Patricia Herst Granddaughter of the famous William Randolph Hearst Country: USA

Biography of Patricia Hearst

Patricia Hearst is the granddaughter of the famous American billionaire and newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst. In February 1974, at the age of 19, she was kidnapped in the university town of Berkeley by an American radical group called the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). The terrorists demanded the distribution of a $70 food package to every poor person in California and the mass printing of all their brochures, leaflets, and posters, which would have cost the Hearst family $400 million. The family offered $6 million in cash as a substitute. However, Hearst refused to return to her family and became a supporter of her captors, stating, "Either stay in captivity or use the power of the SLA and fight for peace. I chose to fight... I chose to stay with my new friends."

The harsh treatment and captivity led to her "consciousness remodeling" through a mechanism similar to the "Stockholm Syndrome." Hearst began referring to herself as "Tania," and the press dubbed her "Machine Gun Patty."

On April 15, 1974, she participated in the robbery of the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco as a member of the SLA combat group. She was declared a fugitive and arrested on September 18, 1975, during a police raid.

Her family hired a lawyer for $200,000 and did everything possible to present her as a victim of violence. On March 20, 1976, she was sentenced to seven years in prison for her involvement in the bank robbery. Thanks to the intervention of President Jimmy Carter, her sentence was reduced, and she was granted clemency and released on February 1, 1979.

After trying her hand at acting, Patricia married her bodyguard and now lives with her husband and two daughters in Wilton, Connecticut.