(6 of 10)
An hour and ten minutes after the Harrises were arrested, FBI Special Agent Tom Padden and San Francisco Police Inspector Tim Casey climbed the stairs to the apartment, still not knowing what they would find. They pounded on the door. It opened, and Wendy Yoshimura looked out. Behind her was the taller woman—Patty Hearst. Padden warned Yoshimura: "Don't move or I'll blast your head off." Neither woman stirred, although each had a .38-cal. pistol in her purse.
Searching the sparsely furnished flat, law officers found a cat, some dirty clothes and dishes, and four more pistols, two sawed-off shotguns (both loaded), a store of ammunition and a two-foot high marijuana plant.
Later, authorities established that "Adams" was Stephen F. Soliah, 27, the brother of Kathleen. A sometime house painter, Soliah was arrested at the apartment and charged with harboring fugitives from the law. The FBI was also trying to locate Kathleen Soliah, who had been living in the Morse Street apartment, and another sister, Josephine, who was thought to have been involved with the group.
Meanwhile, Patty Hearst's mother flew up from Los Angeles. A front-row seat was held for Catherine Hearst on Pacific Southwest Airlines' 4 p.m. commuter flight to San Francisco. She was a model of tightly controlled composure. Her black, high-necked cocktail dress was smooth and unwrinkled; the triple-strand choker of pearls was precisely in place; and her black alligator bag was set neatly on her lap.
When newsmen swarmed around her, a stewardess offered to break up the impromptu press conference, but Mrs. Hearst declined the favor. Referring to the family's publishing firm, she said with a smile, "We're in the business of harassing people for a living too." Her first reaction on hearing the news about her daughter: "I sat down in a chair and said a silent prayer of thanks. I'm just thankful to God that she's alive." Despite the harsh words Patty had uttered in the past, Mrs. Hearst expected that the reunion would go well. "I don't believe she has given up 19 years of our lives together so completely," she said. "If she went one way, she can go the other way. When you all love each other, everything can be worked out."
Understandably, Mrs. Hearst was remembering the daughter she knew before the trouble began. Until Patty Hearst made her first truculent declaration of revolutionary fervor, read in a flat unemotional voice on seven tapes delivered to Berkeley radio station KFPA, she had shown few signs of anger at the System. Before her disappearance, she was taking part in the most traditional of rites for an engaged American girl: happily picking out her china pattern. Then, on the night of Feb. 4, 1974, Patty's life changed forever.