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a defining moment, an era's last gasp. >> the granddaughter of william randolph hearst was kidnapped. >> patty hearst, heiress of one of america's richest families grabbed by a strange guerilla band. >> m, dad, i'm okay. >> she turned into tanya the terrorist. a gun toting bank robber.

>> i heard he say shoot the first s.o.b. that moved. >> the mystery still lingers, what turns an heiress into a revolutionary. >> i thought, what have i done. >> we relive the fiery siege. and the dramatic capture. >> we arrested patty hearst. "kidnapped heiress, patty hearst story." >> good evening. you probably remember the story of patty hearst the newspaper heiress who was kidnapped by terrorists and proclaimed herself one of them. this story held the nation spell bound for nearly two years this past spring 35 years later, the last member of the group that kidnapped patty hearst was released from jail. the final chapter of a story

that helped define an era. >> he was the rupert murdoch of his day, a media baron who made millions marketing crime, scandal and crisis. he was so rich he built this castle as a monument to his vanity, so iconic his life story inspired the movie "citizen kane." when william randolph hearst died in 15951 he left future general races of hearsts set for life, safely cushioned in the bubble of their birthright, on february 4, 1974, that bubble burst. >> in berkeley, california, last night the granddaughter of william randolph hearst was abducted by two men and a girl in a bizarre kidnapping. >> it was the kind of story that old man hearst would have loved but few who watched it unfold 35 years ago would have guessed that instead of ransom, these

kidnappers wanted attention for their cause even if they weren't quite sure exactly what that cause was. >> i heard her pleading, please, no, not me. >> patty hearst was a 19-year-old college student the third of five daughters born to randolph and catherine hearst, privately schled and groomed for a life of leisure. she had a rebellious streak. she frequently clashed with her mother and dismayed both parents when at 16 she started dating her 23-year-old math tutor. by the time she was 18, patty and steve were living together here in berkeley. they planned to marry that june. then everything changed. >> i heard the gunshots and i looked out the window and all i saw were the sparks of the gun going off.

>> in a 1997 interview with "dateline" pat kbty recalled it began with a knock on the door. >> there was a person standing there. i had moved into the kitchen. they hit a car downstairs and could they use the phone and with that people burst into the apartment. >> forced to the floor, patty was gagged will her fiance s beaten with a wine bottle. >> they started firing machine guns. i was blindfolded. i could hear the neighbors screaming. >> stuffed into the trunk of a car, patty hearst was b whisked away. >> i was only spoken to occasionally. i was questioned by them continually. >> for randolph hearst, owner of "the san francisco examiner"

questions were to become routine. >> we don't know who they are or when we'll hear from them. >> a few days later they did. a tape recording was dropped off at a local radio station. >> mom, dad, i'm okay. i had a few scrapes and stuff and they washed them up. i think it was a way of confirming that i was alive. i'm with a combat unit that's armed with automatic weapons and and there's no way i will be released until they let me go. >> the next voice was that of a man who called himself general field marshall sin q. >> whatever happens to your daughter is your responsibility and the authorities you

represent. >> most people had never heard of sin q or the shadowy group he claimed to lead. >> the kidnappers are members of the simbian east liberation army. >> there was a pathetic mediocre sort of after spasm of the best part of the '60s. >> blackburn's introduction to the sla was months earlier. it was november 6, 1973 when the then unknown sla committed its first terrorist attack. >> the end of a long day, we walked down these stairs. i noticed a couple of people

leaning against the wall. >> walking with blackburn that night was his friend, marcus foster. >> then it was here that i heard the shots going off. >> foster was oakland's popular superintendent of schools, blackburn, his chief deputy. >> i saw two guys crouched firing pistols. i could see the flash. >> marcus foster was killed instantly then a load of buck shot hit blackburn in the back. you kept this coat all these years? >> oh yeah. 24 entrance and exit holes. i have a lot of shrapnelin me, liver and kidney damage. >> the sla said foster had been marked for death because he was la lacky for the ruling class, blackburn was claimed to be a secret cia agent >> the whole thing was fantasy thinking.

they thought by killing a prominent african-american educator about whom they knew nothing would be like striking a match of revolionary truth. >> if that was the intent, it backfired. the foster killing was roundly deplored even by those on the left the sla hoped to inspire. when two sla soldiers were arrested for the foster killing the sla decided to seize patty hearst in hopes to arrange a prisoner exchange. >> authorities feel there are probably no more than a dozen members in the sla and most appear to be women. >> all of this was media dessert. >> the sla seemed determined their rev nutrition would be televised. their communiques featuring the

voice of their hostage always made headlines. >> i am alive. it is depressing to hear people talk about me like i'm dead. >> afraid patty might be hurt in a shootout, randolph hearst wanted to negotiate directly with the kidnappers. >> we have no desire to take revenge on anybody if she's rerntued unharmed. >> ten days after her kidnapping he learned how expensive that woud be. >> patricia hearst has sent her parents a message and her captors a unique and high-priced ransom note. >> they demanded the hearsts feed california's poor. that would cost millions. patty's father was desperate. >> i just want these people to know and the members of the sla i'm going to do everything in my power to set up the type of program they're talking about.

>> randolph hearst may have had the will and the wallet, but he didn't have a way to make it all work. the food program he launched a few days later was an expensive disaster. it would not be the last time the hearsts were shown there were limits to what even their money could buy. coming up -- the hearsts are hit with stunning news. >> greetings to the people. this is tanya. >> patty has become tanya, the urban revolutionary. when "the patty hearst story" continues. tu when you first smell the incredible scent of gain laundry detergent, time stops. ( ♪ ) your heart races. ( ♪ ) your eyes close. ( ♪ )

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superstitious in 1974 to believe the country was cursed. ♪ versuperstitious >> gas lines wrap around the block, truckers were on strike and the president was under siege. >> get nixon out! >> now on top of all of that, the news from california was the kidnappers who snatched a newspaper heiress were demanding that her father, one of

california's richest men, feed thousands of the state's poorest people. the first of the hearst family food giveaways was chaotic. in some places near riots broke out. >> i hate to take advantage what happened to a young lady. >> me, too. >> but my children need food like anybody else's kids. >> randolph hearst committed $2 million to the program the sla was unimpressed. >> this amount is not at all a good faith gesture but an act of throwing a few crumbs to the people. >> during this time patty says she was being kept blindfolded in a closet, terrified and forced to have sex with sla men. >> if you're going to break somebody down you clearly use everything that's at your disposa and obviously sexual molestation is a really powerful way to attack a woman. >> frantic, randolph hearst

asked hardened criminals to help him contact the sla but nothing worked, not even a $4 million ransom offer. then in early april after weeks of silence the sla released a stunning new recording. this one also had patty's voice on it. this time the script had changed dramatically. >> the choice of being released in a safe area or joining the forces of the sim bee niese liberation army and fighting for my freedom. >> not only that but patty said she had a new sla name. >> i have been given the name tanya after a comrade who died in bolivia for the people of boliv bolivia. >> strange stuff even by san francisco standards.

but the sim bee niese liberation army was nothing if not strange. formed in the fall of 1973, the sla seemed to be made out of contradictory elements left over from the 1960s. they emerged from the anti-war movement yet promoted a military image. half its members were ardent feminists yet the men dominated. they embraced black dom nancy yet only their leader sin q was black. the logo was a fierce seven-headed cobra, the symbolism was murky. >> i had to memorize what each one of the heads of the seven-headed cobra meant. of course, later on i realize he had lifted that from the kwanza celebration. >> how patty hearst transitioned

from terrified kidnap victim to gun toting terrorist echos across the decades? was she brainwashed? was she willing? or did the sla liberate her from the cloistered life of an heiress. >> i think most people would like to know whether we believe patty is a member of the sla or not. personally, i don't believe it. >> it did seem hard to believe but two weeks after allegedly joining the sla tanya made her debut. the hibernia bank in san francisco had just opened when armed bandits burst through the front door announcing a holdup and shouting that they were the sla. front and center were sin q wearing the floppy hat and the heiress formerly known as patty. >> i heard her say she would shoot the first s.o.b. that

moved or dig anything out of line. >> the bank security photos hit the nation like a bolt of lightning. the hearsts insisted patty was still a victim. look at the photos. look at the guns pointed at patty. but nine days later came a new sla recording. >> greetings to the people. this is tanya. >> and tanya wanted to set the record straight. >> my gun was loaded and at no time did any of my comrades intentionally point their guns at me. as for being brainwashed, the idea is ridiculous to the point of being beyond belief. >> by now the police heat in san francisco was so intense that general field marshall sin q decided to move his tiny army south to los angeles. for six of them l.a. would literally be the end of the road. and for one teenager, it would be a wild ride.

>> he said this is tanya. i said, man, my friends aren't going to

in may, 1974, the nine-member sim bee niese liberation army rolled into los angeles looking for a place to hide. it was here this bizarre story took its strangest turn. >> just got done eating dinner and i had a van for sale. all of a sudden there is a knock at the door and a woman wanting to test drive my van. >> tom matthews was a high school senior that spring. he didn't recognize that woman on his doorstep.

he thought nothing of tossing her the keys and climbing in the passenger seat. >> we went one block and she asked if two friends could come along? i was easy going and i said sure. >> he said when the man approached the van he noticed a bulge. >> he opened up hi coat and he had a machine gun. he said he was with the sla and they needed to borrow my van. >> it was the beginning of a wild night for young tom matthews. >> he said as long as i didn't do anything flaky, they wouldn't hurt me. my response was as long as i don't get shot i don't care what happens. >> tom says the woman who they just picked up sat down beside him. >> did you know who she was? >> my first was no.

he said this is tanya. i knew that was her sla name. i said, man, my friends aren't going to believe this. it set the tone for the evening. >> the man was bill harris. the woman who knocked on tom's door was harris' wife emily. >> at the time i just did not feel threatened at all. i had come to realize how lucky i am. >> what tom didn't know is bill harris had been caught shoplifting at a nearby sporting goods stort. patty's depiction is in the 1988 film based on her book. patty sees the harris' scuffling with store employees and sprays the store front with gun fire enabling the harrises to escape. >> i did what we rehearsed. i just thought, what have i

done? >> patty now says that was a mistake, a conditioned response. tom matthews says at the time patty said just the opposite. >> she described how proud she was to see her, as i said, she called them comrades, get up off the pavement and come running to the van she was in. >> a clean getaway except for the handcuffs that still dang ld from bill harris' wrists. >> so the first order of business was to get his handcuffs off of him. so we stopped at a store so they could buy a hacksaw. >> while cutting the handcuff from harris' hands tom says he and the sla talked about everything from robbing banks to stealing bases. >> they saw i had a baseball bat in the back of my van. i told them i had a championship

baseball game the next day. >> tom said the urban guerillas showed them how to handle one of their guns. >> i asked them why they robbed the hibernia bank. they said they were fighting against the united states government and needed money. patty chimed into a long dissertation about how she was a willing participant in the bank robbery. >> the terrorists treated him to a double feature at a drive-in theater where they were expecting to link up with the other sla. >> the other group didn't show up. >> back in lynnwood, tom's father and his girlfriend susan who had come by to see tom were worried sick. after all, how long could a test drive take? >> at 9:30 i actually thought he

might be, you know, knocked in the head dead or something because this just wasn't like him. >> when he heard police suspected the sla in that shootout at a nearby sporting goods store tom's dad had a hunch they might be behind his son's disappearance. >> so he called the lynnwood police department and said my son was abducted by the sla. >> the police thought there was nothing to it? >> no. they giggled at his dad. they said call back in 24 hours. he is an 18-year-old kid. he is probably out running around. >> tom says just after sun rise his new sla friends hijacked another car and tossed him the keys to his van. after 12 hours with the most notorious gang the teenager was free to go. >> he came in at 7:00 in the

morning. he goes, hi, and smiles. we were nothing but tears and hysterical when we saw him. >> tom told most of his story to the police and fbi that morning, but he deliberately left out one important detail. >> i did not tell them patty was in the van at first. >> why not? >> my thinking is they didn't do anything -- they didn't harm me and if somebody at that point in time said would you want us to prosecute these people for what they did to you, i would say no. >> once word got out reporters raced totom's baseball game hoping for a comment but tom wasn't talking. by the time the game was over the spotlight had moved on. >> there are more police now. this place is filling up with police. >> a bigger story was unfolding across town. >> of course, the obvious conclusion is the los angeles police have, indeed, found the nesting place of the sim bee niese liberation army. >> coming up, a fiery

confrontation is televised live. >> they got none of the suspects out of the house. >> when "the patty hearst story" continues. geico'been saving people money on car insurance for over 70 years. and who doesn't want value for their dollar? been true since the day i made my first dollar. where is that dollar? i got it out to show you... uhh... was it rather old and wrinkly? yeah, you saw it? umm fancy a crisp? geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. supports your health in 4 ways. it helps your natural cleansing process. helps lower cholesterol. promotes overall well-being. and provides a good source of natural fiber.

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cease fire. >> the shootout exploded across television screens in southern california like a roman candle. >> that's bad. that's bad. >> the events that led to this urban alamo began the day before when patty hearst rescued two sla comrades from arrest by shooting up this sporting goods store. police found evidence in the van they'd been driving that eventually led them here. after surrounding the sla house with overwhelming firepower, police ordered even inside to surrender. when the sla responded with gun fire, police unleashed everything they had.

>> doesn't seem possible that anybody could now be exchanging fire with the police. that target has taken so much fire. >> in all the lapd fired 9,000 rounds of ammunition into the sla hideout. eventually the house caught fire and burned to the ground. >> apparently they got none of the suspects out of the house. >> among those watching was tom matthews who spent the previous night as a hostage of patty hearst and her sla comrades bill and emily harris. >> i thought they were most likely in there. >> as tom watched he remembered something bill harris had told him less than 24 hours earlier. >> he told me if the police knew they were in the van the police would have just levelled the van and wouldn't have cared if i was in there or who else was in there. >> six charred bodies were pulled from the smoking ruins.

what no one knew was whether patty hearst was one of them. >> everybody thought that i was inside the house. >> it turns out patty and the harrises were spectators like everyone else unable to link up with the rest of their gang they checked into a hotel room near disney land and turned on the tv. >> we saw police attacking the house. i was basically imagining that was what was going to happen to me. clearly, everyone thought i was there. >> when dental records revealed patty was not among the dead her parents told the press they feared the sla might now kill her in retaliation. >> i knew i needed to tell the fbi that she was in the van and was a willing participant. i didn't want them to think their daughter was going to be assassinated. she was one of them. >> after hearing tom's story the fbi flew the teenagerto san

francisco to testify in front of a grand jury investigating the hibernia bank robbery. >> the next day after i testified was 19 counts against patty hearst. my testimony turned her from a victim to a fugitive. >> the sla was an army of just three. their very survival depended on fo finding some friendly faces. a few hundred sympathizers held a rally for the sla dead. >> thank you, willie. >> a close friend of one othe dead sla soldiers helped organize the event. >> sla soldiers, although i know it is not necessary to say, i'm with you and we are with you. >> a few days after the memorial rally in berkeley the sla released another communique. >> death to the fascist insect

that preys upon the life of the people. >> like all the others, this one was full of defiant bluster. but this time when patty hearst's voice was heard. >> greetings to the people. this is tanya. >> a veil seemed to lift and reveal a bitf the humana dram behind the bravado. tanya spoke movingly of her lost comrades and lovingly of one in particular. >> cujo was thedr gentlest most beautiful man i had ever known. neither cujo nor i loved another individual the way we loved each other. >> the only man other than the leader cinque to die in the shootout. >> i was ripped off by the pigs when they murdered cujo. >> after the shootout patty and the harrises were hunted, homeless and broke.

>> police were moving from stakeout to stakeout. >> they found a benefactor in a writer who wanted to write a book about the sla. with his help patty and the harrises hit the road. it would be months before they were heard from again. and when they were, the consequences were deadly. >> i saw mrs. oswald laying t aren i hgeoon pl of blood. >> the sla resurfaces when "dateline" continues. [ rooster crow ] it affects your enti day. to get a good night's sleep, try 2-layer ambien cr. the first layer dissolves quickly... to help you fall asleep. and unlike other sleep aids, a second dissolves slowly to help you stay asleep. when taking ambien cr, don't drive or operate machinery. sleepwalking, and eating or driving... while not fully awake with memory loss for the event... as well as abnormal behaviors... such as being more outgoing or aggressive than normal, confusion, agitation and hallucinations may occur.

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there is still fire coming out of the house. >> after the shootout in los angeles, patty hearst and bill and emily harris seemed to be simultaneously nowhere and everywhere. >> we've heard her voice she was every place, from one end of the country to the other, canada, south america, everywhere else. >> in the summer of 1974 america was a nation transfixed by high political drama. >> therefore, i shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. >> but for three sla refugees, seeking asylum far from california, it was a season in the sun.

>> to get them separately across country. they drive posing as middle class kids on a tennis vacation. >> howard cohen wrote for "rolling stone" at the time. cohen and his co-author david weir were the first to get patty's story life on the run with 'the harrises. >> we were mingling and mixing with people who were simp threat toik the sla which was mainly how we got to story. >> the keys to the sla's survival at los angeles were the scotts, jack and his wife micky. jack scott hoped to write a book about the sla. >> the price that the scotts exact from these sla fugitives is that they would lay down their gun for that period because the scotts don't want to end up in a shootout. >> the scotts rented this

pennsylvania farmhouse until the heat in california died down lt. >> idyllic summer in pennsylvania. they hole up there for the months of july and august. the scotts are tired of them and the book idea has fallen through. >> if ever there was a time when patty hearst could have escaped and gone home, the summer of '74 would seem to have been it. by the time police learned that this farmhouse outside scranton, pennsylvania, had been the sla's summer playground, the trio was long gone. >> one of my men had heard rumors that these people were not entirely kosher. they were supposedly on the hippie type. >> the trail may have gone stone cold but the pocket sized

symbionese liberation army was still on the march and headed west. >> bill harris is the general with an army of two, two women, emily his wife and patty. >> calls hmself general tico. >> calls himself general tico. >> and no one laughed? >> yeah. >> it seems pretty preposterous. >> right. ♪ some people call me the space cowboy ♪ >> by the fall of 1974 patty hearst and the harrises were back in california and settled in sacramento where two sla soldiers were going to go on trial for the murder of oakland school superintendent marcus foster. with half a dozen new troops recruited from berkeley's radical fringe, the sla rearmed and resumed what they called combat operations. >> they busted in both doors like this and were screaming at the top of their lungs, you

[ bleep ]. this i a bank robbery and we're going to [ bleep ] kill you. >> becky fisher was a 19-year-old bank teller that april morning in 1975. >> and instantly there was a loud blast which just took us all by surprise. >> that sound was a shotgun blast ripping through the midsection of a bank customer. as the 42-year-old mother of four crumpled to the floor, two masked men scrambled through the teller windows. >> a masked man all in black with a gun in my stomach yelling at me. >> saying? >> open your drawer or i'm going to [ bleep ] kill you. i was shaking trying to find the right key to get it into the lock. finally got it open. >> becky says everyone was told to lie face down or die. in a matter of minutes the robbers were gone. >> i walked over to my teller

window and looked into the lobby and i saw mrs. osbal laying there in a huge pool of floor on the lobby floor. >> becky had no way of knowing two of those masked bandits were women. nor did she know the getaway car had been driven by patty hearst. she cldn't seemed to shake those five minutes ofterror. >> it ruined my life. changed it. >> the murder changed the sla. members began openly challenging bill harris' leadership. by the time the group returned to saufbs in the fasan francisc, general tico's army was falling up. >> how the fbi caught up with tanya. >> patty hearst is in the hands

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♪ fame >> it was the kind of redefining moment of 1974. this was a moment that people definitely remember. >> on september 17, 1975, this incredible story took its final twist. >> patty hearst, dedicated revolutionary tanya is in the hands of federal authorities in san francisco, california. >> the break came when fbi agents discovered the harrises living at this safe house and patty hearst living at this one. >> less than 30 minutes ago we arrested patty hearst at 625 morse in the outer mission district. >> at first patty was still tanya, the defiant sla soldier. >> patty hearst listed her occupation as urban guerilla. >> i wil speak to you after 3:00. >> an attorney hired by the

hearsts spoke with patty soon after her arrest. >> she struck me as an sla advocate. >> not some frytenightened litt girl? >> no. she said she was one of them. >> her parents visited her in jail. >> we had a conversation about family matters. >> i'll just tell you my politics are different from way back when. >> right. >> this creates problems for me in terms of a defense. >> when i was first arrested i was still a real mess. i said a lot of crazy things. >> booked on bank robbery charges patty faced serious prison time but terrence haloman

had a theory. >> my defense was involuntary intoxication. she had been given drugs along with the treatment that they gave her the terrible treatment in the clos and let out and converted to their ideology. and that was the truth of what happened and this was a valid defense. >> there was just one problem. the hearst family wouldn't hear of it. >> they didn't want drugs involved in the thing. >> they wanted her under duress. i didn't want to do any of it. >> duress and brainwashing. i kept telling them that is not a defense. >> they kept saying, i don't care? >> they didn't agree with me. >> they hired a family who did agree with them. the biggest legal brand name money could by. f. lee bailey.

>> in court patty recanted everything she said and done as tanya claiming after spending two nonts a closet her mind was no longer her own. >> i couldn't think thoughts for myself anymore. because i had been so programmed. >> according to patty her taped communiques were scripted and delivereunder duress. remember the movg tribute to her supposed lover cujo? >> wve never loved an individua the y we loved each other. >> i court she disavowed that as well. >> he is just as bad as any of the rest of them. i think it is insulting to anyone who has ever been raped to suggest that could turn into a seduction and a love affair afterward. it is outrageous. >> in the end, the jury didn't buy the brainwashing defense and

patty was convicted of bank robbery. the guilty verdict dominated headlines around the world. in 1997 patty told "dateline" her conviction had more to do with the times than with the crimes. >> there was so much anger directed at me. i think it came from so many other places. it came from the war in vietnam. it came from watergate. the whole '60s generation that disappointed themselves. i wouldn't be charged today. people don't charge victims for the crimes committed as the victim of their canned nappers. >> president jimmy carter commuted her sentence in 1979. for patty that felt like an exoneration. >> right there in the document he states if not for the circumstances of the kidnapping, none of these crimes would have been committed. he didn't have a problem with

it. anyone else from this point on, you know, get a new hobby. >> shortly after her release patty married her body guard bernard shaw. they settled in connecticut and raised two daughters. in 2001, patty received a presidential pardon for crimes committed by her alter ego tanya. >> it is a part of my life and, you know, i realize that there will always be a curiosity about it. >> the granddaughter of william randolph hearst -- >> patricia hearst, kidnapped newspaper heiress will always co before that name. >> in 2002, former members of the sla were reunited statin a sacramento courtroom charged with the murder. some had served prison time and rebuilt their lives. cathy solea had spent decades

living under assumed names before being caught. all pleaded guilty to second degree murder in exchange for reduced sentences. >> they had no right to do any of this and afebt fect in a bad so many people's lives. >> the last sla member was released from jail this spring formally closing the book. >> exempt for the fact they kidnapped a newspaper heiress they would prably be remembered as thugs and misguided white southernite kids who killed a superintendent of schools. >> i basically don't think about them anymore. the only exception is marcus is always with me. >> tom matthews. the teenager who spent a night riding around with america's most wanted fugitive is today a grandfather.

he married his high school girlfriend and moved to kansas. would you like to meet patty hearst? >> i would definitely like to see patty again someday. >> and say what? >> i don't know where the conversation would go. i would like to sit and meet with her and see what her thoughts were. it is a big piece of history. >> it is the history of a time not so long ago when a band of domestic terrorists used guns and guts to attract the world's attention only to discover that they had nothing to say that anyone else wanted to hear. >> there is more at-bat patty hearst case including extended excerpts from her "dateline" interview on dateline.msnbc.com.