Sara Jane Olson

Sara Jane Olson's friends and supporters in Minnesota have stayed loyal over the years, but they've grown increasingly silent as her release from prison approaches. Her local supporters have included progressive activists, a few politicians, members of the theater community, professors and attorneys. Olson and her husband since 1980, Dr. Gerald "Fred" Peterson, were known among their friends for the dinners and parties they hosted.

Olson was exposed in 1999 as Kathleen Soliah, a 1970s radical with the Symbionese Liberation Army who became a fugitive after the attempted pipe-bombings of Los Angeles police officers and a fatal bank robbery near Sacramento. Until authorities acting on a tip pulled over her minivan in St. Paul, her friends knew her as a housewife, mother of three daughters, volunteer and actress.

She was a wonderful mom and a wonderful asset to our community and did all sorts of things to help people," he said. Olson's family has said little about the case over the past decade, and Peterson declined an interview request, saying they want to be left alone. Olson's supporters may be reticent because they came to realize that public discussion didn't help her cause, said Stephen Cooper, an attorney who helped set up her bail fund.