Sara Jane Moore, who attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford in 1975, died Wednesday at the age of 95, according to reports.
Moore passed away at a nursing facility in Franklin, Tennessee, the Nashville Banner reported. She had moved to the area in 2022 following her release from prison in 2007.
Sara Jane Moore, 95, died Wednesday—exactly 50 years and two days after she attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford.
On September 22, 1975, the 45-year-old twice-divorced West Virginia native fired two shots at Ford outside the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, according to The New York Times.
Moore missed the first shot by just six inches. During her second attempt, she was tackled by Marine Oliver Sipple. The second shot ricocheted and wounded a cab driver, but Ford remained unharmed.
“If I had had my .44, I would have caught him,” Moore reportedly told San Francisco police after her arrest, according to The New York Times.
Moore was taken to federal court in San Francisco on December 17, 1975.
Two weeks after her arrest, she told The New York Times that she had previously served as an FBI informant, reporting on the activities of several leftist groups where she volunteered, including People-In-Need—a food distribution organization linked to efforts to secure the release of kidnapped heiress Patricia Hearst.
Moore said that in 1974 she had learned about leftist ideology from FBI agents, who trained her in hopes that it would aid her infiltration efforts, the Times reported.
The FBI later confirmed to The New York Times that Moore had indeed been an informant.
President Gerald Ford waved moments before Sara Jane Moore fired the shots that would later fail to hit him.
Moore’s assassination attempt came just 17 days after Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a member of the infamous Manson family, tried—and failed—to kill Ford in Sacramento, California. Fromme pointed a gun at the president but did not fire.
In a 2015 interview with CNN, Moore said she was inspired by the widespread talk of assassinating Ford.
Moore told CNN she “really truly” believed a revolution was coming and thought that killing Ford—who remains the only modern president never elected to the office—would trigger the government’s collapse.
In a 2015 interview with CNN, Moore controversially claimed that she had “always been a good citizen,” despite spending 34 years in prison. She also dismissed suggestions that her time behind bars had changed her mindset, insisting she had “always been a good citizen.”
In footage from the Nashville Banner, Moore reflected on her assassination attempt while watching live coverage of the attempt on then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s life in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024.
“It’s been so long ago, and I’ve deliberately not thought about it,” Moore said from a hospital bed. “It happened, so it happened.”
She added, “And I went on with my life after that. It cost me a little bit—well, a lot. You know, I did 34 years in prison.”
