Case File: Patty Hearst

Patty Hearst was the third child of Randolph and Catherine Hearst and the granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst, a media magnate who’d built a massively successful publishing empire in the early 20th century. Hearst’s family wealth was extensive, but she lived a largely sheltered early life, attending local schools in the San Francisco Bay Area and largely avoiding the public glare cast by her family’s name.

In early 1974, she was a college sophomore at the University of California, Berkeley, living off campus with her fiancé, Steven Weed. Her parents disapproved of the relationship, as Weed had met Hearst when he was a math teacher at her boarding school, and they started dating when she was 16. Despite this early attempt at breaking free of the conventions established by her distinguished family—and the swirling political milieu of the counterculture of the 1960s and ‘70s—Hearst showed no interest in social activism or radicalization before her abduction. This sharp contrast between her background and the revolutionary ideology of the SLA would become central to how the case was understood, in court and the public imagination.

The Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) was a militant group formed just a year before Hearst’s kidnapping. Led by ex-convict Donald DeFreeze, it had emerged from the era's more radical wings of the Black Power movements and espoused Marxist and anti-imperialist ideologies. For the SLA, which sought to dismantle the capitalist system and incite revolution, an attack on the Hearst media empire via Hearst’s abduction proved to be a rich target to publicize the group’s goals.

On the night of February 4, 1974, members of the SLA broke into Hearst’s apartment, beat her fiancé and forced her into the trunk of a car. She was taken to a secret location where she was held in a closet, blindfolded and confined for weeks. Hearst later testified that during this period she was kept in isolation aside from repeated interrogations, sexual abuse and sessions with SLA members attempting to indoctrinate her into the group’s ideology.

Given Hearst’s family prominence, her disappearance made headlines immediately after abduction. Shortly afterwards, the SLA issued its ransom demands, calling on Hearst’s father to donate $70 million in food to California’s poor communities. Despite law enforcement’s fears that giving into SLA’s demands might both legitimize the group and undermine Hearst’s safe return, her father partially complied, arranging for $6 million in food donations. However, the distribution proved chaotic and insufficient for the SLA to release Hearst.

Then in April 1974, just two months after her kidnapping, Hearst shocked the world when she was caught on a surveillance video wielding a weapon during an SLA robbery of a San Francisco bank. Soon after, the SLA released an audio recording to the press, in which Hearst confirmed her role in the robbery, claiming she’d willingly joined the SLA. Furthermore, she said she had adopted the name “Tania” in homage to a woman who’d worked alongside radical revolutionary Che Guevara.

Hearst participated in several more SLA robberies in San Francisco and Los Angeles. In May 1974, the SLA suffered a severe blow when a shootout erupted between the LAPD and the group inside a house in South Central LA. Hearst wasn’t present, but the incident left six SLA members dead, including founder DeFreeze.

Hearst and the survivors evaded police, frequently changing identities and locations across California and the East Coast. Finally, on September 18, 1975, Hearst and others were arrested by the FBI in San Francisco, ending her saga after 19 months.

At the time of her arrest, Hearst showed little sign of remorse, reportedly telling law enforcement her name was Tania. Investigators discovered documents and recordings linking her with several SLA crimes at the group’s safe houses, and despite her likely involvement in additional cases, she was formally indicted and charged with armed bank robbery and use of a firearm during commission of a felony during the initial April 1974 San Francisco crime.

Hearst’s trial began in January 1976. She was represented by renowned attorney F. Lee Bailey, who’d previously worked on the infamous Dr. Sam Sheppard and Boston Strangler cases and would later be part of O.J. Simpson’s legal team. Defense attorneys portrayed Hearst as a sheltered girl who’d been coerced, psychologically manipulated and subjected to prolonged abuse by the SLA. They claimed that Hearst had been so psychologically damaged that she developed “Stockholm syndrome,” a condition in which hostages begin to identify with their captors.

But prosecutors presented surveillance photos and video and audio recordings showcasing Hearst’s support for the SLA’s goals. They also stressed her detached demeanor after her arrest, including her initial insistence that she be called Tania and her lack of contrition for her crimes, arguing they were not the behavior of a scared teenager.

Hearst was convicted on both charges in March 1976 and was sentenced to seven years in federal prison. Her sentence was commuted in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter after she served 22 months. In 2001, President Bill Clinton granted her a full pardon. A pardon does not erase or expunge a conviction, but it does forgive the offense.

Following her release from prison, Hearst has largely withdrawn from public life. She married Bernard Shaw, a former police officer who had been assigned to her security detail during her trial, and she has two daughters. Over the years, she has occasionally spoken publicly about her experience, notably in her 1982 memoir Every Secret Thing. She has also devoted her time to charity work and appeared in small film roles, including projects by director John Waters.

Despite maintaining her innocence, Hearst remains a polarizing figure with both the media and public divided over the extent of her complicity. To some, she is a clear-cut victim of trauma, but to others she was a privileged young woman who turned into a calculating criminal. The Hearst case also played out during a period of heightened political, social and civil unrest and a growing distrust in the media, government and other institutions. Many people were influenced in their view of Hearst’s actions by their opinion of the goals of that societal unrest itself.

Hearst’s story also drew attention to the criminal justice system’s handling of trauma victims, particularly women subjected to kidnapping or abuse. Her story has inspired films, books and documentaries and remains one of the most complex and debated true crime stories in history.