Donald DeFreeze

Uh, this is why other methods of, of inducement, which, um, and we can get into, like, sort of, um, cult, uh, uh, cult behavior or, um, you know, maybe one of the most famous examples of this is the so-called Stockholm syndrome of Patty Hearst.

But Donald DeFreeze, who is the person who, um, brainwashed Patty Hearst, uh, was a test subject of Jolyon West.

And hilariously enough, uh, after those, uh, after he, he learned so well that he used it on, on Patty Hearst, uh, and Patty Hearst was, uh, convicted in her part in the Symbionese Liberation Army's, uh, crimes, uh, Jolyon West ended up on her defense team, uh, as, as a subject matter expert, which in- indeed he was.

He's the, the guy you would wanna hire for that.

It is an ordinary feature of human life, practiced by families, schools, armies, prisons, and anyone else with the power to shape another person's behavior.

Leary pointed to Lieutenant William Calley of My Lai Massacre fame, who was programmed by the Army, Lynette Fromm, programmed by Manson, and Patty Hearst, programmed by Donald DeFreeze, otherwise known by the absurd nom de guerre General Field Marshal Sin-Q of the Symbionese Liberation Army.

Manson and DeFreeze, they argued, had learned their techniques of manipulation somewhere.

While a generation of conspiracy theorists place the blame at the feet of the CIA, the reality is less exotic.

It's the closest prison kind of nearby.

One prisoner stood out of leader of the political group that was forming in prison, which was Donald DeFreeze, which is CQ.

It's part of his nickname.

They call him mostly by.

We did not know how to do that and we did not do that.

And now she starts to say that she was raped by both Willie Wolf and St. Q.

So, and Donald DeFreeze.

This is really hard for Bill and Emily to hear.

[laughs]

Anyway, [laughs] uh, s- setting up a pipeline to the Vacaville institution where Donald "Cinque" DeFreeze was being, uh, uh, uh, apparently experimented on using mind control techniques, right? And so he was being essentially gifted the process that Charles Manson was as far as this strange ability to, to, uh, utilize a mind control, uh, kind of, uh, patsy cutout that you can essentially hang out to dry at the end of the operation and that's typically what happens.

And I think that that was very much what Donald "Cinque" DeFreeze and the role that he played within the Patty Hearst connection, because Colston Westbrook sets this up and then guess what? Patty Hearst caught up in the pipeline, is visiting Donald "Cinque" DeFreeze, uh, long before she would, he would, uh, be released or break out of prison when they had a policy of just letting out these, these, uh, uh, you know, these assets.

They would just let them out and act as if they, they escaped prison.

Wow.

But in reality, her nightmare was just beginning because the SLA was after more than just cash.

[gentle music] The story of the SLA begins with a man named Donald DeFreeze.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1943, he was the oldest of eight children, and by 14 years old, he was already on law enforcement's radar for auto theft.

His run-ins with the law continued to escalate over the years.

And yet, within those walls, Donald, Willie, Russell, and Nancy began developing the framework for what would become the SLA.

The first order of business for the newly formed group was reinvention.

Donald DeFreeze shed his given name and began calling himself Sinque as an homage to Joseph Cinqué.

In 1839, Joseph had led fifty-three Black slaves in a revolution aboard a Spanish slave ship.

There was one more thing about Aliana's family, and it's the kind of detail that would be hard to believe if it were not in the public record.

Aliana's grandfather was criminal and far left militant Donald DeFreeze.

At 14, he left Cleveland for Buffalo and joined a street gang there.

Later moved to New Jersey, and that is where he married Gloria Thomas, who already had three children.