Exactly 48 years have passed since police in the United States arrested Patty Hearst, a 21-year-old woman already known to the police, as the victim of a kidnapping a year and a half earlier. How did the innocent victim become a wanted person?We used ChatGPT to bring this surprising story.
Patricia Campbell Hearst was a scion of the wealthy Hearst family, and the granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst, considered the father of yellow journalism in the United States. Despite the pedigree, her parents, who were not active in her grandfather's publishing empire, saw no need to take special security measures in their lives – a fact they probably regretted on February 4, 1974, when Patty Hearst's life took an unexpected turn. She was kidnapped from her Berkeley apartment by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), a radical leftist group that carried out violent acts calling for a harmonious and egalitarian society. The organization demanded that her wealthy family feed the poor of San Francisco, but after they did, it claimed that the food they funded was not good enough.
Although Hearst was held in a closet for weeks, blindfolded and handcuffed, and members of the organization repeatedly threatened her with death, and even raped her several times, she began to participate in the organization's deliberations, and after two months in captivity announced in a videotape that she had decided to join him and adopt a new name – "Tanya".
A few days after she joined the organization, he committed a bank robbery, in which she was clearly seen holding a weapon and actively participating in the robbery. As a result, she became wanted as a member of the organization, and was finally arrested a year later, on September 18, 1975. She was charged with bank robbery and violation of gun laws, and in her defense claimed that she participated in robbery under threats and under the influence of Stockholm syndrome. The trial received extensive media coverage due to its pedigree and unusual story.
Hearst lost the case and was imprisoned, but was released in 1979 after President Jimmy Carter himself intervened and commuted her sentence. After her release, she married one of the policemen responsible for guarding her during the trial, had two children with him, and was active in an association to help children with AIDS. At the same time, she had a television career as an actress and presenter. In his last days as president, Bill Clinton granted her a complete presidential pardon for her crimes.
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