Manson family kook Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme thought she had a great chance to beat the rap after she was busted for trying to shoot President Gerald Ford, newly released audiotape reveals.
“What would you estimate to be your percentage chance at this point of being found not guilty?” psychiatrist James Richmond asked Fromme during a September 1975 psych exam that was recorded but only released last week.
“Oh, I feel, I feel definitely I have probably a 70 percent chance on the percentage scale,” said Fromme. “I don’t feel that I’ll be convicted of attempted assassination.”
But it turned out that Fromme was no better at making predictions than she was as an assassin.
The flaky freak – who admitted on the tape to tripping on LSD about 30 times – was convicted and remained in prison until she was released on parole in 2009.
She now lives quietly in the small town of Marcy in Oneida County in upstate New York, according to several reports, though no public records under her name could be found.
US District Judge Kimberly Mueller ordered the release of the 132-minute recording last week in response to a motion filed by the Sacramento Bee newspaper in November.
The recording of was made about two weeks after the then-26-year-old Fromme aimed a .45 caliber Colt pistol at Ford in Sacramento’s Capitol Park.
The gun did not go off and Fromme was wrestled to the ground by a Secret Service agent.
The tape was made in order to determine her competence to stand trial and to be her own attorney – a request that was rejected.
The tapes also reveal details about Fromme’s life and her relationship with Manson and other “family” members, the Bee reported.
“We did not have sex orgies and drug orgies or cult meetings or hanging Christ in effigy or pretending Charlie was Christ or anything of that nature,” Fromme said. “This all comes out of people’s imagination. We were actually pretty healthy.”
He also asked her how she was feeling physically after she said she had lost weight in jail.
“How’s your appetite been?” Richmond asked, the paper reported.
“Well, doc, the food here is not the type of food that I eat.”
“Leaves something to be desired?” he asked. “What kind of a dietary trip are you on?”
“A healthy one,” she said. “Vegetables, yeah, I’m a vegetarian. I try and avoid additives, sugar; I ordinarily don’t eat any sugar, starch.”
Charles Manson, 79, remains imprisoned at California State Prison in Corcoran on multiple murder charges for the killing of actress Sharon Tate and others.