Housewife Assassin

The authoritative true crime biography of a seemingly ordinary woman who nearly killed President Ford.

President Gerald Ford suffered two attempts on his life during his term in office: one by Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme of the Manson Family, and the other by a far less likely candidate—an average middle-aged mother of five—Sara Jane Moore. After thirty years of communication with Moore in prison, journalist Geri Spieler provides a riveting account of her path from childhood in smalltown West Virginia to that fateful moment when she tried to assassinate the president.

Throughout Moore’s dodgy life she hid her identity and misled those around her. Through the turbulent 60s and 70s, she married five times, abandoned children, faked amnesia, befriended Patty Hearst’s father, became a revolutionary, and worked as an FBI informant turned double agent feeding information to the underground radicals.

From Spieler’s insider correspondence and independent research, including interviews with President Ford himself, she dissects the popular narrative—confirming some details and debunks others—and delivers a compelling profile of a society lady turned elusive assassin.