Thero Wheeler

Thero Lavon Wheeler (1945–2009) was an American criminal and founding member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, a left-wing terrorist organization known for bank robberies, two murders, and other acts of violence including the kidnapping of Patty Hearst.[1][2]

Thero Wheeler
Born
Thero Lavon Wheeler

January 28, 1945
Schulenburg, Texas, U.S.
DiedMarch 2, 2009 (aged 64)
San Francisco, California, U.S.
Known forFounding member of the Symbionese Liberation Army
Partner(s)Mary Alice Siem

Early life

Wheeler was born in Schulenburg, Texas, on January 28, 1945.[3][4] His mother was Ethel Mae Anderson and his father was John Henry Wheeler. He grew up in San Francisco's Filmore and Western Addition areas, and had two brothers, one a police officer.[5][6]

Imprisonment and radicalization

Wheeler was convicted of assault and robbery at age 17.[7] He was serving a one-year-to-life sentence. In prison, he began studying politics. A convict organizer, he was known as a "jailhouse lawyer." He read Engels, Marx and Lenin. He had joined and then, with critiques, resigned from the Black Panthers and a Maoist group. Wheeler met some activists from University of California, Berkeley while he was in Vacaville prison. Through this group, he met his girlfriend at that time, a young heiress who went by the name of Mary Alice Siem.[8]

Escape

In August 1973, the early SLA clique apparently engineered the escape of Thero Wheeler, providing transportation and a change of clothes after Wheeler walked away from Vacaville prison. Wheeler later said his friends who aided his escape were "well-connected".[9] He joined DeFreeze and "a curious group of upper middle-class whites, most college-educated but menially employed" at a small house[10] in Oakland. Close friends say he split with the SLA over the Foster murder, under death threat after he called DeFreeze a "drunken fool."[11]

On 4 May 1974, an article appeared in The Pittsburgh Courier quoting Mary Alice Siem. She had originally spoken to The San Francisco Examiner. She said that she had left the SLA due to death threats from DeFreeze:

Mary Alice Siem, 24, Redding, Calif., told authorities she and Thero Wheeler, 29, unofficially identified two months ago as a possible suspect in the Hearst kidnaping, left the terrorist organization last October because they disagreed with the SLA's violent tactics.
Miss Siem ... said she and Wheeler, who were living together, attended about 20 SLA meetings. ...
On one occasion she said she was threatened at gunpoint by DeFreeze, Miss Soltysik, and Miss Perry, but Wheeler intervened. When they left the SLA, she said she and Wheeler were robbed of $600 by the other members.
According to the examiner, whose president and editor is Miss Hearst's father, Miss Siem told authorities that she and Wheeler left the SLA because Wheeler was opposed to the violence espoused by DeFreeze.
She said their departure took place in October, a month before the fatal shooting of Oakland Schools Superintendent Marcus Foster, for which the SLA claims responsibility, and four months before Miss Hearst was kidnaped.[12]

After Patty Hearst was kidnapped, a number of eyewitnesses contributed to identikit composite sketches of the men they had seen. The drawings both appeared to resemble DeFreeze and Wheeler so closely that police were soon able to attach names to these sketches.[13]

Later life

Wheeler moved to Texas and changed his name to Bradley Bruce. He relied on electronics skills learned in prison to gain employment. He formed a relationship with a woman and they had a daughter. His cover was blown while interceding in a dispute. When he sought hospital treatment, his alias was fed into a computer and the FBI arrested him. He was returned to California to face escape charges and continue serving his previous term.[14] In 1976, he married Cynthia Spencer.

In 2005, Wheeler appeared in a local San Francisco newspaper as a recipient of free eyeglasses through a program known as Project Connect.[15] In those articles, Wheeler was described as a Vietnam War veteran.

Wheeler died on March 2, 2009, in San Francisco.

References
  1. Committee, United States Congress House Internal Security (1974). Terrorism, a Staff Study Prepared by ..., August 1, 1974.
  2. Times, Earl Caldwell Special to The New York (1974-02-23). "Symbionese Liberation Army: Terrorism From Left". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-06-14.
  3. Rieterman, T, They thought he was a kidnaper, The Free Lance Star Jan 7, 1976
  4. http://fbimostwanted.us/zc/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=0&products_id=1046
  5. People Magazine, op cit
  6. Free Lance Star, op cit.
  7. The Free Lance Star, op cit
  8. Burrough, Bryan, "Days of Rage: America's Radical Underground, the FBI and the forgotten age of Revolutionary Violence", Penguin, 2015, p
  9. Rieterman, T, "They thought he was a kidnaper", "The Free Lance Star" Jan 7, 1976 https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1298&dat=19760107&id=TuJNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=XYsDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7366,650988&hl=en
  10. McLellan, Vin, "The Man and the Mystery behind the Sla terror", People Magazine, April 29, 1974, http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20063998,00.html
  11. McLellan, Vin, "The Man and the Mystery behind the Sla terror", People Magazine, April 29, 1974, http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20063998,00.html
  12. "Woman quits SLA over death threat", The Pittsburgh Courier, May 4, 1974, page 3.
  13. "Woman quits SLA over death threat", The Pittsburgh Courier, May 4, 1974, p.3
  14. Rieterman, T, "They thought he was a kidnaper", "The Free Lance Star" Jan 7, 1976 https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1298&dat=19760107&id=TuJNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=XYsDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7366,650988&hl=en
  15. http://www.fogcityjournal.com/local/project_connect.shtml
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