Nancy Ling Perry

Nancy Ling Perry (September 19, 1947 – May 17, 1974, born Nancy Ling) was also known as Nancy Devoto, Lynn Ledworth, and Fahizah while a founding member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), a small leftist militant group based in northern California. Considered one of its chief theorists and activists, she died in a shootout with the Los Angeles Police Department at an SLA safehouse in that city.

Background Nancy Ling was born in San Francisco in 1947 to an upper-middle-class family. She attended Montgomery High School in Santa Rosa, where she was a cheerleader. She also served as a Sunday school teacher at her church. In 1964, while in high school, she was a campaign worker for Barry Goldwater.

Retaining her married name, Ling Perry worked as a topless blackjack dealer in San Francisco. During this period, she was deeply involved in using psychedelic drugs and amphetamines. and Angela Atwood, another white woman. They were soon joined by a white married couple, Emily Harris and her husband William. All but DeFreeze, Wheeler and Remiro were white and mostly educated, from middle and upper-class families.

With Soltysik, Perry is considered to have been a chief theorist and driver of the SLA. She was the only one to identify publicly as SLA, and wrote a five-page letter to The San Francisco Chronicle in 1974 affirming this.

Initially Wheeler and Remiro, a veteran, began training the whites in the use of weapons. None had any experience with them. Wheeler was increasingly opposed to the radical plans for violence formed by SLA leaders. He believed it was the wrong direction, and withdrew in October 1973 with his heiress girlfriend Mary Alice Siem. After the two separated, he lived as a fugitive for two years before being apprehended.

The SLA first made headlines by claiming credit for the murder on November 6, 1973, of Marcus Foster, Superintendent of Oakland Public Schools. He was the first black superintendent of any major urban school system. This act outraged the black community, which had strongly admired him. In a public statement, the unknown group SLA claimed that the bullets used were tipped with the poison cyanide. This was confirmed by the city coroner and the police realized they had a new group to monitor. DeFreeze died by self-inflicted gunshot in the house as the fire raged. Soltysik and Atwood also died in the house.