Patricia Campbell Hearst

Patricia Campbell Hearst

Patricia Campbell Hearst was born on February 20th, 1954 and is currently 72 years old. Patricia Campbell Hearst was born in San Francisco, California, USA. Hearst attended the University of California, Berkeley.

Patricia Campbell Hearst is best known as the heiress of the William Randolph Hearst empire in newspaper publishing. She would become famous when she was taken by the Symbionese Liberation Army, who were leftist radicals that manipulated and compelled her into extortion and robbery.

Patricia Campbell was brainwashed and coerced as she was kept in confinement in the humiliating conditions of a closet. Soon enough, she was releasing tape recordings condemning her parents as capitalistic criminals who did not care for anyone except themselves.

The Symbionese Liberation Army managed to extract $2 million from her father, which they bought food with and gave to the poor. Campbell would later claim that she participated in a bank robbery in San Francisco and another robbery in Los Angeles after she was coerced by the members of the movement.

Since the Symbionese Liberation Army never had more than a dozen members, when half of them were killed in a police shootout, Patricia once again felt uprooted. For several months, she was with the liberation movement, which moved all over the East and West Coasts of the United States.

In September 1975, Patricia Campbell Hearst and her associates were arrested by the FBI in San Francisco.

Hearst was tried and found guilty of the use of firearms for a felony and bank robbery in 1976. She spent three years lodging her appeals from prison and outside it before President Jimmy Carter, the American president, commuted her sentence in 1979.

Campbell got married to Bernard Shaw, her former bodyguard, shortly after her release in 1979.

Patricia Campbell Hearst published the suspenseful novel Murder at San Simeon in 1996. The work is set in the 1920s during the glamorous peak of Hollywood when William Randolph Hearst built a glamorous and luxurious estate for Marion Davies, the film star.

San Simeon would become the stomping ground for the rich and famous, but everything changed when Thomas Ince, the film producer, died mysteriously aboard Hearst’s luxury yacht. Rumors of jealousy and debauchery abound, and decades later, Catha Kinsolving Burke, the history professor, sets out to investigate the unsolved murder.

Earlier in 1981, Patricia Campbell published Patty Hearst: Her Own Story, in which she tells of her dramatic kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army.

Leaving nothing out, she tells of how she went from being a privileged heiress to participating in a radical revolutionary movement, albeit reluctantly. She reflects on the intense public scrutiny, emotional turmoil, and manipulation and turmoil that made her struggle with free will and identity long after she got out.

Related Authors

Fans of Patricia Campbell Hearst also enjoy these authors:

1. Stephen King, author of The Dark Tower Series.
2. J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter Series.
3. Charles Dickens, author of: A Christmas Carol.
4. John Connolly, author of the Charlie Parker Series.
5. James Patterson, author of the Alex Cross Series.

Patricia Campbell Hearst: F.A.Q