Lynette Fromme

Lynnette Fromme was born on October 22, 1948, in Santa Monica, California, to Helen (née Benzinger), a homemaker, and William Millar Fromme, an aeronautical engineer and a graduate of the New York University.

Growing up, she was a member of the Westchester Lariats, a beloved dance group in her locality. They toured the US and Europe in the late 1950s, even making an appearance on The Lawrence Welk Show following which they were introduced to the then President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

She and her family relocated Redondo Beach, California in 1963 and Fromme soon became addicted to both drugs and alcohol. She studied at Redondo Union High School, graduating in 1966.

Her father encouraged her to pursue higher education. She enrolled at the El Camino Junior College in Torrance, California but eventually dropped out after a few months. Following this, she had an argument with her father, leading him to throw her out of his house.

Having been rendered homeless, Lynette Fromme went through severe bouts of depression in 1967. She first met Manson during this period and became fascinated by his philosophies.

Travelling with Manson, she became a part of his close circle, the infamous Manson Family. Besides her, there were several other young members, including Bruce Davis, Nancy Pitman, Catherine "Gypsy" Share, Sandra Good, Susan Atkins, Mary Brunner, and Paul Watkins.

They moved into a Southern Californian property called Spahn Ranch. Its owner, George Spahn, began calling her “Squeaky”, after the sound she used to make whenever he touched her.

During Manson’s trial in 1969 for the murders of Tate / LaBianca, Fromme and the rest of the family members began to campaign outside the courtroom. Following the examples of Manson and other accused members, she and the others carved Xs on their foreheads. While she never faced any murder charges for this particular set of killings, she was sentenced to a short imprisonment for trying to stop witnesses from testifying against Manson and for contempt of the court, as she refused to testify herself.

After moving to Sacramento, California with Sandra Good, so that they could be near Manson, who was housed at Folsom Prison then, Fromme began working on an extensive book on the Manson Family. However, she eventually dropped the idea after realising how incriminating that could be.

On September 5, 1975, the US President Gerald Ford was supposed to speak at the 49th annual Sacramento "Host Breakfast," an annual gathering of wealthy California business leaders to be held in the Sacramento Convention Center.

During this period, Fromme had become concerned about California's giant coastal redwoods, which she believed was in great danger due to automobile smog. She decided to bring the matter to the government’s attention by murdering its symbol, the president himself.

On the morning of 5 September, she put on a red dress, found a Colt M1911 .45 semi-automatic pistol to arm herself, and headed towards the California state capitol grounds. Fromme positioned herself at the first row of a crowd of spectators. As Ford approached to shake their hands, Fromme pulled out the gun from the leg holster and pointed it at Ford.

The Secret Service agent Larry Buendorf immediately disarmed and detained her. It was found that while she had four rounds of bullets in the gun, there was none in the chamber. She later revealed that she had intentionally emptied the chamber earlier.

Charged with the attempted assassination of the President of the United States, she refused to follow the instructions given by her defence attorneys. In 1975, she was convicted and was sentenced to life imprisonment.