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.
Born and raised in an upper middle-class family in Connecticut, Wolfe had come west and enrolled at University of California, Berkeley, studying anthropology.
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.
In 1972, African-American prisoner Donald DeFreeze (Cinque) invited Wolfe and Russ Little, both white, to join his separate study group, Unisight.
[4] In Robert Stone's 2005 documentary, Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst, Russ Little said of Wolfe: Willie was kind of like the catalyst.
[citation needed] When Willie's father learned of his son's involvement in the SLA, he hired private detective Lake Headley to provide him with more information.
That a love affair between a black man and Patricia Hearst did take place prior to her relationship with her fiancé Steven Weed.
In it he presented well-documented evidence that Donald DeFreeze was a police informant and agent provocateur from the period when he was organizing the SLA.
His charred remains were found in the crawl space of the house, along with those of DeFreeze and Mizmoon, whose gas masks melted to their faces.
After the fire in LA, three FBI agents knocked on the door of Willie's father at midnight, seeking his son's dental records.
Two days later, Dr. Wolfe received a call from the Los Angeles County Coroner's office informing him that his son was dead.