Angela Atwood

Atwood used the name Anne Lindberg when she visited inmate James Harold ("Doc") Holiday on January 10, 1974. This encounter alerted Holiday to the capture of Remiro and Russ Little, who were both linked through strong circumstantial evidence to the murder of Marcus Foster, Superintendent of the Oakland Unified School District in Oakland, California. They were arrested following a shootout with policemen in Concord, California. Quickly after Atwood's approach of Holiday, she fled the Oakland home with the Harrises. They left behind clothes, a stereo, personal papers, and three pistol boxes.

In her trial for armed robbery, Hearst testified that she was kidnapped from her Berkeley, California apartment by Atwood, Donald DeFreeze, and William Harris, on the night of February 4, 1974.

Atwood's voice is heard on a taped message of March 9, 1974, used in negotiations with Randolph Hearst for the return of Patty Hearst. Atwood assumed the voice of a black woman and said, "The dream - and indeed it is a dream - of [many on the Left] is that the enemy corporate state will willingly give the stolen riches of the earth back to the people and that this will be accomplished through compromising talk and empty words . . . to this, our bullets scream loudly. The enemy's bloodthirsty greed will be destroyed by the growing spirit of the people and their thirst for freedom. We call upon the people to judge for themselves whether our tactics of waging struggle are correct or incorrect in fighting the enemy by any means necessary."

Atwood, along with five other founding members of the SLA, including Donald DeFreeze, was killed in Los Angeles on May 17, 1974, in a shootout with police that was broadcast live on television. Atwood died of burns and smoke inhalation when the SLA's safehouse caught fire during the gun battle and burned to the ground. It was Atwood's death that prompted Kathleen Soliah to hold a memorial service for her and the other deceased members of the SLA; Soliah and a few others became part of the "second team", giving the SLA life for about two more years.

Atwood was eulogized by the Rev. Joseph Citro, a 25-year-old priest, at her funeral mass in Prospect Park, New Jersey on May 26, 1974. They grew up blocks from each other and knew each other through the local Catholic Youth Organization. In an interview the day after the mass, Citro stated that "we must enable these young people to make basic changes in society or more girls like Angela will have to suffer." Atwood is buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Totowa, New Jersey.

Angela and Gary Atwood separated in June 1973. She moved in with the Harrises in early December 1973. She then joined the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) along with the Harrises. Atwood was described as well dressed, with a preference for hippie attire, particularly Indian silk shirts and batik. Atwood liked such feminine accessories as earrings, jewelry, and rings. A friend described her as "the prima donna of the whole thing", and likened her to the woman depicted by Bob Dylan in "Just Like A Woman".

Atwood was assigned the task of surveillance in the potential kidnapping of John E. Countryman, former chairman of the board of Del Monte Corporation. The surveillance plan gave Countryman's age as 70. Atwood was apparently unaware that Countryman had died in July 1972 at the age of 69.

She helped fellow theater student Kevin Kline organize and run a guerrilla theatre group in town. She married Atwood while still an undergraduate, and they befriended William Harris, another Indiana University actor, and his wife Emily. She graduated in 1970 and began student teaching in Indianapolis.

Angela DeAngelis Atwood (February 6, 1949 – May 17, 1974), also known as General Gelina, was a founding member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), an American terrorist group which kidnapped Patricia Hearst and robbed banks. She was killed, along with five other SLA members, in a nationally televised shootout with the Los Angeles Police Department.