California Seeks Extradition
County Attorney Susan Gaertner said California authorities were seeking extradition within 30 days. Olson did not waive her right to challenge the extradition request. Her next court appearance was set for July 15.
     Dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit, Olson did not speak, but smiled and waved to her husband and three daughters.
     Olson, 52, who lived with her doctor husband in an ivy-covered home in an upscale neighborhood, was active in community theater work, where her acting drew notice from local reviewers.
     One singled her out as the strongest performer in a 1990 production of King Lear. Another praised her “vibrant” 1993 performance in All’s Well That Ends Well.
     But if the FBI is right, she is really Soliah, a onetime member of the SLA, the band of 1970s radicals who kidnapped Patricia Hearst.
     Agents arrested Olson on Wednesday after receiving tips from viewers of America’s Most Wanted, which featured her in a recent broadcast. The FBI offered a $20,000 reward for Soliah last month, on the 25th anniversary of a Los Angeles shootout that killed six SLA members.

Wanted for 23 Years
Soliah has been wanted since 1976, when she was indicted in Los Angeles on murder conspiracy and explosives charges for allegedly placing pipe bombs under two police cars. The bombs did not explode.
     In a federal warrant drawn up this year, authorities said that in 1984 her husband was aware of her true name and fugitive status. It was unclear whether she was married at the time to her current husband, Gerald Peterson. They bought their St. Paul house in 1989.
     Peterson said neither he nor his children had any inkling of his wife’s double life.
     “I know nothing about that,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “I’ll tell you the truth, I’m totally shocked.”
     No one at the house would comment Wednesday. But Soliah’s parents, Martin and Elsie Soliah of Palmdale, Calif., said Peterson knew his wife was wanted.
     “She told him about her situation when they got serious,” Mrs. Soliah told the Times. “He understood.”
     Sometime in the late 1970s, Soliah arrived in the Minneapolis area, where she moved next door to Peterson, then a medical intern. Mrs. Soliah said the two lived for a number of years in Zimbabwe, where Peterson worked as a physician and her daughter taught drama and English. There, her daughter gave birth to the second of their three daughters.
     Kathleen Soliah and her husband returned to the United States in the mid-1980s, the Soliahs said, settling in Minnesota after a brief stay in Baltimore.
     The FBI said she took the last name of Olson, which is common in Minnesota because of the large number of people of Scandinavian descent.