Cathlyn Platt Wilkerson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cathlyn Platt Wilkerson (born in 1945) was a member of the Weather Underground who was seen running naked down the street at 18 West 11th Street in Greenwich Village, Manhattan after her father's brownstone exploded on March 6, 1970 at 11:55 a.m. She avoided capture for 10 years by living under an assumed name. She turned herself in to police in 1980.
Contents |
[edit] Early years
She was the daughter of James Platt Wilkerson, a radio station owner from the Midwest. He owned the brownstone townhouse. She attended Swarthmore College and graduated in 1966.
[edit] Chicago
Cathy Wilkerson was out on $40,000 bail on assault charges in Chicago where she struck a police officer with a club during the Days of Rage.
[edit] Explosion
At the time of the 1970 brownstone explosion, she and Kathy Boudin, who was wearing jeans, successfully fled the building. The brownstone was being used by the Weather Underground and explosive devices were being made to use at a dance to be held at the Fort Dix, New Jersey. That evening, a man's body was found in the basement of the brownstone, and a short time later, a woman's torso was discovered on the first floor. Police also found several handbags with personal identifications that were stolen from college students over the previous few months. Late that same night, police discovered at least 60 sticks of dynamite, a live military antitank shell, blasting caps and several large metal pipes packed solid with explosives and nails as shrapnel.
The dead man was later identified as 23-year-old Theodore Gold, a leader of a student strike at Columbia University in 1968. He was a member of the Weathermen. The dead girl, whose body was mangled by the blast, was identified as Diana Oughton, another former college student. Seven days later, police located another dismembered body of a man. His identity remained a mystery until the Weathermen said it was Terry Robbins. [1] Cathy Wilkerson and Kathy Boudin stayed overnight at her parents' house a few blocks away on St. Luke's Place before they both disappeared. [2] Her father, who owned both houses, was on vacation in the Caribbean. [3] She was charged, in absentia with illegal possession of dynamite and criminally negligent homicide and eluded capture for 10 years.
[edit] Arrest
She resurfaced in 1980 and was tried and convicted, and served a brief prison sentence.
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- New York Times; March 5, 2000; The street seemed destined to remain a kind of sanctuary, until just before noon on March 6, 1970, when the house next door, at 18 West 11th Street, exploded. ... Young radicals from the Weathermen were making bombs to destroy property, beginning with the main library at Columbia University. Three bomb makers, Theodore Gold, Diana Oughton and Terry Robbins, were killed. Two others, Kathy Boudin and Cathlyn Wilkerson, escaped and remained fugitives for more than a decade. The first was the daughter of the civil liberties lawyer Leonard Boudin, the second the daughter of James P. Wilkerson, the owner of the house at No. 18. During the years since, I have thought about the explosion often: every March on the anniversary, and on other occasions; when Cathy Wilkerson resurfaced in 1980 and was tried and convicted, and served a brief prison sentence ...
- Time (magazine); Monday, July 21, 1980 Defended. Weatherwoman surrenders. When she disappeared, fleeing from the explosion-shattered wreckage of a Manhattan town house, Cathlyn Platt Wilkerson was so perfect a symbol of the times as to be almost a macabre caricature. The date was March 6, 1970, and American society was torn by the tensions generated by the Viet Nam War and the preceding decade's civil rights agitation. Middle-class and wealthy youths were burning draft cards and marching in the streets shouting hate at the Establishment that had nurtured them. A few went beyond revolutionary rhetoric to amateur terrorism, and among them was Cathy Wilkerson. ...
- Time (magazine); Monday, March 23, 1970; House on 11th Street. New York's West 11th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues is a gracious, tree-shaded reminder of the Greenwich Village of Henry James. A community of successful artists, writers and businessmen, it is lined with stately town houses like the four-story dwelling at No. 18, which until last week looked much the same as when it was built in 1845. There was a formal garden in back where few sounds louder than the tinkling of teacups were ever heard. The owner of the Federal-style $250,000 house, Businessman James Platt Wilkerson, had furnished the interior Georgian style. The rooms were filled with art and rare antiques, including a 1790 square piano. Wilkerson was especially proud of his paneled library, called the Bird Room because it housed a collection of wood, metal and china birds. It was a site for refined, elegant living. ...
