Bill Harris, who helped kidnap Patty Hearst in 1974, dies at 81

William “Bill” Harris, one of the men who kidnapped Patty Hearst in 1974, has died at the age of 81.

Harris, a key member of the Symbionese Liberation Army who helped abduct the newspaper heiress from her apartment in Berkeley, California, died in San Francisco, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Harris died Sept. 10 at a hospital, according to The New York Times. His wife, Rebecca Young, confirmed his death to the newspaper and said the cause was a heart attack.

Harris and two other “soldiers” of the SLA, broke into the apartment the granddaughter of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst shared with her boyfriend, Steven Weed, the newspaper reported. The Feb. 4, 1974, kidnapping of the 19-year-old sophomore at the University of California occurred after a brief struggle, the Chronicle reported.

Harris forced Patty Hearst into the trunk of a Chevrolet Impala and drove away, according to the newspaper.

“Patricia Hearst was a symbolic target,” Harris said later. “Her family was in control of a media empire that we viewed as an arm of propaganda for the United States government.”

The SLA initially called Hearst a “prisoner of war” and sought no ransom, the Times reported. It later demanded that the Hearst family help fund a large food giveaway to poor people in California, according to the newspaper.

The abduction took a bizarre turn on April 3, 1974, when the SLA released a Polaroid photograph of Hearst holding a sawed-off M1 carbine and an audio tape in which she identified herself as “Tania” and denounced her family and the establishment, the Times reported. She was standing in front of the group’s banner, which bore a seven-headed cobra logo.

Two weeks later, Hearst participated in the robbery of a Hibernia Bank branch in San Francisco, according to the Chronicle. With Hearst wearing a Che Guevara-type beret and carrying a semiautomatic weapon, she helped the group play a key role in the robbery, which netted approximately $11,000, the Times reported.

Hearst later said she had been coerced into joining the SLA and that she believed she would be killed if she refused, according to the Chronicle. Harris disputed that account for decades.

On April 21, 1975, the SLA organized a robbery in suburban Sacramento at a Crocker National Bank branch, the Times reported. Emily Harris accidentally discharged her weapon and killed Myrna Opsahl, a mother of four who was at the bank to deposit church collections.

The Harrises and Hearst were arrested in September 1975 in San Francisco, according to the newspaper. The Harrises faced life sentences after their conviction in August 1976, then were indicted in Hearst’s kidnapping. After a plea deal, the couple served eight years in prison before their release in 1983.

Hearst was convicted of armed bank robbery in 1976 and sentenced to seven years in prison, the Chronicle reported. President Jimmy Carter commuted her sentence in 1979 after she had served about 22 months. President Bill Clinton granted her a full pardon in 2001.

William Taylor Harris was born on Jan. 22, 1945, in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, the Times reported.

As a student at Indiana University, he joined a fraternity and was more interested in sports and beer than academics. He joined the Marines in 1965 to “find himself”; when he enlisted, he was a registered Republican, according to the newspaper.

After being released from jail in 1983, Harris worked for San Francisco attorney Stuart Hanlon, starting as a receptionist and eventually becoming a private investigator. He married Young in 1988, and they had two sons, the Times reported.

He reflected on his own legacy in a 2002 interview with The Los Angeles Times.

“If you do something and you succeed, then you’re a revolutionary of high quality and you get to be George Washington, the father of the country,” he said. “But if you challenge power and you’re rubbed out, you’re in the trash bin of history.”

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