The Crime Book

188

I’M A COWARD.

I DIDN’T WANT

TO DIE

THE KIDNAPPING OF PATTY HEARST, 1974

O

n the night of 4 February

1974, 19-year-old Patricia

(Patty) Hearst, an heiress

of the William Randolph Hearst

media empire, was at her California

apartment with her fiancé, Steven

Weed. At 9pm, there was a knock

on the door, and three armed men

burst in. They beat up Weed, and

dragged a screaming Hearst from

her apartment, threw her into the

boot of a car, and drove off.

The kidnapping made international

headlines, and reporters camped

out on the lawn of the Hearst

family’s San Francisco mansion.

An urban guerrilla

Two days later, the Berkeley radio

station KPFA received a letter from

a left-wing guerrilla group known as

the Symbionese Liberation Army

(SLA). Purporting to be a warrant

for the arrest of Patricia Campbell

Hearst, the missive included Patty

Hearst’s credit card and a warning

that anyone attempting to interfere

would be executed. It also ordered

that all communications from the

SLA be published in full in all

newspapers and on radio and TV.

On 12 February, the radio station

received a recording from the SLA,

on which Hearst was heard telling

her parents that she was fine, and

was not being starved or beaten.

She also said that the police should

not attempt to find her. The SLA’s

leader, Marshal Cinque, whose real

name was Donald DeFreeze,

extorted $2 million (£4.6 million)

from Hearst’s father in food aid for

California’s poor. But when the

group sought a further $4 million

(£9.2 million) from him, Hearst said

he was unable to meet that sum,

and negotiations broke down.

In the two months following

Hearst’s abduction, her captors

seemingly transformed her into a

willing accomplice. In another

IN CONTEXT

LOCATION

Berkeley, California, US

THEME

Abduction and coercion

BEFORE

1874 Fou r-yea r-old Cha rley

Ross is lured into a horse-

drawn carriage outside his

Pennsylvania home and

abducted. His father cannot

pay the ransom and the boy is

not seen again.

1968 US student Barbara Jane

Mackle is kidnapped from a

hotel by Gary Krist and Ruth

Eisemann-Schier. They receive

a $500,000 (£2 million today)

ransom from her wealthy

father, and the girl is found

alive, buried in a wooden box.

AFTER

1996 German businessman

Jakub Fiszman is seized from

his Eschborn office. His

kidnappers take a ransom of $2

million (£1.5 million), although

they have already killed him.

Why’d they snatch Hearst? To

get the country’s attention,

primarily. Hearst was from a

wealthy, powerful family.

The US Federal Bureau

of Investigation

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189

Patty Hearst poses with a gun in

front of the SLA’s flag in 1974. After 57

days of captivity, she joined the group,

but whether she remained a victim or

became a perpetrator remains unclear.

See also: The Abduction of Pocahontas 176 ■ The Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping 178–85

■ The Kidnapping of John Paul Getty III 186–87

KIDNAPPING AND EXTORTION

audiotape the heiress declared her

allegiance to the SLA, saying that

she had been given the option of

either being released, or joining the

SLA and fighting for the freedom

of all oppressed people. Hearst

claimed to have chosen to stay

and fight alongside her captors. In

mid-April 1974, under her nom de

guerre “Tania”, Hearst took part in

a bank robbery in San Francisco,

during which the surveillance

cameras captured a photo of her

holding a rifle.

Bloody gunfight

A breakthrough in the case came

on 16 May 1974, when two SLA

members attempted to steal an

ammunition belt from a Los

Angeles store. They fled in a

getaway van, which was later found

at the group’s safe house. The next

day, police surrounded the house. A

massive shootout ensued and the

house erupted in flames. Six SLA

members were killed in the fire,

including DeFreeze, but Hearst was

not among the dead. She and two

other members had escaped and

were watching the drama in a

motel room via the first live TV

broadcast of an unplanned event.

In September 1975, 19 months

after her ordeal began, the FBI

captured Patricia Hearst. In March

1976, she was tried and convicted

of armed bank robbery and other

crimes, and given a seven-year

prison sentence. The jury had not

found plausible the defence’s theory

that Hearst had been brainwashed

by the SLA, although today her

case is regarded by many as a clear

example of Stockholm syndrome.

Hearst served just 21 months of her

term. President Jimmy Carter

commuted it to time served, on the

grounds that had she not been

subjected to degrading experiences

as a victim of the SLA, she would

never have participated in the

group’s criminal acts. She was

released in February 1979. Several

other SLA members were captured

with Hearst, who pleaded guilty to

kidnapping the heiress. In 2001, in

one of his final acts of his tenure,

President Bill Clinton granted

Hearst a full pardon. ■

Stockholm syndrome

In August 1973, four employees

of a bank in Stockholm, Sweden,

were held hostage in its vaults

for six days. Their captors were

escaped prisoner Jan-Erik Olsson

and his fellow convict Clark

Olofsson, whose release Olsson

had negotiated with the police.

Strangely, although the victims

feared for their lives during the

siege, they also formed a strong

sympathetic bond with their

captors, even appearing to take

their side against the police.

When the standoff ended, the

hostages and convicts hugged,

kissed, and shook hands. The

victims’ seemingly irrational

attachment to their captors

puzzled everyone, and soon

after, a psychiatrist coined the

term “Stockholm Syndrome”

to explain this psychological

response. It is now believed that

in a hostage or kidnap scenario,

bonding to a captor is a survival

mechanism subconsciously

adopted under extreme stress.

The FBI’s Hostage Barricade

Database System states that

about 8 per cent of victims show

signs of the syndrome.

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