Ex-'70s radical freed from Calif. prison

Sara Jane Olson, 62, was freed just after midnight.

CHOWCHILLA, Calif. - Sara Jane Olson, the 1970s radical who assumed a new identity as a Minnesota housewife while spending a quarter century as a fugitive, was released from prison yesterday, a corrections spokeswoman said.

Olson, 62, was freed after midnight from Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, in the heart of the state's farm country about 150 miles southeast of San Francisco, said corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton. Thornton said two parole agents took Olson to an office in Madera County, where she was processed and released to her husband, Dr. Gerald "Fred" Peterson.

Olson served seven years - half her sentence - after pleading guilty to placing pipe bombs under Los Angeles Police Department patrol cars and participating in the robbery of a bank in a Sacramento suburb in which a woman was shot to death. The crimes took place while she was a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, most notorious for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patty Hearst.

She was released by mistake a year ago after California corrections officials miscalculated her parole date, joining her family for five days before she was rearrested.