Sarah Jane Moore paroled

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 31 (UPI) -- Sarah Jane Moore was a free woman Monday, having been paroled after serving more than 30 years in prison for shooting at then-U.S. President Gerald Ford.

A Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesman said Moore, 77, was released from a low-security federal women's prison near San Francisco, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Moore, a native of Charleston, W.Va., was sentenced to life in prison for firing a single shot from a .38 caliber revolver at Ford Sept. 22, 1975, as he left a speaking engagement in downtown San Francisco. The shot missed Ford, who just 17 days earlier had been targeted by Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, who didn't a shot off though she got within two feet of the president with a .45 caliber pistol.

After being sentenced, the divorced mother of four expressed mixed emotions about the assassination attempt.

"Am I sorry I tried?" she asked. "Yes and no. Yes, because it accomplished little except to throw away the rest of my life. ... "And no, I'm not sorry I tried, because at the time it seemed a correct expression of my anger."

Ford died Dec. 26, 2006, of natural causes.