"THE HEIRESS AND THE ARMY: HOW PATTY HEARST WENT FROM KIDNAP VICTIM TO AMERICA'S MOST WANTED - PART 1"

0:03 Calaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Reed Carter, Saturday, February seventh, twenty twenty six. This past week brought us the troubling case of Nancy Guthrie's disappearance in Arizona, a reminder that when you're connected to someone famous, that fame creates visibility, and visibility creates vulnerability. Celebrity kidnappings have haunted America for nearly a century, but no case is stranger, more disturbing, or more debated than what happened to Patricia Campbell Hurst. February fourth, nineteen seventy four, Berkeley, California. Around nine pm, Nineteen year old Patty Hurst is home with her fiance, Stephen Wed at their apartment on Benvenue Street, quiet evening, two college kids, normal night. Then a knock at the door.

0:58 Patty opens it. Three are strangers burst in, two men, one woman, guns drawn. They beat Weed with a wine bottle, tied him up. A neighbor who heard the commotion tried to help. They beat him too, tied him up. They grabbed Patty, screaming, kicking, threw her in the trunk of their car, fired gunshots to scatter anyone watching. Cyanide tipped bullets and drove away. Within hours, the Hurst family was in chaos. Patty's father, Randolph Hurst, chairman of the Hearst media Empire, grandson of William Randolph Hurst, one of the most powerful families in America. Their daughter had been taken by people with cyanide tipped bullets. Three days later, a Berkeley radio station received a letter the Symbionese Liberation Army never heard of them, small violent, radical left wing group led by an escaped convict who called himself General Field Marshal Chinkway. They declared Paddy Hurst a prisoner of war.

1:58 What happened next would consume America for nineteen months. A kidnapped heiress, a ransom in food instead of cash, audiotapes from captivity, brainwashing or radicalization, depending on who you believe. And then the photograph Patty Hurst standing in front of the SLA's seven headed cobra flag beret on her head, m won carbine in her hands, not a hostage anymore, a soldier calling herself Tanya. Two months later, surveillance cameras captured her robbing a bank victim or revolutionary? Brainwashed or willing? The question that consumed America in nineteen seventy four. Still doesn't have a clear answer. Fifty one years later, I'm read Carter, this is celebrity trials today. The kidnapping of Patty Hurst, the Symbionese Liberation Army, the closet, the bank robbery, and the photograph that changed everything. Part one of two.

3:01 Let's set the stage. Patricia Campbell Hurst born February twentieth, nineteen fifty four, San Francisco, third of five daughters. Her grandfather was William Randolph Hurst, the newspaper magnate. Citizen Kane was inspired by his life. The family wielded immense political influence and unimaginable wealth. Patty grew up in Hillsboro, an affluent suburb. Private schools Crystal Springs School for Girls, Santa Catalina School in Monterey, then Menlo College in Atherton. Eventually transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, art history major, living with her fiancee, Stephen Weed, a former math teacher at her high school who became her boyfriend. They were engaged planning a wedding, living a quiet life in a college apartment. Then the SLA chose her. The Symbionese Liberation army self proclaimed revolutionary group founded in the fall of nineteen seventy three, no more than a dozen members, mostly white college educator, middle class kids, who adopted a seven headed cobra as their symbol and an escaped black convict as their leader. Their stated goals close all prisons, end monogamy, eliminate capitalism, Unite all oppressed people. Their leader, Donald de Fries born in Cleveland, Ohio, criminal record from age fourteen, escaped from Solidad prison in March nineteen seventy three, renamed himself General Field Marshal Chinkwe. Only black member of this supposedly revolutionary army fighting for racial justice. The SLA's first

4:34 act of revolution assassinating Marcus Foster, the African American superintendent of schools in Oakland, in November nineteen seventy three. Shot him with cyanide tipped bullets. Their reason they believed he supported a student ID card program. He didn't. They killed him based on a newspaper report that was wrong. Make it make sense a group dedicated to ending racism a black educator based on bad information. Welcome to revolutionary logic. Two SLA members, Joe Ramiro and Russell Little, were arrested in January nineteen seventy four for Foster's murder. The remaining members wanted leverage to free them. They needed a hostage, someone famous, someone whose kidnapping would make front page news across the country. A November nineteen seventy three San Francisco Chronicle article had announced the engagement of Patricia Hurst and Stephen Weed published their address. The SLA had their target.

5:34 The FBI later found documents at an abandoned SLA safe house revealing a planned action for the full moon of January seventh. The FBI didn't act on it, didn't take precautions, didn't warn the Hurst family. The SLA delayed a month, then struck on February fourth. Three members forced their way into apartment four at two six to oh three Benvenue Street, beat Weed on, conscious with a wine bottle, assaulted the neighbor, dragged Paddy out, screaming into the trunk of a car gone. The Hurst family mobilized immediately. Randolph Hurst flew back from Washington. Media descended on the family's mansion in Hillsborough. The FBI launched what would become one of the most massive, agent intensive searches in its history. Two days after the kidnapping, the SLA confirmed they had Patty, called her a prisoner of war, issued a communicate warning that any rescue attempt would result in the prisoner being executed, ended with capital letters death to the fascist insect that praise upon the life of the people. Eight days later, another tape Defreese demanding that Randolph Hearst fund a multimillion dollar food giveaway as a good faith gesture. The tape included the frightened voice of Paddy Hurst, proof of life, proof she was terrified.

6:59 Randolph Hurst created the People in Need program, donated about two million dollars in food distribution, was chaotic rioting at some locations, dozens of injuries and arrests at a site in West Oakland, Fraud and disorder everywhere. Then a march audio tape Patty's voice criticizing her own father. So far, it sounds like you and your advisors managed to turn it into a real disaster. The SLA demanded six million more. The Hurst Corporation said it would donate the additional sum if Patty was released unharmed. The SLA rejected the offer, but the food was never really the point. The SLA didn't want money or food. They wanted attention. They wanted to prove they could take the granddaughter of the most powerful media family in America and the entire government couldn't stop them. And they were right. Nobody could find them.

7:51 Nobody could find Patty. The FBI had hundreds of agents on the case and not a single lead. Here's what was happening to Patty Hurst. While her family was distributing food and the FBI was searching, she was locked in a closet. For the first two months of her captivity. Hurst was bound, blindfolded and confined to a small, dark closet. Couldn't see, couldn't move freely, couldn't leave except for meals, and even then she was blindfolded. Defrieze repeatedly threatened her with death, told her the War Council had decided they were thinking about killing her or she could stay with them.

8:36 Better start thinking about that as a possibility. She was sexually assaulted. At trial, she testified that Defrieze and another SLA member named Willie Wolf raped her while she was in captivity, bound blindfolded, helpless, while locked in that closet, The SLA gave her political tracts to memorize a flashlight to read by. They began including her in their political discussions during meals, indoctrination day after day, week after week, alone in the dark with nothing but SLA propaganda, and the constant threat of execution. This is classic coercive persuasion, isolation, sensory deprivation, physical abuse, sexual abuse, constant threat of death, total dependency on captors for food, water, survival, and then the offer of acceptance, join us and live, refuse and die.

9:37 Psychologists would later compare it to techniques used by Chinese communists on American prisoners of war during Korea. Break them down, rebuild them, create loyalty through terror and dependency. Hirst later told psychiatrists, I accommodated my thoughts to coincide with theirs. That sentence is the heart of the entire case. Did she accommodate her thoughts because she was brainwashed, because she was terrorized into compliance, or because she genuinely came to believe what they were telling her? Fifty nine days after her kidnapping, America got its answer, or thought it did.

10:17 April third, nineteen seventy four, the SLA released a new audio tape this one was different. No frightened voice, no please for help. Patty Hurst sounded confident, strong, resolved. I have been given the choice of being released in a safe area or joining the forces of the Symbionese Liberation Army and fighting for my freedom and the freedom of all oppressed people. I have chosen to stay and fight. She announced she had taken a new name, Tanya, a tribute to Tamara Bunka Chae Gavara's comrade. She denounced her family, called her father a corporate liar, said the SLA were not combating the people, but fighting for them. Then the photograph Patty Hurst standing in front of the SLA's seven headed cobra flag, beret tilted on her head, m one carbine rifle in her hands, legs spread in a fighting stance, eyes cold, not a hostage. A soldier America was stunned.

11:17 How does a nineteen year old art history major from one of the wealthiest families in the country become a revolutionary in two months? How does a kidnap victim join her kidnappers? The answer depends on who you ask. Psychiatrists would later testify that Hurst was a text bookcase of what would become known as Stockholm syndrome, a term coined just the year before, in nineteen seventy three, after a bank robbery hostage crisis in Sweden, the captive bonds with the captor as a survival mechanism. The victim identifies with the aggressor to stay alive. Others said Hurst was a willing convert, a bored rich girl who found excitement and purpose in revolution, a rebel looking for a cause who found one in the most extreme way possible. The truth is probably somewhere in between, and that gray area is what makes this case still debated fifty one years later.

12:08 But twelve days after that tape, the debate became academic because Patty Hurst robbed a bank. We'll be right back with. April fifteenth, nineteen seventy four, Surveillance cameras capture a newspaper heiress screaming profanity and wielding an assault rifle during a San Francisco bank robbery and the LAPD shootout that killed six SLA members on live television, while Patty Hurst watched from a motel room near Disneyland. April fifteenth, nineteen seventy four, San Francisco, The sunset District branch of the Hibernia Bank fourteen fifty Noriega Street. Midday, five SLA members entered the bank, among them Patty Hurst, or rather Tanya, wielding an M one carbine rifle. The bank's surveillance cameras captured everything. Hurst was filmed pointing the rifle at customers and employees. The group took approximately ten thousand dollars. Two bystanders who entered during the robbery were shot and wounded by SLA members.

13:19 On the surveillance tape, Hurst can be seen shouting commands, identifying herself as Tanya, barking orders. First person puts up his head. I'll blow his mother ing head off. Not the behavior of a terrified hostage being forced at gunpoint, at least that's how prosecutors would later frame it. But here's the detail that complicates the narrative. An FBI agent heading the investigation noted that SLA members were photographed pointing guns at Hurst during the robbery. Were they aiming at bystanders or at her ensuring she performed keeping their hostage in line even during the crime. Attorney General William Saxby declared Hurst a common criminal and not a reluctant and participant.

14:01 A grand jury indicted her in June nineteen seventy four. She was now a wanted fugitive. After the robbery, the SLA released another tape, the so called Tanya Interview. Hearst spoke of her conversion to the SLA, denied being brainwashed, said she was acting of her own free will, called the idea of brainwashing ridiculous. One month later, the sporting goods store incident that would haunt her at trial. May sixteenth, nineteen seventy four, Mel's Sporting Goods in Inglewood, California. SLA members William and Emily Harris were inside shopping. Hurst was waiting in a van across the street. William Harris was caught shoplifting. Store manager and an employee confronted him. Outside a scuffle, a gun fell from Harris's waistband. Patty Hurst grabbed an automatic carbine from the van and opened fire on the storefront. Emptied the entire magazine into the overhead.

14:57 Nobody hit, but the spray of bullets gave the Harris time to escape. This moment became critical evidence at trial. If Hurst was a hostage, this was her chance to escape. Her captors were detained across the street. She was alone in a van. She could have driven away, called police run. Instead, she opened fire to rescue them. Victim or revolutionary, That question just got a lot harder to answer. But here's what happened twenty four hours later that turned the SLA Saga into something even more extraordinary. May seventeenth, nineteen seventy four, South Los Angeles, one thousand, four hundred sixty six East fifty fourth Street, a small yellow stucco bungalow. A neighbor had called police suspicious people an arsenal of automatic weapons in the living room. The Los Angeles Police Department surrounded the house approximately five hundred officers swat teams FBI, the biggest police operation in LAPD history at that point. They demanded surrender. The SLA opened fire. What followed was broadcast live on national television for nearly two hours, the first live broadcast police shootout in American history. New minicam technology brought it into living rooms across the country in real time.

16:15 Nine thousand rounds of ammunition exchanged, five thousand from police, four thousand from the SLA. Tear Gas canisters launched through windows started fires, the house began to burn, SLA members continued firing, even as smoke and flames seared their lungs. They chose death over surrender. When it was over, six SLA members were dead. Donald de Fries, the self proclaimed general, shot himself as the house burned around him. Five others died from gunfire and smoke inhalation. Not a single police officer was hit, not one bystander injured. Patty Hurst was not inside. She was watching from a motel room near Disneyland and Annaeim with Bill and Emily Harris. The three of them watched their comrades die on live television. Randolph Hurst, Patty's father, responded to the massive police assault, they've turned dingbats into martyrs. The SLA was effectively destroyed, six of its members dead in a burning house on live TV, but Patty Hurst and the Harrises survived, and they weren't done.

17:37 After the shootout, Hurst released another tape, eulogized her fallen comrades, vowed to continue their fight, called the dead SLA members beautiful, and mourned Willie Wolf, specifically, the man she would later testify had raped her. That contradiction would devastate her a trial. If wolf raped you, why mourn him publicly? Prosecutors would argue it proved her conversion was genuine. Defense would argue it proved how thoroughly her mind had been broken. The three survivors recruited new members from Berkeley's radical student movements, allied themselves with the New World Liberation Front, kept moving California to Pennsylvania, a rural farmhouse in Scranton, then back to the Bay Area. April twenty first, nineteen seventy five, four SLA members robbed the Crocker National Bank and Carmichael near Sacramento. During the robbery, a forty two year old woman named Myrna Opsol was shot and killed, an innocent customer, wrong place, wrong time, murdered by revolutionaries robbing a bank.

18:45 The Hurst family eventually withdrew their fifty thousand dollars reward for Patty's safe return, having heard nothing from their daughter since June, hoping was becoming too painful. For seventeen months after the LA shootout, Patty Hurst was a few fugitive on the FBI's most wanted list, one of the most recognizable faces in America, and nobody could find her. Then September eighteenth, nineteen seventy five, San Francisco FBI agents following the trail of SLA member Kathleen Solia, were led to an apartment in the Outer Mission District inside Emily and William Harris and Patricia Hurst, nineteen months after her kidnapping, arrested booked. When authorities asked her occupation, Hurst replied urban gorilla, not kidnapping victim, not student, urban gorilla. Her mother, Katherine expressed confidence, I don't believe Patty's legal problems are that serious.

19:44 After all, she's primarily a kidnap victim. She never went off and did anything of her own free will. Catherine Hurst was wrong. Her daughter's legal problems were about to become the trial of the decade. Patty Hurst was charged with armed res robbery and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. The bank robbery caught on camera, the M one carbine in her hands, the surveillance footage the entire world had seen. Her family hired f Lee Bailey, one of the most famous defense attorneys in America, the man who'd defended the alleged Boston strangler, the man who'd won acquittal for accused wife murderer doctor Sam Shephard. If anyone could convince a jury that Patty Hurst was a brainwashed victim, it was Bailey. The trial was set for February fourth, nineteen seventy six, exactly two years to the day after her kidnapping. Tomorrow the trial f lee Bailey's brainwashing defense, the Fifth Amendment, disaster, the verdict, prison two presidents, and how a bank robbing revolutionary became a suburban dog show champion married to her bodyguard. Make it make sense?

20:57 That's Part one of our Patty Hurst Special. February fourth, nineteen seventy four, a nineteen year old college student dragged screaming from her apartment by armed radicals. Locked in a closet for two months, bound blindfolded, sexually assaulted, threatened with execution. Two months later, she emerged holding a rifle, calling herself Tanya robbing a bank. The Symbionese Liberation Army was a handful of college educated idealists led by an escaped convict. They murdered an innocent school superintendent, kidnapped an heiress, robbed banks, and died in a burning house on live television, while five hundred cops fired five thousand rounds. But the question that America couldn't answer in nineteen seventy four and still can't answer today, what happened in that closet? Was paddy Hurst broken, brainwashed, terrorized into compliance? Or did she find something in the SLA's ideology that resonated. Did the girl from Hillsboro see something real in the revolution? The surveillance, these cameras don't lie. She was holding that rifle, she was shouting those commands, She opened fire at a sporting goods store to rescue her captors when she could have escaped.

22:10 But the closet doesn't lie either. Two months in the dark, sexual assault, death threats, total isolation, total dependency. The human mind breaks under those conditions. That's not opinion, that's neuroscience. Tomorrow, the trial that tried to answer the unanswerable, and the extraordinary life that followed. I'm read Carter, see you tomorrow for part two. This is celebrity Trials