a co-founder. Others in the small group were Thero Wheeler, a black convict who escaped from Vacaville in August 1973; Chicano Joe Remiro (classified as white by the New York Times), and Angela Atwood, another white woman. They were soon joined by a white married couple, Emily Harris and her husband William. All but DeFreeze, Wheeler and Remiro were white and mostly educated, from middle and upper-class families. With Soltysik, Perry is considered to have been a chief theorist and driver of the SLA. She was the only one to identify publicly as SLA, and wrote a five-page letter to The San Francisco Chronicle in 1974 affirming this. Initially Wheeler and Remiro, a veteran, began training the whites in the use of weapons. None hd any experience with them. Wheeler was increasingly opposed to the radical plans for violence formed by SLA leaders. He believed it was the wrong direction, and withdrew in October 1973 with his heiress girlfriend Mary Alice Siem. After the two separated, he lived as a fugitive for two years before being apprehended. The SLA first made headlines by claiming credit for the murder on November 6, 1973, of Marcus Foster, Superintendent of Oakland Public Schools. He was the first black superintendent of any major urban school system. This act outraged the black community, which had strongly admired him.In a public statement, the unknown group SLA claimed that the bullets used were tipped with the poison cyanide. This was confirmed by the city coroner and the police realized they had a new group to monitor. Perry narrowly avoided arrest a few days later on November 11. A serial rapist appeared at the front door of her house and attempted to assault her. She stopped this and talked to police on the front lawn after they were alerted by neighbors. She avoided police entering her house and finding the many SLA materials inside. The rapist was later apprehended. In an effort to evade police attention after the attack on Foster and his deputy, Perry rented a house for the SLA under a false name in Concord, California, east of the Berkeley hills. Little and Remiro were stopped in that area in early January 1974 by police and exchanged shots with them. They were both arrested. In an effort to destroy evidence linked to the SLA, Perry set the house on fire and fled. But the fire was