Yoshimura was born at the
Manzanar Internment Camp for
Japanese Americans where her American-born parents were incarcerated. All the family were American citizens by birth. After the war, the Yoshimura family moved to
Etajima, a small island off the coast of
Hiroshima. Her father worked for the
Allied Occupation forces. Yoshimura spoke Japanese as her first language. The family returned to the US when Yoshimura was 13 years old. Because she did not speak English, Yoshimura was initially placed in the second grade in the
Fresno, California school system. She learned English rapidly and later graduated in 1969 from the California College of Arts and Crafts (now
California College of the Arts).
Revolutionary Army Yoshimura became associated with the Revolutionary Army, a group founded by her boyfriend, Willie Brandt. He used the title in public statements claiming responsibility for violent actions intended to express opposition to the Vietnam War. In 1972, police discovered a weapons and explosives cache in a Berkeley garage which Yoshimura had rented and described it as a "massive bomb factory." They also found letters taking credit for planned future bombings targeting the
University of California, Berkeley campus, including the Naval Architecture building. Notes described a specific plan to kidnap or assassinate
World Bank President and former defense secretary
Robert McNamara at his winter residence in
Aspen, Colorado. She lived under an alias in
New Jersey until 1974. In 1977, she was captured and convicted of unlawful possession of explosives, of a machine gun, and of substances and materials with the intent to make destructive devices and explosives. She was sentenced to a one-to-fifteen years in prison. She was released on parole in September 1980.
Symbionese Liberation Army Also in 1974, married couple
Bill and
Emily Harris, with kidnapping victim-turned fugitive
Patty Hearst, relocated to rural
Pennsylvania. The Harrises were surviving founding members of the
Berkeley terrorist group known as the Symbionese Liberation Army. Six of their members had died in a May 1974 shootout with
Los Angeles police at a house in Los Angeles. Sports writer and political activist
Jack Scott had helped the high-profile fugitives make their way east. He arranged for Yoshimura to join them and handle shopping and other public transactions. After two months with the group, Yoshimura left and returned alone to California, taking up residence in
San Francisco. Hearst and the Harrises found their own way back into the state and regrouped in
Sacramento. When the FBI found Yoshimura's thumbprint in the SLA's rural hideout, newspaper headlines tied her to the group. She fled San Francisco and reunited with the SLA members in Sacramento. While in Sacramento with associates from the San Francisco Bay Area, some of the fugitives planned and carried out an armed robbery of
Crocker National Bank in
Carmichael, California. Bank customer Myrna Opsahl was shot and killed. Hearst's account in
Every Secret Thing states that she and Yoshimura opposed the action and were assigned to "switch cars" far from the scene. After the robbery, the group abandoned Sacramento and fled individually to San Francisco.
Arrest and conviction , San Francisco, in 1976, left to right, Raymond Y. Okamura, James Larson, Lloyd Keigo Wake, Wendy Yoshimura, and Gail Aratani. , with protesters on eviction night, August 4, 1977 On September 18, 1975, Yoshimura was arrested with Hearst in a second-floor
apartment at 625 Morse Street by
FBI Special Agent Tom Padden and
San Francisco Police Department Inspector Tim Casey. Padden and Casey failed to read Hearst and Yoshimura their
Miranda rights and did not obtain a search warrant until twenty-six hours later. Weapons evidence, including a handgun in Yoshimura's purse and a shotgun in the bedroom, was suppressed because of this oversight. They did this through the Wendy Yoshimura Fair Trial Committee. Ultimately, Yoshimura was convicted on explosives and weapons charges and sent to state prison for six months; she was paroled in 1980.
Grand jury investigation In 1991 Yoshimura was granted limited immunity to testify during a grand jury investigation into the 1975 armed bank robbery by the SLA in Carmichael, California in which Myrna Opsahl, 42-year-old mother of four, was killed. One SLA member,
Michael Bortin, had pleaded guilty to the robbery. No indictments resulted at the time. In 2002 five former SLA members and associates were arrested, and four of them pleaded guilty to charges related to the homicide. ==Present day==