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Patty Hearst: The Kidnapped Heiress Who Picked Up a Machine Gun and Defended Her Captors
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Episode notes
Patty Hearst was dragged from her apartment by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974 and emerged two months later holding a carbine rifle during a bank robbery, declaring herself a revolutionary named "Tania." Whether she was a brainwashed victim or a willing convert remains one of the most debated questions in American criminal history — and her case redefined how the justice system thinks about coercion, consent, and the limits of free will.
This episode traces Hearst from her newspaper dynasty family through the kidnapping, the SLA transformation, the bank robbery, the trial, the conviction, and the presidential commutation that never fully resolved the question of what happened to Patty Hearst.
- The Hearst dynasty, the kidnapping from her Berkeley apartment, and the weeks of captivity
- The transformation into "Tania" a ...