Trial - Dark Stories True Crime Tours

1975: The Bystander Who Saved a President: Second Failed Attempt on Gerald Ford in San Francisco

Just seventeen days after Lynette Fromme aimed a pistol at Gerald Ford in Sacramento, a second attempt on the president's life unfolded outside a hotel in San Francisco on September 22, 1975. Sarah Jane Moore, a 45-year-old activist and FBI informant, fired a single shot from a .38 revolver at Ford as he left the St. Francis Hotel, missing him by only a few feet.

The shot went wide largely because of a bystander, former Marine Oliver Sipple, who was standing nearby and grabbed Moore's arm as she fired, deflecting her aim. Moore was wrestled to the ground and arrested at the scene.

She pleaded guilty to attempted assassination of a president and was sentenced to life in prison. Moore later expressed regret over the attempt, and she was eventually paroled in 2007 after more than three decades behind bars.

Gerald Ford portrait in the Michigan State Capitol at 100 N Capitol Avenue in Lansing, Michigan | ID 103716497 © Glenn Nagel | Dreamstime.com — ID 103716497 © Glenn Nagel | Dreamstime.com

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1976: Rejected From a Model Plane Club, He Opened Fire on the Streets of Spring Hill in Brisbane

On 22 September 1976, 36-year-old William Robert Wilson opened fire on Boundary Street in Spring Hill, a suburb of Brisbane. Armed with a .22-calibre rifle and 500 rounds of ammunition, he killed two teenage girls and wounded four other people. He had reportedly been upset after being rejected for membership by a model plane club.

Wilson then fled to a house in nearby Kelvin Grove and took five student teachers hostage. After around two hours of negotiations, one hostage escaped by pretending she needed the bathroom. Police stormed the house around 4pm, exchanging gunfire with Wilson before overpowering him and freeing the remaining captives.

Wilson spent three years in Hospital before being considered fit to plead. On 23 June 1980, he pleaded guilty to two murders and four attempted murders, receiving two life sentences and concurrent ten-year prison terms.

Old Windmill Brisbane, built by convicts at Moreton Bay penal settlement

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Australia Brisbane Kidnapping Mass Shooting Mental Illness Murder QLD Trial

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1852: The Last Public Hanging in NSW: Francis Thomas Green Executed at Darlinghurst Gaol

Francis Thomas Green was hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol on 21 September 1852 for the murder of John Jones at Buckley's Creek on 10 March that year, shot dead with a pistol. The execution holds a grim distinction: it was the last public hanging carried out in New South Wales.

The morning of the execution broke dark and drizzling, yet the crowd was of the usual size, with women reportedly outnumbering men by nearly three to one. A carriage carrying women described by the press as being of "respectable exterior" was drawn up directly in front of the gallows, its occupants showing what one newspaper called a "disgusting eagerness" to secure the best view, while mothers nursed infants and children ran boisterously among the onlookers.

Green's wife visited him for a final farewell the day before his death, the only moment he was seen to show real emotion. He spent his last night in prayer with a Roman Catholic priest, having initially refused all ministers before requesting Catholic clergy in his final days.

Green made a partial admission to a gaol official before his death, saying that Jones had fallen by his hand "in the heat of a sudden quarrel".

Darlinghurst Gaol northeast corner view from Burton Street 1870

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2002: Hillside Strangler Angelo Buono Dies in Prison, Never Expressing Remorse

Angelo Buono Jr., one half of the killing partnership known as the Hillside Stranglers, died of a heart attack at age 67 while serving a life sentence without parole at Calipatria State Prison in California. He had been convicted of nine murders committed with his cousin Kenneth Bianchi in Los Angeles between 1977 and 1978, victims who were kidnapped, tortured and strangled before their bodies were dumped on hillsides around the city.

Buono ran an upholstery shop that served as a base for the pair, luring young women into his van before the killings. Bianchi, who was arrested first in Washington State, struck a deal and testified against Buono in exchange for avoiding the death penalty, a betrayal that helped seal his cousin's conviction after one of the longest and most expensive criminal trials in California history.

Buono spent the rest of his life in prison showing no remorse for the killings, dying quietly behind bars rather than facing execution.

Empty desert prison yard with guard tower in background

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