On this day in 1974, Patty Hearst, the 19-year-old daughter of newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, is kidnapped from her apartment in Berkeley, California by two black men and a white woman, all three of whom are armed. Her fiance, Stephen Weed, was beaten and tied up along with a neighbor who tried to help. Witnesses recalled seeing a struggling Hearst being carried away blindfolded and finally put in the trunk of a car. Neighbors who came out into the street were forced to take cover after the kidnappers fired their guns to cover their escape.