Thu Oct 17 2024

In 1974, the world was stunned when Patty Hearst, the 19-year-old granddaughter of media mogul William Randolph Hearst, appeared in a surveillance video brandishing a military carbine during a bank robbery. Two months earlier, the radical Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), a violent group with Marxist ideologies kidnapped Hearst from her apartment in Berkley, California. Whether Hearst was a victim of brainwashing or a willing accomplice has captivated the public for decades. On the 50th anniversary of her abduction, journalist Roger Rapoport revisits this polarizing case in his book Searching for Patty Hearst, offering new insights into one of the most bizarre and controversial crimes in American history.