Highlighted crime
story of the week -
On September 5, 1975, an assassination attempt in
Sacramento, California against President Gerald Ford was foiled when a Secret
Service agent snatches a semi-automatic .45-caliber pistol from Lynette
“Squeaky” Fromme, a follower of convicted murderer Charles Manson. Fromme was
pointing the loaded gun at the president when the Secret Service agent grabbed
it. Seventeen days later, Ford escaped injury in another assassination attempt
when 45-year-old Sara Jane Moore fired a revolver at him. Moore, a leftist
radical who once served as an informant for the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, had a history of mental illness. She was arrested at the scene,
convicted, and sentenced to life.
Fromme pleaded not guilty to the “attempted assassination
of a president” charge, arguing that although her gun contained bullets it had
not been cocked, and therefore she had not actually intended to shoot the
president. She was eventually convicted, sentenced to life in prison, and sent
to the Alderson Federal Correctional Institution in West Virginia. Fromme
remained a dedicated disciple of Charles Manson and in December 1987 escaped
from the Alderson Prison after she heard that Manson, also imprisoned, had
cancer. After 40 hours roaming the rugged West Virginia hills, she was caught
on Christmas Day, about two miles from the prison. Five years were added to her
life sentence for the escape. She was paroled in August 2009 after serving 34
years behind bars.
Check back every
Monday for anew installment of “This Week in Crime History.”
Michael Thomas Barry is a columnist for www.crimemagazine.com and is the author
of six nonfiction books that includes the award winning Murder and Mayhem 52 Crimes that Shocked Early California 1849-1949.
Visit Michael’s website www.michaelthomasbarry.com
for more information. His book can be purchased from Amazon through the
following link:
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