William Taylor Harris, a former U.S. Marine and prominent member of the militant far-left group Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), died of a heart attack on September 10, 2026, at the age of 81. Harris is most widely known for his role in the high-profile 1974 kidnapping of newspaper heiress Patty Hearst.
Late on February 4, 1974, Harris and two other armed SLA members abducted 19-year-old Hearst from her Berkeley, California, apartment, where she lived with her fiancé, Steven Weed. At the time, Hearst was a student at the University of California and the granddaughter of media magnate William Randolph Hearst. What followed was a widely publicized and complex ordeal that saw Hearst eventually align herself with her captors and participate in the SLA’s armed robberies, propaganda efforts, and evasion of law enforcement.
The SLA, a radical organization led by escaped prisoner Donald DeFreeze, had garnered attention the previous year after the fatal shooting of Oakland schools superintendent Marcus Foster, whom they accused of implementing "fascist" student ID cards. The group’s motto, “Death to the fascist insect that preys upon the life of the people," encapsulated its militant stance. Harris, originally apolitical, became deeply involved with leftist causes after serving in Vietnam, eventually joining the SLA with his then-wife, Emily Schwartz, in Berkeley—then a hub of countercultural activism.
Harris later explained that Hearst was targeted due to her family’s media influence, which the SLA saw as supporting the U.S. government’s agendas. The initial plan to exchange Hearst for arrested SLA members involved in Foster’s murder failed. The group’s subsequent demands, including the distribution of free food by the Hearst family, also faltered. Although they intended to release Hearst for publicity, events spiraled out of control.
Hearst spent weeks confined and reportedly suffered sexual assault at the hands of SLA members, circumstances she cited in court to support claims of coercion and brainwashing. Harris disputed her victimhood, describing her as "an important, credible and inspiring ally" who adopted the nom de guerre “Tania” and demonstrated commitment to the SLA’s cause.
Hearst’s active participation culminated in a bank robbery in San Francisco in April 1974, where she was captured on security footage wielding an M1 carbine and urging hostages to "get up against the wall." Later incidents saw Harris and his wife involved in further criminal activities, including a 1975 bank robbery in Sacramento during which Schwartz accidentally shot a bystander.
Law enforcement intensified their efforts after a vehicle abandoned by the SLA, tied to a subsequent altercation involving Harris, led authorities to discover a hideout. A raid near Disneyland resulted in the deaths of DeFreeze and several senior SLA members. Harris assumed leadership of the diminished group, spending over a year evading capture before he, Schwartz, and Hearst were arrested in San Francisco.
Hearst was convicted in 1976 and sentenced to seven years in prison, though the jury rejected her defense that she had acted under duress. She served 22 months before receiving a commutation from President Jimmy Carter, and was later pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2001. Hearst went on to pursue a career in acting, philanthropy, and dog breeding, maintaining that her involvement with the SLA was compelled by threat of death.
In contrast, the Harrises served longer sentences for kidnapping and other offenses, including an additional conviction in 2002 for the Sacramento bank robbery, for which they both pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. After their release on parole, the couple divorced. Harris remarried and worked as a private investigator, describing his past with a mixture of defiance and resignation, acknowledging his lasting notoriety but no rehabilitation akin to Hearst’s.
William Harris’s death closes a chapter on one of the most notorious episodes of 1970s American radicalism, a story that continues to provoke debate about coercion, ideology, and accountability in politically motivated crime.