10/31/2026
Our Spookiest Event:
Visit by Bill Harris, the mastermind of the kidnapping of Patti Hearst in 1974. Bill visited the old church at South River one day in the summer of 2007-2008.
After serving two terms in prison for bank robbery and kidnapping…one day he walked into South River Vineyard and told the bartender:
“We held Patti Hearst overnight in this building.” It came out of the blue…
An outlandish claim?
Kidnapped in February 1974 in Berkeley California, following a spree of bank robberies, the unlikely band of the remaining SLA crossed the country by rural highways to spend the summer hiding the fugitive in in rural Pennsylvania.
And one night in the abandoned church in Shalersville, Ohio, on a lonely highway OH 303.
We identified Bill Haris as our “unknown guest” from his obituary photos in the New York Times October 6th, 2026.
The man that walked in and blurted out “Pati Hearst” in South River Vineyard.
