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In the several months before they kidnapped Patty Hearst, two of their members were arrested and eventually convicted of murdering an Oakland school official, that set the table in the sense that these people were very capable of committing violence. Patty Hearst kidnap letter. ( Courtesy of Smithsonian Channel) And so Patty Hearst comes along and it was a very opportunistic way for them to put themselves on the front page of newspapers every day … They were certainly good at playing the media to their benefit back then.