This day in history (taken from History.com)
December 17, 2010
"Squeaky" Fromme sentenced to life
A federal jury in Sacramento, California, sentences Lynette Alice Fromme, also known as "Squeaky" Fromme, to life in prison for her attempted assassination of President Gerald R. Ford.
On September 5, a Secret Service agent wrested a semi-automatic .45-caliber pistol from Fromme, who brandished the weapon during a public appearance of President Ford in Sacramento. "Squeaky" Fromme, a follower of incarcerated cult leader Charles Manson, was pointing the loaded gun at the president when the Secret Service agent grabbed it.
Seventeen days later, Ford escaped injury in another assassination attempt when 45-year-old Sara Jane Moore fired a revolver at him. 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 sentenced to life.
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.
On September 5, a Secret Service agent wrested a semi-automatic .45-caliber pistol from Fromme, who brandished the weapon during a public appearance of President Ford in Sacramento. "Squeaky" Fromme, a follower of incarcerated cult leader Charles Manson, was pointing the loaded gun at the president when the Secret Service agent grabbed it.
Seventeen days later, Ford escaped injury in another assassination attempt when 45-year-old Sara Jane Moore fired a revolver at him. 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 sentenced to life.
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's just completely whacked!
ReplyDeleteWomen go crazy differently than we do. It's like they don't know the train has left the tracks.
ReplyDeleteTHE DOORS
ReplyDelete"You're Lost Little Girl"
You're lost little girl
You're lost little girl
You're lost
Tell me who
Are you?
I think that you know what to do
Impossible? Yes, but it's true
I think that you know what to do, yeah
I'm sure that you know what to do
You're lost little girl
You're lost little girl
You're lost
Tell me who
Are you?
I think that you know what to do
Impossible? Yes, but it's true
I think that you know what to do, girl
I'm sure that you know what to do
You're lost little girl
You're lost little girl
You're lost
long time since i heard that Doors tune. very appropriate. almost as appropriate as
ReplyDeleteSexy Sadie what have you done
you made a fool of everyone
you made a fool of everyone
sexy sadie oh what have you done.
sexy sadie you broke the rules
you laid it down for all to see
you laid it down for all to see
sexy sadie ohhh you broke the rules.
Okay, and since were at it;
ReplyDeleteThe Ballad of Brenda McCann
The Shangs
Won't you walk with me
in the starlit sky
dancing in the desert night
can't you hear the voices
calling out your name
dancing in the devils night
throw your shoes away
and burn your hair in sand
what you do to please
Oh Brenda McCann
These naked kids of the desert, who we correctly call insane and evil, we have to also call part of American history. They started out as kids getting high and doing their own thing and they brought a decade to an end and impacted the culture of their time.
ReplyDeleteYa know I never was on board with that old " They Killed the sixties" thing...
ReplyDeleteThe decade was ending anyway. It was late summer of 69 when the murders happened - if they never went to Cielo would the decade have stopped??
Also the whole " summer of love" thing, and the Scene at the Haight was well over at this time...
Not that those were the only places that mattered- but the epicenters of the movement were no longer bringing in hippies by the hundreds...
What if the whole Hippy thing was another of many Fads of time, and like other fad- it just ran its course???
Charlie gets alot of credit lol- but did he really change the course of History?? did these crimes really go that far- an entire nation was willing to change its social values and the direction of its future over what these drugged out kids did in the course of a few nights???
Not me... I am not buying that now, and wouldn't have bought that then...
How much do you think that the time between the crimes and when they got caught had to do with it???
ReplyDeleteIf they had gotten caught in the next few days would things be different?
If there was no time/need for Hollywood to get paranoid- if There was no time for the legend to grow- if the " Beautiful people" didn't get ugly with each other over it... If there were caught red handed and Bugs didnt need to create his own motive...
Would they still be who they are today?? Would Charlie have become who he is today??
Or would they have been labeled what they really might have been all along...
A bunch of desperate, hungry, confused kids who got really messed up on drugs and went too far at the instigation of an older ex con who used them to try and keep his own hands clean...