SLA
DeFreeze, along with Patricia Soltysik, founded the Symbionese Liberation Army and soon recruited members for his group. The group perpetrated a number of crimes, the most infamous being the murder of Oakland Schools Superintendent Marcus Foster and the abduction, torture, rape, and brainwashing of newspaper heiress Patty Hearst. DeFreeze is primarily suspected of having murdered Foster and shooting Assistant Superintendent Robert Blackburn.
On May 17, 1974, the Los Angeles Police Department surrounded a house where DeFreeze and five other SLA members were staying. The stand-off quickly escalated into all out battle with both sides trading fire using automatic weapons. The house caught fire during the shootout (possibly from a smoke grenade). DeFreeze and others crawled through a hole in the floor into a crawlspace beneath the house. Apparently burning alive, DeFreeze committed suicide by shooting himself in the right side of his head. His corpse was so severely burned that his family did not initially believe the remains belonged to DeFreeze.
DeFreeze is buried in Highland Park Cemetery in Shaker Heights, Ohio.
Read more about this topic: Donald DeFreeze