THE kidnapper of glamorous teen heiress Patty Hearst who became a gun-wielding terrorist has revealed chilling new details 50 years on. Two armed Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) members stormed into Patty’s residence when she was a 19-year-old art history student at UC Berkeley. They beat her fiancee half to death and put her inside a Chevy Impala trunk while she was chained, gagged and blindfolded. Hearst was carried by William “Bill” Harris on the evening of February 4, 1974. Harris is a Vietnam veteran with an undergraduate degree in theatre and a masters in urban education from Indiana University. After that, he ran away from the law for a year and a half, hiding out in different safehouses while the young lady remained in his grasp. However, Hearst’s loyalties shifted not long after, and surprisingly, she ended up aligning herself with the group that had kidnapped her, publicly denouncing her affluent parents as “pig Hearsts.” Commenting on this unexpected development, Harris expressed his bewilderment to the Los Angeles Times, stating, “I couldn’t understand why she would willingly transition from a privileged heiress to becoming a government target for assassination.” “I spent hours trying to convince her that staying with us was a bad idea.” Harris argues the SLA did not intend to keep Hearst forever. The Tupamaros, Uruguayan Marxists known for staging dramatic abductions, motivated the group to kidnap her in the first place. Harris earlier revealed that the SLA kidnapped the 19-year-old because she “was a symbolic target, she was an heiress.” He said: “Her family was in control of a media empire that we viewed as an arm of propaganda for the US government. “We had already determined that Hearst was a particularly easy target and that the propaganda that could be generated from it was perfect.” The initial plan was to trade Hearst for two members of the SLA who had been captured for the fatal shooting of an Oakland school official using cyanide-tipped bullets. It was a sort of prisoner swap, but the scheme apparently went nowhere. “She was gonna go home and explain her captivity in the People’s Prisons we set up for her,” said Harris. “That would have been good propaganda. That’s what I thought it should be.” But the group’s objectives were never fulfilled, and Hearst started to feel a connection to them. “She hated her mother. She didn’t want to go home,” Harris said, claiming that she was angry that her mum Catherine Hearst had been reappointed to the UC Board of Regents by then-Governor Ronald Reagan of California. Prior to her sudden conversion into an ardent supporter ready to carry out violent bank robberies on behalf of the organisation, the SLA exploited Hearst as a negotiating tool to further their own socialist goals. The SLA delivered menacing audio tape demands to the Hearst family, including using their fortune to feed those in need as soon as they claimed responsibility for snatching Hearst. In a desperate attempt to save his daughter, her father, Randolph Apperson Hearst, who was the San Francisco Examiner’s publisher at the time, donated $2 million to the People in Need programme. On February 22, People in Need began distributing high-quality food purchased with Hearst family ransom money. Chaos erupted as organisers hastily threw food from trucks to the masses on San Francisco’s streets. Reagan, at a private luncheon, reportedly criticised the handouts, saying, “It’s just too bad we can’t have an epidemic of botulism.” The giveaways lasted until March 27, when the money ran out. Despite their efforts, on April 3, the SLA released a video of Hearst announcing she had joined their fight and adopted the alias “Tania.” Soon after, the SLA robbed Hibernia Bank, with security cameras capturing Hearst wielding an M1 Carbine. This image convinced many she had embraced leftist militancy, according to the FBI. In a follow-up tape, Hearst bragged: “On April 15, my comrades and I expropriated $10,660.02 from the Sunset branch of Hibernia Bank. “Casualties could have been avoided had the persons involved kept out of the way and cooperated with the people’s forces until after our departure.” Hearst’s loyalty deepened when she fired at an Inglewood store after a clerk tried to apprehend Harris, allowing him and his wife, Emily, to escape. Harris later said: “I figured she’d be smart and head on back to the safehouse. “She picked up my machine gun, and she fired a burst of about 10 rounds, and some of the bullets hit about two feet from my face.” This act led to the downfall of the SLA. Police tracked the getaway van to a south LA safehouse, leading to a shootout. Six SLA members died, including leader Donald DeFreeze. Harris, watching from a hotel, later remarked: “We all made choices to do something we knew might get us killed.” The SLA was crippled, but the fugitives still needed money. Before Hearst became an enthusiastic supporter, the SLA used her as leverage to push their socialist agenda. Harris, after serving eight years, remarried, raised a family, and worked as a private investigator before retiring in San Francisco. Reflecting on his past, he said: “You can be an ex-terrorist and be rehabilitated.” More prosecutions followed for the 1975 Carmichael robbery, driven by Jon Opsahl, whose mother Myrna was killed. Surprisingly, Jon viewed Hearst as “probably as much a victim of the SLA as I am.” He added: “She suffered big-time… enough to affect a young, naïve 19-year-old.” In 2002, four SLA members, including Harris and Emily, pleaded guilty to Myrna Opsahl’s murder. Emily admitted to firing the fatal shotgun blast and served eight years, while Harris, the getaway driver, served four. Harris speculated the Hearst family avoided a trial to protect the narrative that Hearst was acting under duress, saying: “I knew they would find some way to make us an offer we couldn’t refuse.”
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