Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production of five
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles w Chuck Bryan over there,
Speaker 1: and uh, this is stuff you should know. Just the
Speaker 1: two of us, Me and Chuck are gonna make it
Speaker 1: if we try, just the two of us, he and I. Man, Now,
Speaker 1: I wish we were doing a show on Bill Withers.
Speaker 1: Is that a Bill Withers song? What I mean? I
Speaker 1: I guess I can hear his voice now that you
Speaker 1: say that, But that's not the song I think of
Speaker 1: when I think Bill Withers. You know, what do you
Speaker 1: think on? Lean On Me? No? The theme song to Annie? Oh? Sure,
Speaker 1: song will come out tomorrow. Yeah, that's the one, right,
Speaker 1: good song. I love that Antie soundtrack. It's so good man. Hey,
Speaker 1: have I mentioned in Nola Holmes? Uh? You have? Well
Speaker 1: yet I haven't seen it yet, So good dude. Did
Speaker 1: you see the Challenger documentary? I have not seen that
Speaker 1: and it's hard to watch. Yeah. I've been watching horror
Speaker 1: movies because this October is kind of the month where
Speaker 1: I get it pass to do that on my own
Speaker 1: October more like sho October. You know what I mean, right?
Speaker 1: I finally watched the Rob Zombie movie. Never seen any
Speaker 1: of those before. I started at the beginning and did
Speaker 1: House of a Thousand Corpses. What do you think? It
Speaker 1: was good? It was just exactly what I thought it
Speaker 1: would be, which is sort of a Texas Chainsaw masaker
Speaker 1: like story. But you could you could feel his enthusiasm
Speaker 1: for filmmaking. I liked it for sure. Um, when's the
Speaker 1: last time you saw the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre? I
Speaker 1: saw it last year for the very first time. Believe
Speaker 1: it or not. Oh my, I think we talked about that. Fine.
Speaker 1: Scared the pants off of me. And it's so good
Speaker 1: if it's weird, because it keeps getting better. I remember
Speaker 1: being a teenager and the first time I saw and
Speaker 1: I was like, why what is this? And then the
Speaker 1: next time I thought, I was like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: actually pretty good, and then the last time I saw it,
Speaker 1: I was like, I just want to sit around and
Speaker 1: watch this all the time. Stone cold Classic. So, speaking
Speaker 1: of stone cold classics, I got a stone Cold Classic,
Speaker 1: which a what true crime question case for you, Chuck?
Speaker 1: What's the question? The question is? This? Was Petty Hurst
Speaker 1: a brainwashed hostage who carried out violent crimes for fear
Speaker 1: of her life. Or was she a spoiled rich kid
Speaker 1: who was basically who turned thrilled seeker to the nth degree.
Speaker 1: You know what, I don't know. I mean part of
Speaker 1: me thinks that she did flip and was radicalized. But
Speaker 1: I don't know, man. I mean, I don't think it's
Speaker 1: super clear either way. No, and I I'm in the
Speaker 1: same boat as you. I feel like I lean a
Speaker 1: little more towards radicalized. And there's a couple of things
Speaker 1: that it's just like I can't get past that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I know one of them. But I think
Speaker 1: I think that she became radicalized initially out of fear
Speaker 1: for her life. Um. And it's really hard to discount
Speaker 1: what happened to her initially that got her absolutely And
Speaker 1: I think Jimmy Carter has the most sensible take on
Speaker 1: the whole thing. So we'll get into all this For
Speaker 1: those of you who don't know what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: We're talking about Patty Hurst. And Patty Hurst was the
Speaker 1: granddaughter of William Randolph Hurst, whose name might sound familiar. Um,
Speaker 1: he was the publishing magnate I think a radio guy
Speaker 1: too write I think it was yeah radio, but you know,
Speaker 1: very much well known for his newspaper, his string of newspapers,
Speaker 1: and um, he was a bit of a politico, a kingmaker,
Speaker 1: incredibly mind bogglingly wealthy. He was the model for Citizen Kane,
Speaker 1: I believe right. Um. And he had basically established this
Speaker 1: media empire um in the first half of the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: And he had a son. He had a son named
Speaker 1: Randy Hurst, no joke, Randall Hurst, not William Randolph her sorry,
Speaker 1: Randolph Hurst. And they called him Randy. And Randy had
Speaker 1: a daughter. He was brought up like a very wealthy guy.
Speaker 1: But um, he was also brought up to take over
Speaker 1: the family business. And he had by nineteen fifty four,
Speaker 1: I think when a daughter arrived to Randy and his wife, UM, Catherine,
Speaker 1: and they named their kid Patty or Patricia Hurst. That's right,
Speaker 1: Patricia Campbell. And she was what you would think, she
Speaker 1: was born into an heiress. She was born a rich kid. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's funny to think about, like in today's terms, UM,
Speaker 1: plenty of people to pick from, but like if you
Speaker 1: could imagine Paris Hilton, uh robbing a bank with a
Speaker 1: machine gun, right, that's that's kind of a good analog
Speaker 1: to who Patricia Hurst was back then. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: actually really good. Although you you you could say she's
Speaker 1: quite quite a bit more low key, or she was
Speaker 1: at the time. Like by the time she was nineteen,
Speaker 1: she was living in San Francisco or the Bay Area,
Speaker 1: I should say, attending you see, Berkeley, So I guess
Speaker 1: she was living in Berkeley, because that's not necessarily that
Speaker 1: she wasn't exactly Paris Hilton, if if we're being honest,
Speaker 1: But she was just like but as far as the
Speaker 1: famous heiress in the United States, yeah, so yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but also living this quiet life. She was nineteen, she
Speaker 1: was engaged to a guy named Stephen weed Um who
Speaker 1: was like a Catholic high school teacher. I think he
Speaker 1: was twenty six or something and um studying art history
Speaker 1: and going to school and just kind of living life,
Speaker 1: you know. But yeah, she really she was right, especially
Speaker 1: in Berkeley in the stee so um she she but
Speaker 1: she was like mind boggling wealth and she was going
Speaker 1: to inherit all this and she was famous for being
Speaker 1: an heiress, right, and so just a few days before
Speaker 1: her twentieth birthday, on February fourth, I think right, mm hm,
Speaker 1: there was a knock on her door, like nine pm.
Speaker 1: It was a Monday night, and I actually I don't
Speaker 1: even know if they knocked or else, if they just
Speaker 1: came bursting in, but UM three people who turned out
Speaker 1: to be members of what very few people had heard
Speaker 1: of at the time, but who had become very famous,
Speaker 1: the Symbionese Liberation Army. UM burst through their door, beat
Speaker 1: up Stephen Weed, Catholic High School UH teacher, and UM
Speaker 1: dragged Patty Hurst out of her apartment to their car,
Speaker 1: where they shot off a few shots and drove off
Speaker 1: into the night with Patty Hurst kidnapped as hostage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they threw in the trunk bound and she was gone.
Speaker 1: And as far as the s l A goes, like
Speaker 1: you said, they were not very well known at the time.
Speaker 1: They were pretty new UM in an era of sort
Speaker 1: of I'm not gonna say they were just uh American
Speaker 1: terrorist organizations all over the place of the United States.
Speaker 1: But it was a time in our country where there
Speaker 1: were a lot of bombings, a lot. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: said about a thousand a Year's a lot. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a lot of compared to now where we don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of bombings. Uh. And we should thank Julia
Speaker 1: Layton for helping us put this together. But um, no
Speaker 1: one had heard of them much because, like I said,
Speaker 1: they were new. They formed a couple of months before
Speaker 1: her abduction. And it wasn't like there were you know,
Speaker 1: a hundred of these people. They were you know, it
Speaker 1: kind of varied from you know, depending on like I
Speaker 1: guess who had the good drugs at the time, but
Speaker 1: there were never more than a dozen. Um, it seems
Speaker 1: like it varied between like seven and twelve at a time.
Speaker 1: And there their ideology was basically us like anti capitalist.
Speaker 1: Um we that's kind of just it. It wasn't super inspiring.
Speaker 1: It wasn't well thought out. It was just, hey, we
Speaker 1: hate we hate the rich. It was pretty ho hume.
Speaker 1: Um And and yeah, not very inspiring. And I think
Speaker 1: that's why they never had that many members. But they
Speaker 1: were they were extremely militant. They were very paranoid, and
Speaker 1: they were willing to carry out violence. Like they didn't
Speaker 1: have many qualms with violence. They used to practice with
Speaker 1: weapons and guns and um, they had a lot of guns,
Speaker 1: a lot of ammunition. They knew how to make bombs.
Speaker 1: They weren't messing around in that sense. They were just
Speaker 1: kind of dullards when it came to political ideology. They
Speaker 1: were just following in everybody else's wake. But um, interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: chuck the whole. The whole. Simbionese Liberation Armies started out
Speaker 1: of a prison tutoring program. We're a bunch of white
Speaker 1: students from Berkeley went and tutored inmates on things like
Speaker 1: black history and Paul political science, things like that. Um.
Speaker 1: And that's where the s l A originally grew from.
Speaker 1: When one of those inmates, a guy named Donald de Freeze,
Speaker 1: escaped from prison and showed up in San Francisco and said,
Speaker 1: let's get this thing started. Yeah, he was. They all
Speaker 1: adopted different names when they joined the s l A.
Speaker 1: His name was General Field Marshal sinc Uh. Is it
Speaker 1: matu matum? And it might be chinque oh really? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Because they were super into Shakavara and the Cuban Revolution.
Speaker 1: So anything that looks even remotely Spanish is probably pronounced
Speaker 1: like that. Okay, Well, I don't know Spanish, so I'm
Speaker 1: gonna pronounce it like Spike Lee style. I think that's
Speaker 1: his sister's name, is it? So? Yeah, sinkly. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that ce I n q u E one of
Speaker 1: his sisters. I got great. So, um, yeah, he was
Speaker 1: in prison for uh, well he did a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 1: He he was well known to possess homemade bombs. He
Speaker 1: was arrested for kidnapping, um, possession of explosives. He was
Speaker 1: arrested for robbing a bank. And that's finally in nine
Speaker 1: what finally got him into prison. But and this pops
Speaker 1: up sort of throughout the story, but it was it
Speaker 1: was way easier to get away with crime back then,
Speaker 1: like to escape from prison and then just say, like
Speaker 1: I like go live in San Francisco and start a
Speaker 1: radical organization and and kind of not get caught. Uh,
Speaker 1: And that's what he did. And he ended up engineering
Speaker 1: the murder of a man named Marcus Foster. He was
Speaker 1: superintendent of the Oakland School System. And uh, he didn't
Speaker 1: actually carry out the murder, but to s l A
Speaker 1: members shot him and one one of their signature moves
Speaker 1: that would turn out to be a cyanide tipped bullets,
Speaker 1: which I didn't look into that. I don't even know
Speaker 1: if that's a thing. I know, if that helps you
Speaker 1: kill somebody, I think it's overkill, is what like literal
Speaker 1: overkill or maybe just they thought it sounded intimidating or
Speaker 1: something to put in letters. They definitely did that, but
Speaker 1: they shot Foster to draw attention to UM something they saw,
Speaker 1: which was anti black schooling policies. Uh, Foster was a
Speaker 1: black man. One of the cruel irony is there. Well,
Speaker 1: not only that, he was also a respected black community organizer.
Speaker 1: And when they killed them, everybody else on the left
Speaker 1: and Berkeley was like, what are you doing? Are you
Speaker 1: guys morons? And l A was like, oh, yeah, they
Speaker 1: were kind of morons. Yeah, yes, they were a little
Speaker 1: bit morons as far as domestic terrorist groups go. UM.
Speaker 1: So when they the shooters were actually in prison when
Speaker 1: they got Patty Hurst, and the first thought from the
Speaker 1: cops and the Feds was, here's what's gonna happen is
Speaker 1: they've kidnapped this rich girl and they're gonna try to exchange, um,
Speaker 1: giving her back to get these two guys out of prison.
Speaker 1: But they're like, no, not exactly, We're actually gonna keep her. No.
Speaker 1: But even before they they had a chance to ask,
Speaker 1: and I guess they never did bring it up. Ronald Reagan,
Speaker 1: who was governor at the time, said no, we're not
Speaker 1: doing that. But they didn't go that way. Instead they said, UM,
Speaker 1: hey Willie Hurst, UM, no sorry, Randy Hurst. Willie Randy
Speaker 1: was dead by this time. Randy Hurst, UM, you're super rich.
Speaker 1: We want you to take some of those riches and
Speaker 1: we want you to feed the poor with it. That
Speaker 1: was their first demand. UM. And they they came. They
Speaker 1: sent this demand. First of all, they sent a communicate
Speaker 1: to a radio station in San Francisco, UM. And I
Speaker 1: think that's who they basically corresponded with the public and
Speaker 1: the police through. UM was this radio station. UM. And
Speaker 1: they would send letters and they would eventually send like
Speaker 1: voice recordings as well. UM. But in this first one,
Speaker 1: they sent what was basically an arrest warrant for Petty Hirst,
Speaker 1: Patricia Campbell Hurst, daughter of Randolph A. Hirst, corporate enemy
Speaker 1: of the people. And they sent her credit cards as
Speaker 1: proof that they had her, UM, which, if you ask me,
Speaker 1: shows their hand right off the bat. They didn't send
Speaker 1: a finger, they didn't even send like a lock of hair.
Speaker 1: They send a credit card that you could pick up
Speaker 1: off the ground. They could have just taken it off
Speaker 1: of her. I don't off of her nightstand. They didn't
Speaker 1: send anything vicious. They just sent a credit card to
Speaker 1: prove that they had her UM, but they didn't make
Speaker 1: any ransom demand. Then six days later after that first
Speaker 1: communicate with the arrest warrant, that's when they said, the
Speaker 1: Hearst need to figure out how to how to feed
Speaker 1: any single person in California that can prove prove that
Speaker 1: they are not um beneficiaries of the corporate capitalist state
Speaker 1: UM with at least seventy dollars worth of high quality
Speaker 1: food per person. Yeah, and they were like, you know,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get it together and whatnot. We but you
Speaker 1: need to arrange it through the grocery stores in California
Speaker 1: to distribute this stuff. Uh. They included in an audio
Speaker 1: tape from Patty where she says, Mom, Dad, I'm okay.
Speaker 1: I'm with a combat unit with automatic weapons. And these
Speaker 1: people aren't just a bunch of nuts or morons like
Speaker 1: Josh and Chuck and will say in the future. I
Speaker 1: want to get out of here, but the only way
Speaker 1: I'm going to do it is if we do it
Speaker 1: their way. And I just hope that you'll do what
Speaker 1: they say, Dad, uh and do it quickly, and Randy
Speaker 1: Hurst got this and he was like, these people are morons.
Speaker 1: How do they expect me to give everyone in California
Speaker 1: that proves there and needs seventy dollars worth of high
Speaker 1: quality food? What is high quality food anyway? And they're like,
Speaker 1: that's what you mean every day, sir. It's actually pretty good. Okay,
Speaker 1: I got you, And so he said, um, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't even think I can pull this off, which
Speaker 1: followed another back and forth in which Patty said, hey,
Speaker 1: stop acting like I'm dead. Um, he needs a good
Speaker 1: faith gesture from you. And so just a few days
Speaker 1: after that, the Hearst Foundation formed. I guess they looked
Speaker 1: in probably the best way to get a tax benefit
Speaker 1: out of this, informed an actual program called People in Need,
Speaker 1: which would feed a hundred thousand people for a year,
Speaker 1: uh two million dollars worth of food, which sounds fairly
Speaker 1: high quality to me. Um. Yeah. And and apparently they
Speaker 1: had a rough start at first because they didn't know
Speaker 1: what they were doing. There were food riots at the
Speaker 1: distribution site, and they finally managed to get it figured out.
Speaker 1: So in that sense, and it's kind of overlooked, I
Speaker 1: think in a lot of histories because everything they did
Speaker 1: after that was just so stupid and terrible. Um, but
Speaker 1: the s l A had a genuine impact right out
Speaker 1: of the gate that they used their their hostage for,
Speaker 1: which was to feed poor and hungry people. So clearly
Speaker 1: they were at least partially dedicated to that. And um
Speaker 1: chinque matto is it? Matt me Donald the frieze, the
Speaker 1: Field Marshal General Field Marshal. Um he he had said
Speaker 1: in a statement, he said, you know, Mr and Mrs Hurst,
Speaker 1: I I will, I have no qualms about executing your daughter.
Speaker 1: Uh if will save the lives of any starving poor people.
Speaker 1: So that was like a real big initial thing. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I was kind of surprised that they formed this program
Speaker 1: People in Need, which obviously was going to take a
Speaker 1: lot of work to make into sort of a legit charity,
Speaker 1: and they were like just for one year though, like
Speaker 1: after that, I'm surprised they didn't say, well, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe this is worthwhile. I mean I didn't get the
Speaker 1: impression they were those types well, and they probably it
Speaker 1: probably wasn't a great look to be inspired by these
Speaker 1: uh these terrorists. That's true, that's true too, Um, but
Speaker 1: I just find it significant that that was like that,
Speaker 1: that was their first demand was that, and then they
Speaker 1: actually had a real effect. But yeah, that's for more
Speaker 1: money though. I think they said two millions not enough.
Speaker 1: We want eight million total. And the hearse said Randy said, no, go,
Speaker 1: you gotta release Patty Hurst if you want that extra
Speaker 1: six mill Yeah, so they um. This I think is
Speaker 1: another kind of overlooked thing that when you look at what,
Speaker 1: you know, the process of of changing her mind that
Speaker 1: Patty Hurst eventually is said to have gone through. I
Speaker 1: think that this is really where the seeds started, because
Speaker 1: she said later on that she felt like her parents
Speaker 1: were trying to they were debating how much I was worth,
Speaker 1: and they were focusing on dollars and cents um, you know,
Speaker 1: in the balance of her daughter's life. And she, you know,
Speaker 1: like she had said before, stop acting like I'm dead.
Speaker 1: She apparently felt very um, if not left behind, definitely
Speaker 1: gambled with her life, was gambled with by her parents
Speaker 1: who were basically publicly negotiating the cost down for the
Speaker 1: release of their daughter. And I think that that really
Speaker 1: may have set up a nineteen year old um to
Speaker 1: to be more open to whatever the opposite of their
Speaker 1: parents thought processes and ideology might be. Yeah, there's another um,
Speaker 1: really good movie about the j Paul Getty Kidney happen
Speaker 1: called All the Money in the World, directed by Ridley Scott,
Speaker 1: And that's sort of one of the uh threads in
Speaker 1: that movie is you know, it's the granddad trying to
Speaker 1: like negotiate down this money, like somebody that's like one
Speaker 1: of the richest human beings on the planet trying to
Speaker 1: bargain with the life of a family member, like no, genie,
Speaker 1: no money. Really really interesting, Um, nice far ago rough
Speaker 1: by the way, thank you. Should we take a break? Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: why not? All right, we'll take a break and we're
Speaker 1: gonna come back right for this and talk about what
Speaker 1: happens on April three. So, Chuck, you mentioned April three,
Speaker 1: and here is about the time when things really start
Speaker 1: to turn as far as the public's perception of what
Speaker 1: exactly is going on. Because fifty nine days earlier, Um,
Speaker 1: Patty Hurst, poor little Patty Hurst, never harm to flee,
Speaker 1: just you know, wanted to study art history and be
Speaker 1: super amazingly rich Um was abducted from her house and
Speaker 1: then forced into the public spotlight as a hostage who
Speaker 1: was used to negotiate um between the s l A
Speaker 1: and her parents, the hearsts Um. But then that changed.
Speaker 1: On April three, Yeah, she sent a another tape that said,
Speaker 1: I have been given the choice of one being released
Speaker 1: in a safe area or two joining forces, joining the
Speaker 1: forces of the Symbionese Liberation Army and fighting for my
Speaker 1: freedom and the freedom of all oppressed people. I have
Speaker 1: chosen to stay and fight. And then she revealed that
Speaker 1: she had taken on an s l A name, Uh,
Speaker 1: Tania or is it Taniya? I think I don't know.
Speaker 1: Let's go with Tanya, okay, Tania t A and I A.
Speaker 1: And they sent a little visual a too, and this
Speaker 1: was this became very very famous picture. One of the
Speaker 1: most famous pictures of the nineteen seventies was this photo,
Speaker 1: this polaroid of Patty Uh, we've all seen it, holding
Speaker 1: that machine gun, wearing the beret in front of the
Speaker 1: s l A flag in their emblem, which was a
Speaker 1: seven headed cobra. Very famous picture, extremely famous, and that
Speaker 1: beret was significant, and that she adopted the nom de
Speaker 1: guerre Tanya Um from another woman who adopted the nom
Speaker 1: de gear of Tanya Um back in the sixties, about
Speaker 1: a decade earlier, when she was fighting alongside Sha Gavara
Speaker 1: and Bolivia. Her name was uh Tamera bun Que. I
Speaker 1: believe um. She was Argentinean uh and she was a revolutionary.
Speaker 1: And I guess Petty Hurst admired her and adopted that name.
Speaker 1: But imagine, like put it yourself in the in the
Speaker 1: in the position is just the average public who you know,
Speaker 1: person in the public who's following this story. It's like,
Speaker 1: poor little Patty Hurst, Poor little little Patty Hurst. And
Speaker 1: then oh my god, what is this. There's a picture
Speaker 1: of Petty Hurst looking like a total b a holding
Speaker 1: a machine gun in a beret. Yeah, that's little ba Bakas. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And she said, I they said that they would let
Speaker 1: me go and I could go free or I could
Speaker 1: stay and fight. And I'm choosing to fight. And not
Speaker 1: only that, I have a new name of war. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think this started a lot of confusion. I don't
Speaker 1: think it was immediately everyone was like, oh my god, uh,
Speaker 1: the future Paris Hilton of our times is now radicalized
Speaker 1: and wants to kill people. That's true, I think it.
Speaker 1: I think it just really confused a lot of people
Speaker 1: that are like wait a minute, what's going on here?
Speaker 1: I thought she was kidnapped, and now she says she's not,
Speaker 1: and uh, it really gripped the nation. I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: I was just a wee toddler when this is going on,
Speaker 1: But I remember when I was a little kid, this
Speaker 1: sort of still reverberating in the public sphere a little bit,
Speaker 1: Like I remember hearing the name Patty Hurst when I
Speaker 1: was like six or seven. Well, she also, I mean,
Speaker 1: she came out with her memoirs, you know, and about
Speaker 1: when you were probably ten, So I'm sure that that
Speaker 1: really brought her to your attention as well. But I'm
Speaker 1: sure that was we read that in uh whatever, fifth grade, right,
Speaker 1: So um, so, yeah, you're right. You're right, that wasn't
Speaker 1: the necessarily the turning point because a picture like that,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're somebody's hostage, your captors can dress
Speaker 1: you up however they want and take a picture of
Speaker 1: you and put it said, put it out there. There
Speaker 1: was It was still shocking, but it was confusing, like
Speaker 1: you said, too, and then people generally knew like if
Speaker 1: you somebody had a gun to your head, you could
Speaker 1: say like, yeah, I'm gonna stay and fight and here's
Speaker 1: my new name. The turning point, the real turning point,
Speaker 1: that came about two weeks after that, almost two weeks
Speaker 1: after that, and that is when Tanya made her real
Speaker 1: world debut. And at this point there was there was
Speaker 1: very little, um question about whether she was actually involved
Speaker 1: in the s l A or just a hostage in
Speaker 1: a lot of people's mind. This is where that turning
Speaker 1: point came. Yeah. So, um, the High Bernia Bank in
Speaker 1: San Francisco was robbed by the s l A, including Tania,
Speaker 1: and they shot two people. Um, Like we said earlier,
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't one of these things where they
Speaker 1: were just espousing radicalism and threatening violence. They killed people. Um,
Speaker 1: they didn't kill these two people, but they did shoot them. Um.
Speaker 1: They made off with about tin grand to help fund
Speaker 1: their group. On the surveillance surveillance footed, you see Patty
Speaker 1: right there pointing an assault rifle machine gun and screaming
Speaker 1: at people to get down the floor, um, announcing her
Speaker 1: I am Tania. And the footage played on the news
Speaker 1: and this is when he said. Everyone was like, man,
Speaker 1: this is getting really really interesting. Uh. I think the
Speaker 1: FBI wasn't fully convinced. She still wasn't being um forced
Speaker 1: to do this though, because it's not like they didn't
Speaker 1: and they didn't issue a warrant for her arrest for
Speaker 1: robbing a bank. She was wanted as a material witness
Speaker 1: at this point. Still yeah, still, I mean, don't forget
Speaker 1: she's white and she's rich, so you know, you can't
Speaker 1: just go around saying that she's a bank robber just
Speaker 1: because she robbed a bank and plain view of everybody
Speaker 1: on security footage that's on TV, you know, so she
Speaker 1: has a material witness. Another tape comes along, and this
Speaker 1: time she called her family the pig Hursts, and she said,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is sort of the ideas like has
Speaker 1: she been brainwasht or not? And she said, in no
Speaker 1: uncertain terms as for being brainwashed, the idea is ridiculous,
Speaker 1: beyond belief. I am a soldier in the people's army, UM.
Speaker 1: And see, this is one of those things where people
Speaker 1: are like, if you had a time machine, what's something
Speaker 1: you would do. I would go back to the beginning
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy five so that I could watch this
Speaker 1: whole thing unfold in real time, like on the nightly
Speaker 1: news and in the newspaper. It must have just been
Speaker 1: totally mind blowing, because everything I have ever known about
Speaker 1: Patty Hurst was all in retrospect, and I knew the
Speaker 1: whole story from beginning to end all at once. To
Speaker 1: watch the sunfold must have just been just nuts, you know.
Speaker 1: So you wouldn't go back and kill Hitler in his cradle? Fine,
Speaker 1: that's fine, Now, that's fine to see what happens with
Speaker 1: Petty Hurst. Yeah, I want to sit on a couch
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy five, So what can I say? Okay,
Speaker 1: we could kill Hitler too, That's fine, all right, we can.
Speaker 1: Can we do that first and then go watch the
Speaker 1: Petty Hurst thing and go to woods Well, I think
Speaker 1: the order of operation is would kill Hitler. We go
Speaker 1: to Woodstock together, we avoid the purple acid, is brown acid,
Speaker 1: brown acid, and then we we wind up in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy and TV dinners watching this on TV. Okay, that
Speaker 1: sounds pretty nice, actually, like let's do um so so
Speaker 1: Patty Her sister Recap, has said that she is a
Speaker 1: member of the s l A by choice, that she
Speaker 1: has a new war name, that she is not brainwashed,
Speaker 1: and now she's been out in public on foot on
Speaker 1: video caught on camera shout holding a machine gun during
Speaker 1: a bank robbery, shouting at people to get on the floor,
Speaker 1: and witnesses are saying like she shouted, I am Tanya,
Speaker 1: And apparently on her way out of the bank, she
Speaker 1: dropped the clip out of her submachine gun and m
Speaker 1: wine M one carbine submachine gun like an assault rifle UM,
Speaker 1: and the clip dropped out and it fell to the
Speaker 1: floor and two bullets UM were knocked out of the clip.
Speaker 1: She stopped and picked him up, put him back in
Speaker 1: the clip, and then jammed the clip back in her
Speaker 1: machine gun and strodeed out the door. Like from from
Speaker 1: witnesses accounts, like she sounds like she was not some meek,
Speaker 1: timid thing who was taking orders. That she seemed to
Speaker 1: be like a warrior, a princess. Yeah, and you gotta
Speaker 1: go back in time to nineteen seventy five and seventy four,
Speaker 1: when you know, we did a great episode on brainwashing.
Speaker 1: I encourage you to go back and listen to that.
Speaker 1: But um, briefly, we should just say that in nineteen four,
Speaker 1: Stockholm syndrome and brainwashing, this stuff wasn't as part of
Speaker 1: the you know, just regular conversation like it is today.
Speaker 1: The banks from stock that created the Stockholm syndrome idea
Speaker 1: had just taken place like a year or less before this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So if you if someone would have said Stockholm syndrome
Speaker 1: on the news, um, yeah, people might not even know
Speaker 1: what they were talking about it. So it would have
Speaker 1: been not out of the realm for people to not
Speaker 1: even understand that someone could be brainwashed like this as
Speaker 1: far as just you know, an average American goes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I mean, there there had
Speaker 1: been a real, um, a real newsworthy and like celebrated
Speaker 1: case of po dubbed views taken in the Korean War,
Speaker 1: you know, twenty years before this that had said, you know,
Speaker 1: they signed confessions that they had engaged in germ warfare
Speaker 1: when they hadn't. Um, there was evidence that they colluded
Speaker 1: with the enemy. Um, some of them, twenty one Air
Speaker 1: Force officers that have been captured refused to return home
Speaker 1: when they had the ability to be returned home. And
Speaker 1: so the idea of brainwashing was out there, but it
Speaker 1: was still very it was nothing like our conception of
Speaker 1: it now, and it was still very much in the
Speaker 1: beginnings of being studied and understood. Yeah. So nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: four May sixteenth is when things really really change. And
Speaker 1: this was the incident. I don't know if you were
Speaker 1: referring to, but this is the one that really made
Speaker 1: me go, Okay, I'm really I'm not so sure about
Speaker 1: this um being brainwashed or trying to just save her
Speaker 1: own bacon thing. Uh. They were. It was Patty and
Speaker 1: then Bill and Emily Harris a couple of other s
Speaker 1: l A members. Um went to Bill and Emily went
Speaker 1: into a sporting goods store for some supplies. Bill shoplifted bullets,
Speaker 1: got caught and then tried to bolt out of there,
Speaker 1: and an employee tackled him as he was leaving. They
Speaker 1: got Emily and captured her and then patties across the
Speaker 1: street sort of waiting in the getaway car. She jumps out.
Speaker 1: She points that submachine gun at the store and empties
Speaker 1: the clip and then gets another rifle and keep shooting.
Speaker 1: She fires about thirty shots total on a public street
Speaker 1: into a store. By the grace of God, didn't hit anybody,
Speaker 1: which is just yeah, I mean that's the most remarkable
Speaker 1: part of this whole thing. Uh. And the Harrises got
Speaker 1: out of it, I mean it worked. They got out
Speaker 1: of there, jumped in the van and they all got away.
Speaker 1: And this is the point, and this is the one
Speaker 1: that would really haunt her in court later on, which
Speaker 1: we'll get to. But it's like it's really hard to believe.
Speaker 1: I mean, she could have left. She was out there
Speaker 1: by herself. Um, she could have once the s went down,
Speaker 1: she could have left. But now she jumped out and
Speaker 1: she just she fired thirty shots trying to help them
Speaker 1: get out of there. She was left alone in the
Speaker 1: van with the keys, reading a newspaper while they were there.
Speaker 1: And and like, you don't even have to be a hostage.
Speaker 1: You could just be an accomplice. And there's a good
Speaker 1: chance that if somebody's getting busted inside, you might just
Speaker 1: drive off and save your own bacon. Um, like you said,
Speaker 1: just such a great term. Um, But yeah, she did
Speaker 1: the opposite. She went and fought to free her comrades.
Speaker 1: So that, yes, that's definitely one of the things that I,
Speaker 1: I and basically anybody else familiar with the case points to,
Speaker 1: is like this makes basically everything else questionable. Yea, this
Speaker 1: is just not nice. So here's the thing. Um that
Speaker 1: was I think May sixteenth, you said, Um, so Patty's
Speaker 1: been kidnapped for you know, just a few months from
Speaker 1: February four to May um and she's already engaged in
Speaker 1: a bank robbery and shot up in a Los Angeles
Speaker 1: street in storefront um and just the very next day,
Speaker 1: like the s l A is all over the news,
Speaker 1: like the cops are looking for him. They started out
Speaker 1: in Berkeley, and they moved their way down to l
Speaker 1: A at some point. But they are again more ronic,
Speaker 1: uh in A lot of their actions and a lot
Speaker 1: of their um judgment is just really insensible. But one
Speaker 1: of the things they did was they, I guess, identified
Speaker 1: somebody's house in Compton. I don't know if somebody knew
Speaker 1: them or not, or if it just looked like a
Speaker 1: good place to hide out in sell central Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: And they said, hey, you, um, can we give you
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars? I think there's just some middle aged
Speaker 1: woman who is running a house. If we give you
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars, can we all stay here? And she
Speaker 1: said okay, And they said, great, let's go get all
Speaker 1: of our guns, like like several dozen guns, six thousand
Speaker 1: rounds of ammunition, a few bombs and move them in.
Speaker 1: And that lady started to get freaked out, and apparently
Speaker 1: her daughter said went and flagged down a traffic cop
Speaker 1: and said, hey, are you looking for a bunch of
Speaker 1: white people who have a bunch of guns that seemed
Speaker 1: to be hiding out, And that led to this convergence
Speaker 1: of the l A p D on this house and
Speaker 1: and comped him and a firefight, a shootout with most
Speaker 1: of the members of the s l A in this house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there is a firefight that goes down. Um, they
Speaker 1: lobbs some tear gas in there, that starts a fire
Speaker 1: and it burns the house to the ground and kills
Speaker 1: all six of the s l A members inside. Um,
Speaker 1: Patty and the Harrises are not there. They were on
Speaker 1: the lamb at this point, waiting it out in a
Speaker 1: hotel room after the shoplifting thing. And then three weeks
Speaker 1: after this, the few remaining. I mean, you gotta think
Speaker 1: if they killed six, there were another three hiding out,
Speaker 1: and there were never more than twelve. There could only
Speaker 1: be just a few more remaining. But the remaining members
Speaker 1: released another message that Patty had a real hard time
Speaker 1: with at the trial, um explaining it away because she
Speaker 1: uh it was clearly upset about these deaths. She talked
Speaker 1: about the fascist pig media and her brothers and sisters dying,
Speaker 1: and then talked about remember Willie wolf in particular as
Speaker 1: the gentlest, most beautiful man I've ever known, and said
Speaker 1: that neither she nor wolf had ever loved an individual
Speaker 1: the way we loved each other. I read a UM
Speaker 1: interview with Willie Wolfe's father, who was a doctor back yeast.
Speaker 1: Willie wolf was just raised this like upper middle class
Speaker 1: son of a doctor, you know, pretty privileged, but also
Speaker 1: not um spoiled Brady that kind of thing. I loved
Speaker 1: the outdoors and he Um apparently just his father still
Speaker 1: was just like I. I don't I don't get it
Speaker 1: at all. Like that guy. He really was just super
Speaker 1: gentle and sweet and kind and not very political. But
Speaker 1: something happened to him out in Berkeley, and and he
Speaker 1: became extremely concerned. I think, a natural propensity toward caring
Speaker 1: about what happened to other people became radicalized by in
Speaker 1: the you know, by the s l A. He was
Speaker 1: a founding member of the s l A. It's not
Speaker 1: like he was some lamb led to the slaughter like.
Speaker 1: He was one of the guys who founded the s
Speaker 1: l A with um Donald the freeze and I think
Speaker 1: the um the couple that were shoplifting the Harrises Um.
Speaker 1: But his father really really struggled to explain it. But
Speaker 1: what was remarkable to me about the interviews his father
Speaker 1: wasn't like over explaining. It wasn't like, uh me thinks
Speaker 1: he he doth protest too much kind of thing. Like
Speaker 1: he just seemed genuinely baffled and like he just didn't
Speaker 1: understand it. And I was reading an article UM in
Speaker 1: the l A Times and like the twentieth anniversary of
Speaker 1: that that shootout in Compton Um and the owner of
Speaker 1: the house that had been burned down that the s
Speaker 1: l A was in, he said that every year Willie
Speaker 1: Wolf's mother would come and on the anniversary of of
Speaker 1: her son's death and leave this wreath UM on a
Speaker 1: palm tree at the vacant lot where the burned out
Speaker 1: house had been. It would just stand there in silence
Speaker 1: for hours, just once here. He said. She was the
Speaker 1: only person who ever came. Yeah, very sad. Uh And
Speaker 1: I'm sure yeah, the parents of these kids were just yeah,
Speaker 1: like it's sort of like being the um parents of
Speaker 1: like one of the Manson family or something, Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then here's the other thing too, Like this is
Speaker 1: a really complicated thing. Like Donald DeFries who was an
Speaker 1: escaped convict from prison, but I also read that his
Speaker 1: stepfather on three different occasions broke both of his arms
Speaker 1: um to punish him. So I mean, like there's there there,
Speaker 1: and then um, Willie wolf it was accused of raping
Speaker 1: Patty Hurst too, So just how general and sweet could
Speaker 1: he be? Like It's it's a really murky, messy case,
Speaker 1: and appropriately so because even still today we're, you know,
Speaker 1: in we're trying to suss out exactly what happened with
Speaker 1: Patty Hurst in her mind back in Yeah, it's really
Speaker 1: I mean it's hard to figure out, um. And I
Speaker 1: think that's what makes this such an enduring case, you know.
Speaker 1: So the that eulogy tape was released while she was
Speaker 1: on the run with the Harrises, and they stayed on
Speaker 1: the run, driving across the country sort of uh bad
Speaker 1: Land style. I don't think they were killing people, that
Speaker 1: they were committing crimes. They were stealing stuff and they
Speaker 1: did this for eighteen months, which is another example of
Speaker 1: like it was just a lot easier to get away
Speaker 1: with crimes back then, before there were cameras everywhere, and
Speaker 1: obviously camera phones everywhere and the internet. Uh. They remained
Speaker 1: on the LAMB for eighteen months. About a year into that,
Speaker 1: they robbed another bank in San Francisco and actually killed
Speaker 1: a customer in the process. Yeah. And and you know
Speaker 1: this would come up later at the trial. Patty Hurst
Speaker 1: was not the trigger person, but she was involved. She
Speaker 1: was one of the three, and a person lost their life.
Speaker 1: You know, it's very sad. Yeah. Um, she was apparently
Speaker 1: a church lady who was there depositing like that week's
Speaker 1: collection into the bank, the church's bank account, and she
Speaker 1: was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and
Speaker 1: apparently um made a fast move because she was freaked
Speaker 1: out and got shot and died pretty quickly from what
Speaker 1: I understand. Right, should we take another break? Yeah? Sure,
Speaker 1: all right, this is our last break, and then we'll
Speaker 1: talk about the arrest and the trial of Patty Hurst
Speaker 1: right after this. Alright, So she gets arrested. Um, and
Speaker 1: you know this is where things get really weird, because
Speaker 1: you've got to stories playing out in court. Uh. One
Speaker 1: is that I'm Patty Hurst and I was brainwashed. I
Speaker 1: was kept in a closet for fifty seven days when
Speaker 1: they abducted me, I was blindfolded and bound. I was
Speaker 1: raped by Donald DeFreeze and Willie Wolf. I was abused
Speaker 1: and lectured about how righteous they were. And then after
Speaker 1: fifty seven days, I was told, hey, you can either
Speaker 1: join up with us or we can kill you, and
Speaker 1: she said I joined up. So story number one is that.
Speaker 1: Story number two is the other. Yeah, Story number two is,
Speaker 1: we have video evidence of you robbing a bank. Witnesses
Speaker 1: say that you were involved in another bank robber, a
Speaker 1: woman was killed. We have you on tape talking about
Speaker 1: how you're not brainwashed, and how you joined this by
Speaker 1: your own free will and your parents are pigs. So
Speaker 1: it was it was a pretty airtight case as far
Speaker 1: as the prosecution goes for it not for one thing,
Speaker 1: and that is that she was initially kidney apped. She
Speaker 1: didn't run off and do this like, she didn't get
Speaker 1: bored and like go to a community center and end
Speaker 1: up falling in with the s l A like she
Speaker 1: was kidnapped. And our understanding of um of psychology was
Speaker 1: still kind of jelling around the idea of brainwashing, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't just completely unheard of. The thing is it
Speaker 1: had never been tried in a criminal case before Um
Speaker 1: and the Hursts hired the very famous I think already
Speaker 1: he was a very famous attorney, eff Lee Bailey UM
Speaker 1: who defended the Boston Strangler. He was also on O
Speaker 1: J's team. Um. He was just a super famous lawyer. UM.
Speaker 1: And he tried it, and I think in retrospect that's
Speaker 1: the only thing he possibly could have tried was to
Speaker 1: say she was brainwashed, like you said, yeah, And they
Speaker 1: had psychiatrists that came in to back that up and say,
Speaker 1: this is very possible. That brought up the stuff about
Speaker 1: the p POW's Um. They had multiple psychiatrists come in
Speaker 1: and kind of take their side. Then as far as
Speaker 1: the tapes go, Patty said, you know what, those were
Speaker 1: scripted and I had no choice. I had to read
Speaker 1: them as they said. And if you think they're believable,
Speaker 1: it's because I believe that my life depended on how
Speaker 1: well of a job I did reading these things. Uh,
Speaker 1: and that those tapes were I mean, that was the
Speaker 1: big big evidence in in the trial was how passionate
Speaker 1: she was and how she talked about her love of
Speaker 1: Willie Wolf and you know, other psych psychiatrists for the
Speaker 1: prosecution came in and they were like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I've listened to these things over and over, and I
Speaker 1: don't know an actress on earth who could pull this
Speaker 1: off like she was. If she was reading scripted stuff,
Speaker 1: it surely doesn't sound that way to me, right, And
Speaker 1: she also did not she literally did not help her case. Um.
Speaker 1: When she was arrested, she put down as her occupation
Speaker 1: urban guerrilla. Um. She was you know, Um, she was like,
Speaker 1: uh throwing like fight the power fists. Anytime somebody took
Speaker 1: a picture of her. Um, she was very which like
Speaker 1: not the oh my god, I'm glad to be freed
Speaker 1: kind of thing that you would expect, and I think
Speaker 1: that the public wanted to see. And then also when
Speaker 1: she took the stand, Um, I can't believe. I cannot
Speaker 1: believe it either. Um, but she took the stand. On
Speaker 1: cross examination, she played the fifth forty two times, which
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, the public does not really trust people
Speaker 1: who plead the fifth, especially forty two times, especially if
Speaker 1: they're supposed to be a kidnapped victim. So there's a
Speaker 1: there's a there was a lot that the prosecution had
Speaker 1: going for them in that sense. And then the defense
Speaker 1: has basically had brainwashed. He's brainwashed. One of the things
Speaker 1: they said was like she was raped. She was raped
Speaker 1: by these men, so um, of course, like she feared them. Uh,
Speaker 1: they threatened her life. Of course she feared him. And
Speaker 1: apparently I guess the prosecution got her to say that, no,
Speaker 1: she didn't love Willie wolf By the way, she never
Speaker 1: saw Stephen Weed again as far as I could tell.
Speaker 1: She didn't want to see him. She didn't get back
Speaker 1: together with them, um, And I don't think they ever
Speaker 1: saw each other again, even though he was, you know,
Speaker 1: speaking to the press the whole time and being very supportive.
Speaker 1: But she was like, now I'm moving on. Um. But
Speaker 1: the prosecution got her to say, uh, you know you
Speaker 1: said you love Willy wolf Did you love him? She said, no,
Speaker 1: I hated him. And then they produced this thing that
Speaker 1: is another I think another uh mark that that really
Speaker 1: stands against her in the mind of a lot of people,
Speaker 1: which is little statue that she had gotten from Willy Wolfe. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they pull this out and they're like, then what is this?
Speaker 1: Is this not, in fact a gift from your supposed
Speaker 1: captor and supposed rapist, Willie Wolfe, Why would you keep
Speaker 1: this gift still in her reply was the opposite of
Speaker 1: my famous saying. She said, I like art, yeah, instead
Speaker 1: of I hate art yeah. And uh she said, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm an art history student and I like art. And
Speaker 1: you know, if you're trying to move the needle for
Speaker 1: a jury, that's that's not the way to well. One
Speaker 1: of the women jurors um on the case said, like,
Speaker 1: no woman would carry around a love trinket from a
Speaker 1: man who raped her, and that that really ruined her credibility. UM.
Speaker 1: At the same time, though, Jeffrey Tuban, who wrote a
Speaker 1: book on this um American heiress. Yes, but he still
Speaker 1: had a legitimate book despite what he's done since then,
Speaker 1: I just started to I know, I know, um he
Speaker 1: He made a really good point though that I think
Speaker 1: it is worth repeating here, and that is that regardless
Speaker 1: of um, you know, maybe how she ended up feeling
Speaker 1: about Willie Woolf, for anybody that that were her captors,
Speaker 1: she was kept in a closet for fifty seven days,
Speaker 1: and anyone who had sex with her in that closet
Speaker 1: raped her. That there's no chance for that to have
Speaker 1: been consensual, no matter how she behaved during that was
Speaker 1: that was rape and then then she was raped, and
Speaker 1: that should be you know, it shouldn't be brushed aside
Speaker 1: no matter. You know, how she came to feel about
Speaker 1: Willie Wolf, and I think that's that's definitely a good
Speaker 1: point to remember. Yeah, I mean, if that entire story
Speaker 1: is true about being kept in the closet, and you know,
Speaker 1: most of this testimony comes from her, uh, and there
Speaker 1: are still people that think she cooked up this entire thing. Um,
Speaker 1: and you know what, she just wanted to get out
Speaker 1: of her engagement to Steve Weed to begin with. And
Speaker 1: that's why that's such a conspiracy theory or people saying that.
Speaker 1: I'm sure they are, but really, you came out Okay, No,
Speaker 1: I was literally making a joke. If you see, if
Speaker 1: you see the like footage of Steve Weed, He's the
Speaker 1: kind that somebody would do that to get out of
Speaker 1: relationship with him. I'm sorry Steve and Weed, but yeah,
Speaker 1: just to just to get out of just because he's
Speaker 1: a guy. It'll only take a few years, right, one
Speaker 1: person has to die. I'm sorry, but oh boy, so
Speaker 1: um she on March twenty two years old. By the way,
Speaker 1: I don't think that has really you know, may have
Speaker 1: hit home to our listeners, she's still just a kid.
Speaker 1: She was sentenced to seven years in prison for robbing
Speaker 1: that bank. She served twenty two months of that near
Speaker 1: San Francisco at pleasant in prison. And you mentioned Jimmy
Speaker 1: Carter earlier, and we put a pin in that, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure people are like, what does Jimmy Carter have
Speaker 1: to do with any of this? He commuted her sentence.
Speaker 1: It was very controversial at the time. He said that
Speaker 1: he um, he fully believed her, that she was a
Speaker 1: victim and would not have done any of this had
Speaker 1: she not been brainwashed and kidnapped and brainwashed. And they
Speaker 1: said what about steviewed and he was like, I don't
Speaker 1: know who that is, and uh. He was just a
Speaker 1: big supporter of her, and he eventually um actually helped
Speaker 1: persuade Bill Clinton to pardon her. In two thousand one.
Speaker 1: He did, um, he granted her. He commuted her sentence,
Speaker 1: so she was let let out after twenty two months.
Speaker 1: But it was Clinton who pardoned her. And I said
Speaker 1: earlier that you know, Carter, I think had the most
Speaker 1: sensible opinion of the whole thing, and it was simply
Speaker 1: that had she not been kidnapped, um By the s
Speaker 1: l A and forced into these, you know, a life
Speaker 1: of crime. Basically, she otherwise would never have engaged in
Speaker 1: any of those criminal acts like she was. Her life
Speaker 1: was not in any way, shape or form on a
Speaker 1: trajectory to robbing banks. She was just going to end
Speaker 1: up being kind of a a a art history a
Speaker 1: rich art history person. Yeah, you've got a collected by
Speaker 1: expensive art probably, yeah, basically, which you know, like that
Speaker 1: was gonna be your contribution to the world. Had some
Speaker 1: kids and and um be very very wealthy. She was
Speaker 1: not going to go rob banks. And the s l
Speaker 1: A forced her to do there, forced her into that life,
Speaker 1: even if they didn't force her to rob banks. The
Speaker 1: thing is, though, is that still leaves dangling. There's a
Speaker 1: big blank space after that sentence, and that is but
Speaker 1: she still robbed the banks. And it does seem like
Speaker 1: you did it from her own volition. And I mean,
Speaker 1: anybody who was nineteen can imagine what it must have
Speaker 1: been like to be a nineteen or early twenty year
Speaker 1: old shooting up a storefront to free a couple of friends.
Speaker 1: You know, as reckless, as dangerous, as murderous, as unjustifiable
Speaker 1: and indefensible as that is. It also must have been
Speaker 1: probably the most thrilling moment of Patty Hurst's entire life
Speaker 1: to this day. Well, of course it was, because shockingly
Speaker 1: she led a pretty low key life for many many
Speaker 1: years after this. She got out of prison, she married
Speaker 1: a former cop. His name was Bernard Shaw, not the composer,
Speaker 1: but um, he was her bodyguard. He was moonlighting once
Speaker 1: she was out on bail as a bodyguard, had a
Speaker 1: couple of kids, raised their kids in Connecticut, and lived
Speaker 1: a really quiet life until nineteen one. A couple of
Speaker 1: years after that, she published her memoir Like Said, which
Speaker 1: we read in our our fifth grade reading class, Every
Speaker 1: Secret Thing, and Um. Then she kind of was very public,
Speaker 1: but not Uh. She was public in the way that
Speaker 1: I'm not saying she should have had shame, but shamelessly public,
Speaker 1: going on TV shows plugging her book, talking about her memoirs,
Speaker 1: talking about what happened, buddying up with maybe the weirdest
Speaker 1: thing in this whole story, budding up with John Waters
Speaker 1: and starring in four of his movies. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: she she was in a bunch of them. Mom, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember when I saw her in these movies, thinking,
Speaker 1: is that Patty Hurst Patty Hirst, and it totally was that.
Speaker 1: I think this is before the internet when I saw
Speaker 1: these and um, so like I read a newspaper article
Speaker 1: or something confirming that. I was like, all right, I
Speaker 1: guess that's what she's doing. Now. Were you in a
Speaker 1: van waiting for your accomplices while you read that newspaper article. No,
Speaker 1: it was a very strange time though. Um. And then
Speaker 1: there were a couple of more cases in the late nineties. Uh,
Speaker 1: the FBI captured this woman. She was an s L
Speaker 1: a fugitive named Kathleen Solia. She was living. She managed
Speaker 1: to get out and live a very quiet life as
Speaker 1: Sarah Jane Olsen. She's basically like Homer Simpsons mom. Yeah,
Speaker 1: also a wife and mother in Connecticut. And she was
Speaker 1: arrested for a car bombing carried out in seventy five. Actually,
Speaker 1: I think the weirdest part of the story is is
Speaker 1: that her daughter ended up being a contestant on American Idol.
Speaker 1: Is that right? That's a little weird. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's starring in John Waters movies level weird, but
Speaker 1: it's definitely that's a great little It's a nice little tidbit.
Speaker 1: Her daughters though, when they were questioned about this, We're like,
Speaker 1: you know, this was Berkeley in the seventies, Like it
Speaker 1: was kind of not everybody up they were. That was
Speaker 1: kind of their attitude. It was interesting. It is interesting. Um,
Speaker 1: I've got a little detail I turned up that I
Speaker 1: hadn't seen anywhere else, but it was from the recollections
Speaker 1: of an the one of the FBI agents who arrested
Speaker 1: Patty Hurst finally, and they said, get this man. She
Speaker 1: was on the run with another s l A member,
Speaker 1: Wendy Yoshimura, And when the agents came up these backstairs
Speaker 1: to this house where she and Wendy were hiding out,
Speaker 1: they were sitting at the kitchen table, and the agents
Speaker 1: came in with their guns drawn, and Wendy Yoshimura had
Speaker 1: both hands on the table and did everything those FBI
Speaker 1: agents said. Patty Hurst jumped up and ran to the
Speaker 1: front room, and apparently the FBI agents said, you know,
Speaker 1: get back here, We're gonna shoot Wendy or something like that.
Speaker 1: They said that they couldn't guarantee Wendy's safety unless, um,
Speaker 1: Patty came back. So Patty reluctantly came back into the
Speaker 1: kitchen where she was arrested, but when they went back
Speaker 1: and searched the house in the front room, they found
Speaker 1: her M one carbine and a twelve gage shotgun, which
Speaker 1: really it's very difficult not to imagine that she was
Speaker 1: jumping up to go get her gone to engage in
Speaker 1: a gun battle. Interesting. That's nuts, man. Wow. Well, Celia
Speaker 1: gets uh found out as Sarah Jane Wilson. Like I said,
Speaker 1: that trial and then another one. Remember that bank robbery
Speaker 1: that we mentioned earlier when they were on the lamb
Speaker 1: Uh that comes back to haunt her as well. And
Speaker 1: there are these two kind of trials popping up where
Speaker 1: she has immunity. If she's going to come in and
Speaker 1: testify and say who the shooter was, she was gonna
Speaker 1: say it was Emily Harris. She was all prepared to
Speaker 1: testify against them, and they both everyone ended up leading
Speaker 1: guilty and so she didn't have to go to court
Speaker 1: again and she kind of just went back to her
Speaker 1: Her life is as Patty Hurst, the mom in Connecticut.
Speaker 1: That's right, very interesting story. And like we said, we
Speaker 1: look back now and I don't think anyone has the
Speaker 1: clearest picture still of exactly what happened. My guess is
Speaker 1: it might have been a little bit of both. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think there was an initial brainwashing hostage thing, but um,
Speaker 1: you know, William Harris later said we inadvertently kidnapped a
Speaker 1: revolutionary freak like she was, just she had a real
Speaker 1: propensity for it. Yeah, and that they were still they
Speaker 1: were astounded by how how eagerly she took it on.
Speaker 1: So well, and this is coming you know, you gotta
Speaker 1: remember too, this is a nineteen year old coming off
Speaker 1: the heels of being a middle schooler in the late
Speaker 1: sixties when all of that's going on, and you know,
Speaker 1: so that was in the public sphere as in her
Speaker 1: whole life growing up really this radical revolutionary kind of thing,
Speaker 1: growing up in northern California near San Francisco. So yes,
Speaker 1: she may have been like, hey, this is my chance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and she took it. Uh. Well, that's Petty Hurst, everybody.
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about it, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of ink that's been spilled on her story, and
Speaker 1: just go down that rabbit hole as deep as you like.
Speaker 1: And since I said that, it's time for a listener, ma'am.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to read her or I guess reread her
Speaker 1: memoir years Yeah, it's been many years. Uh, let me
Speaker 1: see here. I'm gonna call this Bavarian Beavers. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: want to take the opportunity to talk about your recent
Speaker 1: show on beavers. To tell you what I have been
Speaker 1: doing for a few years now. Um, between finishing school
Speaker 1: and starting university, I did nine months of civil service
Speaker 1: and my regional environmental authority. My main focus, besides cleaning
Speaker 1: up local forest was taking care of beavers. I basically
Speaker 1: had to maintain live traps and had to perform sabotage
Speaker 1: on dams of beavers which flooded fields of local farmers.
Speaker 1: Now I did so on a daily basis, since overnight
Speaker 1: the dams were of course restored by their respective constructors. Uh.
Speaker 1: This was done in order to softly, softly forced the
Speaker 1: beavers to find a new place to live, which mostly
Speaker 1: worked after a few months. Also, two beavers were called
Speaker 1: alive during my period of service, and we're moved to
Speaker 1: the UK as far as I know, in order to
Speaker 1: reintroduce them there. As far as I know, they went
Speaker 1: to go live on a farm in England. I learned
Speaker 1: a lot about these animals during this time and I
Speaker 1: was stoked when I saw this episode title pop up
Speaker 1: as usual. You did a great job gathering and summarizing
Speaker 1: all the facts and interesting good to knows, including the
Speaker 1: weird classification as fish for religious reasons. Keep up the
Speaker 1: great work. This is from Bavaria, Germany, and that is
Speaker 1: from Nico. Nico says, uh, Chuck, hats off to you
Speaker 1: and your German skills. To Nico's being very kind, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what about me, Nko? What about Josh? Well, you you
Speaker 1: own Japanese and Spanish, all right, But Nico didn't say
Speaker 1: anything about it, No, she did. That was the pss. Okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: there you go. So thanks a lot Nico for complimenting
Speaker 1: both of us. I appreciate you finally getting to it.
Speaker 1: And if you want to be like Nico and compliment
Speaker 1: both of us, we love that kind of thing. You
Speaker 1: can send us an email to Stuff podcast at iHeart
Speaker 1: radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
Speaker 1: of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H