker 2: provides more information, context, and analysis to enhance the main podcast. Enjoy.
Speaker 3: To get an overview of the Symbionese Liberation Army's brief history,
Speaker 3: I spoke with Rachel Hannell, author of the book Not
Speaker 3: the Camilla We Knew One woman's path from small town
Speaker 3: America to the Symbionese Liberation Army. We talked about the
Speaker 3: group's formation, the internal dynamics, and the fierce and tragic
Speaker 3: gunfight in Los Angeles.
Speaker 4: The last days of the SLA will be covered in
Speaker 4: episode eleven of the main podcast.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: I'm Rachel Hannel. I'm a writer and I also teach
Speaker 2: creative nonfiction at Minnesota State University, Mankato.
Speaker 4: What's got you interested in writing a book about Camillo Hall.
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So I'm a history person. I have an undergraduate degree
Speaker 2: in history as well as a master's degree in history,
Speaker 2: and when I was working on my master's degree. This
Speaker 2: was back in nineteen ninety nine. There was a major
Speaker 2: story here in Minnesota, and it actually was national as well,
Speaker 2: where a woman named Sarah Jane Olsen was arrested in
Speaker 2: Saint Paul.
Speaker 5: And here it.
Speaker 2: Turned out that she had been in hiding for twenty
Speaker 2: four years and she had been a member of the
Speaker 2: Symbionese Liberation Army. And this was a huge story because
Speaker 2: she was living just kind of this quote unquote normal,
Speaker 2: quiet life. Her husband was a doctor, she was a volunteer,
Speaker 2: they were raising three children. She was actually pretty active
Speaker 2: in her community. So when the arrest happened, it was
Speaker 2: really huge news. And alongside one of the main news stories,
Speaker 2: there was a smaller story about the SLA to remind
Speaker 2: people what the SLA was. And there was a little
Speaker 2: picture of Camilla Hall next to that article. And Kamilla
Speaker 2: Hall was from Saint Peter, Minnesota, and I'm from Mankato, Minnesota.
Speaker 2: And Camilla had been a member of the SLA, and
Speaker 2: she was killed in a shootout with police in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy four with five other SLA members. But I was
Speaker 2: really struck by her picture because she looked just again,
Speaker 2: quote unquote normal her dad had been a pastor and
Speaker 2: a theology professor, and I had never heard of her,
Speaker 2: and so that was really the surprising thing to me,
Speaker 2: where a woman from small town Minnesota had gotten caught
Speaker 2: up in this what we would call a domestic terrorist
Speaker 2: organization out in the Bay Area, and I just wanted
Speaker 2: to know how did that happen? And so that really
Speaker 2: sent me down a rabbit hole.
Speaker 4: What was her sort of first content tackt with anybody
Speaker 4: that would lead eventually to the SLA.
Speaker 2: Yes, so Camilla moved to California in nineteen seventy originally
Speaker 2: to Los Angeles, and the next year she ended up
Speaker 2: in Berkeley. And so it was right away when she
Speaker 2: moved to Berkeley, she moved to an apartment on Channing Way,
Speaker 2: and there was a young woman in a neighboring apartment
Speaker 2: named Patricia soul To Sick, and so those two became
Speaker 2: fast friends, and they quickly became lovers as well. And
Speaker 2: it was really Patricia soul To Sick who was the
Speaker 2: main architect of the SLA. So once the SLA started
Speaker 2: really performing in nineteen seventy three, by late nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 2: Camilla was in the fold.
Speaker 4: So a character who's I think is really interesting, who
Speaker 4: I don't have in the main podcast at all is
Speaker 4: Colston Westbrook and the program that he was running in Vacaville.
Speaker 4: Can you talk about that a little bit?
Speaker 2: What I will say is that Westbrook is a really
Speaker 2: fascinating character, and I think there's a lot of mystery
Speaker 2: surrounding him. I think maybe his full story is not
Speaker 2: known or people aren't talking. So there's some speculation that
Speaker 2: he had worked for a company that was in Vietnam
Speaker 2: during the war doing something. I'm really sure if it
Speaker 2: was some kind of CIA mission.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: Again, it's all very mysterious. But he comes back to
Speaker 2: the States and is organizing these groups and prisons, which
Speaker 2: again kind of on paper, you know, this is good,
Speaker 2: like any kind of education or any community orientation in
Speaker 2: prisons would be a good thing. But there is definitely
Speaker 2: speculation because of his kind of mysterious background. Was he
Speaker 2: a plant of the government?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 2: Was he put into prisons to kind of like discredit
Speaker 2: the far left, or to kind of rile things up
Speaker 2: so they could be discredited for to kind of spy
Speaker 2: on what's going on in the prisons. Again, a whole
Speaker 2: lot isn't known. You have like the official story, and
Speaker 2: then you have kind of all of these conspiracy theories
Speaker 2: that go along with him.
Speaker 4: And so is his program which was where Defreese met
Speaker 4: Willie Wolf and I think Russell Little is that is
Speaker 4: that correct?
Speaker 5: Yeah? Several on them.
Speaker 2: I think the Harrises were also in those prison groups
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 4: So what is their sort of first activity.
Speaker 2: So the SLA is forming in early nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 2: and so they're writing manifestos, they're writing these guiding principles
Speaker 2: and again on paper, you know, it looks good like
Speaker 2: they want equality, and they want less division between rich
Speaker 2: and poor, and they want a racial harmony and gender
Speaker 2: equity like all of these things that we would say, yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: you know that sounds good. But they definitely had the
Speaker 2: more militaristic view like if this can't happen through kind
Speaker 2: of regulated channels, then we are willing to take up
Speaker 2: arms and basically have a revolution to fight for these things.
Speaker 2: So their first main action was in November nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 2: and they killed the Oakland School superintendent Marcus Foster and
Speaker 2: they seriously injured his deputy superintendent, Robert Blackburn, and the
Speaker 2: thing was though Foster was a black man, he had
Speaker 2: come from Philadelphia, he had done great things for the
Speaker 2: Philadelphia School District, came to Oakland doing great things for
Speaker 2: the Oakland School District, like really turning these districts around
Speaker 2: to have a lot of student success. So right away,
Speaker 2: I mean from the very beginning, almost everyone after this
Speaker 2: happened is saying, what the heck, what are you doing? Like,
Speaker 2: by all accounts, this guy is doing really great things.
Speaker 2: And plus he's black. You know, if you want racial harmony,
Speaker 2: this is not going to be the way to do it.
Speaker 2: So it was a really kind of bizarre first move
Speaker 2: that the SLA undertook.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's sort of connected to some sort of
Speaker 4: conspiracy theories that Dufreeze had about like a central database
Speaker 4: that was going to get information from kids because of
Speaker 4: their ID cards.
Speaker 2: That was exactly it. There was a talk in some circles,
Speaker 2: and you know, there were people at school board meetings
Speaker 2: because they were really curious about this program. That it
Speaker 2: did seem that Foster wanted to implement a student identification program,
Speaker 2: mostly because there had been violence on school district property
Speaker 2: perpetuated by people who were not students, you know, So
Speaker 2: it was kind of like, hey, we just want to know,
Speaker 2: like you're going to be on school property, we need
Speaker 2: to know that you are actually part of this school,
Speaker 2: so let's give you a badge. So it was kind
Speaker 2: of more for safety measures. But yes, there was a
Speaker 2: small population that said, oh, you're just going to feed
Speaker 2: these students and their pictures into these databases and they
Speaker 2: might be troubled students. And so they really saw the
Speaker 2: quote unquote school to prison pipeline is what they thought
Speaker 2: of this plan.
Speaker 4: So they claim responsibility for the killing, right, and then
Speaker 4: so how does that kind of change, you know, their situation.
Speaker 2: Well before the murder of Foster, again just kind of
Speaker 2: through their manifestos and communicats, you know, I think they
Speaker 2: could have gotten maybe decent support, not a ton of support.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's still very militaristic, but you know, we
Speaker 2: are in the Bay area that is really quite left
Speaker 2: of center. But as soon as they murdered Foster, there
Speaker 2: was hardly any support whatsoever to be found. And the
Speaker 2: group's really tiny at this point to maybe ten people
Speaker 2: that are part of the SLA. So if they really
Speaker 2: did want to have a revolution and an army, you're
Speaker 2: not going to do that with ten people, but after
Speaker 2: they kill Foster, nobody wants to sign up to be
Speaker 2: a part of this group.
Speaker 4: So sort of the next sort of beat in their
Speaker 4: story is that the arrest of Ramiro and Little, or
Speaker 4: is that the bank.
Speaker 2: It would be the arrest of Ramiro in Little. So
Speaker 2: in January nineteen seventy four, there's traffic stop and Russ
Speaker 2: Little and Joe Ramiro are in a car or a
Speaker 2: van and it's the middle of the night, so the
Speaker 2: police officer is pretty suspicious what's going on. I think
Speaker 2: one of them gives a false ID, and I can't
Speaker 2: remember if they search the vehicle or what happens, but
Speaker 2: they find a gun and then that gun is linked
Speaker 2: to the Foster murder, and so Little and Ramiro are
Speaker 2: arrested right there where it gets back to the safe
Speaker 2: house where the SLA had been staying, so they have
Speaker 2: to abandon that safe house right away. So basically anybody
Speaker 2: who's part of the ESLA at this point is going underground.
Speaker 4: So what's going on with Camilla Hall at this point?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So Camilla's only entry into this group is through
Speaker 2: Patricia Souldasik, who later changed her name to Miss Moon.
Speaker 2: So people might remember that name. By all accounts, it's sketchy.
Speaker 2: In terms of documentation, Camilla is dead. Anybody who knew
Speaker 2: her well is dead. So as far as when she
Speaker 2: actually became part of the group little mysterious. But as
Speaker 2: far as what I can tell, she was not part
Speaker 2: of the group during the Foster murder and a couple
Speaker 2: of other people who would eventually be members. There was
Speaker 2: a meeting on New Year's Eve in nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 2: and it looks at that point the SLA really coalesced,
Speaker 2: and I believe, as far as I can tell, that's
Speaker 2: when Camilla says, Okay, I'm all in. Because then two
Speaker 2: days later, on January second, she buys a gun.
Speaker 4: That was an interesting scene actually in the book. Yeah,
Speaker 4: she goes in and the guy is selling guns. Is
Speaker 4: like trying to process like this young single woman coming
Speaker 4: in to buy a gun without like a man at
Speaker 4: her side and stuff.
Speaker 2: Exactly when you think about it, you know, you think
Speaker 2: of gun shops in the seventies, I mean even today, right,
Speaker 2: I don't think a lot of single women are marching
Speaker 2: in the guns shops and signing up to get guns.
Speaker 4: So at what point do they decide and why to
Speaker 4: kidnap Patty Hurst.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the kidnapping, like a general plan to kidnap
Speaker 2: someone does seem to have been a conversation in the
Speaker 2: months leading up to the actual kidnapping in those prison groups,
Speaker 2: just in terms of attention and in terms of possible
Speaker 2: you know, monetary gain by kidnapping somebody who has some wealth.
Speaker 5: So it looks like there.
Speaker 2: Was a fairly lengthy list of people who were possible
Speaker 2: targets for kidnapping when Ramiro and Little were arrested in
Speaker 2: January and police could get into the house after everyone
Speaker 2: had fled, that's where they're finding these lists, and it
Speaker 2: looks like Hurst was on that list and some other people.
Speaker 2: Strangely enough, I don't know why, but nobody who was
Speaker 2: on that list was notified that they might be a
Speaker 2: potential kidnapping target. So something got lost in translation there.
Speaker 5: But as far.
Speaker 2: As why Hurst, the group is starting to kind of
Speaker 2: scope out her residence. You know, she's living with her fiancee.
Speaker 2: They're just in this regular apartment in Berkeley. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: she's very wealthy, but it's not like she's ensconced in
Speaker 2: some gated mansion or anything like that. So she's very accessible,
Speaker 2: and she's very young too, right, So I'm sure that
Speaker 2: all of those factors combined is why they thought, Okay,
Speaker 2: let's make her armin target.
Speaker 4: So they kidnap Patty Hurst and they take her to
Speaker 4: a safe house and they put her in a closet.
Speaker 4: So do you have a sense how that affected the
Speaker 4: dynamics within the group now that they have high profile
Speaker 4: hostage and then be you know, suddenly the entire country
Speaker 4: is paying attention to them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that stealed their fate, right, nobody's going
Speaker 2: anywhere at those points. I mean, if you're in the SLA,
Speaker 2: you are in hiding. With the exception of Camilla again,
Speaker 2: because she really wasn't connected to the other people in
Speaker 2: the group, She's the last one to go around, so
Speaker 2: she manages to stay above ground about three weeks after
Speaker 2: the kidnapping, by the time the FBI is finally closing
Speaker 2: in on acquaintances. But yeah, they're not going anywhere. They
Speaker 2: certainly have to be very very careful. Now, how are
Speaker 2: they going.
Speaker 5: To get supplies?
Speaker 2: They moved around a lot, so anytime they felt like,
Speaker 2: oh this safe house, you know, we feel like we're
Speaker 2: under target here, you know, let's pick up and let's
Speaker 2: move to another one. So it was just a matter
Speaker 2: of just consistently kind of having to scurry from place
Speaker 2: to place.
Speaker 4: I mean. The next sort of public action, that's a
Speaker 4: Hibernia bank right, yes, yes, can you talk about that
Speaker 4: a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So they need money, so they decide to conduct
Speaker 2: a bank robber. So this is April fifteenth, nineteen seventy four,
Speaker 2: about two and a half months after the kidnapping. A
Speaker 2: couple of weeks before this, though, is when we get
Speaker 2: the famous message from Patty Hurst herself and the famous
Speaker 2: photograph of her holding a machine gun in front of
Speaker 2: the SLA flag that says, I'm a member of the SLA.
Speaker 2: My name is Tanya. They told me I could leave.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to leave. I've decided to stay and fight.
Speaker 2: So by the time they do the bank robbery, Hurst
Speaker 2: is by all accounts a member of the SLA, and
Speaker 2: indeed she is in the bank. We can see the
Speaker 2: surveillance tapes from that day and she's holding her machine
Speaker 2: gun right there in the bank. So five members had
Speaker 2: gone into the bank, they got about ten thousand dollars,
Speaker 2: and the four other members were outside in a getaway car,
Speaker 2: and so it all happened very very quickly, but they
Speaker 2: were able to escape and nobody caught them right away.
Speaker 4: After this, I think is when they start of split
Speaker 4: up into three different like quote unquote cells. I guess
Speaker 4: I thought that was kind of an interesting little insight
Speaker 4: into the interpersonal dynamics that were going on there. Can
Speaker 4: you talk about that a little bit?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's all just so strange, you know
Speaker 2: that it's nine people living in one apartment and they're
Speaker 2: never leaving.
Speaker 5: They're never going out, you know. So if we think
Speaker 5: of the.
Speaker 2: COVID lockdowns and how terrible that was, I mean, this
Speaker 2: is just like that on steroids, to think of you're
Speaker 2: never leaving anywhere, and so yeah, I think about that
Speaker 2: a lot. Kind of the group dynamics group psychology, so
Speaker 2: kind of in terms of like military tactics, they decide
Speaker 2: to split into three different cells of three people just
Speaker 2: to move around a little bit, you know, differently, especially
Speaker 2: as they have to move from place to place instead
Speaker 2: of all nine of them being together, they kind of
Speaker 2: do this separation. So there was a little controversy there
Speaker 2: because Patty Hurst was considered a week member and Camilla
Speaker 2: was considered a week member.
Speaker 5: So it's like nobody wanted them on their teams.
Speaker 2: But somehow it had to work out that way, so
Speaker 2: they were able to find their places.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they were both on Bill Harris's team, and then
Speaker 4: Bill Harris was angry that he wasn't with Emily, so
Speaker 4: they basically traded.
Speaker 2: Yes, Bill did not want both Patty and Camilla, but
Speaker 2: the idea was, well, you didn't want the husband and
Speaker 2: wife together because you weren't supposed to have those kind
Speaker 2: of relationships. But he went out yes, and so it
Speaker 2: was he and Emily and Patty and that.
Speaker 4: Sort of you know, foreshadows later events, what's important that
Speaker 4: happens next or between this and then when they go
Speaker 4: to La.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's relatively quiet for them in the Bay Area
Speaker 2: right after the bank robbery, but they are feeling very,
Speaker 2: very pressured and they're getting increasingly paranoid. So anytime they
Speaker 2: see a police car, anytime they hear helicopters, and for
Speaker 2: a while I think they're in East Oakland where there
Speaker 2: was a pretty major police presence on a daily basis. Anyway,
Speaker 2: they're always hearing sirens and they're always hearing helicopters, so
Speaker 2: they're getting very very paranoid. I'm not sure how close
Speaker 2: the FBI was to getting them at this point, but
Speaker 2: they really felt like something was going to happen, and
Speaker 2: so they decide to leave the Bay Area and go
Speaker 2: to Los Angeles because Donald Deafries had spent years in
Speaker 2: LA so they feel like he's familiar with that city,
Speaker 2: all right, So they.
Speaker 4: Go to Los Angeles. Why aren't the Harrises and Patty
Speaker 4: Hurst with the rest of the group when the shootout happens.
Speaker 2: So they do go to LA in the three separate vehicles,
Speaker 2: but then they all get to the same place when
Speaker 2: they're looking for a place to rent where on May sixteenth,
Speaker 2: Now it's determined that they need some supplies, so one
Speaker 2: of the groups has to go get supplied, and so
Speaker 2: that task is given to the Harrises and Patty Hurst.
Speaker 2: So the other six are remaining in the house that
Speaker 2: they found in south central LA to hide out, and
Speaker 2: the Harris is in Hirst going to a sporting goods
Speaker 2: store to get some supplies, and.
Speaker 4: That being a fairly fraught shopping.
Speaker 5: Expedition, it sure does.
Speaker 2: So they're going to get supplies and they are buying everything.
Speaker 2: They're going through the checkout line. For some reason, Bill
Speaker 2: Harris decides to put a pair of socks in his
Speaker 2: shirt to steal them, you know, like a dollar pair
Speaker 2: of socks, and the clerk sees them. I think the
Speaker 2: clerk has a gun. So the clerk decides to chase
Speaker 2: them out of the store and confront Harris, and Harris
Speaker 2: has his gun, and so there's a scuffle, and Patty
Speaker 2: Hurst is in the van watching this whole thing. While
Speaker 2: she said she's been trained to step in, you know,
Speaker 2: if she sees any trouble for a member, and so
Speaker 2: she starts to shoot at the scuffling pair. Paris manages
Speaker 2: to get away, get into the van, and the van.
Speaker 4: Takes off, all right. So while this is going on
Speaker 4: at the safe house which they found, which is actually
Speaker 4: they sort of pick it almost randomly. It's because it
Speaker 4: has its lights on way way in the wee hours
Speaker 4: of the morning. What's going on there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the rest of the group is at this
Speaker 2: safe house, the Harris's and hearst are in this van. Well,
Speaker 2: they have to get rid of the van because everybody
Speaker 2: witnesses have seen this van. So they get rid of
Speaker 2: that van. They hijack another car to take but in
Speaker 2: the van. When the police get to the van and
Speaker 2: look through it, there's parking ticket. And so that's how
Speaker 2: the police are able to get to where the other
Speaker 2: six SLA members are hiding out.
Speaker 4: It's all about the details.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, the police kind of figure out, oh,
Speaker 2: here's where the SLA is, they start to close in.
Speaker 2: They're trying to be quiet about it because they want
Speaker 2: to kind of sneak up on the SLA. But slowly
Speaker 2: there's more and more police present. The people who are
Speaker 2: living in the area, they know something's going on. Houses
Speaker 2: nearby are like quietly being evacuated. They're setting up the
Speaker 2: perimeters to take out the people in the house. And
Speaker 2: so it ends up being over four hundred police officers
Speaker 2: are on the scene, including what had been a fairly
Speaker 2: newly established SWAT team. So you have the tactical police
Speaker 2: officers here too to take on the six people who
Speaker 2: are in the house.
Speaker 4: And what sort of is the culmination of this encounter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, I mean all we have for the official
Speaker 2: record is the police report, and so that the police
Speaker 2: report says that the SLA started to shoot. Then the
Speaker 2: police throw some tear gas into the house, there's shooting
Speaker 2: there's about forty minutes of shooting, of back and forth shooting.
Speaker 2: The tear gas is you know, kind of catching fire
Speaker 2: in the house, and so quickly there's this inferno. And yeah,
Speaker 2: it was just completely wild.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: It was just kind of a stunning show of force
Speaker 2: and just a really horrendous way for these six people
Speaker 2: to die.
Speaker 4: It's interesting that that. I guess it's just because there
Speaker 4: they were on the liberal side of things. But that's
Speaker 4: not part of the litany of sort of government overreach
Speaker 4: in you know, it doesn't fall in the you know,
Speaker 4: Branch Davidians or Ruby Ridge or any of that stuff.
Speaker 4: It sort of it seems like it sort of exists
Speaker 4: outside that. Yeah, and I guess it must just be ideological.
Speaker 4: I haven't really thought about it that much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and I really compare it to you know,
Speaker 2: like friend Fred Hampton, you know, how the guy was
Speaker 2: just you know, they were not going to let this
Speaker 2: guy live, you know, because he was he was such
Speaker 2: a firebrand and people loved him and he was so
Speaker 2: charismatic that they thought, wow, this guy could be a
Speaker 2: real danger to our you know, existing systems. And I
Speaker 2: think that's definitely how they viewed the SLA too, Like,
Speaker 2: no way were we going to let this group continue on,
Speaker 2: you know, with their militant revolutionary talk. We got to
Speaker 2: take them out.
Speaker 4: So Camilla Hall, she wasn't found for a couple of
Speaker 4: days after the shootout.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. So apparently she comes out of the house,
Speaker 2: you know. Some reports will say she came out to surrender.
Speaker 2: The official police report says that she was shooting at
Speaker 2: officers when she came out, So she was shot at.
Speaker 2: Somebody inside of the house grabbed her body and dragged
Speaker 2: it back inside. And these houses they didn't have full basements,
Speaker 2: but they had like crawl spaces, so Camilla's body is
Speaker 2: in a crawl space. So yes, when police can finally
Speaker 2: get on the scene after everything's said and done, the
Speaker 2: five bodies they find right away are just kind of
Speaker 2: right there, you know, like on that mean level. And
Speaker 2: they didn't find a six body. So yeah, it was
Speaker 2: a couple of days before they found Camilla's body.
Speaker 4: So it says that she'd been killed by a police
Speaker 4: gunfire or what she wounded.
Speaker 2: And then yeah, I think she was killed right away.
Speaker 2: It seemed like that they were able to shoot her
Speaker 2: right away in the head and I realized.
Speaker 4: We're starting to get outside the scope of the book
Speaker 4: a little bit. But what happens to the SLA after
Speaker 4: the LA shootout?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so basically there's three members left of the SLA
Speaker 2: after the shootout. You have the Harrises and you have Hers.
Speaker 2: So they want to keep.
Speaker 5: Going and they need help.
Speaker 2: So they get back to the Bay Area and they
Speaker 2: do find some people who were sympathetic to their cause,
Speaker 2: and you know, maybe they even knew them before all
Speaker 2: of this, but they weren't official members of the SLA.
Speaker 2: So now they're kind of going to like, hey, who
Speaker 2: can help us? Who can help us?
Speaker 5: And so they do manage to reform with a few
Speaker 5: new members.
Speaker 4: And then the Harrises and Patty sort of go on
Speaker 4: the lamb in Pennsylvania at a farmhouse.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they cross the country like two different times.
Speaker 2: I mean, they are on the move, but there is
Speaker 2: a period of time that they are yep, at a
Speaker 2: Pennsylvania farmhouse. It's the three of them, and I believe
Speaker 2: it's Wendy Yeshimura is the fourth one, who are living
Speaker 2: in this farmhouse for like three months or something like that.
Speaker 4: And then they go back. They end up eventually sort
Speaker 4: of leaving Pennsylvania, they go back to the Bay Area
Speaker 4: and that's where they're finally apprehended, and strangely it happens
Speaker 4: in between the two assassination attempts.
Speaker 2: It's a wild time. I mean, I just keep thinking
Speaker 2: of the seventies and especially in California, just I mean,
Speaker 2: we live in weird times now, but also that must
Speaker 2: have been very weird time to live through.
Speaker 4: In the end, sort of what did you or kind
Speaker 4: of your conclusions about Camilla Hall and her whole part
Speaker 4: in this very brief but violent and high profile existence
Speaker 4: of the SLA.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, one thing that this really made me
Speaker 2: realize or think more about is that nobody makes a
Speaker 2: sudden turn. And I think a lot of times in
Speaker 2: the media it kind of looks like, oh, people just snap,
Speaker 2: you know, the snap, and you know, one morning they
Speaker 2: were just great and normal, the next day they're, you know,
Speaker 2: a radical. And for Camilla, you know that certainly wasn't
Speaker 2: the case. So it's kind of like anything with history, right,
Speaker 2: you have to dig deeper and know that there's kind
Speaker 2: of this.
Speaker 5: Huge, full, well rounded story.
Speaker 2: But there were just so many factors that went into
Speaker 2: her radicalization. She had a lot of loss in her life.
Speaker 2: All three siblings had died before her when they were
Speaker 2: quite young, so you know, it was a very very
Speaker 2: grief stricken, very sad upbringing. She was close to her parents,
Speaker 2: but not especially so. She was gay, but it was
Speaker 2: a time where you couldn't really be coming out to
Speaker 2: your parents or family members. That there was a lot
Speaker 2: of cleariness about that. So she's keeping these secrets and
Speaker 2: she has.
Speaker 5: A lot of grief.
Speaker 2: She is angry, you know, I mean people, many people
Speaker 2: were angry in the sixties and seventies, and so there
Speaker 2: are things about the government that she doesn't agree with,
Speaker 2: and I think she just found a group of people
Speaker 2: that accepted her. And you know, at the surface, we're
Speaker 2: saying things that she believed in, and I think she
Speaker 2: just also thought, what did she have to lose?
Speaker 3: Thank you to Rachel Hannell, author of the book Not
Speaker 3: the Camilla We Knew. One woman's path from small town
Speaker 3: America to the Symbionese Liberation Army.
Speaker 4: I'm Toby Ball.
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite show. For more
Speaker 3: information on rip current, visit the show website at ripcurrentpod
Speaker 3: dot com.