This week (December 14-20) in crime history – Mass shooting at Newtown, Connecticut elementary school (December 14, 2012); Nazi Adolf Eichmann was sentenced to death for war crimes (December 15, 1961); Federal Judge Robert Vance was killed by terrorist bomb (December 16, 1989); Lynette Squeaky Fromme was sentenced for attempting to assassinate President Ford (December 17, 1975); The Howard Beach hate crime (December 20, 1986)

Highlighted Crime Story of the Week –

On December 17, 1975, a federal jury in Sacramento, California, sentenced Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, to life in prison for her attempted assassination of President Gerald R. Ford. On September 5, a Secret Service agent wrestled a semi-automatic .45-caliber pistol from Fromme, who brandished the weapon at the President as he walked through the grounds of the California State Capitol in Sacramento. Fromme, was a follower of convicted murderer Charles Manson.

Seventeen days later, Ford escaped injury in another assassination attempt when 45-year-old Sara Jane Moore fired a revolver at him as he left the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. Moore, a leftist radical who once served as an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had a history of mental illness. She was arrested at the scene, convicted, and also sentenced to life in prison.
In trial, Fromme pleaded not guilty to the “attempted assassination of a president” charge, arguing that although her gun contained bullets, it had not been cocked, and therefore she had not actually intended to shoot the president. She was convicted, sentenced to life in prison, and sent to the Alderson Federal Correctional Institution in West Virginia.

Fromme remained a dedicated disciple of Charles Manson and in December 1987 escaped from Alderson Prison after she heard that Manson, also imprisoned, had cancer. After 40 hours roaming the rugged West Virginia hills, she was caught on Christmas Day, about two miles from the prison. Five years were added to her life sentence for the escape. She was eventually released on parole in August 2009.

Check back every Monday for a new installment of “This Week in Crime History.”

Michael Thomas Barry is a columnist for www.crimemagazine.com and is the author of seven nonfiction books that includes the soon to be released In the Company of Evil Thirty Years of California Crime, 1950-1980 and the award winning Murder and Mayhem 52 Crimes that Shocked Early California, 1849-1949.