NEWSPAPER HEIRESS KIDNAPPED

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33453, 7 February 1974, Page 13

NEWSPAPER HEIRESS KIDNAPPED

(N.Z.P.A.-Reut er— Copyright) SAN FRANCISCO, February 6. An extensive police hunt was on today for the kidnappers of a newspaper heiress. Patricia Hearst, who was dragged half-naked from her fiance’s flat by two armed blacks. The men, who were armed with rifles, bundled her screaming into a stolen car, firing shots at neighbours who tried to give chase.

i The kidnappers burst into I the apartment of 26-year-old |Steven Weed at Berkeley, 'California, behind a white woman accomplice who 'asked to use the telephone. I Until late last night no ransom demand had been made for the release of the 19-year-old art student. ! News of the kidnapping, ion Monday night, was held by police who feared for her! ilife. Police say that they do] I not know the motive behind] the carefully-organised kid-1 i napping. The “San Francisco! .Examiner,” edited by Patri-I ■ cia’s father, Randolph! ;Hearst, recently offered a! I big reward for the capture (of members of a black sect j believed to be responsible for the random killing of whites (in San Francisco last week. • Mr Hearst yesterday ■issued a plea to his daugb- ! ter’s kidnappers to return her unharmed. “If she is released we will not seek to imprison her ab-l ductors. Please, we beg of] ■ you, do not compound your ’crime by harming our' daughter." Members of the family of! I the late William Randolph! Hearst, the publishing ty-l ■coon, were today under] police guard. i After the kidnappers burst ■ in, Miss Hearst was dragged to the kitchen where Mr Weed heard her moaning. He and a neighbour, Steven Suenaga, aged 21, who ran in to help, were held down! and kicked. Although his hands were bound, Mr Weed broke loose when he heard th kidnappers suggest he be killed and ran out the back door, scrambling over fences, calling to neighbours for help. Another neighbour, Sandy Golden, aged 21, said that Floods in Peru Peruvian Air Force pilots joined forces with some of their civilian counterparts yesterday to rescue about 2000 people stranded by floods which had cut the main road from Lima to the southern city of Arequipa. Hundreds of buses, trucks, and cars were trapped in the floods in the small towns of Atico and Camana. — Lima, Feb. 6.

she saw Miss Hearst carried outside screaming by the two men and then stuffed into the back of a white car. “She was struggling,” Miss Golden said, “She was half-dressed, naked from the waist up. She screamed “please let me go.” She seemed to be blindfolded.” Miss Golden said that she dived to the floor as the abiductors opened up with a (burst of gunfire, apparently designed to stop neighbours (from following their car. I Police later found the getlaway car abandoned about a (quarter of a mile from the ■scene.