The Charles Manson follower convicted of trying to assassinate President Gerald Ford was released Friday from a Texas prison hospital after more than three decades behind bars, a prison official said.
Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme was just 26 years old when she pointed a semiautomatic .45- caliber pistol at Ford in September 1975 in Sacramento Secret Service agents grabbed her and Ford was unhurt.
Fromme, now 60, left the Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth at about 8 a.m. Friday, spokeswoman Dr. Maria Douglas said in a statement.
Fromme, who got a life term, became the first person sentenced under a special federal law covering assaults on U.S. presidents, a statute enacted after the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Ford was walking to the California State Capitol from his hotel when Fromme pushed through the crowd, drew the pistol from a holster on her thigh and pointed it at the president as he shook hands with well-wishers. She was restrained by Secret Service agents who wrested the gun away from her and led the president to safety.
Fromme was granted parole in July 2008 and released "via good conduct time" after completing a 15-month sentence for unlawful escape from a federal correctional institution, according to the statement. That sentence was being served consecutively after a life sentence for threats against the president.
She escaped from a female prison in Alderson, W.Va., on Dec. 23, 1987, and was recaptured about two miles away on Christmas Day after a massive search. She was sentenced to an additional 15 months in prison for the escape. Fromme had said she escaped from prison to be closer to Manson.
It was unclear why Fromme was at Carswell, a facility that specializes in providing medical and mental health services to female offenders. A spokeswoman for the bureau of prisons did not immediately return a phone call Wednesday seeking comment.
"I knew someday she would be released," said John Virga, the Sacramento attorney who handled her trial.
Fromme served time in at least two other facilities before Carswell.
Manson is serving a life term in San Quentin in California for the 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate and eight others. Fromme, one of his "family" of followers, was not implicated in those attacks.
I guess we should release Chapman and Hinkley next! I mean what harm could possibly happen when you let loose crazy people that are obsessed with famous people and want to make a name for themselves by killing famous people. Liberal judges!!!
'You start out wrinkled and you cry...you end up wrinkled and you die.'
This is the part of the story I like: "It was unclear why Fromme was at Carswell, a facility that specializes in providing medical and mental health services to female offenders."
Did it not occur to the writer that Ms. Fromme might be, as Dan Rather would say: "brown-bat crazy" (with all due respect to Bats, of course)?
The whole principle of paroling offenders derives from the idea that people are redeemable. Without that, everybody's a lifer. This last bit of the story makes the whole parole idea for Ms. Fromme a bit wobbly, but on the other hand, she can't go after Mr. Ford any more, anyway.
She is a sick twisted woman, she shouldn't be let out. Watch any interview she shows no remorse what she did, she even laughs about it. I remember reading she was rather happy with prison life and didn't care if she ever got out.
Glad you fixed that up EM LOL!!!! I may be a little Gothic with a touch of Lace
BUT letting that THING out is beyond me I remember seeing a show where a Mother of one of the Murdered Victims had to go to stop each year to
plead for them not to be release the Stress killed her daughter vowed to
carry on,how can one killed a Lady with a baby due is beyond me ,,just SICK
I just hope she dies of a cancer so awful willmake her feel what she did to
Victims they should all got the CHAIR .
Bats
Just for the sake of accuracy, Ms. Fromme didn't participate on the Tate-La Bianca murders, and part of the mitigating circumstances of her crime was that she'd removed the bullet from the chamber of her pistol before she menaced Mr. Ford with it. I'm just glad I've made better choices in boyfriends over the years 'cause even in L.A. one can do far better than Charlie Manson.
let's not belittle him in regards to his appeal towards women. he obviously had something they wanted. that whole thing about opposites attract is a lie - most gals just want a psycho just like them.
