Attempted Ford assassin may be released

DUBLIN, Calif., Dec. 29 (UPI) -- One of former U.S. President Gerald Ford's two attempted assassins from September 1975 may be eligible for parole from her California prison next year.

The U.S. Parole Commission said Sara Jane Moore, who will be 77 in February, could be released in September unless the commission rules that she is likely to commit another crime or uncovers further serious institutional misconduct, The Washington Post reported Friday.

Moore, a mother and accountant, had worked as an informant for the FBI for a year after making contact with radical left-wing groups while helping Randolph Hearst attempt to free his daughter, Patricia, from the Symbionese Liberation Army, the Post said.

She was arrested Sept. 22, 1975, after firing a shot at Ford as he exited the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco.

Seventeen days earlier, Lynette Fromme, a follower of convicted killer Charles Manson, pulled a gun on Ford in Sacramento but Secret Service agents took the weapon from her before she could fire it.

Fromme, being held at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell, near Fort Worth, Texas, has no set release date, the newspaper reported.