The Boston Globe

Patty Hearst, abducted in 1974, is now known for her dogs

Media heiress was jailed for armed robbery

- By Stefanie Dazio

LOS ANGELES — Newspaper heiress Patricia “Patty” Hearst was kidnapped at gunpoint 50 years ago Sunday by the Symbionese Liberation Army, later joining her captors in a 1974 San Francisco bank robbery that earned her a prison sentence.

The abduction and subsequent trial of Hearst, then a 19year-old college student and the granddaugh­ter of wealthy newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, was one of the most sensationa­l and captivatin­g cases of the 1970s.

Hearst will turn 70 on Feb. 20. She is now known as Patricia Hearst Shaw after she married a police officer who guarded her when she was out on bail. She has been in the news in recent years for her dogs, mostly French bulldogs, that have won prizes in the Westminste­r Kennel Club dog show.

Hearst’s allegiance to the Symbionese Liberation Army raised questions about Stockholm syndrome, a common term deployed to describe the bond that victims of kidnapping­s or hostage situations sometimes develop with their captors.

Stockholm syndrome got its name from an August 1973 failed bank robbery in Sweden’s capital. Rather than a diagnosis of a disorder, experts describe it as a psychologi­cal coping mechanism used by some hostages to endure being held captive.

Hearst, who went by the name “Tania” in the group, denounced her family and posed for a photograph carrying a weapon in front of their flag. The self-styled radicals viewed aspects of US society as racist and oppressive, and they were accused of killing a California school superinten­dent.

As a member of a wealthy and powerful family, Hearst was kidnapped to bring attention to the Symbionese Liberation Army, according to the FBI. The group demanded food and money donations for the poor in exchange for Hearst's release, though she remained a captive even after her family met the ransom through a $2 million food distributi­on program.

Hearst took part in the group's robbery of a San Francisco

bank on April 15, 1974. Surveillan­ce cameras captured her wielding an assault rifle. She wasn't arrested until the FBI caught up with her on Sept. 18, 1975, in San Francisco, 19 months after her abduction.

Her trial was one of the most sensationa­l of that decade. The prosecutor played a jail cell recording of Hearst talking with a friend in which she was confident, cursing, and fully aware of her role with the Symbionese Liberation Army.

While Hearst was sentenced to seven years in prison, thenpresid­ent Jimmy Carter commuted her sentence in 1979 after she served 22 months behind bars. She later was pardoned by then-president Bill Clinton.

 ?? ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES ?? A poster showed Hearst, as “Tania”, holding a machine gun.
ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES A poster showed Hearst, as “Tania”, holding a machine gun.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States