On February 4, 1974, 19-year-old Patty Hearst, heir to the Hearst media fortune, was kidnapped from her apartment and her fiance’ was severely beaten. What happens over the next 19 months has the world captivated as she is held captive. Tonight at 9p, Smithsonian Channel tells her story after finding The Lost Tapes.
Many of us have heard about her kidnapping, but we do not know most of the details. The Lost Tapes documents her kidnapping only with archival news footage and the audio tapes she made during her time of being held by the Symbionese Liberation Army. They tell the story as it actually happened.
As I said, she was taken on February 4, 1974 and her parents begged for her return. Days would go by before they would hear from her kidnappers. Eventually, they heard from her and them when they sent a recording she made to a local Berkley radio station. She said she was OK and asked her parents to do what they asked. They did not ask for money, instead they wanted them to feed those families in need with $70 worth of food every week for a month. Costing them millions of dollars. When the distribution day came, things did do go as planned. That is when the Hearts heard from their daughter again saying how disappointed she was in the cheap food her family handed out.
Then there was radio silence for months. Her family was left wondering if she was alive or dead. They would get confirmation she was alive when they held up a bank and she was one of the robbers. At that point, she became a wanted woman because it seemed like she was turned by her abductors.
The SLA disappeared and would reappear a few months later, this time to hold up a sporting good store. Heart was one of the three people that was there day, but she got away with her captures. The three were in such a hurry that they left their getaway van there. This was the police’s first clue to where she was. The next day they surrounded the house and they were attacked by the SLA. One woman escaped the house before it went up in flames killing everyone inside. One of the bodies was not initially identified and people thought it might be Hearst, and as we know it was not.
She released another audio tape, eulogizing her friends who were killed. Infuriating most people who heard it. Just when it seemed like they would never find her, they did. She was forced to stand trial for her crimes and this time her parents were by her side.
She also did an interview and she explained what happened. Was it enough to save her?
Anyone who has heard just the name Patty Hearst will be taken in by tonight’s episode of The Lost Tapes. There is so much more to the story than a socialite who was kidnapped and eventually sympathizes with her kidnappers. A story that will hold you captive from the beginning of the episode until the end.
