Bill Harris, a former member of the radical domestic group responsible for the kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst, has passed away at the age of 81.
He died from a heart attack on September 10 at a hospital in San Francisco, as confirmed by his wife, Rebecca Young, to the New York Times.
Harris, originally from Fort Sill, Oklahoma, had served as a Marine in Vietnam before attending Indiana University upon his return.
At university, he became involved with Vietnam Veterans Against the War, shifted left politically, and met his first wife, Emily Schwartz, a fellow student who shared similar radical views. They wed in 1971.
Later, the couple relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area and became involved with the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), a violent far-left faction infamous for the assassination of Oakland schools superintendent Marcus Foster in 1973, where they helped plan Hearst’s kidnapping.
By the time of the kidnapping, Harris had risen to be a top lieutenant within the SLA. On February 4, 1974, he and two accomplices forcefully entered Hearst’s apartment in Berkeley, dragging her away amidst a violent struggle and loading her into the trunk of a Chevrolet Impala, as reported by the FBI.
At just 19 years old, Hearst was a sophomore at UC Berkeley and the granddaughter of newspaper titan William Randolph Hearst, famously depicted in “Citizen Kane.”
Initially, the SLA labeled Hearst a “prisoner of war” without demanding a ransom; later, they requested that her family fund a major food distribution initiative for the impoverished across California.
“Patricia Hearst was a symbolic target,” Harris would later explain, noting that her family was seen as controlling a media empire that was perceived as a government propaganda tool.
For several weeks, Hearst was mostly confined in a closet at an SLA safe house in Daly City, where she was exposed to the group’s propaganda.
In April 1974, a photograph surfaced showing Hearst with a gun and, along with an audio tape, she adopted the name “Tania” while rejecting her family and the establishment, according to the FBI.
Shortly thereafter, Hearst transitioned from victim to participant in crime, taking part in an SLA bank robbery at a Hibernia Bank branch in San Francisco, marking a sensational chapter in 1970s crime history.
She later claimed she was coerced into joining the SLA, fearing for her life if she didn’t comply—a claim Harris consistently challenged over the years.
The SLA’s decline began on May 16, 1974, when Harris and his wife nearly got caught stealing from a sporting goods store. Their escape vehicle led police to a safe house in South Central Los Angeles, resulting in a shootout that killed several SLA members, including their leader.
The SLA committed another robbery in April 1975 at a bank in Carmichael, during which a shotgun accidentally discharged, killing a mother of four, Myrna Opsahl, who was simply depositing church funds.
Although Hearst was not present during the shooting, she testified that she had been waiting nearby in a getaway vehicle.
After over a year on the run, both Hearst and the Harrises were arrested by FBI agents in September 1975 in San Francisco.
In 1976, Hearst was convicted of armed robbery, with President Jimmy Carter commuting her sentence in 1979, followed by a pardon from President Bill Clinton later on.
Harris and his ex-wife, Emily, received approximately eight years in prison for kidnapping but were released in the early 1980s.
After his release, Harris divorced Emily and pursued a new career as a private investigator. In 1988, he married Young, a defense attorney, and they raised two sons in Oakland before moving to San Francisco.
It was not until 2002 that Harris and Emily were charged in connection with Opsahl’s death.
That year, they, along with other SLA members, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. During his sentencing in 2003, Harris expressed remorse to Opsahl’s family and received a seven-year sentence, serving about four.
“If you do something and succeed, then you’re hailed as a revolutionary… But if you challenge power and fail, you vanish from history,” he reflected in 2002.
In a 2018 CNN interview, he stated, “Reality isn’t always on the surface. Sometimes you have to look deeper to see what’s real.”
Harris is survived by his wife Young and their sons, Cody and Shane.
