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Patty Hearst Drama Is The Latest True Crime TV Series In Development

By Victoria Miller
Published on: 21:12 PST, Jun 12, 2016

Patty Hearst could get the TV miniseries treatment. The true crime genre is in full swing, and the Patty Hearst kidnapping is the latest subject for a series in development for CBS, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The Patty Hearst project is still untitled, but if it is ordered to series—which is almost a sure bet considering today’s appetite for revisiting true crimes stories of the past—it will explore the 19-month FBI search and capture of Hearst, the granddaughter of publisher William Randolph Hearst.

Patty Hearst was abducted from her Berkeley, Calif., apartment by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) terrorist group in 1974, and the then-19-year-old soon changed her name to Tania and became a sympathizer of the group. By the time Patty was found after a 19-month search, she was wanted for aiding the group in terrorist activity.

Hearst was later found guilty of a San Francisco bank robbery and using a firearm—in this case, an assault rifle— in a felony. The notorious kidnapping and trial of the newspaper heiress dominated the headlines in the mid-1970s as Hearst’s trial held the nation spellbound as it played out on the nightly news, where voyeuristic viewers learned the shocking details of her ordeal. Hearst revealed she was locked in a closet, blindfolded, for 57 days and that she was raped and psychologically tortured before she officially joined the group as Tania.

After a 39-day pre-O.J. media circus and trial, Patty Hearst was sentenced to seven years in jail, but less than two years later her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter. Hearst was later granted a full pardon by President Bill Clinton on his last day in office.

In a 1997 interview with Dateline, Patty Hearst said she believed that her 1976 sentence was a sign of the times.

“So much anger directed at me because of the war, Watergate, the whole ’60s generation that had disappointed their parents so badly,” Hearst said. “I wouldn’t even be charged today because people don’t charge kidnap victims for crimes they committed while in the company of their kidnappers.”

Patty, who later married her bodyguard, Bernard Shaw, and gave birth to two daughters, went on to live a fairly quiet life, but she told Dateline she knows that her notoriety will always follow her.

“It’s part of my life and I realize that there will always be a curiosity about it.” She said. “You know, with Patricia Hearst, ‘kidnapped newspaper heiress’ will always come before that name.”

The Patty Hearst drama will be written by Jonathan Tolins (Grease: Live), who will also executive produce the series alongside Jonathan Koch, Steve Michaels, Rocky Lang and Joan Harrison. But this is far from the first time the Hearst drama has been the subject

According to Entertainment Weekly, Patty Hearst has been the subject of a steady stream of books and movies, including Paul Schrader’s 1988 film Patty Hearst, which starred Natasha Richardson. Hearst published her own memoir, Every Secret Thing, in 1982.

In addition to the Patty Hearst series, CBS has already ordered an unscripted, true crime anthology series, of which the first season will focus on the JonBenet Ramsey murder case that dominated headlines in the late 1990s. The 6-year-old child pageant queen was found murdered in her family’s Boulder, Colorado home on Christmas day in 1996. JonBenet’s parents and older brother were originally linked to her murder and later exonerated. The case was reopened in 2009 and remains unsolved.

The series will be produced by Tom Forman (48 Hours) and it is shooting for a broadcast as early as fall 2016 in time for the 20th anniversary of Ramsey’s death. The unscripted series will study the case with commentary from the original investigators along with new experts, according to Variety.

The Patty Hearst and JonBenet Ramsey limited series are just the latest projects in the hot new scripted anthology/limited series genre based on real-life crimes, which kicked off with FX’s revisiting of the O.J. Simpson trial in American Crime Story.

Take a look at the video below to see Patty Hearst talking about the shocking way that her case was presented in court.

[Photo by Keystone/Getty Images]

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