Online Encyclopedia
Patty Hearst
Patricia Campbell Hearst, also Patty Hearst (born February 20, 1954), now known as Patricia Hearst Shaw, is a granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst. She was the victim of a kidnapping, but soon afterwards acted as a criminal herself: she robbed a bank and had to spend time in prison.
Hearst was born in San Francisco, California, the third of five daughters of Randolph Apperson Hearst. She grew up primarily in the wealthy San Francisco suburb of Hillsborough, California.
She was kidnapped February 4, 1974 from her Berkeley, California apartment by a tiny leftist group called the Symbionese Liberation Army. Extortionate demands from the SLA resulted in the donation by the Hearst family of $6 million worth of food to the poor of the Bay Area, but there was no word from Miss Hearst.
Shortly thereafter, however, on April 15, 1974, she was photographed wielding an assault rifle while robbing the Sunset branch of the Hibernia bank. Later communications from her revealed that she had changed her name to Tania and was committed to the goals of the SLA. A warrant was issued for her arrest and in September 1975, she was arrested in an apartment with other SLA members. In the meantime, another SLA lodging was the site of a massive armed confrontation with 500 police, the resulting fire killing most of the rest of the group.
In her trial, which started on March 20, 1976, Hearst claimed she had been locked blindfolded in a closet and physically and sexually abused, which caused her to join the SLA, an extreme case of the "Stockholm syndrome", in which captives become sympathetic with their captors. Hearst further argued she was coerced or intimidated into her part in the bank robbery.
The defense did not succeed and she was convicted of bank robbery. Her sentence was commuted after 22 months by President Jimmy Carter. Hearst was released from prison on February 1, 1979. Later she was pardoned by President Bill Clinton in January, 2001, during the final weeks of his presidency.
Her attorney, Albert Johnson of Boston is currently handling the appeal of Pamela Smart before a federal court.
Hearst tells her version of events beginning with her kidnapping by the SLA in her memoir Every Secret Thing.
Hearst's notoriety has led to her being cast in several films, including John Waters' Cry-Baby , Serial Mom, Pecker and Cecil B. DeMented .
is a documentary made in 2004; it was first called Neverland, but the name had to be changed because of possible confusion with the feature film J.M. Barrie's Neverland .