Sara Jane Moore, who spent over three decades in prison for attempting to assassinate President Gerald Ford in 1975, has passed away at the age of 95 in Nashville, Tennessee.
Moore’s death occurred on Wednesday at a nursing home in Franklin, Tennessee. Demetria Kalodimos, a long-time associate, learned of Moore’s passing from the executor of her estate. Kalodimos, who serves as an executive producer at the Nashville Banner, was among the first to report the news.
Moore, an unlikely figure to become infamous as a political radical nearly taking a president’s life, was a middle-aged woman involved with leftist organizations and occasionally acted as an FBI informant when she targeted Ford in San Francisco.
Sara Jane Moore was photographed looking out from a U.S. marshal’s vehicle in San Francisco on December 16, 1975. She was the individual who attempted to shoot President Gerald Ford that year.
AP Photo/file
Moore received a life sentence but was unexpectedly paroled from the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California, on December 31, 2007. Federal authorities did not disclose the reasons behind her release.
Following her release, she lived quietly in an undisclosed location. In later interviews, Moore conveyed remorse for her actions, attributing her behavior to the influence of the 1970s’ radical political movements prevalent in California during that period.
“I had put blinders on, I really had, and I was listening to only … what I thought I believed,”” she told San Francisco television station KGO in April 2009. “We thought that doing that would actually trigger a new revolution.”
Copyright © 2025 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
