E61 The Kidnapping of Patricia Hearst Part 1

Bourbon and Bloodshed

Patty Hearst, granddaughter of media tycoon William Randolph Hearst, was a young heiress, living with her boyfriend Steven Weed in Berkeley in the winter of 1974 when a knock at the door changed her life. After her boyfriend escaped a group of intruders sent from the Symbionese Liberation Army, Patricia was thrown into the trunk of their escape car and then held hostage for nearly two months, until she finally released a recording stating that she had joined the SLA to fight. Two weeks later she was caught on video in the middle of a bank robbery where she clearly had joined with the SLA to commit the crime. She would later be tried, sentenced, released, and eventually pardoned.

Sources:

American Heiress by Jeffrey Toobin

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Symbionese-Liberation-Army

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2002/01/what-is-the-symbionese-liberation-army.html

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/guerrilla-rise-and-fall-symbionese-liberation-army/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbionese_Liberation_Army

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patty_Hearst

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome