Talk:Patty Hearst/Archives/2018

Legit Sources
"super70s.com" does not appear to be an appropriate source, just a commercial sight trying to capitalize on a wikipedia link. I don't think that site meets wikipedia criteria for a proper source. The Hearst entry on that site does list a bunch of excellent references (books, news articles) but the website itself is not a wikipedia rules compliant source via a DNS/WhoIS search of the site.

Re this edit: I've tried to give commercially available sources where possible (supra); however, some material obviously does not fit into this mold. The FBI teletypes, including the one Thiel sent to Morrow, and the FBI 302s, including the statement taken from James Moonwood Norton, do have identifying numbers, but those are not generally recoverable by the public -- they cannot be retrieved from, e.g., a newspaper or the internet. Sorry.

Robert Brian Crim (talk) 04:44, 19 July 2009 (UTC)



I've made a cursory review of the sources cited as of this writing and express some concern, in that it does not appear that the best evidence was used, and on a consistent basis. Newspaper accounts do satisfy Wiki's third-party source requirement; but, a wire-service story run from San Francisco into a Connecticut newspaper amounts to third-hand hearsay twice removed. It should not be preferred when better information exists.

With regard to that information, there does not seem to be much citation to what are the authoritative accounts of the case (which now include at least 5 books by investigative reporters who covered the incident plus personal accounts by no less than 9 of the participants or their biographers). FYI: Paul Krassner most qualifies as a comedian who MAY (or may not) have had incidental contact with the Symbionese while Patricia still was a captive. Patty's Got a Gun is not considered a primary source, nor would be a "century" account of the City of Inglewood, and the PBS account is notable precisely because Patricia Hearst refused to be part of it, obliging PBS to rely almost entirely on the word of her kidnappers.

A professional article starts with sworn testimony, and since the trial transcript of Miss Hearst's trial is available commercially, there can be no excuse for not using it other than its length (1.25 million words). Legal opinions on the case also are available (in 563 F.2d, 412 F.Supp., and 424 F.Supp.), so why these were not cited is not clear. There are numerous official documents, including the LAPD report on the shoot-out ("The Symbionese Liberation Army in Los Angeles") and the Coroner's report on the results, plus publications like the House Internal Security Committee's "Terrorism" series (which contain photographs of numerous SLA documents recovered from Sutherland Court). The books on the case have been mentioned, and elsewhere I've mentioned Robert Pearsall's collection of the several screeds recited on the tapes. As for newspaper accounts, the proper ones to use are accounts from the local papers, e.g., the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner, Oakland Tribune, Sacramento Bee, Los Angeles Sentinel (black paper), &c. (the Chicago Tribune is an exception where the reporter was Ronald Koziol). This was done occasionally but not consistently.

The result is an article that is slapped together and contains numerous errors of the "guffaw" variety. Some areas are sparse, even though a decade has passed since reasonably good information became available with, e.g., the confessions of Mrs. Opsahl's killers. Others are missing completely.

How did the author qualify for this assignment?

Robert Brian Crim 208.83.74.242 (talk) 18:04, 14 January 2016 (UTC)



Is there some reason why we have added Lake Headley, Donald Freed, and Mae Brussell to this mess? These people are J.F.K.-style conspiracy theorists, and absolutely 'none' of their claims, sworn or not, ever have checked out.

The claim that Patricia 'Hearst' knew Donald Defreeze ahead of time is preposterous. It is true that there was a prison visitor to Defreeze whose first name was "Patty," but her last name was 'not' Hearst (a fact Headley overlooked). It also is true that Donald Defreeze co-operated with the L.A.P.D. as part of a deal to extricate himself from burglary charges arising from his stealing from a gun store. (His confederate, a man named Ronald Coleman, was convicted and went to prison.) But, the rest of Headley's claims are as bizarre as his claims re Hearst and Defreeze. For example, the F.B.I. did have Defreeze under investigation for an attempted bank burglary in Cleveland in which he used the same M.O. as for his effort at the L.A. gun store. And, during the Cleveland escapade, Defreeze was believed to have been in possession of a hand grenade. However, during the pursuit, Defreeze apparently threw the hand grenade away, and when it was recovered, there were no latent prints of value on it, so the case had to be abandoned for want of evidence. No conspiracy was involved, and no secret deals with the cops as a "trusted" and "important" informer were made. Spec. Agent Thomas Padden (the agent who eventially arrested Hearst) was asked about this by F. Lee Bailey during Hearst's trial and provided some of the details. He never mentioned any secret deals.

This, of course, would not have stopped Headley, Freed, or Brussell -- all simply would have proclaimed that Padden, himself, was part of the "conspiracy." And, since there are genuine conspiracies in the Hearst case involving 'some' law-enforcement officials, it behooves us not to belittle the importance of these by cluttering the record with fantasy claims by long-discredited, self-promoting "investigators."

Robert Brian Crim, 16 February 2018. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:558:6015:20:4DDB:C038:2EE8:47D9 (talk) 13:56, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

Mug shot age problem
If Patty was born in '54 and involved with the SLA in the 70s, why is her age under the mug shot from the '70s listed as "64"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:A000:140C:8564:5D1F:77E9:364F:FC06 (talk) 15:09, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Recent Vandalism (Correction)
It appears the missing material, previously reported, simply was archived (click "2013," supra).

-- Robert Brian Crim   — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.83.74.242 (talk) 20:43, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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