The San Francisco Chronicle has an extremely colorful report today on Sarah Jane Moore, who tried to shoot President Gerald Ford in 1975.
Moore is finally out on parole after cooling her heels in federal prison for 32 years. She’s seen six presidents come and go in that time, though only one other would-be assassin: John Hinckley, Jr., who shot Ronald Reagan in 1981.
Another would-be assassin of the 1970s, Arthur Bremer, was paroled in November.
The Chronicle story includes her lawyer’s offbeat attempt to explain Moore’s mindset: “Her conduct was sort of a shopping list: ‘Take my son to school, shoot the president, pick up my son from school.'”
And there’s a bonus photo of Moore looking “like a kind, doting grandmother.”
Another strange angle to the shooting: Oliver Sipple, the bystander and ex-Marine who kept Moore from getting off a second shot, sued several newspapers after they revealed he was gay. He lost the suits and was never quite the same.