Bill Harris, who helped kidnap newspaper heiress Patty Hearst in the 1970s, dead at 81

NY Post ^ | 10/07/2026 | Richard Pollina

[DFG]

A member of the radical domestic terrorist group that kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst has died at the age of 81.

Bill Harris died of a heart attack at a San Francisco hospital on Sept. 10, his wife, Rebecca Young, told the New York Times on Tuesday.

Harris, who was born in Fort Sill, Okla., served in Vietnam as a Marine before enrolling at Indiana University after returning home.

There, he joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War, moved steadily to the left and met his first wife, Emily Schwartz, a fellow student from an affluent Chicago suburb who was also embracing far-left politics. They married in 1971, the outlet reported.

The couple later moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where they joined the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) — a violent far-left group that had gained notoriety in 1973 for assassinating Oakland schools superintendent Marcus Foster — and helped plan the Hearst kidnapping.

Harris, by then a top lieutenant in the SLA, was thrust into the national spotlight after he and two others broke into Hearst’s Berkeley, Calif., apartment on Feb. 4, 1974, and dragged her away in a violent struggle, stuffing her into the trunk of a Chevrolet Impala, according to the FBI.

Hearst, then a 19-year-old UC Berkeley sophomore, was the granddaughter of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, the inspiration for “Citizen Kane.”

At first, the group branded Hearst a “prisoner of war” and made no ransom demand, but later called on her family to bankroll a sweeping food giveaway for the poor across California.

“Patricia Hearst was a symbolic target,” Harris later said of why the group chose her, according to the New York Times.

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TOPICS: Conspiracy
KEYWORDS: billharris; dontletthedoorhityou; marcusfoster; pattyhearst; sla; symbionese; vvaw

[DFG]

"Patty Hearst poses with a machine gun in front of a Symbionese Liberation Army flag in 1974."

[Paladin2]

Why did he not die in gaol?

[dfwgator]

She was having the time of her life when she got to play terrorist.

[srmanuel]

Remember, Patty Hearst also took part in an armed bank robbery while supposedly kidnapped by the SLA, which I believe led her to serve some time in prison, I think she was later pardoned by Jimmy Carter.

[DIRTYSECRET]

A very bizarre story that captivated the nation. The shootout in LA was proof the SLA was not messing around. Patty Hearst went to prison because America was not going to let her get away with what her father stood for. She was scared to death and was afflicted with the Stockholm Syndrome. Gerald Ford did the right thing pardoning her.

[Paal Gulli]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbionese_Liberation_Army

[If You Want It Fixed - Fix It]

Hold on a moment.....

Bill, meet Jesus....

[Drew68]

The SLA was a comically inept gaggle of retards.

[Rummyfan]

“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 told the Los Angeles Times in 2002. “But if you challenge power and you’re rubbed out, you’re in the trash bin of history.”

Did George Washington rob banks and kidnap teenage women?!

[DIRTYSECRET]

Bill and Emily Harris were the two who lived in free obscurity in Hawaii I do believe. If I were related to them I would have gone looking for them. The two of them were not entitled to a natural death.

[dfwgator]

They were the inspiration for the Ecumenical Liberation Army (ELA), in the movie “Network”.

The Mao-Tse Tung Hour. (Language)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuqvlMxfGA4

[DIRTYSECRET]

correction: If I was related to one of their victims.

**President Jimmy Carter commuted her sentence in 1979, and President Bill Clinton later pardoned her, the outlet reported.**
Ford is the one who pardoned her. He took heat for that.

[Mouton]

I recall the SLA’s last stand. They put enough tear gas into that dump to set it afire and off they went to barbequed land.

[Verginius Rufus]

52 years later the Symbionese still haven’t been liberated. They don’t even have observer status at the UN.

[Opinionated Blowhard]

“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 told the Los Angeles Times in 2002. “But if you challenge power and you’re rubbed out, you’re in the trash bin of history.”

It doesn't sound like he was really sorry for killing his victims.

[Mr. K]

"...the Symbionese Liberation Army.."

So was Symbia ever liberated?

[dfwgator]

They were opposed by The Liberation Army of Symbia.....Splitters!

[weezel]

Well, OK then.

[PGalt]

LOL! Same as the Zizians.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

How in the world did he get to live at all after doing that?