Chaos and Desperation: The SLA Experience

When nineteen-year-old Patty Hearst was kidnapped from her apartment in February 1974, everyone assumed the heiress had been abducted for the purposes of ransom. However, in the days that followed, Hearst’s kidnappers, the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), made themselves known when they sent a letter demanding the Hearst family provide food to every needy family in California. 

For nearly two months, the SLA held Patty Hearts captive, or so it seemed to the public. But when the group’s demands were met and Hearst was given the opportunity to leave, the teenager shocked the world when, rather than flee her captors, she joined their ranks in support of their cause. Hearst’s decision set in motion a chain of events that resulted in several acts of explosive violence and forever changed the way we think about victims of kidnapping. Yet in all the analysis of the case over the last fifty years, one question remains unanswered, and possibly unanswerable: Was Patty Hearst a willing accomplice to the SLA or was she a brainwashed victim trying to survive a traumatic ordeal?

Thank you to the Amazing Dave White (of BRING ME THE AXE PODCAST) for research and writing assistance!