348: From Kidnapped Heiress to America’s Most Wanted Fugitive
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Hey, what is up, everybody? And welcome back to Mile Higher Podcast, episode 347. I'm your host, Kendall. I'm Josh. And we are joined by our amazing production team, Janelle and Ian. Hello. Hi, guys. How y'all doing today? Doing good. Doing good? This is a crazy-ass case. Yeah, really excited to get into this topic.

Ian, you found this topic. I had never heard of it, actually. Yeah, I think it's because when I was little, I would watch History Channel documentaries. This was always one of them that they did because it's just weird. But also the dog shows. That's how I found out about it this most recent time. Because I was looking up Shih Tzus. Yeah, right. And that's, yeah. Yeah, it's got a weird dog show connection at the very end. But this is a pretty crazy story. I'm sure many of you have heard at least of some of it.

But there's a lot of information to go over how all of this unfolds. But it's really one of the most bizarre kidnapping cases in history. Very, very interesting how this all played out. So you want to just go ahead and jump in, Josh, since we do have so much ground to cover here. Well, what is this about exactly? We should probably tell people who this is about. Tell people. You're right. We should give them a little preview. This is the bizarre kidnapping story of Patricia Hurst. Right.

the heiress of the Hearst Media Corporation. Very rich family. Yes, and things go very, very wrong after she is kidnapped by this radical...

I don't even know what I mean. Terrorist group. Really is what they are. That's accurate. Yeah. I mean, that's what the government classified them as. I mean, I think some people I mean, I think I think they fall a lot of. Yeah. It was very extreme. I don't agree with how they did things, but they're.

like core message anarchist yeah i understand basically like fuck the government yeah you know kind of fascist regime to today you know yeah i mean it was the 70s 70s was a different time period things were just i i think that's the hardest thing for us uh youngins uh we just have no concept of what

what this period of history was like. Yeah. You can watch documentaries and stuff, but to, it's hard to really picture. It was such a wild time. Yeah. Cause I mean, even our parents were teenagers when this was all going down or, you know, close to their early twenties. So they're still kind of figuring out the world when a lot of crazy shit was going down. Yeah. There was like a thousand political bombings going on in the seventies. Like it's,

Skyjackings. Mm-hmm. You know, DB Coopers, you know, jumping out of airplanes. That was in the 70s, right? Or was that late 60s? I think that was 70s. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is just a wild time. I know. It's always really interesting covering cases from around this time or stories from around this time because the footage is just... Everything looks so different. The way people speak is so different, even in the...

I'm forgetting the name. Communique. Communiques. The communiques. I had never heard that term before this episode, actually. I think it's so it's just them adopting more sort of like Marxist style of speaking. So just certain terms like communique instead of like just communications. Yeah. Communications or whatever. It's just because that's how they read it in their Marxist literature. Right. Right. Right.

Yeah. A revolutionary period in history, though. Seems like we're kind of entering that era again. Yeah, it seems like it's... But it's like a lot of people, especially today, are like, things are really bad. And they are. Things are crazy. Which, yes, to an extent they are, but

We've seen this before in some would argue is in even worse circumstances. Well, that's the concern though. History repeats itself. Could it go down that? Yeah, totally. Exactly. I think it's hard though for a lot of us to relate because even though things are bad, there's a lot of us that aren't affected in the everyday, you know, in the same way that a lot of other people back in the 1970s when a lot of this was going on, Vietnam's going on, people are, you know, off at war.

It's just a whole different perspective to sort of wrap your head around. I think it makes it interesting. In order to understand how this whole thing plays out,

we have to go, as we always do, back to the beginning and let's talk about who Patricia Hearst is and where she comes from, what her family is like, and what this whole Hearst Media Empire is all about. Because it's all very important to the events that sort of unfold here. But if we go all the way back to the beginning, Patricia Campbell Hearst was born on February 20th, 1954, and she was raised in Northern California within the confines of the Hearst Media Empire. Now, the Hearst family's wealth dates back to at least the 1870s. So they're one of the

you know, original wealthy people here in this country when her grandfather, George Hearst, became an early mining magnate in the newly settled city of San Francisco, California. Remember the California Gold Rush? These guys really made it big as a result of all this and really kind of set up their business way back. But his son, the soon-to-be extremely famous William Randolph Hearst, was raised in privilege. His mother, Phoebe Hearst, was once quoted as saying, "'There's only one thing that's sure about my boy.'"

When he wants cake, he wants cake and he wants it now. And I noticed that after a while, he gets that cake. He does get that cake. I don't know why I said that quote like that, but I like it. You know, I get the cake, man. By the 1920s, William Randolph Hearst owned the first nationwide media company publishing newspapers and magazines. If you remember what those are like, like the San Francisco Examiner, Harper's Bazaar and the New York Morning Journal.

and my favorite magazine, Good Housekeeping. Oh, you do love that one, don't you? I love a good, neat and tidy house. His publishing style, known as yellow journalism, was sensationalist in nature and focused on dark, inexploitive stories. He used the papers to push public sentiment to support the Spanish-American War, oppose socialism, and even knock down political opponents. The man himself, look at that, he looks like he'd hang out with J.P. Morgan. Oh, yeah. Probably did.

If you remember the five families that ruled the world, if you're an OG Mile High listener, you remember that series of episodes. Hearst, I believe, is in that ring. But William was also filthy, filthy rich. He owned eight homes and built a castle in San Simeon, California that playwright George Bernard Shaw described as the place God would have built. Gives you some great perspective. William even shipped hundreds of exotic animals, including lions, hippos, and giraffes to Roma's property.

with a number of tropical birds that still live on the land to this day. That is wild. This thing is fucking insane. Yeah, it is. Whoa. I do believe now it's just like a national historic site you can go visit and hang out. No, that's cool. Oh, cool. I didn't know that. Maybe you'll see a hippo. Just kidding. I think all the animals are long gone. They're not there, yeah. Been relocated to zoos. But the best known portrayal came from Orson Welles' 1941 classic, Citizen Kane, which portrayed William H.

as a lonely, bitter, wealthy tycoon. William was not happy about this and had the film silenced on release, but after he died in 1951, this baby skyrocketed in popularity and is widely regarded as a classic film. It's so good. Citizen Kane. I love Citizen Kane.

Everyone should see that movie. While William had four sons, George, William Jr., and twins Randolph and David, he didn't trust any of them to run his empire. He has all these sons, and usually one of the sons takes over these business empires. He's like, nah. Fuck yeah. I don't trust any of y'all. So he split up the ownership of his companies among a board of directors rather than let any of his sons take over. Or maybe it was more of a, I want them to make their own way in the world. I don't want them to be a...

Could be. Maybe it was coming from... Or he just knew if he gave it to one, then the others would be jealous and they'd just be feuding. Or if I split it. But I honestly think it's kind of a good parenting move. Unless it just came out of pure greed and...

lack of trust. Maybe they were assholes to him. I don't know. I do believe it's a mixture of everything you guys are saying. But I think the main one actually was like genuinely he's like, I don't trust these boys too. They'd fuck it up. Yeah, they'd fuck it up. Succession style. Well, that's on you, dude. You should have raised them to be more trustworthy boys. I doubt he was that involved in the raising. He'd probably have a lot of time to spend with them. Up to a lot of mischief, maybe. I mean, four boys is a lot. Yeah. Fuck.

That's a lot. That's a lot of energy. While they were all still incredibly wealthy and sons like Randolph took over as head publishers for his various newspapers, none of them amassed the wealth William had during his lifetime. And this will be very important later on. So as head publisher of the San Francisco Examiner, Randolph was a hands-off boss. He was noted for coming into the office only once a week, actually, sometimes less,

commenting on the stories and then announcing that he would be golfing and hunting for the remainder of the week. Randolph had five daughters with his wife, Catherine, and raised them all in a colonial-style mansion in Hillsboro. Now, despite Patty's upper-class childhood, going to four private schools for her primary education, Randolph raised her as a son, you could say. He taught Patty how to shoot so that he could take her on hunting trips, how to golf, and fish.

And of course, Catherine ensured that she had the hallmarks of a wealthy heiress teaching her how to dress properly and, um,

Proper table manners as well. As a regent on the University of California board, Catherine also ensured that Patty valued her education. However, Patty made early moves to defy her parents. While in high school, she met an art teacher named Stephen Weed. Okay, now Stephen's an interesting character. Weed like W-E-E-D, right? Yeah, Weed like Weed.

We like the weed you smoke. Now, to this day, Stephen maintains that Patty pursued him. However, it's very important to mention here that Stephen was in his mid-20s at the time and Patty was only around 15 or 16. So absolutely disgusting. And after graduation, Patty attended Menlo College in Atherton, California, before transferring to the University of California, Berkeley, to study art history.

She moved in and got engaged to Stephen Weed, who was also attending Berkeley and studying philosophy. Now, the Hursts disapproved of Patty's relationship with Stephen, but they never stopped her and always welcomed her and Stephen into their home for family gatherings. However, Berkeley itself was becoming a rallying point for revolutionaries, especially those unfriendly to a wealthy heiress like Patty Hurst.

In the 70s, political action groups became more militant and radical, following inaction from the state and ineffective movements after the Summer of Love in Woodstock. In 1964, the Free Speech Movement staged its first demonstration on Berkeley's campus. Subsequently, 800 students were arrested following a confrontation with UC Berkeley police officers. This event would cement Berkeley as a breeding ground and safe space

for more radical political movements. On top of that, the rest of the 60s would see the assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy. The Watts Riot, following racist police action, resulted in 30 people dead and 1,000 wounded. Things were just absolutely insane, and over 2 million people across the country protested the Vietnam War as the number of troops involved in the conflict reached 200,000.

And what did our beloved hippies do in response to all of this extreme tension? They organized a human being where people just laid on the ground in San Francisco. We love that. People were becoming angry and the non-action from both the hippies and the state was radicalizing many on the left. In Chicago, a group of student activists nicknamed the Weatherman organized a demonstration called Days of Rage, which spurred a week-long violent riot across the city.

In 69, one of the most well-known radical left groups, the Weather Underground, formed in New York City and advocated for exemplary violence against the war in Vietnam, racism, and capitalism. Then a year later in 1970, a makeshift bomb factory exploded in a townhouse in New York's Greenwich Village, killing three Weather Underground members. Their plan initially targeted a military dance

over at Fort Dix in New Jersey. However, following the loss of life of their own comrades, the Weather Underground took to bombing the exterior of police stations, corporate offices, and government buildings in order to avoid casualties. So this, all in the air, when in 1971, Donald DeFries, known as Sin Q, was sent to the Vacaville Prison in Northern California after being released eight previous times. This guy had been arrested following a gunfight with police after...

After he stole $1,000 in cashier's checks. It is really going back to the townhouse explosion. That was across the street from my school in New York.

And it's crazy because all of the other like brownstones on that block are all like 100, 200 years old, like super old. And then you come to the one that exploded and it's like super modern, like all like it's built up in the craziest way. I think like an architecture firm works out of it now. Oh, interesting. But it's just crazy that the one bombed out one ended up becoming the sickest on the block. Well, it makes sense. It makes sense. You get bombed out. And did you know all of that?

Back then like the history behind that building. I knew it only because my radio professor Sarah Montague the goat who actually reported on the Westminster dog shows if you ever listened Interesting. Yeah, Sarah Montague the goat if you ever listened to NPR's coverage of the Westminster dog show It's she's the one who does it Wow But yeah, she she was the one who told me about all that. She was like New York was a much crazier place when I was Yeah

That's cool. Living in New York would be such an experience. So then in 1972, Berkeley police discovered a massive bomb factory in a garage rented by a woman named Wendy Yoshimura. Police operated a stakeout and arrested three heavily armed young people, Michael Borton, Paul Rubenstein, and Wendy's boyfriend, William Brandt. In the garage, police discovered evidence linking them to 11 bombings in the Bay Area, including plans to bomb

the Naval Architecture Building that night, in addition to an assassination attempt on former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. However, Wendy was able to go into hiding with Kathy Salia's help. Now, remember these names, they will become very important later on. So after organizing a prison outreach group, Donald DeFreeze was transported to Soledad Prison. Through this group, he made contact with Russell Little,

and William Wolfe, two upper-class Berkeley students who were former radical group members. They came to the prison to tutor but wished to start a group of their own. Then-Vietnam veteran Bill Harris and his wife Emily and their friends Gary and Angela Atwood moved to San Francisco to attend Berkeley. And all of them had become members of a Maoist group, but like William and Russell, whom they had met at Berkeley, wanted to form something together.

Now, this small group began working together with Donald DeVries, and in 1973, they were organizing a way to get Donald out of prison. They soon learned that the only job for prisoners that took them outside of the gates was working on the boilers. Now, Donald, who had always been on good behavior while behind bars and was well-liked among the guards and other prisoners as well,

was able to make this job change easily, and he was allowed to go ahead and work on the boilers unsupervised. So on March 5th, during Donald's very first boiler maintenance shift, he simply just walked off. He just left. So that's maybe the most easy prison escape in history. Willie Wolf and Russ Little later picked him up and transported him to a safe house owned by Patricia Solsticek.

and Nancy Ling Perry. And they laid low for a while until July of 1973 when this small group established the Symbionese Liberation Army, with Donald as their leader. And they aimed to create a link between radicals on the outside and prisoners still on the inside through symbiosis. In an attempt to spark a radical revolution to close prisons, end monogamy, and

and destroy, quote, all other institutions that have made and sustained capitalism. They adopted the phrase, quote, death to the fascist insect that preys upon the life of the people as their motto. And they said this constantly. However, there was some confusion early on within this group, specifically surrounding their name. With Donald as their leader, they reached out to other inmates in California prisons, specifically Clifford Deathrow Jefferson.

However, due to some miscommunication, he came to believe that he was the leader of the SLA, while another inmate thought that he had joined the Lebanese Liberation Army. So yeah, lots of name confusion there. And Symbionese is just a made-up word. Completely made up. Yeah. It's not even a real word. But I see what they did there. Yeah, I see what you did there. I think it's so funny that other random inmate was like, oh, Symbionese.

The Lebanese? The Lebanese Liberation Army? I like Lebanon. Yeah. He's like, sure, I'll get down with that. Okay. Okay.

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They also couldn't really do much for a while because their leader was a wanted escaped convict. On top of that, a group known as the Zebra Killers had been targeting white San Franciscans in a spree of attacks that lasted 179 days. Because of this, the San Francisco police began to stop and frisk black residents at random in the city, a racist tactic which only further inflamed tensions in the city. If Donnell had been frisked, especially during some political action,

The SLA would have been finished before they had even gotten started, but the members were getting antsy. A number of the members, namely the Berkeley students Willie Wolfe, Emily Harris, and Nancy Ling Perry, had been involved with theater and wanted their first action as the SLA to make a big splash in the Bay Area. So while reading the newspaper, they learned about Oakland Superintendent Marcus Foster. Marcus had been a celebrated educator across the country. He began his career at public schools in Philadelphia before being appointed to

to the Oakland superintendent position. He was one of the first black superintendents of a major school district, and according to his deputy, Robert Blackburn, he was, quote, the finest urban superintendent we had in that day. The SLA read that Marcus was supporting a program that required ID cards for all high school students, a move they called fascist. However, the newspaper they had read actually misreported Marcus's words. He was completely against the program. How dumb.

It's really like they didn't double check this before they set this motion into action. You know, I also think it was like pretty well known at the time that he was against the program. It was just this one source that stated this and they ran with it. Brilliant. I also think it's strange, like.

Because I'm sure when you guys were in high school and probably even middle school, you had like student IDs, right? Oh, yeah. Every school does, doesn't it? Yeah. It's like crazy to me that this was such a big deal back then. Yeah. But now it's just like, whatever. We just all had to have them. Do you think they still have student IDs now or is it like on their phones? I think they do. Because as far as I'm aware...

Like, especially in cities, you know, now it's even more intense. Like you have to go through metal detectors before going to school and everything. So, you know, I don't know when like the ID cards became a thing, if it was like post Reagan or post Columbine. Yeah.

But it's just crazy to me that this was like worth targeting someone over back in the 70s. So strange. Yeah, it looks like a lot of schools are transitioning to digital ID cards. Wow. There's ID123.io. It's going to be like microchips eventually. No, it's not. You don't think so? No, I'm not. No, I'm not subscribing to that.

Oh, that's new from you. My kid's not going to get... I'm not doing microchips. Oh, hell no. I'm just saying, I think there's going to be a move to... Yeah, well, that's the move towards the end of the world at that point. I agree. We may start becoming cyborgs. Then I'll really start believing the end times are here when they're microchipping us. I mean, that's just like a whole other level. I think digital IDs are the next logical step, like on my...

I mean, we have digital driver's licenses here. I know, but it's also like some parents don't even want their kids to bring a phone or a device to school. So I don't know how that's going to work. True. They have to get the old cards.

Remember the lanyards? Yeah, that was cool back then. You had to wear it. I thought my lanyard was the coolest fucking thing ever. It might have my keys on there and stuff. Yeah. Anyways, in the eyes of SLA, they found their first target. On the evening of November 6, 1973, Joseph Romero, Russell Little, and Donald DeFries waited in the parking lot of the Oakland School Administration Building. Marcus and Robert walked out of the meeting speaking to each other when Robert noticed two figures leaning against the building.

And then according to Robert, he said, the guns went off and I felt slammed, hit, spun around. The two figures were crouching and I saw flashes from the muzzles of their guns. Then I was being hit from behind with a shotgun. I stumbled down the side of the car into a narrow alley, stumbling and reeling. Marcus was sadly killed immediately, hit by at least seven bullets. According to Robert, another gunman, potentially Donald, stood over Marcus and even fired an additional round straight into his head.

Robert narrowly survived, potentially protected by a pocketbook left in his jacket that shielded him from some of the shotgun pellets. Dr. Koinis Enix worked throughout the night to keep him alive and the two remained lifelong friends. The next day, the SLA took credit for the heinous murder, citing Marcus' false support for the ID program. At first, police didn't believe them because the group was completely unknown to the broader public at the time. However, the SLA said that they used cyanide-tipped bullets in the assassination.

A piece of information that the police withheld from the public at the time. And poor Marcus. He did nothing. He sounded like a great guy. Yeah, he's like one of the best superintendents in the country. Of all the people to go after.

Him. Super fucked up. For ID cards? Like, come on. The SLA at that point was immediately labeled as a terrorist group, and as they should be. And the manhunt across the Bay Area for them began. Two months later, on January 10th, 1974, Russell Little and Joe Romero drove through a residential neighborhood in Concord, California, and a police officer stopped their van as he believed it was suspicious. And within moments after the traffic stopped,

Russ and Joe began shooting at the officer, and the exchange only lasted a few minutes before Joe and Russ were arrested and their vehicle was searched. Inside, they found more weapons, SLA literature, and several explosive devices. In response, Nancy Ling Perry burned down their safe house, which was actually pretty ineffective, and police were able to find more pamphlets, bombs, and weapons at the scene.

Before they relocated to a new apartment near the Berkeley campus. Now, at this point, the SLA was hated even among the most radical left-wing groups in the Bay Area. They thought they were politically ineffective and had targeted Marcus simply for headlines, which seems that way.

They needed to do something else to improve their standing with the other revolutionaries at this point. And that's when Bill Harris was walking around Berkeley's campus and discovered the name Patricia Hearst listed in a student directory along with her address and her phone number. Yeah, that was one of the craziest things when I was looking into this was Bill, you know, he does many interviews now and he dead ass was just like,

Yeah, I was just walking around and I found her name. Like, oh, shit, that's Patty Hearst. Not just name, phone and address. Everything. Crazy. So that brings us to the kidnapping. On February 4th, 1974, at around 9 p.m., Patty and her fiance, Stephen Weed, were sitting on the couch watching television when they heard a knock knock at the door.

When Stephen went to answer it, three armed individuals bussed through into their apartment and knocked him down. Donald stood over Stephen, beating him with the stock of his carbine, while Bill blindfolded Patty before he threw her over his shoulder. While Stephen said he was able to get free and ran into the alleyway behind their home, Bill remembered the event a little differently. He said that Donald kept hitting Stephen because he kept trying to look at their faces, like it was some sort of nervous response.

According to Bill, Stephen only got free once they left the apartment. In the driveway, Bill tried to open the trunk of their car, but the trunk wouldn't open and kept slamming shut, which alerted the neighbors. Several people had walked outside their homes when they finally got Patty into the trunk, so this is not a silent operation. They are

making a big old noisy scene. One of the SLA members fired off numerous rounds in order to scare people back inside. And then once they got in there and got Patty in the trunk, they just drove off and they even drove past a police car that had been summoned to the scene, narrowly escaping. As you can imagine, Patty's kidnapping made headlines across the country. Reporters from every local national news source camped out on the front lawn of Randall Hearst's colonial mansion while both police and the FBI searched for Patty.

Meanwhile, police raided a home they believed was housing her, but in reality it was just a random house in Oakland. Then two days later, on February 6th, a letter arrived at the offices of the public radio station KPFA and it was signed by none other than the SLA. In the quote communique, the group said this letter was, quote, warrant for the arrest of Patricia Campbell Hurst and retaliation for the arrest of Russ and Joseph enclosed in the letter was Patty's credit card

and a warning that the group would kill anyone attempting to interfere. The letter also announced, quote, all communications from this court must be published in full in all newspapers and all other forms of media, and KPFA would soon become the broadcast network for most future SLA communiques. However, this first letter actually didn't include any ransom demands, and so both the Hearst and the FBI were worried that they would make impossible demands like the release of Joe and Russ. And

And the SLA didn't make any demands because they didn't think that far ahead, actually. Of course, Joe and Russ's release would be ideal, but they recognized that that would not happen. On top of that, they were still hated by other left-wing groups for the murder of Marcus Foster, and they needed some good PR. So on February 12th, KPFA received a tape recording from the SLA featuring the voice of Patty Hearst. Mom, Dad...

I'm okay. I had a few scrapes and stuff, but they've washed them up and they're getting okay. I've caught a cold, but they're giving me pills for it, and so I'm not being starved or beaten or unnecessarily frightened. I've heard some press reports, and so I know that Steve and all the neighbors are okay.

that no one was really hurt. And I also know that the SLA members here are very upset about press distortions of what's been happening. They have nothing to do with the August 7th movement, that they have not been shooting down helicopters or shooting down

innocent people in the streets. I'm kept blindfolded usually so that I can't identify anyone. My hands are often tied, but generally they're not. And I'm not gagged or anything, and I'm comfortable. And I think you can tell that I'm not really terrified or anything.

No, I'm okay. I was very upset, though, to hear about the police rushing in on that house in Oakland, and I was just really glad that I wasn't there. And I would appreciate it if everyone would just

calm down and not try to find me and not be making identifications because they're not only endangering me, but they're endangering themselves. So, of course, after hearing this, everyone is thinking, OK, so she's either being forced to say this or she's brainwashed or I don't think many people really had the idea of is that genuinely coming from her. Right.

Especially in these early communiques, that was kind of the consensus is, you know, it sounds a little, you know, she even mentions later on in that she's like, I have to keep stop stopping and starting the recording because I need to gather my thoughts. And everyone else kind of thought that that was the SLA stopping and saying, like, no, you need to you need to say this differently. Deliver it. Yeah. Right. Like edit it. Yeah. Which is probably the case. Yeah. Yeah.

So towards the end of the communique, Patty urged her father to listen to Donald's, quote, good faith gesture of providing $7 worth of food to every needy person in California. But if Randolph had followed this plan to a T, it would have cost tens of millions of dollars, which was money he simply just did not have, even though he was very wealthy, wasn't that wealthy. So Randolph responded to the SLA's demands, saying that they were, quote, impossible.

And on February 16th, the SLA sent another communique in which Patty told her parents to, quote, stop acting like I'm dead. And she told her mother to stop wearing all black to press conferences. Then Donald spoke on tape and once again reiterated that they were looking for a good faith gesture. Then on February 19th, Randolph announced that he would create People in Need, a food distribution program funded by $2 million dollars.

and feed 100,000 people in the Bay Area for a full year. However, while left-wing groups and organizations applauded the hearse for this move, then-Governor of California Ronald Reagan himself urged people to not participate in the food distribution and even said, this is fucking wild, but he said, it's too bad we can't have an epidemic of botulism. Amen, brother. Okay.

And, you know, we were talking about this before, but he basically just said that because he was like, oh, I don't want people to negotiate with terrorists. But, you know, this is just also like a great program. Like people need to eat food. It's very insensitive considering the current climate. Right. You know. So the first pin food handout began on February 22nd. And unfortunately, it was a complete shit show. The distributors were unprepared for the amount of people who showed up.

While subsequent food drives were actually pretty organized and tame by comparison, Desolet wouldn't let go of the first mishap. On the other hand, the scene turned into absolute chaos.

On top of that, they complained that the food was of low quality, and Randolph's show of good faith was simply half-assed. Donald asked for an additional $6 million to be contributed from Randolph to the food drive to secure Patty's release. However, Randolph maintained that he didn't have that kind of cash. Instead, he offered $2 million for Patty's immediate release, an additional $2 million in January 1975. Although the food distributions had improved, Patty sent another tape to KPFA saying, quote, I don't believe you are doing anything at all.

At this point, Patty's parents and Stephen, who was with the Hearst family constantly in the beginning of this ordeal, were convinced that she was brainwashed. However, Patty would later say, I felt my parents were debating how much I was worth. It was a horrible feeling that my parents could think of me in terms of dollars and cents. Then, in the fifth tape communique sent to radio station KSAN after KPFA refused to continue broadcasting the SLA messages, Patty said this, I've been given the choice of one.

being released in a safe area, or to join the forces of the Symbionese Liberation Army in fighting for my freedom and the freedom of all oppressed people, I have chosen to stay and fight. I have been given the name Tanya after a comrade who fought alongside Che in Bolivia.

Then, two weeks later, Tanya would introduce herself to the world. So let's back up a bit. After Patty was first kidnapped from her apartment in Berkeley, the SLA drove her to their safe house in the Bay Area. And for two weeks, they kept her locked in a closet and only spoke to her periodically throughout the beginning of her captivity while wearing masks to protect their identities. And it's also important to note that this version of events will change later. So we'll give the SLA's version here and then tell you how it changed when we...

you know, reach that part of the story. So for two weeks, there was very little interaction between Patty and the SLA members. It began with the communiques, and then eventually they began to read Patty some of their literature and expose her to their political beliefs. According to Bill Harris, she was really interested in what they had to say. I mean, she had grown up as this sheltered heiress and was very unaware of

of the struggles of everyday people and had never been exposed to this kind of political ideology. That and she also developed a crush. Willie Wolf had grown up in a similar background to Patty. He was the son of a wealthy anesthesiologist and could relate to him on politics and his eventual radicalization. She also hadn't realized that her mother, Catherine, was extremely close to Ronald Reagan and had urged her in previous communiques not to be appointed by him to the board of

They request that. Catherine denied. So soon as Patty grew closer to her captors, they began to tell her about their views on non-monogamy and if there was anyone in the group that she'd like to have sex with. And according to Bill, keep in mind, according to Bill, Patty said Willie, and the two of them were allowed to spend the night together, which was the first time that she had seen one of the SLA members without their masks.

and later he gave her a small Olmec monkey pendant, which Patty wore for several years, and Willie wore a matching one as well.

Again, according to Bill, after the food drive riots and unsuccessful ransom attempts from Randolph, the SLA didn't know what else to do with Patty. They had grown to like her as well, and they didn't want to kill her, so they gave her two options. Get released or just become a full-fledged SLA member. According to them, Patty chose to join the ranks on March 31st, 1974, and that was the choice she made. After the fifth communique in which Patty announced herself as Tanya,

The always theatrical SLA wanted to stage a public action to show the world that she had just joined of her own volition. Plus, they were broke.

and they needed a large amount of cash to support their group and stock up on weapons and ammunition. So they settled on a brilliant idea of robbing the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco, an action they called an expropriation. They also chose the Hibernia Bank because in 1974, most public buildings did not have surveillance cameras. They chose this particular branch because it had CCTV and the images were

would go on to shock the world. On April 15th, Donald DeVries, Patty Hearst, and three other SLA members entered the Hibernia bank carrying modified carbines that could fire fully automatic rounds. In the footage, Patty can be seen saying, quote, I am Tanya. We are not fooling around. And the iconic images come out of this CCTV video. I like Donald's fit a lot in the footage. Yeah, I do too.

Yeah, they're like all decked out. God, the footage is really bad quality. It's like kind of gives me a headache. But there's Patty. She's got a carbine rifle. Looks very confident, too. There's Donald DeFreeze. Telling everybody, get on the ground. Yeah, look at that fit. Damn.

But they're not trying to conceal themselves. No, no, no. Yeah, that's again the point. The reason they chose this was because they wanted people to be like, look, Patty Hearst is fucking robbing a bank with us now. Yeah, she's one of us. Arms robbery, man. Yep. Damn.

What images? As a result of the robbery, two bystanders were shot as the SLA drove away with a little over $10,000 in cash. Yeah, that's it. Which again, today's money, it's about with inflation about $65,000. So still a decent chunk. That evening, the FBI publicly identified Patty as a participant in the bank robbery. However, they stopped short of charging her with the crime because they believe she may have been acting under duress. Which she absolutely...

Could have been. I think that was a reasonable decision. And there was like the FBI then, but also later on, they pointed to that footage being like, look, you can clearly see that other members are pointing their weapons at her. Now that's disputed, but that's what they were saying is like in the footage, it looks like.

They would have shot her if she tried anything. She's kind of just standing there, too, throughout most of it. It doesn't look like she's actively assisting and pointing her gun. Maybe, though. I mean, it's hard to tell. I don't know. It's still debated to this day. However, in an additional communique sent by Patty to Bay Area Radio Station seven days after the robbery, she said this. Let's play it. This is Tanya.

On April 15th, my comrades and I expropriated $10,660.02 from the Sunset Branch of the Hibernia Bank. Casualties could have been avoided had the persons involved cooperated with the People's Forces and kept out of the way until after our departure.

I was positioned so that I could hold customers and bank personnel who were on the floor. My gun was loaded, and at no time did any of my comrades intentionally point their guns at me. Careful examination of the photographs, which were published, clearly shows this is true. Our action of April 15th forced the corporate state to help finance the revolution. As for my ex-fiancé, I don't care if I ever see him again.

During the last few months, Steven has shown himself to be a sexist, ageist pig. Not that this was a sudden change from the way he always was.

For those people who still believe that I'm brainwashed or dead, I see no reason to further defend my position. Consciousness is terrifying to the ruling class, and they will do anything to discredit people who have realized that the only alternative to freedom is death, and that the only way we can free ourselves of this fascist dictatorship is by fighting, not with words, but with guns. I am a soldier in the People's Army. Patria o muerte

God, I go back and forth. Like, there's times there where she does sound so scripted. You know, it sounds like it was heavily thought out what she's saying. And either way, even if it was, that doesn't necessarily prove that she doesn't mean it. But I don't know. It just, I keep going back and forth. At this, with the information we have now, like at this point in the story, I don't think she was brainwashed at this point. You know, I think I'll amend that later on. But

you know, I feel like it takes, like, I bet it was still written, still heavily scripted, because obviously they're theatrical, they're very, all this, but...

you know, she still, like, she robbed that bank. Like, she, and she was there with her face open to the public with a loaded weapon. Yeah. But did she? She had a choice. Yeah, she had a choice. That's the thing is, I don't know. I don't, at this point, I don't, I don't think that it was under duress or that she was brainwashed. I think she truly did believe in their message at this point in the story. I need to, like, keep saying that. Yeah. Do you think maybe, though, she was brainwashed?

And truly did believe it? Like, could both things be true at the same time? That's the thing is, you know, I think later on, as we'll get to different parts, I think what could have happened is that, like, she was held in a closet for two weeks and then was, like, a lot more susceptible to what they were telling her, you know? Right. Yeah. Like that whole, you know, like Stockholm Syndrome type of situation. Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

And maybe it's just coming out of pure survival, too. Right. Although the robbery was successful, Desolée had a new problem. Every cop in the Bay Area was now on 24-7 manhunt looking for them. And if they stayed in the same safe house, it would only be a matter of time before they got caught. Plus, it wasn't just Patty's face plastered all over the media. Every member involved in the robbery had become an overnight celebrity. And they would immediately get recognized because that's what they wanted, it seems like.

So trying to stay a step ahead of the police, they decided to drive one VW bus from the Bay Area to L.A. where Donald DeFries had a safe house they could hide out in Compton. For a little over a month, the FBI and local police had no idea that they relocated to Los Angeles and continued to tear up empty homes throughout the Bay Area. However, a series of events would lead to their discovery in May of 1974.

While the group had been moving units with Patty, Bill, and Emily running errands and the others inside the safe house, they had improperly parked their van and received a parking ticket. And while the police didn't know who the van belonged to, it did link the vehicle to the street with their safe house. The same van Patty, Bill, and Emily would use when they drove to Mel's Sporting Goods store in Englewood.

So Patty waited in the driver's seat while Emily and Bill shopped inside. And according to Bill, he grabbed a bandolier used for shotgun shells and carried it over to show Emily. However, he realized it probably was a bad idea to buy anything related to guns while they were on the run, and he set it down in another part of the store. But the cashier had seen Bill pick up the bandolier, but he didn't see him set it back down. So when Bill and Emily tried to leave, the cashier stopped them by the front door and asked them,

if he could search Bill. And when Bill refused, the cashier tackled him and held him to the ground, telling another employee to call the police. And Bill said that, quote, with four weapons and keys to the ignition, Patty could have driven off while I was being tackled by store security guards for allegedly shoplifting. Instead, she unexpectedly opened fire to rescue us. This was a spontaneous act of a true comrade that put her in great jeopardy.

So this was really a game changing moment with her. Opportunity to escape. And she doesn't. She does the opposite. No, she doubles down. And now you're really not questioning her alliance as much or her allegiance, I should say. Because Patty opened fire at the storefront with one of the modified carbines emptying the first magazine before she picked up an additional semi-automatic rifle and fired more.

Luckily, no one was hit, but in the frenzy, Bill and Emily managed to escape and got into the van before the three of them drove off. Not wanting to drive back to the safe house in Compton and leading the cops straight to them, they went to a motel in Anaheim near Disneyland. But following the shooting, the police were able to link Patty's VW van to the parking ticket given out on 54th Street in Compton. While they didn't have the exact address, they knew where to look. Earlier in the day, an anonymous caller who had heard about the shooting at Mel's Sporting Goods store called the police and alerted them that several

heavily armed people were staying at their daughter's house, which just happened to be on 54th Street. More than 400 police officers descended onto the home, along with news crews from across the city who were told that Patty Hearst might be inside. When the SWAT team got into position and the other homes on the block were cleared, though they missed an entire family in the house next door somehow, police announced, quote, occupants of 1466 East 54th Street, this is the Los Angeles Police Department speaking,

come out with your hands up. A young child and an old man walked out. The man told police that there was no one else inside the house, but the child spoke up and told them that there were several heavily armed people still inside. Police eventually fired a tear gas canister into the home, and the SLA members responded by saying, quote, suck this pigs.

before they began firing. Police returned fire using semi-automatic AR-15 and AR-180 rifles and shooting more tear gas inside. Two hours into the shootout, after thousands of rounds had been shot, the house caught fire. It was either a tear gas canister or just the extreme heat from all the gunfire had ignited propane and quickly it began to turn into a massive fireball. Two women who were not SLA members escaped from the house with their hands up. One of the women had actually come home the night before drunk

passed out and woke up in the middle of a firefight. The two women were taken into custody while the SLA members kept fighting from the inside. Let's take a look at some of the news coverage of this shootout because it's pretty insane. And again, like while this is all going on, there's just like camera crews all around the surrounding areas capturing this live as it's as it's happening, which is pretty nuts. The woman looked up into the backseat of the squad choir where she was under intensive questioning to see it. Perhaps they were

there was a tremendous amount of apparent gunfire at this time and it's possible at this point that the flames themselves were setting off the tremendous amounts of ammunition that the sla had stockpiled inside the house and in a way it was a bizarre thing to see a fire of this intensity with people inside the burning house with no one attempting to fight it whether everyone stood around speculating whether the sla at this point might possibly consider surrendering when there seemed no hope at all of their winning a gun battle

with police that numbered more than 350 at this point. A few moments later, in a house immediately next to this,

We see, we will perhaps and perhaps not see film of six children, I think all of them were under seven years old, being rescued from that house. They all came stumbling out onto the sidewalk with a woman who apparently was their mother. No one knew what their connection might possibly have been with that house, and everyone had thought perhaps those houses had been evacuated. They hadn't been, although even now we haven't heard any reports of any injuries, either from gunfire or from the flames in that neighborhood. That's a mighty...

It's pretty nuts. It's pretty crazy. Just in the middle of the day? I can't believe they didn't evacuate the kids next door or double check before they just started unloading. Yeah, it was extremely reckless.

Because it seems like the SLA started firing once the police sort of instigated, you know, took action against them with the tear gas. And before they did that, they should have checked that house. But luckily, everybody got out from that house. Could have been way worse. Next door. Yeah. But I mean, still insane footage to see.

be playing out just in the middle of a typical day i know i'm surprised that we even have footage of that honestly when i first watched that i was like whoa it actually it's a it's it was a revolutionary time for news media that was one of the first times that they were using um video instead of film yeah um so that's why like specifically those guys who got shot at they were there throughout the whole firefight just because they didn't have to replace the film reels

God, how exciting that must have been at the time, too, with it being so new. Yeah, like, damn, this is the first fucking thing we're catching on this? Yeah, crazy. SLA members Nancy Perry and Camila Hall attempted to exit the house, but police shot them both as they tried to fire on them. Within the hour, the fire completely consumed the house, and Donald DeFreeze, Patricia Solstic, Angela Atwood, and Willie Wolfe all died inside the home from burns and smoke inhalation, as well as gunshot wounds.

Not a single police officer or civilian was even injured during the firefight. When his body was recovered, Willie was still wearing the matching Olmec monkey pendant he shared with Patty. Five suspected members of the Zimbianese Liberation Army are dead following the bloodiest and most massive gun battle in the history of Los Angeles. Hundreds of police and FBI agents surrounded this small house on East 54th Street in the south central area of the city.

Shortly before 6 p.m., gunfire erupted. For more than an hour, thousands of rounds of automatic weapons and small gunfire were exchanged between police and the suspects inside the house. Six tear gas assaults were made in an attempt to flush out the fugitives. Until finally, houses on either side, as well as the pink wood and stucco fortress, caught fire. A fire believed to have been started by an exploding gas canister. Coming out...

Some of the bodies were burned beyond recognition and awaited final positive identification following Coroner's autopsy. It was an incredible, almost unbelievable ending to the most intensive manhunt of recent years. And yet, it was viewed as it happened by millions watching on national television. This is Pete Miller in Los Angeles.

All in all, over 9,000 rounds were fired during the battle that lasted nearly three hours. And to this day, it's the biggest gunfight in Los Angeles City history. That is insane. 9,000 bullets just in the middle of a neighborhood? And didn't hit a single cop or civilian. Yeah, that's insane.

I mean, how many of those 9,000 went into that house? I mean, that's crazy. Probably a majority, I would say. I believe the official numbers were that the LAPD and SWAT teams fired around 5,000 of the rounds, and then the SLA fired 4,000.

But still, like 4,000 rounds. 4,000 rounds just coming out of that house? Yeah. God, that's insane. I mean, you'd think there would be bullets all over for like two miles out of that area. Also, you know, in my research, I can never come across where they're buying all these guns and ammunition. Yeah. Yeah. Where did they? They just found people, I guess.

There's probably people reaching out to them, wanting to support their cause. And I'm sure it was probably fairly easy for them to find connections there.

But yeah, still, I mean, that seems like a lot of definitely cost a good amount of money to get that many weapons and ammunition for sure. But Patty, Bill and Emily were now the three surviving members of the SLA. And they actually watched the whole gunfight play out from their motel in Anaheim as broadcasters speculated whether Patty was inside the blazing house. I think there's like some people like they they did that on purpose. You know, they knew before this even happened that she wasn't there.

and that this was just some, you know, media bullshit going on to try to make it a bigger thing, per se. I don't know. But on June 7th and 8th, Communique was left at KPFK in Los Angeles, the first time since the shootout that Patty declared she was still alive. I want to talk about the way I knew our six murdered comrades because the fascist pig media has, of course, been painting a typically distorted picture of these beautiful sisters and brothers.

Simcu loved the people with tenderness and respect. He helped me see that it's not how long we live that's important, it's how we live. Jelena was beautiful. She exploded with a desire to kill the pigs. She taught me how to fight the enemy within through her constant struggle with bourgeois conditioning.

Gabi practiced until her shotgun was an extension of her right and left arms. She taught me the patience and discipline necessary for survival and victory. Zoya, female gorilla, perfect love and perfect hate reflected in stone-cold eyes. Faiza was a beautiful sister who taught me to shoot first and make sure the pig is dead before splitting. And I'll always love her.

Cujo was the gentlest, most beautiful man I've ever known. Neither Cujo or I had ever loved an individual the way we loved each other. Our relationship's foundation was our commitment to the struggle and our love for the people. It's because of this that I still feel strong and determined to fight.

Our comrades didn't die in vain. The pig lies about the advisability of surrender have only made me more determined. I renounced my class privilege when Sin and Kujo gave me the name Tanya. While I have no death wish, I have never been afraid of death. For this reason, the brainwashed arrest theory of the pig hearse has always amused me. Life is very precious to me.

But I have no delusions that going to prison will keep me alive. And I would never choose to live the rest of my life surrounded by pigs like the Hursts.

Death to the fascist insect that preys upon the life of the people. At this point, the small group decided it was best to leave Los Angeles and return to the Bay Area. There, they were protected by radical student and actress Kathy Solaia, including her sister Josephine, her husband Mike Borton, and brother Stephen Solaia. So the remainder of 1974 into 1975 is actually largely unknown. We do know that Patty became romantically involved with Kathy's brother Stephen.

And she arranged for Patty and the Harrises to be transported to New York City with the help of radical sports writer Jack Scott. Now, Jack had focused most of his career on race relations within sports, specifically basketball. He agreed with the sentiments of the SLA, but not its actions. Still, he felt like Patty was worth protecting, as she had become a figurehead for the radical left movement within the United States.

So first, he drove Patty separately from the Harris's to his apartment in New York City to please stop them on their cross-country journey, but Jack charmed them away with local sports talk, of course. No one recognized Patty, who actually was posing as his wife. And once they arrived in New York...

Patty was cared for by Jack's actual wife, Mickey, in their apartment while Jack drove back to the Bay to pick up Bill and Emily Harris. And after nearly a week of driving, all three were transported to Jack's family farm in New Jersey, which was completely cut off from the outside world. It was there that they met Wendy Yoshimura, who was still wanted for the bombings across the Bay Area in 1972. Jack had been protecting her ever since, and she quickly became very close to Patty.

However, their time at the farmhouse didn't last very long. Jack wanted to write a book about the SLA, even though Bill, Patty, and Emily had no intention of publishing anything about their exploits. Bill led Jack on for a while until Jack realized the book would never happen. And frustrated with that and under pressure from his wife and family to kick out the wanted criminals, Jack told them that they had to go.

In either late 1974 or early 1975, Jack drove Patty, Emily, Bill, and Wendy, who had decided to join the SLA, back to the Bay Area, where Mike Borton eventually picked them up. This new SLA, now including fugitive Wendy Yoshimura, realized they had run into a familiar problem.

They were going broke. So they decided, you know what? Let's do the only thing that we know how to do, rob a bank. So on April 21st, 1975, the SLA looked to do their first criminal action in nearly a year. They settled on the Crocker National Bank in Carmichael, California. And this time, Patty would serve as the getaway driver while Kathy, Mike, Stephen, Emily, Will, and Kathy's husband, James Kilgore, pulled off this robbery.

However, Mike had issues with the robbery from the start. For one, he didn't see how this had anything to do with their political movement, and for two, most people involved had never fired a gun in their lives. Seems like a big problem. Patty actually was the only woman who had experience with firearms, and he was frustrated that she was going to be stuck in the car. Meanwhile, 42-year-old mother of four, Myrna Opsal, spoke to her 15-year-old son, John, while he was finishing up some homework before school. She

She told him that she was going to the bank with some other Seventh Day Adventists to deposit that weekend's collections. Now, she arrived at the bank before it even opened and actually held the door open for SLA members when they all walked in together, which is crazy to think about. And then, according to a local police detective, quote, as soon as they entered the bank, they announced that it was a holdup and told everyone to get down on the floor and put their faces in the rug.

However, either Myrna made a sudden move or Emily accidentally pulled the trigger on her weapon, but regardless, Myrna was struck in the abdomen by shotgun fire. Two SLA members vaulted the counter and scooped up cash while others kicked bank customers and employees in the head. It was very brutal. And then once SLA left, Myrna was transported to a local hospital and was operated on by her husband,

Surgeon Trig V. Obsel. However, it was sadly too late. Myrna had lost too much blood and she died shortly after. And while the SLA made $15,000 off the robbery, they had officially murdered a completely innocent woman in cold blood.

According to American Experience, Myrna would become, quote, a nagging reminder of the SLA's pointless violence. But anyway, with the cash secured from the robbery, the SLA decided to adopt the techniques of other radical groups, bombings. So they started building pipe bombs using clothespins as a connecting circuit and filled them with nails to be used as shrapnel. On

On August 20th, Patty planted two bombs at the Marin County Courthouse, one underneath a squad car and another at the entrance of the building. The plan was for the car bomb to go off, causing hysteria, and then the entrance bomb would detonate once everyone was outside. Luckily, the bombs went off out of order and nobody was injured or killed. Then, on August 22nd in 1975, two police officers in Los Angeles had finished dinner at the delicious Yummy IHOP. When they returned to their squad car,

However, as they pulled off, they discovered an undetonated pipe bomb had been planted underneath the car. And in a bit of a miracle, the clothespin did not connect and activate the circuit in the bomb when the car pulled off. They alerted the LAPD and an additional undetonated pipe bomb was found underneath another squad car. This bombing was meant to be revenge for the SLA shootout in Compton and likely, if this plan had gone wrong,

Gone through, it would have killed dozens of people. Really good that it did not go off. I believe in interviews, certain LAPD officers have said like, like these were the largest pipe bombs we've ever come across. Like, damn, huge. They're massive. Yeah. Like, look at that next to that bag there. Wow. The FBI, on the other hand, had a working theory to find Wendy Yoshimura. However, they still did not know how to locate Patty from there.

They'd gotten a tip that a woman named Pat Jean McCarthy had been seen hanging out with Wendy, so they began monitoring her until they found her address at an apartment complex in Pacifica. At the complex, agents asked the manager if he had known anyone associated with Wendy or Kathy. He said James Kilgore, Mike, and Steve were his painters and knew the Solia sisters. FBI agents followed Steve as they left the complex after a painting job, and that night he stopped at 625 Morris Street, which had been stealing power.

The next morning, they waited for Steve to leave the home. While Steve was inside, FBI agents canvassed the area where one of them found Bill Harris inside of a laundromat. Once Steve left that apartment, the agents hopped the fence and entered through the open back door, unsure of really what they would find. And sure enough, at the table, they found Wendy Yoshimura and Patty Hearst engaged in light conversation. So on September 18th, 1975, Patty Hearst was finally arrested by the FBI and charged with the Hibernia Bank robbery.

The Harrises were also charged in the same robbery, and Wendy was charged with explosives and weapons charges as well. Steve Salia was the only person charged at that time with the Carmichael Bank robbery that resulted in the death of Myrna Opsal. However, he was not charged with her murder. Eventually, Mike Borton would also be found and pleaded guilty to the robbery. Meanwhile, Kathy Salia was indicted on explosive charges for the cop car bombings, but

She went on the run and was not seen or heard from for several decades, actually. And at the time of Patty's arrest, she listed her occupation as urban guerrilla and stated, quote, tell everybody that I'm smiling, that I feel free and strong, and I send my greetings and love to all the sisters and brothers out there. However, at the time of Patty's arrest, she only weighed 87 pounds, was smoking heavily, and was described as, quote, a low-effect zombie. And

Now, Patty's parents wanted her defense to rest on claims of brainwashing, even though without a direct mental illness, a person is legally responsible for all crimes that they commit. After a few weeks in custody and reconnecting with other family members, Patty denounced her SLA allegiance. Patty's parents replaced her original lawyer and a celebrity attorney, F. Lee Bailey, took over the case, and he asserted that Patty was coerced under duress through brainwashing.

brainwashing. However, Patty was unhappy with Bailey and noticed that he only attended a few pre-trial meetings and often spoke to only his associates. So Patty's trial began on January 15th, 1976. She maintained that all of her communiques were made under duress and that her shooting of Mel's sporting goods wasn't to save Bill but was a result of her brainwashing. She said, quote, when it happened, I didn't even think.

I just did it, and if I had not done it and they had been able to get away, they would have killed me. However, the decision to have Patty take the stand proved insufficient for the defense. Patty pleaded the fifth 54 times in a row and appeared lethargic due to drugs that she had been given by jail doctors. And then a month into the trial, a bomb exploded at the Hearst Castle, and Patty agreed to give information to the authorities outside of the courtroom to help convict

Bill and Emily Harris. Then Bailey stated that Donald DeVries had been trained in North Korean mind-controlled tactics and that both he and Willie Wolf had raped Patty while she was in captivity. Bill and Emily heard this and were incensed. Initially, they were going to give testimony to try to support Patty, but now they felt slighted. Emily then gave an interview behind bars in which she said that Willie and Patty were lovers and pointed to the Olmec monkey pendants.

Willie wore one when he died, and Patty still had hers in her purse when she was arrested. During closing arguments, the prosecution argued that Patty wasn't raped because most of the SLA members were women and wouldn't allow that. Patty herself said that F. Lee Bailey appeared, quote, hungover during his closing argument, and others said he was, quote, drunk driving through his statement.

On March 20th, 1976, Patty Hearst was found guilty and was sentenced to just seven years in prison. In November 1976, she was granted bond in preparation for the kidnapping trial against the Harris's. Her only requirement was that she had to be protected by a team of bodyguards, which her father immediately provided. In 1978, her bond was revoked. While behind bars, her father ran dozens of op-eds

Bob Ed's interviews and news articles pressuring President Jimmy Carter to commute her sentence. And following the Jonestown massacre, several people came out in defense of Patty, saying that if Jim Jones could convince 900 people to take their lives, one person could be brainwashed. Good fucking point. What do you think about that? I think it's solid. This is the part of the story where I'm like, yeah. Because I think, you know, like Bill and Emily, they were mad because they were like, what? You were our comrade. You were da-da-da. Yeah.

I think the prosecutions claim that they were all feminists, so they wouldn't allow Willie or Donald to rape her. They also allowed them to kidnap her, and they allowed people to get killed. I don't necessarily think that that negates that. In addition to that, Patty...

was kidnapped by these people like it her relationship with willie could have started non-consensually and then turned into more of a right a different kind of relationship yeah but that doesn't mean the rape itself didn't happen in the beginning and so you know i

But again, I think it's a mixture of everything. The Jonestown thing, I mean, it really did cement for the public. And like you said, it's a great point. Like, yeah, if 900 people can take their lives, one person could be convinced to do these things. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's easy to judge someone from afar when you haven't actually been in a situation like that, right? Like none of us can even imagine what that would have been like and what you would feel you need to do to survive.

But I don't know. I think people have varying opinions there. On February 1st, 1979, President Jimmy Carter commuted Patty's sentence after she had just served 22 months. Two months after her release, Patty married Bernard Lee Shaw, a policeman who was one of her many bodyguards. I like that pardon me shirt a lot. Oh, yeah. I didn't even notice that. Pardon me. Dude, it's fucking awesome. It is.

This is like the style that's coming back. I was going to say, she's like dressed like how Gen Z dresses now. Like the slacks with the belt. The thin belt too. So Bill and Emily Harris served seven years for the kidnapping of Patty Hearst. Emily spent the first half of her sentence in solitary confinement, which is pretty wild. And then she divorced Bill and she learned how to code while behind bars. And then after his release, Bill became a private investigator in the Bay Area and remarried.

However, as Patty published her memoir, Every Secret Thing, he worried that all three would go on trial for other crimes. Then in 1999, after 27 years on the run, Kathy Celaya was apprehended in Minnesota, living under the assumed name Sarah Jane Olson. And she had buried her past,

married a doctor, and raised three daughters. While looking into the bombing cases associated with Kathy in Los Angeles, prosecutors felt like there was enough evidence to convict her and other former SLA members for the murder of Myrna Opsal. However, Sacramento prosecutors didn't want to pursue the case. LA attorneys helped Myrna's son, John, push a PR campaign to reopen the case. Then on January 20th, 2001, President Bill, Billy Clinton,

pardoned Patty Hearst as part of his last full day in office. And this was likely because since Patty was a getaway driver in the Carmichael robbery, she too would have been at fault for the murder of Myrna. When the case was finally reopened, four former members were charged with her murder. Bill and Emily Harris, of course, Kathy Salia, and Michael Borton. All four of them pleaded guilty, and Emily actually received the harshest sentence of eight years since she was the one who pulled the trigger.

And in my opinion, that is not nearly enough. During the sentencing, Mike said, quote, Weird statement. Yeah. Very weird.

The Hearst family eventually settled a civil suit with the Opsals, and Patty avoided further jail time. Wendy Yoshimura is now an artist and lives in Oakland. She actually teaches watercolor painting at the San Francisco Community Center, and her watercolors are displayed across the Bay Area. They actually look really good. Yeah, she's really sick. I like her a lot. Yeah.

Yeah, I do too. I think like we were talking about this beforehand, you know, a lot of these former revolutionaries, like specifically the weather underground people, the New York bombing. Yeah. The survivor of that bombing ended up becoming like a political science professor in New York. And I think it just kind of speaks to the fact that like, even though the actions that these people did were ridiculous, stupid, heinous, they were all like very well educated. And I think.

a lot of them after doing jail time kind of realized that their real like passion in life was academia and teaching and all that and so that's why I think a lot of them ended up like they were smart their convictions were based on intelligent things it was just the fact that their actions were completely heinous and never never matched up to it they just didn't understand how they could make a difference and get what they wanted without pursuing violent action right well were they all brainwashed too do

Do you think they were all brainwashed to some extent? I think, too, like, again, they were really disaffected. Like, they hated the hippies. They hated the popular left movements at the time because they were like, these people are doing nothing. It's not getting anything done, so we gotta step it up. And so they took it to the extreme level of just, like, basically wanton violence against whoever. Right. And, you know...

I think a lot of them realized after the fact, like, fuck, we just we were the bad guys. Like we made everything much, much worse. And got absolutely nothing accomplished. Right. Yeah. What was the point of it all? Right. Nothing happened. Going back to Bill Harris, he worked as a Bay Area law firm receptionist and also competed in dog shows. Big turn there. And who else competed in dog shows for some reason? Patty Hearst.

Woof woof. Yeah, woof woof for Patty. After a few years in the limelight and having supporting roles in films as well, Patty began raising French bulldogs. I mean, who doesn't love a Frenchie? They're so damn cute. Very stinky though. I heard they are stinky. And noisy. But they're adorable. Who cares? Our dogs are stinky too. True, true. Our dogs are probably

Probably worse. Anyway. Hey, be careful there. So in 2015, her Shih Tzu Rocket actually won best in show at the Westminster Dog Show. It's like the dog show, right? Mm-hmm. And she swept two categories with her Bulldogs in 2017. Patty and Rocket kind of look alike. I was just going to say that, Janelle. You know, that's always a thing. People say that. You look like your dog. You look like your dog. Do you think you look like Charlie?

I don't know. Do you think you look like Alice? People have said I do. You do, kind of. You guys have similar hair, like, texture and color. Crazy. Switched on the ears. Alice doesn't realize that she's supposed to look like Rocket. She's supposed to. Oh, yeah, the Shih Tzu. The Shih Tzu. That's supposed to be you, man. Mm-hmm. Yeah, our dog Bernie is an AKC registered. Whoa. I know. Whoa. Mm-hmm. He's registered as the official Bernie Sanders, actually. Yeah.

That's right, baby. He was built to be a dog show dog. Yep. Do we look alike? I think so. Aw. Aw, that's just sweet. Definitely. Same mouth.

Same teeth. Yeah. How many has he got left? Six? Three. Three? Really? He's only three now? It ain't slowing him down. Well, guys, that's going to be it for us today. We definitely want to hear your thoughts on this wild case. Do you think Patty was brainwashed? Do you think that she, you know, really got into the movement at some point and really, truly committed? Or was it all an act for her for survival?

Let us know your thoughts. But that's going to be it for us today, folks. We'll see you guys next week with another one. Until then, keep on taking your mind a mile higher. That's right.