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No Deals. In the Hearst home, the mood at week's end was grimmer than ever. There is no more talk of possible deals to free Patty. Weed was a frequent visitor and often stayed at the Hearst home until he and his prospective father-in-law had a mild run-in over Weed's public statements about the case. Now he lives with friends, visiting the family only occasionally.
Once relatively calm and collected, Patty's parents are showing signs of strain. Catherine Hearst seems despondent; her reaction to the bank-robbery pictures reportedly was, "Doesn't my Patty look thin and tired?" Even Randolph Hearst has begun to despair. "We have hope," he says, "but it is not too bright now." He is willing to clutch at any straw and search anywhere for an intermediary who can put him in touch with the S.L.A. He recently visited Clifford Jefferson, a black lifer at Vacaville known as "Death Row Jeff' who knew Cinque very well. Hearst has even talked with a number of psychics in a vain effort to turn up clues.
No one has offered the Hearsts any information that would help answer the agonizing question of whether their daughter was a victim of a nightmarish crime or has become a bank-robbing political terrorist. "How do I know?" Hearst asked rhetorically last week. There isn't any proof until you get hold of Patricia and ask her what happened, and get hold of the others and find out what happened."