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TWO: INSANITY. Even if Patty is found competent to stand trial, her lawyers could argue that her captors had driven her insane. Indeed, Vincent Hallinan said the defense would claim that she had been made "completely, absolutely, utterly insane by those who kidnaped her." Insanity, however, is difficult to prove, and Patty's behavior while on the run—and her recorded statements in jail—poses problems for the defense. What is more, Thomas Dean Matthews, 19, whom Patty and her companions are charged with kidnaping and holding for nearly twelve hours while on a robbery spree in May 1974, has testified that she talked very clearly and proudly about her escapades. Even if argued successfully, a plea of insanity carries a special risk: Patty might be confined to a mental institution until she was judged fit to return to society.
THREE: TEMPORARY INSANITY. This is exceedingly difficult to prove to skeptical juries: it usually seems much too convenient a dodge. But Patty's lawyers might try to argue that she was "brainwashed" into going along with the S.L.A. (see following story). Justice Department sources speak derisively of a possible brainwashing plea as the Manchurian Candidate defense, recalling the 1959 thriller. Federal investigators are confident that they have plenty of evidence to establish that Patty Hearst was acting on her own.
Meanwhile, the FBI was evaluating new leads that might link Patty to other crimes. The fresh evidence was found in the San Francisco apartment occupied by Patty and Wendy Yoshimura, 32, a traveling companion, when they were seized. Another mother lode of material was discovered in the dwelling of William and Emily Harris, members of the S.L.A. who had traveled with Patty. FBI laboratories are examining firearms, ammunition, explosives, documents, telephone numbers, addresses, notes scrawled on scraps of paper and radical literature retrieved from the two apartments. "The stack of stuff is four feet high," reports one agent. "Checking it out will keep us busy for more than a month. There's more work to do now than there was when Patty was a fugitive."
The confiscated material led investigators to suspect that the S.L.A. financed its activities by staging bank robberies. As a result, the agency has opened fresh investigations of a score of unsolved bank robberies in California in the past 17 months. The FBI has already linked Patty or her companions to two jobs. On Feb. 25, the Guild Savings & Loan Association in Sacramento was robbed of $3,700. Authorities say that the apparent leader of the holdup was a man described as resembling Bill Harris. The driver of the getaway car was a young woman. Going through the material found in the Harrises' apartment, the FBI turned up a scrap of paper that connected the group to the robbery of the Crocker National Bank branch in the Sacramento suburb of Carmichael on April 21. The ski-masked bandits—three men and a woman—stole $15,000. Before fleeing, they gunned down a woman customer for no apparent reason. One incriminating piece of evidence, signed with an alias that the Harrises used, was a receipt for a paint job on a car that authorities believe was used in the Guild Savings and Loan robbery. Freshly repainted, the car was employed for the Carmichael robbery.