Biography
White anti-imperialist organizer and Weather Underground fugitive who lived under an assumed identity for 17 years after a 1970 ROTC bombing attempt at the University of Washington. Captured in Eugene, Oregon in January 1987 and prosecuted on federal explosives and fugitive charges. Documented in PFOC Breakthrough magazine.
1987 arrest and custody chronology
Contemporaneous UPI reporting on January 21 and 23, 1987, places his Eugene arrest on Tuesday, January 20. An Associated Press report published February 6 explicitly gives January 20 and says he was freed on bond the previous Thursday, February 5. This reporting is preferred over the inconsistent January dates in later accounts.
Associated Press reporting published June 26 records sentencing the previous Thursday, June 25, 1987. His lawyer anticipated a later surrender in late July or early August; that was a forecast, not confirmation of prison entry. The incarceration-date field therefore remains unset. The existing final release date is preserved, not independently reverified by this pass.
Elaine Woo’s 2002 obituary reports 17 months served at Lompoc. That reported duration is recorded instead of treating the whole arrest-to-final-release interval as continuous confinement. It should not be read as an exact day count or a reconstructed admission date.
Sources
UPI, January 21, 1987; UPI, January 23, 1987; AP, February 6, 1987; AP, June 26, 1987; Elaine Woo obituary, June 24, 2002.
The Fall 1987 Write Through the Walls directory individually lists Silas Trim Bissell under historical prisoner number 56424-065, with correspondence directed to 3600 Guard Road, Lompoc, California. The original name, individual number and political-prisoner group context match this existing profile. This is dated historical correspondence information, not a present mailing instruction or an independently established admission, transfer, release or completed custody duration.
