Vintage Villains
For those who like a little old-time with their true crime, join host Allison Dickson of Ding Dong Darkness Time as she explores the villains of decades and centuries past.
Vintage Villains
6: Patty Hearst: From Heiress to Hostage to Outlaw
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In the 50th year since the kidnapping of heiress Patricia Hearst by the Symbionese Liberation Army, and the resulting crime spree that shocked the nation, we can acknowledge the vintage pedigree of the case. But was she truly a villain? She was certainly portrayed that way throughout her saga in the mid-1970s, but two US Presidents would intervene on her behalf, and she would go on to become a centerpiece on discussions of accountability, brainwashing, and Stockholm Syndrome. Pertaining to the latter, you'll get plenty of discussion on what Stockholm Syndrome actually is (and isn't).
Additional Music: "Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal"
https://sundriedtomatoes.bandcamp.com/track/hurrian-hymn-to-nikkal-no-6
Links to Patreon, Merch, Website, Socials:
https://linktr.ee/warpedcortexmedia
RESOURCE LINKS:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patty_Hearst
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hearst/hearstdolaccount.html
https://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/people/shows/hearst/profile.html
Credits:
Main Theme Music -- Ken Dickson
Main Graphics -- Nathaniel Dickson
This week I took my time machine back to the year 1974, and I found a bad lady, or did I? That's the central question today, as we peer into the kidnapping of an American heiress and her descent into a crime and terror spree with her abductors. That had the world questioning yet again the nature of control and criminal behavior. Troll and criminal behavior. Whatever your own feelings on the matter, patty Hearst was certainly portrayed as a villain in her own story and because this takes place now, 50 years ago, that makes her a perfect fit for today's episode of Vintage Villains. Welcome back to the show everybody. Welcome back to the show everybody. We're in a streak of patties, it would seem, with our previous episode on illegal slave trader and serial killer Patty Cannon. But as much as I love a little double patty madness, it's totally a coincidence on my part. Patty Hearst was slated to be released earlier, but I needed to rearrange my schedule for a few things, and so this is just how things ended up. But for the rest of this episode I'm going to refer to this Patty by the name. She stated she prefers Patricia. But before we dive into her story we need to do that vintage villains thing and get a feel for the times, and what better way to do that than on my patented, pending Zeitgeist Zeppelin? Don't worry, it's not filled with hydrogen, because I know my history. Now buckle up and let's zoom over to the year 1974, where you might hear Steve Miller band's the Joker playing somewhere, because it was a big chart topper that year. Only, you won't hear it here because I don't have the license for it.
Allison Dickson:Anyway, I think it's important to start off this trip by acknowledging that 1974 was one hell of a not great year for the United States. We were still feeling the sting of defeat from the long war in Vietnam, having pulled our last soldiers out of Saigon only a year prior, but we still had a lot of anger to go around for the political machine responsible for that long and deadly conflict. And that same political machine also had us in the middle of an ugly energy crisis because of some nasty dealings in the Middle East that had us running very short on oil. Those dealings are far too numerous and complicated to go into here, but when you consider there was a border war going on between Iraq and Iran and that Libya was taking the step of nationalizing oil companies and that Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran had just declared the country an Islamic Republic. Well, you already know this story a little bit, don't you? But politics weren't nearly done with us yet, are they ever?
Allison Dickson:Because most of you over a certain age who think of the year 1974 probably home in on one major defining event the resignation of President Richard Nixon from office on August 9th amid his involvement in the Watergate scandal. Nixon, and that event in particular, might be an interesting episode to do at some point, so let me know if you would be into that. It was the first time a US president had resigned from office and given all the craziness the country had been through in the years preceding that, with the Vietnam War, the civil rights fights and endless Cold War tensions, the premature toppling of this troubled administration no doubt had Americans wondering how much worse things could get. Well, to add insult to a year of injury, 1974 was also the first year that daylight saving time was implemented, and I'm willing to lay a whole lot of collective misery at that particular policy's feet. However, amid all that turmoil, life, culture and science, as ever, had a way of carrying on. In fact, my only sibling was born in February of that year. Happy 50th again, brandon.
Allison Dickson:On the entertainment side, the TV show Happy Days aired its first episode in 1974, as did the Six Million Dollar man In movies. The Sting starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford cleaned up at that year's Oscars with Best Picture, best Director and Best Original Screenplay and many more. My favorite horror movie, the Exorcist, also had quite a few nominations at that year's ceremony. It would win Best Adapted Screenplay and y'all should really read that book if you haven't and Sound Mixing. The Mel Brooks satirical western comedy Blazing Saddles also premiered in theaters, as did Roman Polanski's noir classic Chinatown. Ah Polanski, another complicated villain who will no doubt be featured on this show one day, and in news news. A publication that would be covering a lot of the things I just mentioned and more People Magazine launched its first issue in February.
Allison Dickson:February was one hell of a month. In 1974, it would seem. In other cultural milestones, legendary magic duo Penn and Teller became possible, as 1974 marks the year that Penn, jillette and Raymond Teller met. Also, the book Jaws by Peter Benchley would be released this year, just in time to become everyone's favorite reason to avoid the beach the following summer, in 1975, when the Steven Spielberg-helmed movie would hit theaters and pop singer Roberta Flack took home a Grammy for her hit song An Enduring Earworm Killing Me Softly.
Allison Dickson:But a much, much older song the world's oldest in fact was performed for the first time on March 5th of 1974 at Berkeley University by Ann Kilmer and Richard Crocker. It was discovered on a Hurrian cuneiform tablet dating back to around 1400 BCE and it's called Hymn to Nakal, who was a moon god from Syria. Want to know what it sounds like? Well, it's what's been playing in the background this whole time. That's an arrangement of the song by a musician named Braden Olson, and you'll find a link to his Bandcamp account in the show notes. That's a great segue to the other discoveries we made in 74 that contributed to our understanding of things. The Mariner spacecraft we launched to send us pictures of Mercury and Venus started producing in that year, and in March Chinese farmers discovered the Terracotta Army 8,000 statues constructed to guard the tomb of their first emperor, qin Shi Huang, and please forgive my pronunciations there. A mystery that would take several more years to unravel, however, was ongoing throughout 74, as young women in Washington and Utah would begin to go missing. Those women Donna Manson, nancy Wilcox, laura Amy and Debbie Kent would later be named victims of serial killer Ted Bundy.
Allison Dickson:On a somewhat more personal note, 1974 not only marks the birth of my brother, but also the year of a weather event known as the Super Outbreak, the second largest tornado outbreak over a 24 hour period, with 148 confirmed tornadoes in 13 US states, killing approximately 315 people and injuring nearly 5500. The town of Xenia, ohio, which is only about 20 minutes from where I'm currently sitting, was struck that day. It was also my mother's birthday and her wedding day. She and her fiance tied the knot under very harrowing skies in the neighboring town of Fairbourn. I think it's safe to say that mom had one hell of a year in 1974, and I wouldn't even be around for another five years. And that's just a tiny taste of this year, folks. 1974, brimming with discord and crisis, a disgraced American president, busy serial killers and raging tornadoes, plenty of room for some bank robberies and attempted bombings, with the far-left militant organization, I suppose. So let's get to it, shall we? Most would say.
Allison Dickson:Patricia Campbell Hearst Shaw was born very lucky. She came into this world on February 20th 1954, in San Francisco, california, with a family name known around the world. That name, hearst, has been mentioned here once already, way back on episode one with the story of Belle Gunness. Patricia's grandfather was none other than William Randolph Hearst, head of the largest media empire in the world, inventor of tabloid journalism and was the inspiration behind the Orson Welles film Citizen Kane. Patricia's father, randolph A Hearst, was one of five Hearst sons and he worked in the family business for various newspapers, while also doing a stint in the Air Force. He became chairman of the board of the Hearst Corporation in 1973 and would remain there until his retirement in 1996.
Allison Dickson:Never rising quite to the level of CEO due to a lot of rich people, reasons involving trustees and heirs and elections and yada yada. I figured to get an idea of how such things work watching the show. Succession is probably a good idea. Patricia's mother, catherine, was a regent for the University of California. I wasn't exactly sure what a regent did in this context. I only have ever heard of it in the context of royal families. But regardless, it just sounds like a fancy job involving fancy things. Okay, I looked it up and a university regent is responsible for managing financial matters and land holdings for the institution and also appoints the university president. So yeah, that's pretty fancy.
Allison Dickson:Anyway, patricia, in her autobiography Every Secret Thing describes her upbringing as affluent and sheltered and herself as sublimely self-confident. This sheltered and confident mindset may also explain why the family never bothered hiring private security, something that may very well have altered the way things ultimately went for them. Anyone who studies true crime for even a minute knows that wealth and insularity can be a dangerous combo for a multitude of reasons. We're all sitting ducks to some degree, but some ducks are much fatter than others. Patricia attended private schools growing up, but at the time of her kidnapping at age 19, she was a sophomore studying art history at the University of California at Berkeley, living in a nearby apartment with her fiancé, stephen Weed. A pretty idyllic life by most standards, it would seem.
Allison Dickson:But on February 4th 1974, a small group of leftist radicals showed up on her doorstep with the motive of bringing some attention to their then-fledgling movement. But first let's dive a little into the background. On the Symbionese Liberation Army, commonly referred to as the SLA. The full name makes them sound much grander than they actually were. Even at their peak, their numbers never exceeded much beyond a dozen, and half of them died in a single day during a massive police shootout following a robbery in Los Angeles. And we'll get to that in a bit.
Allison Dickson:The SLA was a self-described vanguard movement. What that means in the context of leftism is they considered themselves a group of proletariats fighting the upper class of society in order to bring racial, gender and economic equality, in the form of communism, to the masses. Law enforcement considers the SLA the first domestic left-wing terrorist group to rise to prominence in the United States. They were tiny, poorly funded and even more poorly organized, wouldn't be charged and convicted until 2003, when Sarah Jane Olson, a fugitive, was caught and pled guilty to second-degree murder related to an SLA-orchestrated bank robbery in 75.
Allison Dickson:But they were a scrappy bunch that came together during an inmate outreach program at Vacaville Prison, which was organized by students and recent graduates from nearby colleges like UC Berkeley. The plan was to have members of the student body help educate prison inmates to prepare for life outside prison. This ended up bringing together many people of the same political bent across varying races, who were interested in studying social justice words that have become washed of all meaning in today's political climate. However, a lot of the people with power and influence on both sides of the prison walls were already from other radical groups, like the Latino Vinceremos, who were interested in urban guerrilla-style movements aka terrorism to affect change in the social order, similar to those tactics used in South America by players like Che Guevara.
Allison Dickson:But what does Symbionese actually mean? Well, according to the group's founders, the name Symbionese is taken from the word symbiosis and we define its meaning as a body of dissimilar bodies and organisms living in deep and loving harmony and partnership in the best interest of all. Within the body, they intended to have a political symbiosis to encompass all of the left-wing struggles feminism, anti-racism, anti-capitalism and so much more. They wanted all people of all races and all ages to fight together in a left-wing united front and to live together peacefully, which just sounds like a whole bunch of impossible things. But I digress. The group adopted a seven-headed Hydra-like cobra symbol and used it as their logo, and they featured this image on all their publications. They distributed all kinds of tracks around. They had flags. You know they were really trying.
Allison Dickson:Though it should be noted that, despite being derived from radical Latino and Black organizations, the SLA was predominantly made up of white members organizations. The SLA was predominantly made up of white members, with the exception of one of its founders, donald DeFreeze, a black man from Cleveland, ohio, with a lengthy rap sheet who, just prior to helping create the SLA, escaped from prison after being sentenced to five years for robbing a sex worker. He'd also once been an inmate at Vacaville Prison and active in its Black Cultural Association, which worked with the colleges on the inmate at Vacaville Prison, and active in its Black Cultural Association, which worked with the colleges on the inmate outreach programs. There he'd met several student volunteers who later became his fellow comrades. After his escape he hunkered down with these people in a known area commune called the Peking House, which was in the Bay Area, and he later moved to a less visible safe house. In the neighborhood there lived a young activist and self-avowed revolutionary named Patricia, another Patricia Solstice, and she wasn't involved in the prisoner outreach programs so no one would be looking for him there. The two quickly became lovers and together they laid out the plans for what would become the SLA. De Vries took the name General Field Marshal Sinkh Muthume after the leader of the slave rebellion that took over the slave ship Amistad in 1839.
Allison Dickson:So to sum all that up, you have some very activist-minded college students in the early 1970s in that post-Vietnam counterculture war environment I described earlier, which had galvanized so many young people coming together with like-minded folks of a more criminal bent and that pressure pot of young anger at a cruel world and a fervent idealism swirling around a nucleus of violence and petty crime and a figurehead like Donald DeVries, a terrorist group was born that would be responsible for at least a few deaths, a kidnapping, some bombings and robberies and a whole lot of otherwise impotent rage. Such groups, right or left wing, spawn just as easily around the world today with the help of social media. But if we learn anything from this episode, it should be a reminder of just how easy it is to become radicalized and lethal in the right circumstances without the internet. People have been doing very well at it all by themselves for centuries, and some would argue that the internet has made people less active in the world overall. It's a lot easier to sit around on various discussion boards and talk the big talk while leading an otherwise mundane life, leading to individuals largely working alone. In the event, one becomes motivated enough to go out and do something violent. Just something else to ponder when we think of the role of the internet in modern day terrorism.
Allison Dickson:I may have briefly mentioned the SLA in my coverage on cults on my other podcast Ding Dong Darkness Time. When referring to more militarized groups, and though the SLA didn't refer to itself as a cult, I am doing so specifically because of the elements of coercion and control that apply to the Patricia Hearst case. And in keeping with the trajectory of most cults and their penchant for alienating their friends, the newly minted SLA and this is before the kidnapping of Patricia assassinated a man named Marcus Foster, who was the first Black school superintendent from Oakland, california, because they mistakenly believed that he was implementing a school ID program. That's right. School IDs, which are so commonplace now, drove people to murder back in the early 70s. But this act had a chilling effect on the other radical groups in the area, in particular the Black ones, and so the SLA was marooned on their own little crazy island, and I think this affected their ability to recruit a lot of new members, which is what then led them to take more desperate measures, like kidnapping a young heiress in order to make a name and some money for themselves. The kidnapping was also orchestrated in order to pressure authorities to release the two men who were caught and imprisoned for the murder of Marcus Foster, which authorities would refuse to do After that. They would then go on to extort the family for a ransom, but with a Robin Hood-esque twist of having them donate $70 worth of food to every needy person in California. That would have cost around $400 million, which was an impossible sum back then, even for the Hearst family. But they donated $2 million to a local food bank instead and tried to continue negotiations, but it all broke down very quickly and the SLA refused to release Patricia.
Allison Dickson:But I'm getting ahead of myself, so let's go back to the night of February 4th when the kidnapping took place. Patricia's San Francisco apartment was actually not far from the main SLA hideout, which is likely how they settled on her as the perfect target. That night, hurst heard a knock on her door. When she opened it, she was suddenly being held at gunpoint and being dragged out of her home toward a waiting car. The kidnappers also beat up her fiancé and left him behind, shoving Hurst in the trunk and driving off into the night. Throughout the aforementioned negotiations with the family, devries had Hurst blindfolded, gagged and tied up in a closet for the next 57 days, letting her out only to eat with the group. She was subject to endless rants, beatings and rape, which, hearst states in her autobiography, laid the foundation for her future actions. Hearst was eventually presented with the ultimatum of death or joining the SLA. She took the ladder and was christened with a new name, tanya, which was the nickname of a woman high up the ladder of Che Guevara's organization.
Allison Dickson:Now to me it's not hard to understand Hearst's choice here. If you've been kidnapped by a group of dangerous people, your first and only priority becomes that of your survival. Deprived of freedom, sight, sleep and food for several weeks basically that entire lower tier of Maslow's hierarchy you learn to develop ways of coping in order to just get through it alive. So when your kidnappers offer you the choice between joining their group or being murdered, you join the group. Cross all other bridges when you get there, even if it means, along the way, you're framing yourself for multiple serious felonies.
Allison Dickson:In a taped message released on April 3rd, hearst read the following, which she would later claim was a script she was forced to read at gunpoint I have been given the choice of one being released in a safe area, or two joining the forces of the Symbionese Liberation Army and fighting for my freedom and the freedom of all oppressed people. Her family and friends were stunned by this, but they immediately began to speculate she was being coerced. The tape came with a photo of Hearst in revolutionary gear, holding a machine gun against the background of the SLA's emblem of a seven-headed cobra. That's the picture you see in the episode thumbnail and I chose it for a reason. Really, look at it. See this very pale, gaunt young woman and look at her eyes in particular blank, dead, ringed with dark circles, staring off into space like someone who never had a memory.
Allison Dickson:Patricia Hearst had been kidnapped violently from her soft, privileged life, staring off into space like someone who never had a memory. Patricia Hearst had been kidnapped violently from her soft, privileged life and, after being thrust into a crucible of trauma and abuse, was reborn a hardened revolutionary Soon. She would be taken out on her first bank robbery On April 15th. Surveillance footage would show Hearst wielding an M1 carbine rifle inside the Sunset District branch of the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco, ordering people to get up against the wall. Two customers who entered the bank during the heist would be shot and wounded by other robbers. Hearst claimed in her autobiography that she had little recollection of the sequence of events, but that once she heard gunfire inside the bank her next memories were from inside the getaway car.
Allison Dickson:After the robbery, the US Attorney General, william Saxby, would say that Hearst wasa quote common criminal and quote not a reluctant participant. However, the FBI agent in charge of the investigation would show that the other SLA members were pointing their guns at Hearst during the robbery. Nevertheless, a grand jury would later indict Hearst for the robbery in June. A month later, on May 16th, hearst would be seen emptying a full magazine from that M1 carbine and more from another rifle into a sporting goods store after SLA members William and Emily Harris were detained by the store manager for shoplifting. Miraculously, she didn't hit anyone in the store or on the busy street with all that gunfire and the three got away again.
Allison Dickson:After this, hearst and the Harris's would hijack a pair of cars and their owners, who would later testify to Hearst being so personable that he was reluctant to report the incident. While they were on the way back to the SLA hideout the next day they would learn that police had surrounded the place and would hide elsewhere, and it's in that ensuing gunfight, aired on live television, by the way, that a fire would break out and six members of the SLA, including Donald DeVries and Patricia Sulzik, would die DeVries from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Initially authorities believed Hearst died in the fire, but they would soon realize otherwise and issue warrants for her and Harris's arrests, and they continued to receive cover from other activists in the community. Hearst would later say, after watching this fight go down on TV, that she knew there was no way she could come forward without risking being gunned down by the police. Hearst and the Harris's would get out of town and spend some time in Pennsylvania and New York for a while, but they returned to California the following August, at which point they'd conduct more bank robberies and make some bombs to plant underneath police cars. Thankfully neither of those devices would successfully detonate, but there would be how to make bomb. Books found on Patricia's bookshelves indicating that she had helped build the devices. And in one of the bank robberies at Crocker National Bank in Carmichael, emily Harris would shoot and kill Myrna Opsal, a mother of four, who was only there to make a deposit. Patricia Hurst was the getaway driver, who was only there to make a deposit. Patricia Hurst was the getaway driver, but she was now on the hook for felony murder. Police and FBI would finally catch up to Hurst and crew on September 18th 1975, 18 months after the kidnapping.
Allison Dickson:At her booking, she told her attorney to deliver a message to the world. 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. When asked her profession, she responded urban gorilla. Now let's take a second just to let all this sink in here. How could something like this even be possible? Can a person turn this quickly from victim to villain? I know the two words you're thinking of right now. You probably thought of them. The second you saw the subject of this episode and those words Stockholm Syndrome, characterized by the development of sympathy from captives to their captors.
Allison Dickson:Stockholm Syndrome, characterized by the development of sympathy from captives to their captors. Stockholm Syndrome has four key components. One, a hostage's development of positive feelings toward the captor Check. Two, no previous relationship between the hostage and the captor Check. A refusal by hostages to cooperate with police and other government authorities. Rat-a-tat-tat Check. And a hostage's belief in the humanity of the captor, ceasing to perceive them as a threat when the victim holds the same values as the aggressor. Urban gorilla Check. So I think it's safe to say that Patricia exhibits all of those characteristics.
Allison Dickson:The term originated from a failed bank robbery in 1973 in Sweden, where men took four employees hostage in order to negotiate the release of their compatriot from prison, sound familiar. That was also the motive behind the Hearst kidnapping Paroled convict. Jan Erik Olsen held the employees in a bank vault for six days and, upon their release, the hostages would ultimately refuse to comply with police or testify against their captors. In fact, the former captives began to help raise money for Olson's defense, believing he acted more rationally toward them and valued their safety more than the police and political leaders at the time, who'd apparently made every wrong move, with Olson agitating the situation by pointing guns at the captors. With the hostages in the line of fire, further endangering their lives, kristen Enmark, one of the hostages, claimed even Sweden's prime minister told her during the negotiations to content herself with dying, as they had no intention of negotiating with the criminals. This created a situation where the hostages began to see their rescuers as a bigger threat than the captors. During their time locked in that vault together, olsen also developed an emotional bond with his own hostages, an inverse of the Stockholm effect known as Lima Syndrome, another one named after its location.
Allison Dickson:But Stockholm Syndrome is not without a whole heap of controversy. First of all, it's not an official psychiatric or psychological diagnosis, neither recognized by the American Psychiatric Association nor appearing in the Diagnostic Statistic Manual, having only garnered mention under more widely studied disorders in the manual, like post-traumatic stress disorder or trauma bonding. It's poorly studied, largely due to a lack of subjects to study and not consistently agreed upon exactly what it is or if it even exists. In the former captives that researchers have been able to study, stockholm Syndrome was only found to be present in around 8% of them, so quite rare. On the whole, many of the syndrome's critics say it's more likely to be diagnosed by the media than actual mental health professionals, and this way of overblowing its prevalence and significance has had detrimental effects on crisis negotiation tactics and the coverage of kidnappings.
Allison Dickson:In fact and this one really stuck with me a lot of depictions of Stockholm Syndrome trauma bonding, learned helplessness and internalized oppression have the effect of shifting the focus away from what actually happened to the victims at the hands of their aggressors, framing their experiences instead in the form of poorly studied pseudopathologies born in the minds of the victims. And there's a huge gender bias as well, shocker, where it's most closely associated with women. This has had the effect of discrediting them and makes them less likely to talk about their experiences, because you're just a hysterical woman who fell in love with your captor. Effectively, when women have shown that they're feeling threatened by social power structures like police, when in dangerous situations, rather than address the problems within the power structure, we just put off these victims' reactions to some form of mental illness they developed while in captivity, we slap a Stockholm Syndrome sticker on her and call her done its name. The captives' refusal to work with the state apparatus was born not from the direct actions of their captors, but from the shoddy way the state handled their situation. But at the end of that robbery all people remember from, it is Stockholm Syndrome and not the poor performance of the police and the politicians. So let's try to keep all this in mind with Patricia's case here, because while she absolutely showed all the signs of what we understand as Stockholm syndrome trauma, bonding, brainwashing, whatever you want to call it it was a lack of timely rescue at the hands of the authorities, the growing certainty that she would be killed in a police shootout and the harrowing abuse she experienced at the hands of her captors that allowed all of this to flourish and the woman taken into custody.
Allison Dickson:That September day was barely recognizable as the Patricia Hurst her family and friends and fiance knew. Hurst's weight had dropped to 87 pounds and she was described by psychologist Margaret Singer in October of 1975 as quote a low IQ, low affect zombie. Her IQ was measured as 112, where it had previously been 130. There were huge gaps in her memory regarding her pre-Tanya life, which is very common with trauma response. She'd also taken up a heavy smoking habit and suffered from regular nightmares.
Allison Dickson:The only problem is Patricia didn't fit any existing mold of criminal insanity and claims of being brainwashed just weren't going to cut it. No one had ever been acquitted on such grounds and so they would have to prove her actions were done completely under duress, which is defined as a clear threat of death or serious injury. But she would have a hard time claiming duress when she emptied a magazine of bullets into a sporting goods store from the getaway car she was waiting in all alone. You can see the very steep hill that Hurst and her defense attorneys had to climb here. But they had a lot of experts come in to evaluate her, many of whose names I recognized in my own cult studies, like psychiatrist Louis Joylin West, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. He was appointed by the court in his capacity as a brainwashing expert and worked without a fee. After the trial he wrote a newspaper article asking President Carter to release Hearst from prison. Hearst would write in her memoir quote I spent 15 hours going over my SLA experiences with Robert J Lifton of Yale University. Lifton, author of several books on coercive persuasion and thought reform, author of several books on coercive persuasion and thought reform, pronounced me as a quote classic case which met all the psychological criteria of a coerced prisoner of war. If I had reacted differently, that would have been suspect, he said.
Allison Dickson:After several weeks in custody Hurst would come to repudiate the SLA. Her first lawyer, terrence Hallinan, had advised Hurst not to talk to anyone, including psychiatrists. He advocated a defense instead of involuntary intoxication that the SLA had given her drugs that affected her judgment and recollection. Attorney F Lee Bailey yeah, that one. Where are my OJ case junkies out? And, by the way, as I was finishing up the writing for this script, I just got the news that OJ Simpson has died. So I am a powerful individual. People Fear me.
Allison Dickson:Anyway, he asserted a defense of coercion or duress affecting intent at the time of the offense. This was similar to the brainwashing defense, which Hallinan had warned was not a defense in law, and the trial would begin on February 4th 1976, two years to the day after the kidnapping. And let me just put this right out here. Okay, f Lee Bailey at least in this case I'm not here to impugn the man's entire career was an idiot for going for the brainwashing defense, a greedy, ambitious fool. Even if you fully believe that Hearst was brainwashed fully in the grip of a nasty trauma response, that still doesn't make it a viable strategy for criminal defense, because getting a jury to buy into something like that was going to be next to impossible.
Allison Dickson:Prosecutors apparently gave him every opportunity to allow Hurst to plead guilty in exchange for a lenient sentence that likely would have even kept her out of jail and prevented her from being subject to the walloping they were ready to deliver her in the courtroom. Even they were like come on, man, don't do this, it's suicide. But Bailey had his testicles resting firmly in the hands of the richest family on the planet who didn't want to see their daughter admit she had willingly joined a leftist, radical hippie group that robbed banks and built bombs. And Bailey had the book rights and a struggling criminal law practice to revive. So he was weak and pushing for the best possible outcome for his client because he knew they'd fire him and replace him with someone who would do whatever they wanted. He knew they'd fire him and replace him with someone who would do whatever they wanted, in addition to being greedy and ambitious. It's a bad combo for a guy whose only job is supposed to be keeping you out of prison, and I probably sound particularly embittered here because the trial that unfolded as a result of Bailey's insistence on using the brainwashing defense ended up making his client's life so much harder in all the ways you'd expect when a woman who was kidnapped and raped is also the defendant.
Allison Dickson:The judge on this case, oliver Carter, crippled the defense strategy by allowing the prosecution to introduce recorded statements Patricia made in jail immediately after her arrest to prove her state of mind way back at the time of the robbery. Thus the jury listened to Patty tell Americans on an audio tape. Quote the idea of brainwashing is ridiculous. On cross-examination, hurst faced numerous questions from prosecutors about her actions after the bank robbery, causing her to plead the Fifth Amendment 42 times on the stand. And yeah, that was also Bailey's doing. Putting her on the stand to begin with was stupid, but pleading the Fifth that many times was only going to frustrate the jury even further. Many times was only going to frustrate the jury even further. She also had to listen to embarrassing expert testimony about her vulnerability and endure humiliating cross-examination about a wide amount of topics, including her sex life, and on that she had to answer some very awkward questions about why she kept a necklace given to her by William Wolfe, one of her alleged rapists, and wrote of him as a gentle man.
Allison Dickson:And perhaps the biggest reason F Lee Bailey should not have gone forward with the brainwashing defense was because it brought all the psychologists and psychiatrists to the yard. While Bailey was convinced his psychological testimony expert would have the case in the bag, the prosecution came loaded with their own too, and they did not hold back. None had more effect on the jury than the prosecution's psychiatrist, joel Fort, who questioned the ability of the defense psychiatrist to draw conclusions about her state of mind at a time 15 months before they interviewed her. Never mind that they were drawing conclusions about her state of mind at the time of the robbery based on statements she made nearly two years later. But I digress. According to Fort, hearst was ripe for being radicalized, describing her as an amoral person who thought rules didn't apply to her. And how do you make that argument? By listing every single mistake a young person ever made. And need I remind y'all again that Hearst was only 19 years old when she was kidnapped? He stated she lied to nuns at school about her mother having cancer in order to get out of an exam, engaged in sexual activity at an early age and experimented with drugs such as LSD In other words, normal teenager stuff.
Allison Dickson:In the early 1970s, fort used what he called a Velcro theory, stating that people like Hearst tend to float around in moral space and then find stuck to them the first random ideology they bump into. And in San Francisco, particularly at UC Berkeley, you can't walk three feet without bumping into leftist radical groups. Therefore, it was natural that Hearst would find the SLA appealing. Many of the group's members, including Donald DeVries, came from educated, upper-class backgrounds similar to hers, and they also chose to become members of the SLA without being brainwashed. Again, that's all, according to Fort. But did no one bother to ask if the other members were kidnapped from their apartments in order to join the SLA. No matter. Hurst was already an amoral person, I guess, so she probably would have joined up, even if she hadn't been kidnapped, according to this guy. Anyway, my blood is boiling here, not specifically because this is the tack the prosecution took, but because Bailey had to know that this is what would happen and he subjected his client to it anyway.
Allison Dickson:Ultimately, the jury was not convinced by Bailey's brainwashing theory or of his delivery of it. Additionally, hearst's inability to be convincing on the stand, the recordings of her own words during and in the immediate aftermath of her arrest and the psychiatric testimony from the government sealed the deal. After 12 hours of deliberation, they came back with a guilty verdict and Patricia Hearst was sentenced to seven years in federal prison for the Hibernia bank robbery. While in prison, she was kept in solitary confinement for her safety and would suffer a whole host of health problems, including a collapsed lung, and this would make her unable to testify against the Harris's in the separate trial regarding the carjackings, kidnappings, sporting goods store shooting and her own kidnapping. She would plead no contest to the sporting goods store shooting and receive probation because this judge was more sympathetic to her psychological state at the time and believed she'd been tortured and coerced. Hearst would be granted bail for an appeal hearing, but she would return to prison when the appeals fell through and the Supreme Court of the United States rejected hearing the case. She was kept, this time in general population, until she found a dead rat on her pillow on the eve of Harris's arraignment. They would serve eight years each, by the way, for the abduction of Hearst.
Allison Dickson:Public sympathy for Patricia continued to grow during this time. House Representative Leo Ryan was collecting signatures on a petition for Hearst's release several weeks before he was murdered while visiting the Jonestown settlement in Guyana. What a wild dovetail of 1970s craziness right there, stating that people had accepted that Jim Jones had brainwashed 900 individuals into mass suicide, but would not accept the Symbionese Liberation Army could have brainwashed a kidnapped teenage girl. Sentence after 22 months served eight months before eligibility for her first parole hearing, though she would remain on probation for the sporting goods store shooting. It wouldn't be until President Bill Clinton's last day in office, in January of 2001, that Patricia Hearst would receive a full pardon, and Hearst would go on to make a tiny career in movies, particularly with director John Waters, and make several television appearances on shows such as Frasier and Veronica Mars. Most recently, though, she's been big in the dog show scene, winning top prizes for her French Bulldogs.
Allison Dickson:Patricia Hurst entered this world a privileged and sheltered person. Hurst entered this world a privileged and sheltered person, and after a wild ride in the real world, few will ever take she's back to enjoying that more sheltered life and honestly I can't really hold that against her. While there is definitely a double standard for the wealthy in the criminal justice system, I think Patricia Hurst's status cuts both ways here. The higher you rise, the harder you tend to fall. And Attorney General Evel J Younger said that Hearst likely received a stiffer sentence than a person of lesser means might have. And look, all the money in the world could not have made the jury buy what F Lee Bailey was selling F Lee Bailey was selling. He made the mistake of trying to convince them that Hearst was brainwashed the entire time of her capture rather than in the time leading up to the robbery when she was the most traumatized. And Patricia herself said in her autobiography that she was disappointed in Bailey's performance, describing him as having the appearance of someone with a hangover and spilling water down the front of his pants, while making a disjointed closing argument. That said, it was most definitely her family's wealth and influence that allowed her case to climb all the way to the level of a presidential commutation and pardon.
Allison Dickson:But what do I think about all this? Was Patricia Hearst a victim of Stockholm syndrome? Did a brainwashed woman commit all these terrible crimes? Well, first of all, I hate the term brainwashing. Most people who are coerced into acting against their own best interests are not brainwashed. They are still acting of their own volition. They aren't puppets being guided helplessly along by strings. They aren't puppets being guided helplessly along by strings.
Allison Dickson:Patricia made the choices she made in the name of survival. Were they choices you or I would have made Well, I don't care to speculate too much on that because, unlike her, I've never been kidnapped. But can I easily put myself into her shoes with the power of empathy? Absolutely, and I think it does a great disservice to her harrowing experience at the hands of these people and those choices she was forced to make, again as a 19-year-old adolescent to simply say the choices she made were the result of a mental disorder or defect of some kind. The truth, to me, anyway, lies somewhere in the middle.
Allison Dickson:To Joel Fort, who said she was this amoral person who was vulnerable to falling into any ideology she happened to bump into. First of all, name me a single teenager. That statement doesn't apply, to Add to the fact that she was very wealthy and cloistered away from the harshness of the real world. This makes someone very impressionable and naive At a time when the world was burbling with endless turmoil and opportunities left and right to fall into a trap of some kind. It is completely understandable how something like this could have happened. Add in the fact that she was kidnapped.
Allison Dickson:There is no disputing this part. The events that unfolded between February 4th 1974 and September of 1975 were all the result of a young woman being ripped from her apartment and shoved into the trunk of a car, kept bound in a closet and threatened, sexually assaulted. And tell me what consent looks like in a situation where you've already been kidnapped, by the way, and put into the position of doing the criminal bidding of this group or face being murdered. Put yourself into the mind and body of this particular young woman and tell me how equipped you would be to fight. No, you'd go along just to stay alive and perhaps at some point along the way you'd develop ways to cope with the situation. You'd wake up in that nightmare day after day and eventually it would start to feel almost normal to you. You'd see your name in the news being listed among the criminals who took you from your tranquil existence and thrust you into this hell, and you'd feel like the rest of the world had turned against you. So you might as well stick with the devils. You know, patricia Hearst was not brainwashed. She was a victim, first and foremost of the SLA and then later our own criminal justice system, who made her pay the price for not being the heroine all the movies and TV shows say we're supposed to be when we're kidnapped and held for ransom. And in this system, if you can't be the hero of your own story, then that by default makes you the villain. And that's going to wrap things up for this week.
Allison Dickson:I want to thank all of you, wonderful listeners and patrons, for your support of this show, as always, but in particular as things were a little delayed as I've been recovering from a recent surgery. All that seems to be healing up nicely and it's been great being back in the driver's seat. Healing up nicely and it's been great being back in the driver's seat, although I must say the last few weeks of sitting on my couch reading and playing video games have been most excellent. But podcasts, unfortunately, are not going to make themselves, and I'm so excited about some of the episodes coming around the bend.
Allison Dickson:If you want to be first in the know, consider joining the Vintage Villains Patreon page, where you'll get to be part of live events and get episodes earlier than the public. Most of the time it's only three bucks per month for everything, and there's also the Vintage Villains Soiree group on Facebook where you can just engage in some jibber jabber with your fellow history and true crime nerds. You can also pick up some shirts or mugs at the merch store, or leave a review over on Apple or Spotify, or simply tell your friends about the show and have them subscribe on their favorite podcasting apps. It all helps grow the show more than you know. Next month is CrimeCon in Nashville, and I'll be in attendance there with all my favorite people in the podcasting community. If you're going to be there, be sure to hunt me down for a cool vintage villains or ding dong darkness time sticker or a hug or a fist bump or a goofy selfie, whichever you prefer. All right, friends, now get out there and make some good history and I'll see you very soon in another century.