Woman Is Arrested
In '69 Blasts Here
MAR 1 3 1975
By PETER KIIISS
Patricia Elizabeth Swinton,
sought since 1969 for conspiracy in eight bombings in New
York City, believed set off by
radical terrorists, was arrested
yesterday in Brattleboro, Vt.,
by two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and a Brattleboro detective captain.
She is the last to be taken
into custody of the four alleged plotters—the three others
had all pleaded guilty, with one
now dead, another-on probation and the most recent -captive serving a prison sentence.
Mrs. Swinton, 33 years old,
had been working as a sales
clerk in a health-food store and
living on an isolated communal
farm in • nearby Guilford. S,ome
of the nine other residents of
Continued on Page 50, Colunin 1
, Continued From Page 1, Col. 1
the commune said that when a
wood fire broke out during maple-sugaring last week, she had
"put it out and saved the sugar
house."
In Rutland, Vt., Federal District Judge James S. Holden set
bail at $500,000, and Mrs.Swinton agreed to her removal for
trial in the Southern District
here.
Mrs. Swinton was one of four
persons named in charges involving the planting and setting
Off of bombs in New York City
from July 27, 1969, to Nov. 12,
1969—a period of heightened
demonstrations against the war
in Vietnam.
She had been a fugitive ever,
since. Of her co-defendants,
Samuel Joseph Melville pleaded
guilty as the master bomber,
and was killed while a prisoner
in the state prison at Attica on
Sept. 13, 1971. That was the
day the state police stormed the
prison, seeking to free hostages
held by rioting prisoners.
Another defendant, Jane
Lauren Alpert, first pleaded
guilty but then jumped bail on
May 4, 1970. She was a' fugitive until she surrendered last
Nov. 14. Miss Alpert said she
had repudiated radicalism, but
she was sentenced to 27 months
in prison last Jan. 13 for the
conspiracy and bail-jumping.
Associated Press
Patricia. Elizabeth Swinton in a 1969 photograph.
waiteress firt at Idle Not, a
restaurant stressing ice cream,
and then ate the Common
Ground, a health-food restaurant.
For the last year and a half
she had been working for
Good Life, a store that sells
natural foods and imported
wines and cheqses. She told
the courte she was getting $53
a week.
Fictitious Name Used
Mrs. Patricia Perry, a coowner of the store with William
Oates
, said Mrs. Swinton had
Bombs Injured 21
been using the name of Suzanne
The other defendant, John
David Hughey 3d, underwent Karen Davis and ' was also
Federal Youth Center tests in known as. Shoshana, a variaAshland, Ky., and on Sept. 30, tion of the first nanie.
1970, he was fred on probation She sought the job and Mr.
for up to six years.
Oates hired her as a mature
Twenty-one persons were in- person, Mrs. Perry said.
jured in the bombings here, "She seemed a very likable
which included such targets as person," Mrs. Perry added, "on
a Federal office building at 26 the quiet side."
Federal Plaza; the Armed About 11 A.M. yesterday, acForces Examining and Entrance cording to Mrs. Perry, Mrs.
Station, 39 Whitehall Street; Swinton was in a back room,
the Criminal Courts Building; packing food, one of her reguthe RCA Building, and the lar tasks. About 10 persons
headquarters of General Motors were crowded in the store,
and the Chase Manhattan Bank. when Capt. Gordan Smith,
Mrs. Swinton, a former Brattlebora's lone detective, enschool teacher who was born in tered with • the two Federal
Baltimore, had ben sought by agents.
the F.B.I. in widely scattered They told Mrs. Perry that her
parts of the country, according employe's name was- "Patricia
to Robert E. Kent, special agent something-or-other, and we're
in charge of the Albany office, from the F.B.I., and we're taking her to Rutland," as Mrs.
who announced her arrest.
Once she was even arrested Perry remembered it.
— • by the police in Missoula, "I am sorry, Patty," her emMont., on Aug. 8, 1970, on a ploye calmly told Mrs. Perry.
charge of stealing two cans of
She Agrees to Return
peanut buteter from a food
In
court in Rutland:she was
market, the F.B.I. announcement said. She was using a wearing a green velvet pullover
fictitiouS idtntity and was shirt and blue dungarees. Her
freed on condition she leave medium-length , brown hair
Missoula, the statement added. seemed Uncombed. There were
In Brattleboro, she was re- two beared men in the courtpotted as having been living room, aparently friends, to
in the area for the last couple whom she turned reassuringly.
of years, supposedly having Assistant United States Atbeen previously in Acworth, torney William Gray asked that
bail be set at $500,000 and that
N.H.
she be transported to New York
On Farm a Year
without a removal hearin
For about the last year she Mrs. Swington saidg.she
had been living on, the Packers would like to return to New
Corners farm in Guilford, a York. Judge Holden told
her
commune said to have been she ought to have lawyer.
founded by Raymond Mungo, "I want an attornaey
in New
co-founder of the original York, but I don't know
that
Liberation News Service in I need one here," she
ed.
1967 but who later, became Nevertheless Judgerejoin
Holden
disillusioned and split with the designated the local public
New Left. Mr. Mingo is no f ender, Barry Griffith, to dereplonger a resident there.
resent her. MrS. Swington
The farm, worked by men signed an affidavit of
ty,
and women living there, has a to authorize his reitesepover
ntation.
garden, a goat and cows. Mrs. Then she Signe
d a waiver to
Swinton told Judge Holden: do away with any
removal
"I partially own it." Other hearing, and
she
was
residentes did not want to be away by a Federal taken
marshal
named yesterday, but one 'said: and a matro
n in a green Ford.
"She was a wonderful lady, She told the
court she was
a quiet, meditaetive, beatitiful divorced but had
no children
person."
nearby. Reportedly she has a
In Brattleboro, Mrs. Swinton young daugh
and her huswas said to have been a band has sinceterremar
ried.