Katherine Ann Power

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Katherine Ann Power
(Alice Louise Metzinger)
FBI fugitive photo
Born January 25, 1949 (1949-01-25) (age 59)
Denver, Colorado
Penalty 8-12 years imprisonment,
14 years probation
Status probation
Spouse Ron Duncan
Parents Winfield and Marjorie Power
Children Jamie

Katherine Ann Power (b. January 25, 1949) is an American ex-convict and long-time fugitive, who was placed on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Ten Most Wanted List in 1970, along with her accomplice Susan Edith Saxe, a fellow student at Brandeis University. The two participated in robberies at a Massachusetts National Guard armory and a bank in Brighton, Massachusetts where Boston police officer Walter Schroeder was shot and killed by one of their accomplices. These acts were to support protesting the war in Vietnam. Power remained at large for 23 years.

A native of Colorado, Power turned herself over to authorities in 1993 after starting a new life in Oregon. She was imprisoned in Massachusetts for six years before release on 14 years probation. While in prison Power completed her bachelors degree and after release earned a masters degree at Oregon State University. As of 2008, she resided in the Boston area.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Katherine Power grew up as the third of seven children in Denver, Colorado.[1] Her parents, Winfield and Marjorie, raised their Irish Catholic, middle-class family on Winfield’s salary as a bank credit manager and Marjorie's income as a registered nurse.[2][1][3] Katherine, brown-haired and a one time Girl Scout,[4] won a scholarship to Marycrest Girls High School, a Catholic school in Colorado. While in high school she won a Betty Crocker cooking award, wrote a regular column for the Denver Post, graduated as valedictorian,[1] and received a full scholarship to Brandeis University.[5]

In 1967, Power enrolled at Brandeis, a liberal arts school in Waltham, Massachusetts.[1] Power was a sociology major and honor student at a time of antiwar protests at the school.[1] At Brandeis, Power was known for wandering the campus braless and barefoot in her orange colored smock.[6] She also was involved in the Brandeis Strike Information Center and was known to frequent the protest rallies of the Students for a Democratic Society.[6] She roomed with Susan Saxe, and the two worked to organize student protests for a committee known as the National Student Strike Force.[4][1] The two also became acquainted with fellow organizer Stanley Ray Bond, a convict attending classes at the university on a special program.[1]

[edit] Protest and murder

Through the association with Bond, Power and Saxe became involved in a plot to arm the Black Panthers.[1] Bond introduced them to William Gilday and Robert Valeri, two former convicts, and the group plotted to rob the State Street Bank & Trust.[1] On September 20, 1970, the group robbed a National Guard armory and took 400 rounds of ammunition.[7] Besides ammunition, they also stole weapons and set fire to the facility in Newburyport, Massachusetts, causing about $125,000 in damage.[8]

On September 23, 1970, the group robbed the bank in Brighton, shooting the exterior as they left the building.[6] During the robbery, a Boston police officer was shot, and later died, when he attempted to stop the armed robbery.[2] They carried handguns, one shotgun, and a submachine gun in the heist.[9] Officer Walter A. Schroeder, the first officer on scene, died of gunshot wounds after Gilday shot him in the back. Meanwhile, Power was behind the wheel of one of two getaway vehicles, driving the switch car.[1]

Power and the others got away with $26,000 in cash that they planned to use to finance an overthrow of the federal government.[2] The robberies were in response to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, which she and her accomplices protested.[1] Police found evidence tying Power to the two incidents while raiding her apartment after the bank robbery.[6] The evidence included weapons, ammunition, and a telephone switchboard from the armory.[6] The group planned to use the money and weapons to support the anti-war movement.[6] Later, Power would blame her actions on manipulation by Bond, with whom she had a romantic relationship.[2]

[edit] Fugitive

Power spent 14 years on the FBI's most wanted list.
Power spent 14 years on the FBI's most wanted list.

Shortly after the robbery, Gilday, Valeri, and Bond were captured.[1] Valeri turned state's evidence and testified against Gilday. Bond, however, died before his trial while making a bomb in jail in order to escape.[1] Valeri received 25 years for the robbery while Gilday received a life sentence. Power and Saxe eluded capture.[1]

In November 1970, she was added to the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, which included 15 other people at the time.[10] Power and Saxe traveled together, escaping arrest by hiding out in women’s communes in the early 1970s.[9] For part of this time, the two hid out in Connecticut, with Power assuming the name Mae Kelly.[5] Saxe was able to elude arrest until 1975 when she was captured in Philadelphia; she then served five years in prison.[1] Prior to turning herself in, Power had last been seen in Kentucky in 1974.[9] In 1979 she moved west to the state of Oregon.[8] That same year, she gave birth to a son by an unknown father.[5]

While Power remained at large, authorities received few tips regarding her location. In 1984, she was taken off of the FBI’s most wanted list due to a lack of leads.[1] The following year, Power moved into a home in Lebanon, Oregon, with her son Jamie and boyfriend Ron Duncan.[1] For most of this time in hiding, she lived in Lebanon in the Willamette Valley.[2] While a fugitive, Power assumed the alias of Alice Louise Metzinger and married Ron Duncan.[2] Power took her alias in 1977 from the birth certificate of an infant that had died the year before Katherine was born.[5][9] Duncan was a local meat cutter and bookkeeper with whom she lived for thirteen years before getting married.[11] The two raised her son Jamie and they married in 1992.[2]

While living in Oregon, Power taught cooking classes at Linn-Benton Community College in Albany and partly owned or worked at restaurants in Corvallis and Eugene.[2] The restaurant she partly owned in Eugene was Napoli Restaurant and Bakery.[7] She was even a finalist to become the food writer for the local paper, the Corvallis Gazette-Times.[2] During her time on the run, Power was also diagnosed and treated for clinical depression.[2] However, this was unrelated to her crime and her time spent eluding authorities. The depression was a condition from which she had suffered since childhood.[2] The therapist who diagnosed the depression, and whom Power confided with about her fugitive status, was Linda Carroll.[12] Carroll is the mother of rock star Courtney Love.[12]

As time passed, Power developed a desire to stop living the lie that was her existence under her assumed name.[13] Through therapy which included participation in a mock trial of a soldier for killing civilians during the Vietnam War, she began a personal process to prepare for surrender to authorities.[3] Other preparations included marrying Duncan and a potluck dinner party where she revealed her secret to her friends.[3]

[edit] Surrender

In 1993, Katherine Ann Power negotiated a surrender with authorities and ended 23 years of hiding.[2] Negotiations were carried out through her attorneys Steven Black, a public defender, and Rikki Klieman, a prominent Boston lawyer.[1] On September 15, 1993, she pleaded guilty to two counts of armed robbery and manslaughter in Boston.[1][7] At the time, her son Jamie was 14 years old and a freshman in high school, while Power was 44 years old.[2][14] Her husband, Ron Duncan, then adopted Jamie.[5]

In court, Power made the following statement about officer Schroeder:

“ His death was shocking to me, and I have had to examine my conscience and accept any responsibility I have for the event that led to it.[11] ”

Power was sentenced to eight to twelve years in prison for the bank robbery, and five years and a $10,000 fine for the National Guard armory crimes.[8] Additionally, judge Robert Banks of Suffolk County Superior Court imposed a probation condition that Power could not profit from her crime. Banks remarked that the sentence negotiated was inadequate.[7] The second five years were to be served concurrently with the eight to twelve year sentence, with a possibility of parole after five years.[8] This probation condition also precluded her ability to profit directly or indirectly from telling her story.[15] Power appealed this portion of the sentence on First Amendment grounds, but the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rejected the argument and the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari.[15][16]

In her only public statement, Power said:

“ The illegal acts I committed arose not from any desire for personal gain but from a deep philosophical and spiritual commitment that if a wrong exists, one must take active steps to stop it, regardless of the consequences to oneself in comfort or security.[11] ”

[edit] Prison and release

While in prison Power completed her college degree in liberal studies through Boston University.[17] In March 1998, Power was eligible for parole after receiving time off for good behavior, but withdrew her request after opposition from the victim’s family.[18] On October 2, 1999, she was released from prison in Massachusetts and placed on fourteen years of probation after serving six years of her eight to twelve year sentence.[19] Fifty years old at the time of release, Power then returned to Oregon and the family she formed while a fugitive.[19] Shortly after release she appeared at a public forum on peace at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, where she questioned the “violent posture” of some people in the peace movement, including activist Philip Berrigan.[19]

Later, Power enrolled in graduate studies at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, where she worked on a masters degree in interdisciplinary studies with focuses on writing, philosophy, and ethics.[17] She also taught freshman composition for the English department.[20] On May 10, 2001, she gave a poetry reading in Corvallis and graduated with her MAIS later that year.[17][21][20] In September 2001, Katherine Ann Power represented the Oregon State philosophy department in a biotech lecture series.[22] As of 2008, she worked for Cambridge Cares About AIDS in the Boston area.[23]

[edit] Cultural references

Since her surrender, Power and her story have been the basis for a variety of books and even a television episode of Law & Order. The television episode was a 1994 episode of Law & Order entitled White Rabbit which was loosely based on her case. In the show, her character is called Susan Forrest and she is found after money from the robbery turns up in a private safety deposit box after a robbery. William Kunstler even appears in the episode playing himself as Forrest's lawyer. The fifth season episode aired on October 19, 1994.[24] Later her story was the basis for Dana Spiotta’s novel, Eat the Document.[25] She is also part of David Racine's novel, Floating in a Most Peculiar Way.[26]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Lambert, Pam (October 4, 1993), “Alice doesn’t live here anymore”, People: 61 
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Hamilton, William (September 18, 1993), “Former Student Radical's Journey From Depression Led to Surrender”, The Washington Post: A3 
  3. ^ a b c Egan, Timothy (September 17, 1993), “A Conscience Haunted by a Radical's Crime”, The New York Times, <http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE3DC123DF934A2575AC0A965958260&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=1>. Retrieved on 21 May 2007 
  4. ^ a b Schulberg, Pete (February 10, 1994), “Oregon Fugitive Tells Tale on 20/20”, The Oregonian 
  5. ^ a b c d e Wilson, Bradford P. (October 1993). Dubious Sympathies. On Principle. Retrieved on 2007-04-13.
  6. ^ a b c d e f "The Radical Bank Job" (October 10, 1970). Time. 
  7. ^ a b c d Rimer, Sara (October 7, 1993), “Ex-Radical Gets 8 to 12 Years In 1970 Killing, and a Rebuke”, The New York Times: A1 
  8. ^ a b c d Bates, Tom (November 25, 1993), “Power gets 5 years, fine, lecture”, The Oregonian: D5 
  9. ^ a b c d “Fugitive gives up”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 16, 1993 
  10. ^ "Wanted by FBI" (November 16, 1970). Time. 
  11. ^ a b c Carlson, Margaret (September 27, 1993). The Return Of The Fugitive. Time.
  12. ^ a b Klieman, Rikki J.; Peter Knobler (2003). Fairy Tales Can Come True: How a Driven Woman Changed Her Destiny. HarperCollins. 254. ISBN 0060524022. 
  13. ^ Krauthammer, Charles (October 4, 1993). "From People Power to Polenta". Time. 
  14. ^ Serrano, Barbara A. (September 16, 1993), “Secret Life of a Radical Fugitive”, The Seattle Times: A1 
  15. ^ a b Epps, Garrett. Power is free, but not her speech. University of Oregon. Reprint from The Oregonian, November 14, 1999, Forum section: D2. Retrieved on May 14, 2008.
  16. ^ Power v. Massachusetts, 516 U.S. 1042 (1996).
  17. ^ a b c Floyd, Mark. Local writer to read poems and essays May 10. Oregon State University. Retrieved on May 14, 2008.
  18. ^ Bates, Tom. "Katherine Power drops parole request", The Oregonian, March 6, 1998. 
  19. ^ a b c Denson, Bryan. "Katherine Ann Power turns up in Oregon, plans to stay", The Oregonian, October 28, 1999, pp. A1. 
  20. ^ a b Highlights from the 2000-2001 Annual Report of the OSU Department of Philosophy. Oregon State University. Retrieved on May 14, 2008.
  21. ^ Barnard, Jeff. "Quest for redemption never ends", The Columbian, Associated Press, May 12, 2001. Retrieved on 2007-05-21. 
  22. ^ OSU 2001-02 "Ideas Matter" Lecture series focuses on biotech. Oregon State University, September 25, 2001. Retrieved on May 14, 2008.
  23. ^ The Memorial Church: Previous Faith & Life Forum Events. The President and Fellows of Harvard College. Retrieved on May 14, 2008.
  24. ^ "Law & Order" White Rabbit (1994). The Internet Movie Database. Retrieved on May 14, 2008.
  25. ^ Scheers, Julia (February 26, 2006). "Hiding in Plain Sight". The New York Times Book Review: 15. 
  26. ^ "Floating in a most Peculiar Way" (March 1, 1999). Kirkus Reviews. Kirkus Service, Inc.. 

[edit] External links