Transcript of The Kidnapping of Patty Hearst (Part 2)

As the days get shorter, the kids get back to school, and we start to make our homes a little cozier. We're all looking for smarter ways to save. Electric Ireland can help get you there. Switch to our best smart meter plan and save up to 30%. Visit electric Ireland. Ie. Eab €1,199, based on 12-month Home Electric plus SST saver electricity. Discounted unit rates with online billing, Direct Debit and VAT. Smart meter required. Subject to change. Ties and C's apply.

Juggling family and work. You know, it's not the easiest. I need something flexible, and Care Plus gives me that. Kids are back at school, I'm on the go, but I want a job that's rewarding too, you know? Helping people, bringing a smile to their face. Care This makes that possible.

For flexible roles that suit your life, join our healthcare and social care teams at careplus. Ie. Careplus. Together we can care for more.

Care with a K, care with a difference.

Hey, weirdos, I'm Elaina. I'm Ash.

And this is Morbid. It's our first exclusive episode with Sirius. I am... Like, the feeling in this room. Oh, it's wild. It's palpable. If you guys are here, you can feel it. It's palpable. We're cleaning the pod lab. We're entering a new era.

We're not just cleaning the pod lab. We are revitalizing and gutting it because the energy in this place was fucking rancid.

Rank ass energy.

Rancid as hell. So we said, get the fuck out of here energy. And we're bringing new, wonderful, happy energy into this room.

Yeah, it's insane.

No particular reason for any of that. Just happy energy being brought into the room.

It's insane. Like the actual physical baggage, but also like the emotional energetic baggage. That was just hanging around. That you can accumulate over a few years. Yeah, it's nuts.

It's true. It sounds like crazy, but it really is. You can feel the heaviness in this room. That's why we were like, we opened the windows. We were like, bye. We got rid of everything. We're starting new. So this pod lab will look a little different when you see it on camera. Yeah.

And actually we're going to start doing listener tales, switching off our sides of the room, which I'm excited for. Because Elaina's wall is so Elaina and mine. I need to revamp mine a little bit. It's It's not very me, but I need to- Well, we're- We're revamping.

We're gutting. Exactly.

But yeah, so that'll be fun switching off.

Yeah. It feels like a new era.

We're very excited. I can't express to you how happy I've been the last few days.

Oh, we The three of us in this room have been literally laughing so hard the last few days that we've been crying, coughing, sputtering, falling on the ground. We are just in a state of... We're very excited for Serious. We really love the people that we are working with at Serious, and we feel very at home.

Things are just fucking awesome right now. In fact, things are so awesome that we said, why not do another live show? Hey. You guys. You sold out the first one in under three minutes, which was truly insane. There's a lot of things around.

There's a lot of hoohah in here.

We said, we're unpacking. But no, you guys sold out the Wilbur. You helped us do that in under three minutes. So we said, Honey, we got to add another show. There's a lot of weirdos that couldn't get tickets.

Exactly. And you guys were saying like, Shit, I wanted a ticket.

We're like, Let's get you one. We said, We'll do what we can, doll. Like not going on a nationwide tour by any means. But we'll add another show. We'll do one here and there. We did. So that goes on sale September eighth at the Wilbur website, wherever you got tickets.

Yeah. And the show will be the 28th. So the Sunday after the first show, which is on the 26th.

We did It's a Friday and then a Sunday. Give us a little break for a beauty rest.

You know, revitalize.

Exactly. I'm so excited.

So, yeah, September eighth. Get those tickets. It's at the Wilbur, so you can get them the same way you got the first ones.

It'll be the same show, just so you say you know?

Yep, same show.

So if you got it, you might want to see. You got it. You might want to see. I don't know if you want to see it again, but just know going into it that it won't be a different show.

It's not going to be a different show, but we're very excited about it. Yeah.

And we'll get to meet some of you guys There's some meet and greet tickets up there, too.

There's going to be special merch just for Just For The Show.

Exclusive.

For the merch, that's going to be special merch for the shows. We collabed with Matt at the Black Veal. Our buddy Matt. We love Black Veal.

Our good bud. Our good bud.

And he helped. He designed our merch, so I'm very excited about that.

And if you're familiar with Matt and Ryan, please have no fear. We have Ryan working on some other stuff. We We are. There are big things happening. Hey, hey, hey. Big things happening.

Big things happening. We're going to be having a new season of the rewatcher coming in a couple months.

We're going to be covering Trueblood.

We're going to be covering Trueblood. So if you haven't, join the rewatcher crowd, if you weren't, if Buffy wasn't your thing, that's okay. Maybe Trueblood is. Join for Trueblood. It's going to be fucking hilarious for Trueblood.

I'm super excited.

And we have some really cool things for Trueblood. We have a new theme song that we can't say what it is yet because we're going to make it a surprise.

You know what? A friend helped us.

A friend helped us with the theme song.

A friend of the pod.

So well, don't worry. You'll find out. Yeah, you'll find out. But that's all very exciting What other bidnasty do we have?

Yeah. Is there any other? We're both looking at Mikey like, Michael. Michael. What do we have?

Tell me about my life.

This isn't bidny. This isn't bidnasty. But I have discovered that I can drink cold brew now.

Yeah, she has.

It's made me a brand new bitch.

It gives her a high like I've never seen.

That's the thing. It's nice because it's just a nice smooth happiness. I used to drink cold brew and feel like my heart was literally racing out of my chest and going to just fall onto the floor. Now I'm just like, I'm so happy. I love everyone.

She's been hilarious. She's always hilarious, but she's been extra hilarious.

Oh, my God. We're also working on. When you go to the Wilber Show, obviously, we're not on stage right away. It takes us a minute to get red-eye. You listen to a cool playlist.

That we are curating this playlist, and it goes It's so fucking hard.

It's wild. It's very distinguishable who picked what song. Again, it goes harder than any other playlist that I am aware of.

It is a wild playlist.

I got out of breath earlier dancing to one of the songs. She did. And it fell onto my chair.

That is 100% the truth. Mikey threw a wig on and was dancing.

It was pretty intense. I can't laugh too hard. Oh, yeah. It's my case today. We're doing part two of Patty. So this one's a little bit of a shorter one, but I had to break it in a certain way. But before we get into everything, I just want to say sorry because my voice might be a little weird. I don't know if it's allergies.

It's probably allergies.

Or if it's all the lalling, perhaps.

It could be a mixture.

It's just a little bit weird, just so you know.

And before we get into Patty, we just wanted to quickly say because school is starting for a lot of parents and kids and all that fun stuff. But it started off really poorly because we are so sorry about the school shooting at the Enunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. Horrifying. They were literally- Two kids were killed. 17, I believe, were injured. A couple in critical.

17 were injured, and I think it was 14 of those 17 or children?

Yeah, and two of them are in critical condition. It's fucking terrible.

The kids killed. They said we're eight and 10.

Eight and 10 babies. And they were only in school for a couple of days. I mean, the school year hasn't even started for all of us.

The mass itself was celebrating the first week of school.

Yeah, it's horrifying. We need to do better than thoughts and prayers. We need to do something. So contact whoever you can contact to get some shit moving because this just can't stand anymore. This is insane. It's just so upsetting. And also teachers need raises. A hundred %. We need to pay teachers better. What are we doing here?

That's what we were talking about earlier. Yeah. And Elaina said, she's like, We're asking so much Which is the reach of teachers.

We are literally asking teachers. When I sit in front of my kids' teachers before school starts for the parent-teacher thing, I'm like, I am asking you to throw yourself in front of my child. To be a human shield. In the unthinkable event. I'm literally, I'm asking you this right now.

And the wild thing is that we are putting so much faith in these teachers, and they're putting that on themselves.

Oh, they're doing it.

That's the thing. They're willing to be in that position.

But they're being paid shit, and they're often treated like shit. We've been very lucky that we've had amazing teachers. My kids have had just the best teachers. They really have. But it's like, it just makes me... I can't believe what we ask of them and what they have to take on. And then they're given just fucking bare classrooms, and they have to pay out of their own pocket. And they do. And they do. To make it colorful, to make it fun, to make it engaging. That's why we were just talking about it. Whenever I see on TikTok, sometimes if I see a teacher talking about their wishlist, a lot of times they have Amazon wishlist or something. And when I can, I try to buy off of the wishlist because I can't believe that teachers have to pay out of pocket to do anything for their students.

So many jobs, you are given the tools to do that job.

Yeah, just given a bare room, that's wild. So we just wanted to say our listeners who are teachers, if you have wish lists and you need them cleared, you need some stuff off of them, you can Please send them in to us. You can send them to morbidpodcast@gmail. Com. We obviously can't clear everybody's list, but we would love to start trying to help out as much as we can because fuck, that sucks. And as soon as we've barely started the school year and there's already a school shooting, it really makes it hit a little harder how much faith and how much pressure we are putting on teachers, especially parents. We should all be sitting there thinking about it that as we send our kid off to school, we're assuming that that teacher is willing to risk their entire self for your kid. And they will. We've seen it time and time in. Yeah. If you want to send us your list, morbidpodcast@gmail. Com, just put in the title that it's a teacher list. Yeah. So, yeah. So do that. We'll do our best.

We want to help you guys out.

Teachers, we love you. And I know that that's a horrifying beginning to the school year for teachers and parents alike. So thinking of all of you in solidarity.

Look out for each other, you all.

Yeah, for sure.

All right. So with all of that being said, I think it is time to get into Patty Part Two.

Patty Part Two?

Patty Part Two. This is a little bit of a shorter Part Two, and I didn't do that for any other reason other than the way that the story goes. There's so much that happens that you just have to break at certain points. Yeah.

Just so you can understand the whole narrative.

Yeah, exactly. I think this is probably going to end up being four parts unless it's just a really long part three, but I think I'm leaning towards four parts just to make it all palatable. Okay. So just to go over part one really quickly, we covered a lot of the background of this era that we're in, like very late '60s, early '70s, mostly how the youths of the time were trying to start a revolution. A revolution. Yeah, for change. And how some groups were doing it very peacefully, very Kumbaya-like. Hell, yeah. And others, the Simbayanese Liberation Army, they were doing things like kidnapping Patty Hearst.

Yeah. A little different. Yeah. A little different. Stuff like that.

Yeah. So if for some reason you're just tuning into part two and skipping part one, that's crazy. What are you doing? I'll help you out. That's reckless. Patty Hearst was low-key the daughter belonging to one of the richest families in the world. So that wasn't awesome that she got kidnapped.

No.

We ended part one with Patty's family getting a tape from her where she basically said that her kidnappers hadn't hurt her that badly. They were being nice enough. She just asked her parents to comply with their wishes. Patty's family, her dad, especially Randolph Hearst, set up that food distribution center, and all of them around California, just trying to comply with the demands of the SLA. So let's get into part two.

Let's do it.

While Randolph Hearst and FBI agents were working to get Patty back from the SLA, Patty herself was going through a pretty emotionally trying time and a pretty bizarre experience of her own. Yeah. At first, the SLA was keeping her inside of a closet. Wow. This closet was six and a half feet deep, a A little over two feet wide, and eight feet high. What? And she was there 24/7 for a while. What the fuck? At night, she slept on a dirty foam mattress that they had cut to fit into the closet. So at all times she was in total darkness, and she, remember, two and a half feet wide, so she didn't even have enough room to turn around most of the time. Oh my God. The claustrophobia must have been next level. Now, things obviously weren't quite as dire as she had buried when she was thinking about the kidnapping of Barbara Markel, who was buried alive. Yeah. But in the pitch dark of that closet, it was hard to tell the difference.

Yeah, it's pretty similar. Yeah.

So she was doing her best to stay calm, but the early days were very scary. Eventually, though, she started tapping into the sounds around her. She was trying to listen to the voices of her kidnappers when they were talking near the closet and trying to figure out what the fuck was going on here. And whenever she was outside the closet for any reason, they her blind folded so she couldn't see their faces. But she really tapped into listening and realized that there were big differences in dealing with each of them. Donald DeFreeze, for example, he was the head of the operation. He was commanding. He was gruff. There didn't seem to be a lot of intelligence or compassion behind his personality. He was just intense. In the early days, he told Patty that she had been, quote, arrested, not kidnapped, because her father was a corporate enemy of the people.

Do you know what arrested means?

He had a different definition.

Do you know what kidnapped means? No, he's definitely kidnapping.

Sir what? Yeah. When he was talking about the mission and the message, it didn't really seem to Patty like he was experienced in any way at what he was doing. It just sounded like he was a kid playing war.

Yeah, it does sound like that.

Some of the other members, they seemed to Patty entirely out of place among the more hardened members. Like Bill Harris, the one who grabbed her hand.

I was going to say, yeah.

He spoke in a very soft, generally respectful tone. He and a few of the others in the group reminded Patty actually of kids that she went to school with. It was like these kids, the softer ones, had gotten caught up in the movement. Things had gone too far, and now they didn't know how to get out.

Yeah, that makes sense.

But even though she was like, Okay, these people are peers, and it seems like they're a little lost here, it was still a serious situation, and that wasn't lost on her. She didn't know a lot about these people, but she did know that they claimed responsibility for the murder of Marcus Foster. So that was reason enough to take them seriously.

Yeah, that's terrifying. Yeah.

In the early days, Donald DeFreeze and some of the others were really trying to interrogate her about her dad's financial situation, and they wanted to know about his business dealings, what was going on there.

Which it's like, how much does she actually know?

Well, exactly. She didn't know a lot about it. She didn't really know a ton about where her family... She knew that they were wealthy.

She probably knew, generally, maybe what he does, but...

Kind of. But she didn't know where everything came from. No. She was like, Yeah, I think we're richer than most people. But she was like, I don't know how we spend it. I don't know his colleagues. I don't know a lot about this. So they were getting frustrated with her. Also Patty was like, Why are you asking me all of this? This is very strange and bizarre. But what was more disturbing was the fact that DeFries and others already seemed to know a lot. They were berating her with questions, but at the same time it seemed like they had info, not just about her father or her family wealth, but about her specifically. A few days into keeping her, Patty was asking when she was going to be able to go home, and Donald DeFreeze just looked at her and was like, What? You want to go home for your birthday?

Eew.

But knew it was her birthday.

Oh, I hate that. Yeah, I hate that a lot. Yeah.

Scary. She said later that she remembered this as one of the most chilling moments of the whole thing.

Because for so many reasons. For one, he knows it's your birthday. Yeah. Then two, just being like, Oh, you want to go home for your birthday? That's so dehumanizing. It is. You just don't give a shit.

He definitely did it. Also, it made her realize, too, that she wasn't just the victim of a random kidnapping. This was coordinated. This was well-researched, and her kidnappers knew way more than she thought they did. Now, within a few days, it occurred to everybody in the safe house that not knowing how long these negotiations were going to go on with the Hearst family, they couldn't just keep Patty in that small ass closet with no contact with anybody for the whole duration of her captivity. Instead, Donald DeFreeze put together this schedule where only three members would engage with her. That way she couldn't identify the entire group because this is a big group. He knew that he didn't have any rapport with her. They weren't driving at all. I wonder why. Yeah, it's crazy. He assigned Nancy Lange, Angela Atwood, and Willy Wolf, which is an iconic name, I have to say.

Willy Wolf is a great name. Willy Wolf. I wanted Bill Harris to be in there.

I, too, was waiting for that. I felt like he would be a good fit. Yeah, but Willy Wolf.

Willy Wolf stepped in.

They were her handlers. He figured, Donald DeFreeze, since the three of them came from upper middle class backgrounds, they would be better positioned to get information out of her. She could relate to them. There was some thought thought into it. In the days that followed, she didn't really have a lot of communication with her kidnappers. Most of the time that she did spend with them was just to record the communications that they were sending to her family and to the radio station. But when Patty wasn't making recordings, she was just sitting there listening in on conversations between everybody. Most of what she was saying in recordings was written down for her to say. But as she was doing more and more of these recordings and listening in more, she was starting to understand what they were saying, and sometimes she was starting to understand why they were saying it. She got the message, which is a little scary.

Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah.

And with each communication that the family was getting, that the radio stations were getting, there seemed to be a noticeable shift in her voice. It was something like confidence. She didn't seem as scared to be being held anymore. And it almost seemed like she was starting to agree with what they were saying.

Oh, damn. What their whole message behind what they were doing was. Yeah.

Author Jeffrey Tubun pointed out, and we linked his book in the first set of show notes, and we'll link it in this one, too. But he said it was an impatience in her voice. He said, not with her captors, but with her parents. Yeah.

That would be scary.

Yeah.

Especially for her parents to hear. They probably notice.

Yeah, that's the thing. They definitely did. In time, the rigid schedule and the structure of the only three members handling Patty started to relax because she's spending more time there, they can probably see that she's starting to hear what they're saying.

As the days get shorter, the kids get back to school, and we start to make our homes a little cozier. We're all looking for smarter ways to save. Electric Ireland can help get you there. Switch to our best smart meter plan and save up to 30%. Visit electricarland. Ie. Eab €1,199, based on 12-month Home Electric plus SST saver electricity. Discounted unit rates with online billing, Direct Debit and VAT. Smart meter required. Subject to change. Ties and Sees apply.

Juggling family and work. You know, it's not the easiest. I need something flexible, and Care Plus gives me that. Kids are back at school, I'm on the go, but I want a job that's rewarding too, you know? Helping people, bringing a smile to their face. Care Plus makes that possible.

For flexible roles that suit your life, join our healthcare and social care teams at careplus. Ie. Careplus. Together we can care for more.

Care with a K, care with a difference. No one lost sight of the larger goals, and nobody forgot that Patty was captive, but it also, at the same time, was impossible to keep up these prison-esque formalities. No matter how much Donald DeFreece thought that he was running a fucking military operation. So by early March, after a full month being held captive, another recording was delivered to the Hearst home. In this one, It didn't seem actually like the message was written out. It seemed like Patty herself was talking, and she sounded genuinely frustrated with her parents. She told them, I don't believe you're doing anything at all.

Oh, that would kill me.

And also They were.

That's the thing they were trying as hard as they possibly could.

In part one, we talked about how her father, Randolph Hearst, set up those food distribution centers and his organization pinned people in need immediately. Yeah. And how, obviously, it didn't go perfectly fine with the startup. But not a lot does. It never does with a startup. It went pretty well, all things considered.

Just being her parents and going through this ordeal, first of all, and then hearing her say, I don't you're doing anything at all, that would kill me. Knowing my child thought I wasn't doing anything to save them might kill me where I stand. I think I would die.

That would be gut-wrenching. I feel so hard for her parents.

Yeah, that's just gut-wrenching to see, I don't believe that you're doing anything at all. That would ruin my entire... I would never recover from that.

I don't know how you listen to that. And also know that you're doing everything you possibly can. Yeah, that's the thing.

You know, but she doesn't.

Why isn't she realizing? And are they not telling her? Why doesn't she believe that I would do anything to save her?

Did I not instill that into her enough?

Well, now they're probably looking back on the relationship they did have with her where she was the tougher one of the five daughters.

Did we somehow make her think we wouldn't move like, mountains for her?

Exactly. I think there was probably a lot of... I was just I'm not going to say a lot of guilt.

Yeah. Ruminating. Which is not valid guilt as in they did something wrong, but they're probably putting it on themselves.

Exactly. So by that point, the restrictions that the SLA placed on Patty were pretty much gone altogether. There was never any question of the power dynamics at play, and she didn't forget that she was a prisoner. But in time, she started to see her kidnappers as something more and something different than a group of terrorists, which is what they were. But there wasn't a lot else to do other than sit around and talk. Patty and the SLA members, several of them in particular, would have these long conversations. They just sit around and talk about all kinds of shit. They ended up finding out that they had a lot more in common than they originally thought they did. A lot of these people came from educated backgrounds. They had interests in art, in literature, in politics, obviously. She did, too. Not really in politics, but in arts and literature.

When you start feeling like you're connecting on a human level with people, it's hard to see anything else.

And to see the situation for what it is.

That's the thing. She's sitting there genuinely connecting with other human beings. That's really hard to then be like, oh, wait, these are bad people.

You broke into my house in the middle of the night and carried me away and shoved me in a trunk. Yeah.

And kept me in a closet for how long? And it's like, you just start seeing people that you get along with and that you probably genuinely are like, fuck, we might have hung out outside of this whole thing.

That must be so weird because I do feel like whenever we talk about a kidnapping situation, it's usually a younger person being kidnapped by an older person. Yeah. In this case- These are her peers. These are her peers, exactly. And they're from the same area. They're from the same backgrounds.

Now they have the same interests.

That's the thing. Exactly. Now, sometimes, especially when it came to Donald DeFreeze, though, he would talk at Patty rather than have a conversation with her. He just ramble on about revolution and the message and What they had to do and yada yada. But other times when she was talking to the other members, we were just saying it felt like she was chatting with her friends or at the very least, just well-meaning activists. After a while, she realized that it didn't seem like they actually had any intention of killing her, and she thought they genuinely just wanted her father's money to help the poor. It wasn't long before she started gaining a lot of new perspectives on the world. From the first day she was born, she had spent every day in luxury. She really didn't have to struggle for much. Obviously, she had her struggles, but she could have whatever she wanted in a material sense. The people around her at school, at home, at her father's company, they all lived similarly to that, too. Even though a lot of the members of the SLA had lived, like I've been saying, these somewhat privileged lives, they still knew that the same was not true for everybody, especially when it came to minorities, to the poor.

They felt, and oftentimes we're correct, that these people were put down and ignored by capitalist systems. Yeah. Talks like that made Patty think about Steve. Remember her fiancé Steve? Oh, yes. Who she was already initially angry with on the night of the kidnapping? Yeah. But at one point, she told Willy Wolf that even before the kidnapping, she was thinking of breaking things off with Steve.

Oh, damn.

Which I do believe because they were already struggling before they got engaged. She said she saw him as too rigid, too proper. It bothered her that he seemed incapable of just taking things on as they came, and he needed to schedule everything out. Obviously, there was the night of the kidnapping when rather than trying to stop them from taking her, she felt, he told them, take anything you want, which only confirmed her growing feelings of resentment.

Yeah, I could see that.

It's a tough situation.

I was going to say, and I think maybe he was being like, take anything you want, just things. Things. Like, don't take my fiance. You can't really get mad at him for that, for being like, take anything in this house you want.

Don't hurt her. I guess also on the other side of it, if I had spent a month in a closet after being kidnapped and my mans hadn't really done a whole lot, I might be a little angry. Yeah.

I mean, I can't imagine this situation.

You're not in your right frame of mind.

No, definitely not.

But unlike her relationship with Steve, Patty was starting to find it a lot easier to talk to Willy Wolf. They would sit around the two of them and chat for hours about everything under the sun. She learned that just like her, he came from a wealthy family. He who had actually grown up in the high society of Connecticut, which is wild because now he's literally in a liberation army.

Damn. Yeah.

He knew what it was like to go to boarding schools just like she did, how hard it was to feel like you could never meet your parents' expectations. It's like, rich kid problems. Yeah. And he also shared Patty's love of animals and being outdoors. Oh, cute. Now, his path to radicalization, which is fun. Radicalization? I just like that word.

The path to radicalization.

Yeah. That's fun to I don't know why. It is. But his path to radicalization came in 1973, and that was his first year of grad school. He accepted a position as a tutor at a prison, which is where he met Ramiro and Little, those two SLA members who were arrested in serving time in part one. And then they kidnapped Patty and were demanding Romero and Little's release. Oh, damn. Remember? So now we're going back a little bit. This is where Willy met them. They were in prison. They got out at a certain point because they escaped. Remember? Damn. Yeah.

Speaking of prison. Yeah. What am I done? I'm so sorry.

Starting off a conversation- Speaking of prison. When speaking of prison is diabolical.

I just had to take this little side tangent because you guys will think it's funny. I love it. Blanche, my dog, is... She's like a- A counter surfer. She's a counter surfer. She always jumps up to try to eat food. We cannot get her to stop. Sydney? Never.

She's living her best life.

But Blanche, she's The Dingsus. And so the other day, she went to go grab something off the counter, and John just looked at her and said... Because she did get something. She got a whole Waffle. She did. She got a whole Waffle, but we got it back. They were good Waffles. Don't worry. We got rid of it.

She got a bite.

But John just looked at her and said, Prison. Prison. And it was the funniest thing in the entire world. And now every time she jumps up, we're just saying, Prison. And I'm hoping that that will be a command that makes her stop.

Wouldn't it be so funny if what you had to say to her to get her to get off the counter was, Prison. Yeah. Prison. Prison. Prison.

Now we're trying it. I love it. Prison Blanche.

Prison Blanche. I witnessed that happen, and I almost cried. I was laughing so hard.

I just thought that was a fun little shot.

Out of absolutely nowhere, John just goes, and he said it's so exacerbated. He was like, Prison.

He was just like, Prison. Prison. Blanche. Prison.

Yeah. Speaking of prison, they were in prison, and Willy was working there. Prison. They started to talk to Willy about their message, their views on politics, the current state of the world, and yada, yada, yada. They were getting closer and closer until eventually, one day, Willy found himself smuggling in books about the revolution for them. Before long, he was a radicalized, full-fledged member of the SLA. Wow. Yeah. That escalated quickly. From prison tutor to member of the Simbianese Liberation Army. To full-fledged member of the SLA. So that's good. So while Patty was getting to know her captors on a personal level, her dad was doing an investigation of his own by holding regular meetings with Clifford Deathrow Jefferson.

Oh, Clifford Deathrow. I forgot about him. Old Deathrow.

You can't forget about Clifford Deathrow Jefferson.

You cannot forget about old Deathrow.

And you never You never hear the last of Death Road Jefferson.

Yeah, you never will.

I feel so bad for her father. He's just a media magnet. He's just out here talking to Death Road Jefferson and other incarcerated SLA members. It's really rough. Because remember, when the SLA was created, they reached out to a lot of imprisoned people and had them join, which was a little cuckoo nuts. Little cuckoo nuts. I don't know how much help they were going to be. I don't know. Who knows? But so Now, Randolph is just having these meetings, and he thought originally that Deathrow Jefferson was the leader of the group, mostly because Deathrow Jefferson himself also thought that.

I was going to say because Deathrow Jefferson told him, probably. Exactly.

So Yeah. So Randolph is sitting here like, Okay, great. I'm talking to the head guy in charge. Like, I'm going to get some movement here. Yeah.

Who's not going to think that a guy named Deathrow Jefferson is not the leader of whatever group you're talking about?

If your name is Deathrow Dethro Jefferson. I believe you're the leader of all. Yeah. And I'll listen.

Whatever you tell me you're the leader of, I'll just probably assume you are.

I'll do what I can to make things happen, to do your bidding. It's fine. So he hoped, Randolph hoped, that he might convince Dethro Jefferson to demand the release of his daughter. And as a result- The name is just wild. I'm never going to stop saying the full name.

It never sounds right.

Dave was writing Jefferson in the notes, and I was like, No, no, no. No, no, no. Dethro Jefferson. So as a result, Dethro Thro Jefferson, Little and Romero, and other incarcerated SLA members started sending letters to the press indicating that because Randolph was complying with the demands, Patty would be released very soon. And by that point, the organization that Patty's family had set up that I was just talking about pin or people in need, they made their fifth and final food distribution, per the terms of their agreement. So one way or another, the situation had to come to an end.

Yeah, they did what they were asked to do.

They did everything they were asked to do.

They did the impossible.

They really did. So by the beginning of April, Patty had been in captivity for almost two months at that point. And aside from just the small number of recordings, nobody had any idea what she was going through while she was being held.

No, and they can Our parents can only think of the worst shit imaginable.

Exactly. But finally, on April second, KSAN Radio in San Francisco got another communication from the SLA, and this one had specific details regarding Patty's release. It was finally happening. The statement indicated that Patty would be released from captivity within the next 72 hours, and the letter should have been a cause for celebration. But a second communication, this one in Patty's voice, a recording in Patty's voice, came just one day later. Let's just say that if there was any celebration, it was short-lived.

Oh, no.

On April third, just one day after the letter talking all about Patty's release, KPFA Radio got a recording in Patty's voice. Unlike the other recordings where she sounded concerned in the beginning, eventually maybe a little frustrated, this voice on the recording was confident and firm, and the message was unexpected and straight up bizarre.

Oh, boy.

She said, Mom, dad, tell the poor and oppressed people of this nation what the corporate state is about to do. Warn black and poor people that they are about to be murdered down to the last man, woman, and child. Tell the public that the energy crisis is nothing more than a means to get public approval for a massive program to build nuclear power plants all over the nation. Tell the people that the entire corporate state is, with the aid of its massive power supply, about to totally automate the entire industrial state to the point that in the next five years, all that will be needed is a small class of button pushers. Tell the people, dad, that the removal of expendable access, the removal of unneeded people has already started. I have been given the choice of, one, being released in a safe area, or two, joining the forces of the Simbayanese Liberation Army and fighting for my freedom and the freedom of all oppressed people. I have chosen to stay and to fight. I have been given the name Tanya after a comrade who fought alongside beside Che in Bolivia. It is in the spirit of Tanya that I say, Patria omerte venceramos, which translates to homeland or death we shall overcome.

Whoa. That's different.

Super duper different.

That's different.

And not what her parents expected.

Imagine being so excited that you did all the things and you've been working so hard for two months to get your child back.

No, that's That's what we really need to focus on for a second here.

Sixty days. And they were working hard to get her back.

And realizing, okay, because as every single day went on, okay, we're getting these tapes. She's still alive. She's saying they're not hurting her. We're going to get her back. Maybe we'll get her back. And then I'm sure they had their bad days where they thought they would never get her back. And they go through all of this emotional turmoil for 60 days, and they get a communication. She's coming back. She's going to be released. Awesome. And then one day later, she has completely floped and is joining the army that kidnapped her in the middle of the night.

I have no words for it. Like, that would just be shattering.

Also, this is the early '70s, so you weren't just calling up your therapist on speed dial.

No.

How do you cope with that?

That's shattering.

That's when you literally sit in your living room and stare at a wall for seven hours and just think, How has my life come to this? Yeah, truly. How is this? That's one of those moments you and I were talking about the other day when you're just like, How is this my life? How is this?

Why is this happening? Why? What's going on? Why? Yeah. Just like, What?

I feel for her family. Yeah. For those working the case and those who had been close to Patty, the latest recording was just about the last thing any of those people would have expected. She obviously had that rebellious streak in her teen years, and she loved going against the grain. But this was a lot more serious than dating an older man or messing around with the nuns at boarding school. Yeah. The SLA was a known terrorist organization, and don't forget, they had murdered one person. That's the thing. She's saying she's joining forces with them, understands their message, and wants to be part of it. Like, damn. That's horrifying. Yeah. In a statement to the Randolph Hearst emphatically stated that he and his wife did not believe Patty had joined the group willingly. He said, We've had her for 20 years. They've had her 60 days, and I don't believe she's going to change her philosophy that quickly and that permanently. I'll never believe it until she comes to me or her mother and is free to talk without any interference whatsoever. At that time, if her choice is to become a member of an organization like this, we will still love her, and she's free to do whatever she wants.

I mean, that's some parentship right there.

That's a motherfucking dad.

That's on some dad shit. Just being like, I just want her to walk up to me and tell me with no interference, and then I will still love her. And she's free to do what she wants. She's an adult. I love her.

Like, whoa.

That's- Wow, whoa. That man loves his daughter.

Wow, whoa. Yeah. Obviously, in the 50 years since Patty's abduction, mental health professionals and law enforcement have come a long way. We've learned a lot about how a person can basically end up brainwashed in a pretty short amount of time. Oh, yeah.

Radicalization can happen pretty fucking quick if it's intense enough.

And you know she's sitting in a closet for a month, and then she's around all of these people who are her, and she's not talking to any outside sources, and it's just 24/7.

Echo chamber of what they want her to hear. And they're endearing themselves to her, getting on a level, talking about literature and art with her. That's really going to cement it right there.

Absolutely. Now we know that she was most likely brainwashed. But in 1974, the idea that in just two months, somebody could trade in their own beliefs and morality and join in on a terrorist organization seemed impossible. People were like, What? No, no way.

No, of course not.

Patty clearly stated in her message, though, she said, I have never been forced to say anything on tape, nor have I been brainwashed, drugged, tortured, hypnotized, or in any way confused. It's me the way I want it, the way I see it.

I mean, that's not all true. You were held in a closet for a little while.

Yeah, exactly. I would call that torture.

I don't think we should say that. It's all been great.

I would probably think that you were confused when you first got there.

Yeah, I would say that's pretty confusing. Especially since they were keeping a blindfold on you and not letting you see where you were.

And you were talking to. Held in near total darkness for a long number of days.

That's pretty confusing.

Yeah.

And torturous, I would think.

In my book? Yeah. Everybody has different books.

Yeah.

I think you and I seem to have similar books.

Yeah, we have similar books, I think.

So we can agree on that.

You can absolutely have your own book.

I think her book might have been different back then. Yeah, that's fine. I also think she was brainwashed, personally. But the Hearst and the FBI were convinced, much like myself, that Patty had been brainwashed into adopting the SLA's mission statement, and that once she was free from their grip, she could finally realize the error of her ways.

But it would probably take some time.

If you know anything about this story, that's super duper correct. Yeah. So astute, Elaina. Yeah.

So you don't just snap out of that.

She sure didn't. And we're going to talk about that still. We're not done yet.

We're not done.

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Juggling family and work. You know, it's not the easiest. I need something I'm flexible, and Care Plus gives me that. Kids are back at school, I'm on the go, but I want a job that's rewarding too, you know? Helping people, bringing a smile to their face. Care Plus makes that possible.

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Care with a K, care with a difference. It wasn't just the family and just the investigators that were very much caught off guard by Patty's statement and her quote, unquote, decision to join the SLA. Her friends and her fiancé were also pretty shocked at the news of Tanya.

Yeah, I mean, that would be shocking.

Her newfound personality and- Totally. Self. Yeah. According to friends, up to until her kidnapping, Patty, quote, would have been totally bored by something like the SLA. Totally bored. They said she, quote, intensely disliked rhetoric and stratency, especially in women, and had no sympathy for true believers.

Oh, my God. That's actually funny.

I just picture Emily Gilmore.

Yeah, that really is.

Don't radicalize me.

I'm bored by that. Fuck that. Don't radicalize me. Gross.

I dislike especially in women.

I have no sympathy for that.

Yeah. But in fact, as far as her friends and her fiance knew, she didn't even read the newspaper and wasn't even particularly interested in politics at all, especially not the The politics of Bolivia and Cuba.

Which also makes her a perfect subject for radicalization. She's got nothing. She's uninformed as fuck. When someone has nothing, no foundation for something, You get to build the foundation, and then you get to build the whole house. Do you know how hard it is to knock down a house and the foundation?

When you also build it with shock and awe, and that's how you get somebody in. Exactly. Tell them all these big, scary You build that foundation strong. Yeah, exactly. That's why we should all be educated in politics, just saying. Years later, when she published her own account of the abduction and her time spent in captivity, Patty detailed her full experience, and it put a lot of things into context, and it put her actions in a very different light. In addition to the long conversations where she learned about and occasionally absorbed the SLA's philosophies, there were other terrible couple awful things that she went through during her time there, including coerced or forced sex, aka rape, with at least two of the men in the group. Yeah, that means it differently. Exactly. She had countless menacing interactions with Donald DeFreeze which I can only imagine were beyond terrifying. But at that time, all the press and the public had to go by was what Patty and the others were saying in their communications. Those statements at that time were pretty direct because she had been brainwashed. Yeah. Whether anybody believed that she was being held against her will or not, she wasn't captive at this point.

And by mid-april, there wouldn't be much room left to doubt that. On the morning of April 15th, Vincent Greenley, a security officer at a bank in San Francisco, had just unlocked the doors to the bank for the day, and he never even took notice of the small group of hippies standing around their car across the street.

Oh, no.

It was only about 45 minutes later that he saw them as is Donald DeFreeze, Patty Hearst, Nancy Lynn, Patricia Soltisik, and Camilla Hall rushed into the bank with guns drawn.

So now she's in it.

She's in it. Defreeze pointed his gun around the room and at all 18 members in the branch while he yelled to them, This is a holdup, the first motherfucker who don't lay down on the floor gets shot in the head.

Holy shit.

Yeah. Obviously not wanting to get hurt. All the employees hit the fucking deck and laid face down. But upstairs on the second floor, the bank manager, Jim Smith, was there, and he heard all this fucking wild ass noise. So he flipped on the switch that turns the security cameras on.

That's where you get those pictures. Yeah. Google Patty Hearst.

Yeah, you You know? Yeah. So with Nancy Linn and Patty Hearst controlling the crowd, the others jumped to the counter and started filling their bags with cash from the drawers. Just when they thought they had everything under control, though, two new customers entered the bank completely unaware of what What was going on? Caught off guard by their arrival, Nancy ling swung around and just fired wildly in their direction. What the fuck? She hit one of the men in the hand and the other in his rear.

Oh, my God.

And sent them scurrying back out the door toward the sidewalk. They just come into the bank. Yeah, so she just shot two people. Cool. Despite Nancy's panic and wild firing, though, Patty seemed to be exhilarated by the experience and was literally wielding machine gun in full view of the security camera, which, like you just said, that single now iconic image of Patty carrying a machine gun would come to represent the entire story in the minds of America for decades to come, even now. People look at that and are like, Oh.

That's it. Yeah.

Definitely Google that picture if you haven't seen it. It's insane. After cleaning up the drawers of cash, which back then was $10,660 in total. The group made their way toward the door with Patty shouting, This is Tanya, Patty Hearst, as they rushed outside of the bank.

That's just dumb. Yeah. I'd be real with you. I'd be like, Well, that was stupid. That was a dumb way to end it.

It was super dumb. Outside, four other SLA members were waiting in the car. They all piled in, and they fled the scene back in the direction of their safe house. Later that afternoon, the press broke the story of the bank robbery, obviously, but there was no mention of Patty just yet. Instead, police focused on the organization and the professionalism of the robbers and all that. But the next morning, more news reports of the robbery started hitting, and this time, there wasn't a lot of attempt to minimize Patty's involvement and the likely motive behind the robbery. Captain Mortimer McEnry.

Yeah.

Everybody say that with me. One, two, three. Mortimer McEnry.

Yes, correct.

His only choice in life was to become a police captain or the President of the United States.

Something very impressive.

Mortimer is a great first name. Mortimer. It also makes me think of Tindsay Mortimer.

There you go. Another important character.

It's two ends of the spectrum. Yeah, it is. Anyway, Mortimer McHenri told the press, We are discussing the possibility very thoroughly that this was a stage job to show off Patty Hearst as a member of their ranks.

No, that makes sense. I can understand why they would think that.

Yeah, it probably was a good amount of the motive.

Why would they put her in that if they didn't want to show her off? Exactly.

Also, why would she scream? I was just going to say. It was me, Patty Hearst, you all.

What up, you all? Patty Hearst. Tanya in the house.

She just leaves. We got Patty Hearst on the track. Forget London.

Dude, that just makes me think of... I can always bring it back to TV or a movie. Parks and Rec. Parks and Rec. When the DJ blunts and he's like, Tom Haverford is in the building Patty Hearst is in the building.

In the building. Now she's leaving. That's what I felt like.

Dead? That's what I was like, That's dumb. No, it really was. Not dumb as in, Oh, no, you're going to get caught. It's like, No, it's just dumb.

That's just a dumb thing to say. I don't like that. Stop it.

Hey, so I hate that.

It's tomfoolery. It is. It's buffoonery.

Nonsense.

Ridiculousness. Ridiculous. So investigators were willing to acknowledge that Patty was in the bank at the time of the robbery, but they still weren't willing rule out the possibility that she still might have been there against her will. To back that up, it's a good point, an FBI agent pointed out that in the security camera footage, there's somebody right behind her holding a gun. There sure is.

It's like they've cropped. A lot of times you'll see that cropped photo of just her. Standing there right behind her in the full picture is a person in full get up using a gun.

I'm pretty sure that's actually Donald DeFreeze. It's the leader of the SLA.

Yeah, and the one that scared the shit out of her the most.

Exactly. But regardless, the US attorney, James Browning, told the press if she was involved and the investigation shows that we're going to charge her as a bank robber.

I mean, yeah.

Which, yeah, you were there.

Of course.

Until that point, the only evidence that anybody had that Patty joined the SLA was her own voice on those recordings, indicating as much. But the camera footage from the bank was starting to make things harder for her friends and family. Even they were starting to wonder if she had really ingratiated herself into a terroristic group or a terrorist Excuse me. Randolph Hearst said, It's something that I think is one of the most vicious things I have ever seen or ever had happened to me.

Damn. That's so gut-wrenching.

Imagine, and again, we're going to go through this, your daughter's been held captive for 60 days. You think you're getting her back. She says, No, I've joined this army. My name's Tanya now. Then you see her holding a fucking machine gun in the middle. In full, revolutionary garb, holding up a bank. Yeah.

Then she leaves screaming, proudly that she's Tanya. Dj Blunt is in the building. Direct quote. The way he said that, for him to say, I think it's one of the most vicious things that he those things I have ever seen or ever had happened to me. That is seeing your child like that after you've been trying so hard for months and just devastated that they've been kidnapped, wondering what they're going through, trying to get them back. And then you see them like that, that must just be like, what do you even do? Because that's just- How do you even grieve that?

Well, that's the thing. It's like you think of two possible outcomes when I'm sure you think of two possible outcomes when your kid is kidnapped. One, you're going to get them back, hopefully, or two, unfortunately, they will be killed. You never have it on your fucking bingo card that they're going to join a terrorist organization.

Technically.

They'll be free, quote, unquote, but become a part of this horrible thing. Yeah.

Like, being indoctrinated into this awful situation.

I'm sure nobody ever saw that coming. No. But in the days that followed, the FBI released wanted posters featuring photos of everybody who was involved in the bank robbery. But they were clear that unlike the others who were wanted for armed robbery, Patty was simply considered a material witness at that time. Between the news of the robbery, though, and the circulation of the posters, the public was starting to question the official narrative that Patty had been brainwashed and was being held against her will.

Yeah, I get why it's a little hard to take.

You see somebody holding a machine gun in the middle of a bank robbery? Absolutely. Remember, that's not really something people were seeing all the time back then.

No, exactly.

So on April 20th, honestly, that's not really something we see all the time now.

Yeah, not bank robberies.

Not. Well, an heiress is being kidnapped.

No, we don't see that a lot.

Joining in on terrorist organizations. That's not common.

No, for sure. No.

I think we can all say that with Gusto. So on April 24th, Patty herself chimed in on the question of her participation... Participation. Participation. Of her participation in the activities in yet another recording.

What did she have to say about her participation?

Her participation? She said, About my participation.

About my participation.

She's like, Greatings to the people. This is Tanya. On April 15th, my camarades and I expropriated- It's the camarades for me. One thing about me is that I just I think the word camarades is wild.

Well, that's the camarades for me. Then I'm like, whoa.

What's going on here? She's like, Friends, loved ones, honor guest, camarades.

When she said a former comrade, I was like, oh, no.

Where are we? Because she's using it in the soldier term.

It's not feeling great.

Not like my good girl Judy.

My camaraderie. Like Sabrina Carpenter.

Yes. Exactly. Anyway, she said, On April 15th, my camarades and I expropriated $10,660 and two cents. From the sunset branch of Hibernia Bank, I was positioned so that I could hold the customers and bank personnel who were on the floor. My gun was loaded, and at no time did any of my camarades intentionally point their guns at me. I am obviously alive and well. As for being brainwashed, the idea is ridiculous to the point of being beyond belief. It's really not.

I don't know about that.

To those people who still believe that I am brainwashed or dead, I see no reason to further defend my position. I am a soldier in the People's Army. Patria Omerte, then Sara Mose, which is the whole thing that she said earlier.

Then she said, Patty Hearst is leaving the building.

She said, DJ Blunt's on the track. It's never going to get it. It's not. No. So even still with that, there was still debate about whether or not she was willing to be part of this because this is a multi-layered onion here that I don't think will ever really be understood because it's like, you can be brainwashed and still believe- That you're not.

In the brainwashing. You can still believe in... That's what brainwashing is all about. It's making you believe that you believe the things that they want you to believe, which is brainwashing. It's a cult. Look it up. So it's all a vicious cycle of like, yeah, she could be brainwashed and acting completely outside of herself, or she could be brainwashed She's been acting willfully because she believes the things she's been brainwashed by. Exactly. So there's so many different levels here.

It's an onion. It's an onion. It really is an onion.

That it's like, this is by no means, in my personal opinion, a black and white No. Situation that we can just be like, No, she was acting like this, and that's why. I think there's so many things going on here.

To bring it back to the early days of Morbid, it's an evil onion.

It is an evil onion. This whole thing- It's one of the most evil onions. Is a very evil onion.

People were like, I don't know what's going on here. Brainwashed, no. Valid. Brainwashed, yes. Brainwashed, brainwashed, I don't know. But her parents were still unconvinced, and they argued that she was suffering the effects of, quote, prolonged stress, fatigue, and demoralization.

Which I think they are very valid in that.

And also they know their daughter.

That's the thing. And also, yeah, prolonged stress, lack of sleep, and demoralization, being held in a closet, being raped. That'll fuck you up. That'll do it. So it's like They are 100% correct in that assertion.

But by mid-May, there would no longer be any doubt. And that we're going to talk about in part three. Fuck. We're going to talk about the events of mid-May in part three.

This is a very interesting case. I knew the name Patty Hearst. I knew the general idea that there's a Stockholm syndrome-y vibe to this.

I didn't know all the details.

I had no idea. I had never read further into it. I hadn't I'm now admonishing myself for not reading further into it. Well, don't. This is too interesting. I know. I'm finding it out in the best way possible.

Oh, my God. I love that.

This is very interesting.

It really is.

And wow, I can't wait to see what happens next.

Stay tuned for part three. Go get your tickets for the second Morbid Show. Go get your tickets. The second Morbid Show. Send us your teacher list. We're going to do our best to work on those.

Go get the Butcher Game. It's out now. You can it in your pocket. You can. I demonstrated. She literally did.

It's pretty great. She put it in her pants. You should put it in your pockets.

But you'll want to keep up with the story because you know? Because. You want to keep up with that story.

You know that TikTok, Tron. You know that TikTok, Tron right now? That everybody's like, Why do you write like you're running all the time? Elaina writes like she's running all the time.

Yeah, we need to do that, Tron.

I know I'd like to. You could be Alexander Hamilton. Yeah. I'll be Eliza.

Eliza. Okay.

So we hope you keep listening. We hope you.

Keep it weird.

Keep it as weird as us. We're so weird. Yeah.

We're so weird.

We're so weird. We're so random. Bye.

Juggling family and work, it's not the easiest. I need something flexible, and Care Plus gives me that. Kids are back at school, I'm on the go, but I want a job that's rewarding too. Helping people, bringing a smile to their face. Careplus makes that possible.

For flexible roles that suit your life, join our healthcare and social care teams at careplus.

Ie. Care Plus.

Together we can care for more.

Care with a K, care with a difference.