Willie Wolfe

William Lawton Wolfe (February 17, 1951 – May 17, 1974) was one of the founding members in 1972 of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), an American radical group based near Oakland, California. While in the group, he adopted the name "Kahjoh", though the media misspelled this as "Cujo". Born and raised in an upper middle-class family in Connecticut, Wolfe had come west and enrolled at University of California, Berkeley, studying anthropology. He got involved with a prisoner outreach project, through which he was recruited by inmate Donald DeFreeze to the group that formed the SLA. He and six other members died in Los Angeles during a law enforcement shootout and fire in the house where they were staying. His father had commissioned an investigation of the SLA. Discussed at a press conference shortly before the fire and Wolfe's death, it suggested from strong evidence that DeFreeze was a police informant and agent provocateur. Wolfe was raised in Connecticut in an upper-middle class family. His father was L.S. Wolfe Jr, a prominent anesthesitist. His parents divorced when he was 15. Wolfe boarded at Northfield Mount Hermon School, a Massachusetts prep school, but his father later said he did not thrive there. After graduating from Mount Hermon, Willie chose to delay college, and took a year-long trek to the Arctic Circle. "He asked me for $200 when he left," his father recalled with pride, "and that kid came back with$60 change." In 1971 Wolfe moved to San Francisco, where he enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley and studied anthropology. He took African-American Linguistics through the Department of Afro-American Studies, and was taught by Colston Westbrook. Through this class, Wolfe became involved in prisoners' rights, as Westbrook was associated with a prison outreach project. It had been organized by Venceremos, a largely Chicano leftist group, and a small group of Berkeley students (mostly white) became involved as volunteers as well.