Posted on 09/24/2025 5:30:26 PM PDT by Borges
Sara Jane Moore, the would-be assassin of President Gerald Ford, died Wednesday at a nursing facility in Franklin. She was 95.
Moore’s death came two days after the 50th anniversary of her attempt to kill Ford outside the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco in 1975. Her actions followed Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme’s attempt to assassinate Ford just 17 days earlier in Sacramento. The two events were unconnected.
Moore was sentenced to life in prison. She attempted to escape in 1979, but was captured after a few hours. She was released on parole in 2007.
In 2022, she moved to Bellevue and then, after a fall, spent her remaining years in rehabilitation facilities in Williamson County. She was married five times and had four children.
In a 2009 interview, Moore said her aim back in the ’70s was to overthrow the government.
“It was a time that people don’t remember. You know we had a war … the Vietnam War, you became, I became immersed in it. We were saying the country needed to change,” she said on NBC’s Today show. “The only way it was going to change was a violent revolution. I genuinely thought that [shooting Ford] might trigger that new revolution in this country.”
In 2024, she discussed the assassination attempt on Ford with the Banner while watching coverage of an attempt on then-candidate Donald Trump’s life.
“When you psych yourself up to do something like that … it’s sort of like being in a play,” Moore said when describing her lack of fear at trying to kill Ford. “You know, you rehearse and rehearse and then when the time comes, you just do it.”
Unlike Fromme, a member of the Manson family cult, Moore had been radicalized by the revolutionary politics of the day and the Patricia Hearst kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army. She was arrested by police on a gun charge the day before her attempt, and booked for having a .44 caliber handgun and 113 rounds of ammunition. The gun was confiscated, a fact which proved crucial the next day as authorities said the sight on the .38 caliber handgun she fired at Ford was faulty. She fired one shot at Ford before being tackled by Oliver Sipple, a former Marine.
How does a person who tried to kill a President get a parole.
Is this one of Squeaky’s friends?
Didn’t Hinckley also get parole? The Dems are very lenient when they realize a person shot at a Republican.
The President was Republican. Different standards.
Okay here’s a bit of trivia about this. Sipple was gay but not militant about it…. Yet Harvey Milk - yes that Harvey Milk - took it upon himself to out Sipple to the national media. When Sipple’s devout Baptist mother back in Michigan found her son was gay she refused to speak to him.
This violent leftist did know that the Vietnam War was over at that point and that Ford had nothing to do with the starting or continuation of it right?
Honestly these people live in fantasy land.
Wow. Federal Women’s prison must be healthy.
95 years old!
Seems there's a federal law that mandates parole for those who have served 30 years and have maintained good behavior. So in other words, a "life sentecne" isn't worth the paper it's written on.
That’s true. They paroled Hinckley too.
She was born February 15, 1930.
Wyatt Earp died January 13, 1929.
What, no mention that was working as an informant for the FBI .?
Yes; as did Arthur Bremer. His parole ends this year.
“Life in prison” Apparently means just 30 years?
Surprised she didn't have a tenured faculty position waiting for her.
That “outing” actually happened 50 years ago today in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Ford twice, Reagan once, Trump twice. 5 Republican assassination attempt survivals. God is looking out for us.
Ya know, I just don’t see getting that riled up over President Ford.
Wow! Almost 50 years to the day.
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