Jon Opsahl said he learned from the TV news Friday morning that Kathleen Soliah, a former member of the radical Symbionese Liberation Army, was released on parole from a California women's prison.
Opsahl's mother, Myrna, was killed at age 42 during a botched SLA bank robbery in Sacramento in 1975 that included Soliah.
"I'm just dumbfounded -- that someone can be involved in an SLA terrorist-type group, commit murder and get out of prison in a half-dozen years," he said. "The justice system is incompetent or impotent."
The 61-year-old Soliah was released from prison Monday after serving about six years behind bars for her role in a separate case involving a plot to kill Los Angeles Police Department officers by blowing up their patrol cars. She had been sentenced to 12 years in prison for her crimes but earned credit against her sentence for working in prison.
Her release sparked anger among some family members of SLA victims and police.
Retired LAPD Officer John Hall, one of two officers in a patrol car Soliah pleaded guilty to trying to bomb, said in a statement Friday that people should be directing their displeasure at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown.
"We need to ask them why it is that our taxpayer dollars and our parole system are being used to put convicted murderers and terrorists back on the streets," he said.
But others were more reflective.
Opsahl's father, a surgeon, rushed the day of the robbery to find his dying wife, a mother of four who was at the bank that day to deposit the weekly take from the church donation plate. He toiled unsuccessfully to try to save her.
Now 82 and retired to the Sierra foothills town of Sonora, Dr. Trygve Opsahl said Friday that he is trying to put his tragic link to Soliah and the SLA behind him.
"It's all pretty much in the past," he said. "The sentencing system is so complicated it's pretty hard to comprehend. . . . I feel if somebody's involved in murder, it used to be the death sentence. But now they just quibble over whether it's a few months or years in jail."
He expressed hope that Soliah can emerge from prison to offer society some productive years.
"I hope she has learned something from this and can go out and be a good citizen and contribute to the community where she lives," he said. "And still have some life left to live."
