U.S. female gunman Sarah Jane Moore passed away on September 24 at her usual nursing home, at the age of 95. Moore had attempted to assassinate then-U.S. President Gerald Ford in 1975. She was sentenced to life imprisonment for the attempted assassination and was paroled on December 31, 2007, after serving 32 years.
Moore was born on February 15, 1930, in Charleston, West Virginia. She had been a nurse, an accountant, and served in the Women’s Army Corps. Moore was divorced five times and had four children. According to her friends, Moore later became increasingly infatuated with “extreme political views.” She had once served as an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), infiltrating a charity founded by American millionaire Randolph Hearst, providing the FBI with internal details on the organization’s operations and related personnel. However, four months before Moore’s assassination attempt on Ford, the FBI terminated its cooperation with her.
On September 22, 1975, the 45-year-old Moore stood in a crowd opposite the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, about 12 meters from Ford, and fired a shot at him with a .38 caliber revolver she had hastily purchased that morning. Due to the .38 caliber revolver’s construction being very different from her usual habits, and the short distance between the sight and the point of impact, Moore missed with her first shot.
Realizing she had missed, Moore raised her arm again. Former Marine Oliver Sipple lunged at her and grabbed her arm, an act that saved Ford’s life. Sipple said at the time: “I saw her gun pointing there, so I wanted to grab her. I lunged and grabbed the woman’s arm, and the gun went off.” The bullet from the second shot hit the 42-year-old driver John Ludwig, but he fortunately survived.
In 1979, Moore attempted to escape from prison but was captured a few hours later. She later recalled, “If I had known I would only be free for a few hours, I should have gone and had a beer and a few hamburgers.”
On December 31, 2007, the 77-year-old Moore was paroled after serving 32 years. Just over a year before her release, Gerald Ford had died of natural causes on December 26, 2006. Moore had expressed regret for the assassination attempt, saying she was “blinded by radical political views.” In an interview, when asked about her crime, Moore said: “I’m glad I didn’t succeed. I now realize that I was wrong.” After her release, she changed her name and moved to North Carolina, marrying psychologist Philip Chase.
Moore died on September 24, 2025, at a nursing home in Franklin, Tennessee, at the age of 95. This was just two days after the 50th anniversary of her attempt to assassinate Ford.
