Citizen Hearst The Hearst family has been wealthy for around
150 years.
Their most successful member, William Randolph Hearst, inspired Orson Welles's Citizen Kane,
a film made in 1941 depicting a ruthless media mogul named Charles Foster Kane.
Like his cinematic counterpart, William Hearst created the largest newspaper publishing company
in history.
His children inherited his wealth and influence during the 50s when William died at 88-years-old.
After his passing, his son Randolf had a daughter named Patricia, but everybody called her Patty.
Little Patty had no idea how crazy the rest of her life would get.
Growing up Hearst Patty, a nickname she despised growing up,
spent her childhood in the San Francisco Bay Area, in one of the wealthiest communities
in America.
This was a community of capitalists and their children, often intending to pass their wealth
to subsequent generations.
Meanwhile, a movement was developing outside of the community gates.
History remembers it as the counterculture revolution, a sweeping movement that encapsulated
young people like Hearst into challenging the beliefs of their parents, which she did.
Patty was expected to be a Hearst at home, but outside of her parents' influence, she
was liberal, rebelling against the system her family helped create.
Put another way, Hearst grew up in two different worlds.
One was the good ole hereditary American capitalism.
The other preached that those things were wrong and should be cleansed from society.
It was old money versus new age ideas.
And the new ideas were winning, at least in Hearst's mind.
When she was a teenager during the late 60s and early 70s, Patty Hearst enjoyed smoking
pot, voting for liberal politicians, and tripping out on LSD.
She often snuck out to escape her safe and secure life for concerts on the rougher sides
of town.
She outright rejected the music of her neighbor Bing Crosby for the rebellious music of the
day: rock and roll, or the early version of it.
Hearst rejected the people living in her house and the legacy they strived to protect and
preserve every day.
Randolph tried sending Patty to a Catholic school, the upscale type with dark paneled
walls and strict nuns.
Young Patty behaved so badly that the school created so-called "Patty" rules to keep the
hippy in line.
However, Hearst refused to go along with punishments, forcing her parents to reluctantly send her
to a secular school.
The move led Hearst to meet a young math tutor named Steven Weed—and yes, that's his real
name.
He would change Hearst's life forever and force Randolph to deal with a potential blow
to his family's legacy.
Steven Weed Randolph Hearst wanted two things for his
daughter: to receive an education, no matter the cost, and for her to not bring down the
family's reputation.
So, Randolph cut her a deal when she threatened to elope with her 25-year-old math tutor at
the age of 18.
He agreed to pay for her and Weed's apartment if Patty attended Cal Berkeley.
Young Hearst agreed.
But only because she wanted to be with Weed.
Hearst met him during her junior year of high school while Weed was tutoring her in math.
The two apparently fell for each other.
Weed was everything her family wasn't: a regular American Joe.
He was also very left-wing, like many people his age during the late 60s.
Weed's ideas and his handsome young face captivated Hearst, leading to a separation from her family.
Taken Hearst got what she wanted.
On February 4th, 1974, Hearst was looking forward to her wedding in June and starting
a new life as Mrs. Weed, until someone knocked on her front door around 9-o-clock at night.
Hearst and Weed were watching TV in the living room and weren't expecting any guests this
late.
So, they answered the door to see who it was and found a group they didn't know.
The mystery group told them they'd hit a car in the parking lot downstairs and needed to
use their phone.
The people at the door were Donald DeFreeze, Nancy Ling Perry, and Willie Wolf.
Perry was the one who knocked on the door.
Hearst and Weed didn't see a car downstairs when she stepped away from the front door.
Instead, they saw two men, DeFreeze and Wolf.
And yes, those are their real names too.
The two men burst inside with black rags.
They took the couple down, gagged their mouths shut, clubbed Weed with a wine bottle, and
dragged Hearst out of the house.
She pleaded with them to stop.
Her neighbor recalls hearing Hearst yell—moments before her mouth was stuffed with a ball of
fabric—"Please no, not me!"
Except, Patty is exactly who they wanted.
The three kidnappers tossed Hearst into the trunk of their car and drove off.
They'd been planning this operation for weeks.
When Hearst started attending Berkeley, the trio assigned their friend to get a job at
the University, allowing her access to all of the school's records, including student
addresses.
Once they knew where Hearst lived, they devised a simple plan to kidnap her.
But why?
The trio belonged to an army, the Symbionese Liberation Army, or the SLA, to be exact.
Not that long ago, two of their fellow liberation army members had been jailed for taking the
life of a school administrator, and someone of Hearst's stature might serve as a valuable
bargaining chip to exchange for their release.
However, the SLA leaders had other plans.
Introducing Tania The world watched and waited for 4 days yet
heard nothing from Patty Hearst.
All they knew was that the heiress was gone, violently and mysteriously taken from her
home by three unknown kidnappers.
Then, the SLA dropped off a special recording at a local Berkeley radio station.
The recording revealed to authorities, the Hearst family, and the American media, who
was holding Patty hostage.
Soon, the black seven-headed cobra was everywhere, the cobra being the SLAs symbol.
Before '74, the group gained minor notoriety for firing cyanide-infused projectiles into
a local school superintendent.
Since then, the SLA resorted to committing lesser crimes and slowly began fading away
as their socio-political revolution lost steam going into the 70's—that is, until the SLA
kidnapped Hearst.
Before that, the SLA had been an obscure run-of-the-mill liberal revolutionary organization.
With Hearst in custody, The SLA had the eyes of America on them and the Hearst family resources
at their disposal.
The Hearst family heard their message loud and clear, primarily because it was delivered
by their daughter, who told her parents about her current situation.
She was okay and only suffered from a few scrapes and bruises.
Thankfully, the kidnappers were kind enough to wash and bandage them.
However, she was surrounded by a whole combat unit armed with automatic weapons who had
no intention of letting her go.
The general field marshal of the army, known as Cinque, also had a message for the Hearsts,
though he was more straightforward.
He told the Hearst's that whatever happens to their daughter was their responsibility
and the responsibility of the authorities they represent."
Field Marshal Cinque held many of the same ideals Hearst believed in but with a more
potent amount of conviction.
During the first couple months of Patty's capture, Cinque tried his hardest to make
sure the Hearst family paid for their oppressive past.
The SLA started by asking Randolph Hearst to fork out $400 million worth of food to
feed every poor person in the Bay Area for a couple of days.
Randolph couldn't come up with the $400 million, so, instead, he donated $2 million to a disorganized
free for all food drive that ended in disaster.
On top of that, the SLA refused to free Patty.
While Randolph was trying to make a deal with the SLA, the seven-headed cobra was trying
to show, or at least make it appear, that Hearst was no longer a captive.
In April 1974, two months after getting kidnapped, Hearst released another recording.
This one showed a surprising change of tune from Patty.
She revealed she'd been given a choice.
She could either be released in a safe area or join SLA and fight for her freedom and
the freedom of all oppressed people.
In the recording, Hearst chose to stay and join the SLA.
Hearst renamed herself to solidify her public dedication to the SLA.
According to another recording, she was given the name Tania after a comrade who fought
alongside Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Bolivia.
In addition to her new name, Hearst, now Tania, beat the skeptics to the punch and made it
clear she wasn't doing this due to brainwashing or torture but of her own free will.
These affirmations would come back to bite her later on.
SLA Debut Patty made her SLA debut on April 15th at
a bank in the Sunset district of San Francisco.
She, along with another army member, stormed into the bank with assault weapons at their
hips.
Patty's hair looked dark and curly in the black and white footage.
It's the first time anyone who wasn't an SLA member had seen Patty publicly.
In her first public appearance since being kidnapped in February, Tania, not Patty, pointed
her weapon at the people inside and ordered them up against the wall.
Two unsuspecting men walked into the bank during her triumphant return to society.
Patty and her associate turned and pointed their guns towards the front door.
They fired several wild shots into the two men but thankfully weren't accurate enough
to do fatal damage.
After grabbing the money, Patty and company fled to the getaway car and sped off to their
hideout.
Crime Spree After the bank robbery, Patty continued to
participate in SLA activities.
According to evidence compiled by authorities, the heiress helped the SLA construct bombs
at their hideout, abduct people and steal their cars.
The bombs Hearst made were later thrown at police during a siege on one of SLA's hideouts.
Police bullets took out several members, and some assumed Patty was among the deceased.
Which, by this point, would not have saddened some people.
Once the media reported on the bank robbery and other crimes, investigators and news questioned
Patty's innocence.
Her story had two narratives: the first explained Patty's terroristic behavior due to Stockholm
syndrome.
Others like Attorney General William B Saxbe believed Patty committed these acts because
she wanted to, not due to a syndrome or blackmail.
No one knew for sure, not until Patty was arrested in 1975.
Urban Guerrilla The authorities issued an arrest warrant for
Patty after the deadly shootout.
Ironically, one of the many felonies police charged her with was kidnapping—two counts
to be exact.
A year and a half later, an army of San Francisco police detectives and FBI agents found Patty
in an SLA apartment with another member named Wendy Yoshimura.
They cuffed the two SLA members and took them into police custody.
While filling out her booking papers, Patty listed her occupation as "Urban Guerilla."
That was for the police.
For the world, Patty instructed her attorney to release a public statement.
Her statement mentioned how she was smiling and felt free and strong.
She wanted to send her greetings and love to all her brothers and sisters out there.
We assume Patty was referring to her fellow army members and anyone else who identified
with the liberation movement.
However, when the charges were filed, the media heiress changed her tune.
Forced A few meetings with her attorney brought Patty
back down to reality, that reality being the DA office planned on going after her like
there was no tomorrow.
Suppose Patty continued expressing positive sentiments towards her former captors.
In that case, she might as well plead guilty to two counts of kidnapping, two counts of
grand theft auto, and a couple of charges for bank robbery.
So, her team of attorneys—which included F. Lee Bailey, who, decades later, would help
on O.J Simpson's famous Dream Team—devised a strategy, the only strategy available to
them: prove that the SLA forced Tania into committing all those crimes.
It was as if she had removed her Tania mask and became good ole Patty again.
At least that's what the defense team wanted the jury to think.
However, once the trial began, some problems arose, particularly with Bailey's defense
strategy.
The judge allowed the prosecutors to present evidence to the jury such as psychiatrist
testimonies and evidence suggesting that Patty willingly participated in the SLA.
In many cases, Patty had to sit there and listen to experts giving testimonies against
her, especially psychiatrists, who essentially admitted that, in their professional opinion,
Patty did not suffer from Stockholm syndrome.
But the prosecutors went a bit further.
They questioned why she had revolutionary books about making weapons and explosives
in her apartment.
They also asked why she never tried to escape despite every opportunity.
On March 20th, 1976, Patty was found guilty of bank robbery, the only crime they could
prove she committed without a shadow of a doubt.
On sentencing day, Patty received seven years in prison.
Behind Bars Patty's time behind bars was rough.
Most of her time in prison was spent in solitary confinement, though not due to bad behavior,
but because the warden feared what other prisoners might do to her.
Nevertheless, Patty still nearly died behind bars.
Just days before she was set to testify against several SLA leaders in court, Patty's lung
collapsed.
She was immediately taken to a hospital for emergency surgery.
The surgery went well, but caused Patty to miss her trip to court.
Testifying against the SLA was her ticket to a shorter sentence.
Fortunately for Patty, it pays to be rich.
Despite being found guilty in court, the court of public opinion thought Patty was innocent.
Even stars like John Wayne called for Patty to be pardoned.
Sure enough, then-President Jimmy Carter commuted Patty's sentence to probation instead of prison.
A decade later, President Bill Clinton fully pardoned Patty.
Post Pardon Patty's post-pardon life has been surprisingly
positive.
Patty wrote and published a memoir detailing her time with the SLA during her probation.
After her pardon, she took up acting and appeared in several movies and tv show episodes like
Frazier.
Patty was not afraid to appear in the public eye.
She allowed herself to be interviewed on several occasions, often spending most of it defending
herself from past accusations by San Francisco prosecutors, accusations she will have to
live with for the rest of her life.
Click to watch one of these next videos!
And let us know in the comment section if you think Patty knew what she was doing….or
not!