3 – Patty Hearst (1974)
The kidnapping of Patty Hearst is one of the most famous in American history. Not only because she was the daughter of media mogul, William Randolph Hearst, but also because of the events that followed her abduction. At around 9 p.m. on February 4, 1974, there was a knock on Hearst’s apartment door. When she answered, a group of armed men and women known as the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) streamed in, beat up her fiancé, and kidnapped Hearst.
The SLA, led by Donald DeFreeze, hated the U.S. government and was determined to destroy the capitalist state. Hearst was an obvious kidnap target since she came from a wealthy and nationally recognized family. Hearst’s abduction gave the SLA what they craved; media attention. They initially demanded a ransom of millions of dollars in food donations for her release but soon decided on a better use for their victim.
They started to abuse and brainwash Hearst, with the goal of turning her into the poster child for their supposed ‘revolution.’ Within two months, they released an audiotape of Hearst claiming she joined their fight and she even had a new name. On April 15, 1974, Hearst was captured on CCTV during an SLA bank robbery. She was wielding a gun and appeared to be a willing accomplice.
The FBI launched an intensive manhunt to find Hearst and shut down the SLA. A month after the bank robbery, they found an SLA safe house in Los Angeles, and in the ensuing shootout, six SLA members were killed, including their leader DeFreeze. They still couldn’t locate Hearst, who helped the SLA in further crimes, including the extortion of an estimated $2 million from her father.
Eventually, the FBI caught Hearst in San Francisco on September 18, 1975, and she was arrested and charged with crimes including bank robbery. Despite her defense lawyer claiming she was coerced into the crimes, Hearst was found guilty and sentenced to seven years in prison.
It was a controversial decision, as psychologists found clear signs of trauma, with one doctor describing her as a low-IQ zombie. She weighed just 87 pounds at the time of her arrest, and her IQ had fallen by 18 points during the time she spent with the SLA. It isn’t inconceivable that Hearst had been brainwashed, yet with no evidence of mental illness, there was little chance of the heiress escaping jail time. President Jimmy Carter commuted her prison term in 1979, so she served just 22 months.
On January 20, 2001, President Bill Clinton gave Hearst a full pardon, and by 2002, the FBI had arrested every member of the SLA. Psychologists attribute Hearst’s change in behavior to a phenomenon called Stockholm Syndrome, whereby a hostage starts to feel compassion towards their captors.