Patricia Soltysik

Patricia Monique Soltysik (May 17, 1950 – May 17, 1974) was an American woman who was best known as a co-founder and activist in the Symbionese Liberation Army, a far-left militant group based in Berkeley and Oakland, California. She participated in the group's violent activities, including armed bank robbery.

She was one of six SLA members who died in Los Angeles in May 1974, during a shootout with the Los Angeles Police Department. The house where the members had gone to ground accidentally caught fire. Donald DeFreeze committed suicide by gunshot before the fire engulfed him. Camilla Hall and Nancy Ling Perry were fatally shot by police while leaving the house and brandishing pistols.

According to later testimony by Patty Hearst, who had been kidnapped by the SLA in 1974 and later joined them, Soltysik was responsible for killing Marcus Foster, the Black Superintendent of Oakland Public Schools, in November 1973.

Early life and education Patricia's father was a pharmacist. She had two older brothers and was the third of seven children, and the eldest of five girls. She grew up in Goleta, California. Soltysik graduated from Dos Pueblos High School in 1968 in the top 10 percent of her class, where she was elected student body treasurer.

In 1968 she gained a state scholarship and enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley. While at Berkeley she became embittered by the "Bloody Thursday" incident in 1971 in which police killed a protester.

Founding of SLA On March 5, 1973, Donald DeFreeze escaped from Soledad prison. He sought refuge in Oakland with white friends from the Black Cultural Association (BCA), whom he had met earlier while incarcerated at Vacaville Prison. Russ Little and Willie Wolfe took him to Soltysik's house in Oakland. She had not been part of the prisoner outreach program conducted at Vacaville by UC Berkeley volunteers, so they thought that law enforcement would not look there for DeFreeze. DeFreeze lived with Soltysik for several months, and the two became lovers.

Soltysik and DeFreeze are thought to have co-written the first SLA literature.

L.A. shootout and death

Soltysik was one of the six SLA members killed in Los Angeles in a shootout with the Los Angeles Police Department on May 17, 1974. It was her 24th birthday. In the armed confrontation the house was accidentally set on fire. The SLA members initially took shelter beneath the floor of the house in a crawl space. She died from smoke inhalation, burn injuries, and several LAPD gunshot wounds as the house burned down around her.