It was the Harrises’ last attempt to revive the past, and purely coincidentally, it was the prelude to the end. 

That Monday morning, September 15, the FBI had finally found the Soliahs. In July, Mike Bortin had taken on a sizable painting job, a large apartment complex in Pacifica, a coastal bedroom community on the Peninsula just south of San Francisco. There were 200 apartments, and the contract...non..union paid $80 to $100 per unit.

For Bortin, all the Soliahs, and Jim Kilgore, it had been a daily income. (Steve Soliah, in Rolling Stone, said even Patty went along to slop paint a few times.)

After Mr. Soliah had told the FBI that Steve and the girls were still contract painting, agents had begun checking independent painting jobs throughout the Bay Area. At a little after 9 A.M. on the fifteenth, Special Agents Jason Moulton and Ray Campos interviewed Bill Osgood, the manager of the Pacifica apartments.

They showed him a portfolio of photographs, and Osgood identified one picture: Michael Bortin. Osgood said he knew Bortin as “John Henderson,” the contract boss for a crew of “hippie painters” who were working through the units two a day. Yes, he said, the crew included a couple of girls. He couldn’t identify them, but they’d be arriving for work at any moment.

The FBI men asked Osgood not to mention their visit, then took up position in their unmarked government sedan to wait for Bortin’s crew. At 10:30 A.M. they saw Kathy and Josephine Soliah arrive on the job. Jubilant, they radioed the sighting to headquarters. They were ordered to back off while plans were laid for a major surveillance operation.

About 5:30 P.M. Kathy and Jo—and a man, never positively identified, but thought to be Kilgore—quit painting for the day.

They climbed into a black-over-beige ‘67 Ford, drove up onto the freeway, and north into San Francisco. Apparently there was no concern that they might be followed, for—with at least three FBI cars alternately on their tail—they drove directly to Morse Street, residence of the most wanted fugitive in the nation, Patricia Campbell Hearst. They got there a little after six, parked, and all three went into 625 Morse. Agents circled the block for perhaps fifteen minutes; then orders came to break for the night.

The Ford was there in the morning, and—very early—the FBI was, too. It was not until 10:50 that Steve Soliah, alone, came out of the three-story building, patiently warmed up the car engine, and drove off. Steve now led his bureau escorts in toward the center of the city, to Bernal Heights, Precita Avenue.

Steve pulled up in the 200 block of Precita and waited. Moments later Kathy and Jo—dressed for another day of painting—came out of a building agents could not see, got in, and the three proceeded to Pacifica. At quitting time the Soliahs again piled into the Ford,* and again with the FBI cautiously trailing, set out into rush hour. This time, however, the first stop was Bernal Heights, where Kathy and Jo were seen to enter the white duplex at 288 Precita. Steve continued on to Morse Street. The FBI now had two Soliah addresses. Agents assumed they had Kathy and Josephine living at 288 Precita, Steve at 625 Morse. The stakeoutwould be at Precita. Kathy, agents felt, was the key figure; if there were connections made, it would be through her.

*Agents later discovered that Steve Soliah, using the alias “John Matthews,” had bought the 1967 Ford—with $400 cash, all $20 bills—on April 29, 1975, in Orangevale, a town near Carmichael. That the purchase was made eight days after the Crocker National Bank robbery was a point raised by the prosecution at Soliah’s trial.

The FBI men moved in to situate themselves early the next morning, the seventeenth. The house was to be watched around the clock; any visitors were to be followed and (if Possible without compromising the operation) identified. Cruising surveillance was under way by 7 A.M. an agent Spotted Steve’s Ford parked a block away. At 8:10 a light beige camper truck with Utah license plates slipped into a just-vacated parking spot on Precita with a good view of 288. Three FBI agents were in the van; the primary surveillance post had been established.

At 10 A.M. they had the first sighting: Kathy and Jo came out of 288 and walked around the corner to the Ford. They drove off, apparently headed to work; they were not followed There was no indication anyone else was inside 288, but there was no way of telling; the second floor windows were all curtained. At Precisely 10:50 agents caught their first glimpse of one of the FBI’5 Three Most Wanted.

General Teko, clad in cut~off jeans T-shirt, and sneakers came out, down the steps, stood for a moment stretching, then vanished back inside.

At least it looked like the long~sought Bill Harris. Agents weren’t close enough to be sure, but he seemed about the right age, height, and weight The suspect’s hair appeared to be jet black, and Harris’ natural color was dark brown. A dye job perhaps? But the details of the man’s features were obscured by a bushy black beard. The agents had no pictures of Harris less than two years old, and none with a beard. But still. . . . The FBI’5 FM frequency crackled with the bulletin, and orders flashed back fast: Get a closer look. The number two man in the FBI office, ASAC Larry Lawler, assistant was dispatched to Precita.

At 11:30 A.M. a new suspect was seen: Two people had come out of 288, the same man and a woman, short..haired . . . who just might be Emily Harris.

Yolanda and Teko were out for a midday jog, down the block and through the park, then looping back. Agents cruised by them, even timed the run: twenty minutes The two were just climbing the stairs when Lawler arrived on scene and drove past 288. Radioing his own sighting, the ASAC signaled that he was taking charge. Just after noon the bearded man emerged again and strolled to the corner grocery a block away. He bought the morning Chronicle and sauntered back to the apartment reading as he walked. Through a small peephole in the side of the camper, a telephoto lens tracked him the last half block, catching a series of candid snaps of the Suspected but unsuspecting SLA general.

At 4:35 P.M. the man came out, again alone, toting a white cloth bag. He walked two blocks to a self-service laundromat and went in. Busy with the shirts and underwear, he didn’t look up as ASAC Lawler walked past him and over to the pay telephone.

Larry Lawler is thirty-five, six feet, broad-shouldered, jut-jawed, and with a razor-cut wave of thick brown hair—in his suit, white shirt, and tie, he looks like Central Casting’s answer to Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. Lawler flipped through the Pacific Tel & Tel directory, but he was concentrating on the brow, the eyes, and lips of the face behind the black beard. (“From the photographs we had of William Harris,” Lawler said later, “it appeared that his two front teeth were not lower than the two teeth next to them . . . in the picture we had of him smiling; it gave the indication that the teeth appeared to be arced upward.”) Harris, bent to his task, found nothing to smile at.

Then Harris turned, walked over to a woman at the laundromat’s service desk and asked for change for a dollar. Lawler was right behind him; his own dollar in hand. Bill turned with his change to confront the biggest, most cheerful grin Lawler could muster. But Harris didn’t crack. With a cool stare he turned back to the washing machines.

Lawler left the laundromat a few minutes later no more certain than when he’d entered. But on the man’s left knee, just below the cut-off Levi’s, he’d noticed what seemed a surgical scar—and when the field office checked Harris’ Marine Corps records, agents found that Lance Corporal Harris had had an operation on that knee. The man spent an hour at the washing chore, then hauled the laundry home on his shoulder. An hour later, 6:18 P.M., the door opened again, and the woman, earlier seen jogging, walked to the grocery. She picked up a few things from the shelves, went up to the cash register, paid the clerk, and turned to leave just as Lawler—suit, tie, and smile—walked in. The ASAC got a two-second straight-on look; then she was past him. A couple of minutes later Lawler came out, joined up with Special Agent Leo Brenneisen, and the two of them strolled along the sidewalk comparing notes. Brenneisen wasn’t of any opinion about the woman, but Lawler was certain of one thing. “I don’t know who that lady is,” he said of Yolanda, “but I’ll guarantee you it’s not Emily Harris!”

Dusk settled in. At 7:10, Jo and Kathy Soliah were dropped off by Steve; they went inside, and Steve drove the Ford off to the Outer Mission, to Morse. There still was no surveillance at the Morse address, but the Precita stakeout continued through the night. New orders came as fresh agents took over the watch: If it appeared anyone was moving out, he or she was to be stopped and positively identified. At the Federal Building downtown, FBI

SAC Charlie Bates debriefed the first stakeout team in an 8 o’clock conference that evening. The Harrises? Some agents were certain; others, Lawler among them, still weren’t sure. There had been dozens of “certain” SLA sightings and numerous FBI and police raids that netted only shocked and scared utterly innocent citizens. With all the bad publicity and several lawsuits as well—the FBI was now trying to tread very carefully.

The meeting broke up and then, at 8 o’clock the following morning, Thusday, September 18, agents gathered again in Bates’ office. The general consensus was that if they had the Harrises, Patty was probably inside. If there was anything to the theory of modus operandi, all of those that remained of the SLA were probably living together. The SLA had always moved in unit strength, and from the Los Angeles shoot-out on, the bureau had not got any indication that the three had ever lived apart. Bates gave the orders: If they go jogging, take them on and find out if it’s the Harrises. Stripped for running, clearly unarmedthat was the time to grab them.

They were not followed.* At 11:30 a report from the FBI “camper” put the agents at the ready: A young black man drove up in an old truck, double parked in front, walked up the steps of 288, and rapped on the door. The bearded Harris answered the knock, then stepped out and talked with the stranger. A new SLA member? Teko went back inside, returned almost immediately, and accompanied the man to the truck. Everyone tensed, then, a long minute later, relaxed as Bill walked back upstairs with a fish in hand. The visitor was the local Black Muslim fish peddler.

*The Soliah sisters, with brother Steve and Jim Kilgore, spent the day painting in Pacifica. When the four heard a radio news bulletin about the capture of the Harrises, Kathy, Jim, and Josephine immediately took to the underground. Steve Soliah~hoping to warn Patty and Wendy rushed to the Morse Street apartment . too late. FBI agents grabbed him as he started up the stairs.

Twelve-fifty P.M.: Both the man and the woman came out—Bill in purple track shorts and a green polo shirt; Emily all in white, tennis shorts and a T-shirt. At the sidewalk they broke into a slow lope. Lawler watched them round the corner, then began ordering men into position. Bates himself was parked atop a hill a fewblocks away, listening as other agents gave spot reports on the progress of the couple.

One-twelve P.M.: An FBI car flashed the word. The suspects, still jogging, were heading home. A sedan carrying Lawler and three other agents pulled up and double-parked on Precita a few doors down from 288. Other agents closed in. Bill and Emily turned the corner, walking now, chatting. As they came abreast of the government car, the car’s four doors sprang open.

“We’re the FBI,” announced Lawler as agents surrounded the pair. Teko stopped in his tracks, surrendering without a word. It was Emily who moved on fight reflex. The moment she realized what was happening, Yolanda reared back, wheeled, and tried to sprint toward the corner. She found herself facing two agents moving toward her, one with a shotgun; a third was on her heels.

She got ten paces; then they grabbed her; she struggled for a few moments. “You motherfuck in’ Sons of bitches,” Yolanda raged. “You Sons of bitches!” Emily was quickly hustled into an FBI auto and driven off around the block, they hoped, before her tirade could alert anyone inside the apartment. Bill was still silent. A senior agent grabbed one of Teko’s hands and peered closely at the loops and whorls on the fingertips. “It’s him,” he told Lawler.

“Double-check,” he was told. Harris was pushed into an FBI car where another agent quickly inked Bill’s fingers and rolled them onto a five-by-eight print card. Identification was positive. “He’s Harris!” By radio, Lawler gave the go to hit the house.

Back and front, they rushed the building. The first two agents up the steps, John Schreiber and Tom Padden, discovered a padlock on the outer door. Schreiber pounded on it: “FBI! FBI . . . OPEN UP!” Padden smashed the window beside the door with the butt of his shotgun, then reversed the gun to cover the room inside. Schreiber reached through, unlocked the window, threw up the sash. “FBI!” he cried again as he clambered over the sill, scrambling through pistol in hand; others followed and agents fanned out through the apartment.

A minute, two. Then Schreiber came out to report: empty, no Patty—but there were guns and bombs, cases of papers and books.

Someone must have cursed; no one was particularly happy.  Still, two out of three was an improvement on the past. Charlie Bates, now out in front, ordered the Harrises shipped downtown and gave the customary mop-up instructions—secure the place; get the search warrant; alert the magistrate. He had the office flash Washington—and he ordered teams of agents out to check three other addresses they had connected with the Soliahs: an apartment house a block away, with a FOR RENT sign in a window (where one of the sisters had stopped to inquire about leasing a flat); an address on Masonic Avenue the girls had been known to visit in the past; and 625 Morse Street. Just possibly.

Bates, who had commanded the FBI’s “Hearnap” investigation from Day One, was visibly disappointed. Even to the moment of arrest, Bates had kept his poise, reserving doubt. But then it had all come together, and for a moment he, too, was certain that Tania Hearst was in the house. The busts came down at 1:15 P.M.

Bates stayed at the Precita scene until 2 o’clock, then headed downtown. His PR assistant had scheduled a press conference for 3 P.M., in time for the evening TV news. The odds were against another arrest, he thought—Patty, so long elusive, had slipped by again.

Special Agents Tom Padden and Jay Moulton drew the Morse Street checkout. As they headed for their car, Padden spotted two San Francisco detectives who had just arrived at Precita. He asked if they wanted to check out another possible safehouse, and Inspectors Tim Casey and Larry Pasero were more than willing.

“Hell yes!” said Casey. A lumbering gray-haired veteran from the SFPD robbery detail, Casey wanted Patty almost as badly as Charlie Bates. The Hibernia Bank job was his case, and he’d been chasing Symbionese shadows all over the country for seventeen months. The two teams joined up, G-men and cops, and they rode out to the Mission section in the FBI sedan, listening to Padden recount the story of the Harrises’ capture.

Morse Street was a long shot, all agreed. Patty had probably been staying with the Harrises and escaped the sweep just by chance. Still, long shots do come in.

“We drove past the place a couple of times and looked it over,” recalled Casey later. “There were only two ways out of it, and we figured we could hit it without any help.”

The only sign of people at 625 Morse was a middle-aged man working in one of the two ground-level garages below the two floors of apartments. The FBI did not know whether Steve Soliah was living in the second- or the third-floor flat. The cops decided to talk with the man in the garage. “He looked straight as a string,” said Casey. The man was Jerry Prill, the owner of the building. Prill told them nobody was living in the second-floor apartment and that the third floor was occupied by new tenants, a young man and a couple of girls. The girls were upstairs now, Prill said.

Padden flipped out a sheaf of SLA photos and displayed them for Prill. The landlord shook his head at the pictures of both Patty Hearst and Wendy Yoshimura. He had not seen anyone among the photos—except maybe “the older-looking one.” He pointed to a picture of Emily Harris. “That one.”

The FBI man asked Prill to describe the layout of the apartment and asked advice as to the fastest way in. “Up the back stairs,” Prill said; the back door was half glass. It was a federal operation so the FBI ranked in command. Padden chose Casey to accompany him up the back stairway and assigned his FBI partner and the other San Francisco inspector to cover the front.

“They were wooden stairs, and we went up slow and quiet,” said Casey. Both men had their guns in hand; Padden his custom-mounted .38, Casey a .357 magnum, the heavy artillery of handguns, capable of putting a slug through an engine block. “I was right behind Padden,” recalled the inspector, “and when he got to the top landing, he all of a sudden froze.” Padden had found himself looking through the open top of a Dutch door straight at Wendy Yoshimura. And Wendy was staring right back. Padden broke the trance first.

“FBI . . . Freeze!” he yelled, lunging with the big gun right through the open top of the door, arm straight. Wendy was standing; Patty was rising from a kitchen table. “Freeze, “he yelled again.

Tania was up and moving, toward the back, the bedroom, the guns. Padden had his pistol only feet from Yoshimura’s head. At Patty, he yelled again, “Freeze or I’ll blow her head off!” Patty stopped. The door was opened, and the lawmen burst in. “I ran past him, inside, past the Oriental girl, and then I saw her,” re- membered Casey. “All I could see was her back—she was heading for another room—and I called out, ‘Patty!’ and she turned around and I said, ‘Don’t move!’ I looked at her close, and I could see it was Miss Hearst. She looked pale and scared. I went over and put the cuffs on her. She didn’t give any trouble.”

Prill who had followed the two up the stairs, reached the landing just as Casey pushed past Padden into the kitchen. Patty had stopped—at Padden’s threat or Casey’s shout—and turned. Patty, said Prill, “laughed, then giggled, then put her hands up.

Tania was in custody. Patty Hearst was reclaimed—if not for Steve Weed, if not for her parents, if only for the courts, the psychiatrists—at least for the millions who still harbored a desperate curiosity about her transformation and the personality it had created. It had been 591 days since the SLA had kidnapped her—and they, too, had called it an “arrest.”

Padden asked the two women if they had weapons. Patty pointed to her purse. The agent removed a revolver, loaded, from the bag. A pistol was also found in Wendy’s purse, loaded. (Another pistol, a shotgun and two sawed-off rifles—one the carbine Tania Hearst had carried into the Hibernia Bank—were found in the bedrooms. And in the refrigerator, neatly wrapped in aluminum foil, nestled next to the eggs, was a packet of eighty-four $1 bills, one among them bearing Serial Number L07097168D; a “bait bill” stolen from the Carmichael bank.)

Yoshimura asked if she could get her contact lenses, and Padden let her take them off the kitchen table. On the table, between a vase of pink flowers, three coffee cups, and a box of envelopes, there—as yet unsent, perhaps just finished—was Wendy’s letter to Willie Brandt, the official death certificate of the Symbionese Liberation Army.

“Let’s clear out,” said Padden. “We’re not going to touch anything until we get the warrant.” Casey started to lead Hearst out when suddenly, “very politely,” Patty asked if she could changeher clothes. She had, it seemed, wet her pants.

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