“The Seattle Times” - August 13 1977 

The following is taken from a variety of article’s featuring photographer Jerry Gay, who spent 3 hours with Ted Bundy in 1977 whilst he was in Jail in Colorado. Given unique access to Ted after winning the Pulitzer prize in 1975 for capturing exhausted firefighters slumped over and resting mid-fight. His photographs have become the stuff of legend . 

“The Seattle Times” -07/30/1977

Jerry Gay was a photographer for The Seattle Times and had been awarded the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for his black and white photo entitled “Lull In The Battle"

Lull in the battle” Taken 11 October 1974 Firefighters in Burien, washington rest after fighting a house fire.

This photograph won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photograhy 

“The Seattle Times”- May 5 1975

“...I had prearranged a session to photograph Mr Bundy while he was studying for his defence at the Law Library in Aspen. I found it curious at the time that he asked me to bring a shirt for him to wear. Later  I learned that he wasnt particularly fond of being seen publicly in jail fatigues. We met at the Jail and exchanged handshakes- through the bars of his holding cell. I then followed Mr. Bundy and two armed deputies as he walked with shackled feet to the library across the parking lot. All the while Mr. Bundy was smiling and making small talk with me. It seemed as though we had met before. In time, I found myself liking this person who was wearing my shirt. For the next three hours I photographed Mr. Bundy while he studied. I asked myself many times over if this man from my hometown could have committed the crimes he was accused of. Each time, though, my deeper senses would answer back that it didnt really matter. I hadnt come to judge, only to witness...”

Source: “York Daily Record” - January 29 1989

"...I let him create. He had shackles on his feet. I would get on the floor, he would just get totally involved in his law book. I just let him give himself to me. I wasn’t there to judge him. I was there to  document him. His life was there now, and I had to show my appreciation of him giving to me, so he would keep giving and not me at some point act like a journalist or judging him...” 

                           Jerry Gay 

"...When editing for the definitive picture, I will choose the visual aspect that I feel best reflects the subject from my own consensus. Later, once again in the darkroom, I will then custom hand print each selected negative, often spending countless hours recreating the picture just the way I envision it to be. I relate to each person I'm photographing as if he or she is the most important person imaginable at that moment...”

                                                       Jerry Gay 

 ...As he (Gay) was driving to a photographer’s convention in Colorado, the Times asked Gay to stop by a local prison. Colorado authorities had detained a Washington native named Ted Bundy. Times editors were wondering if Bundy might be somehow connected to the mysterious ‘Ted” who kept cropping up as     detectives investigated a series of murders of young women in the Northwest.

Ted looks up to watch the guards move around the room -Jerry Gay 

Ted's ankles were shackled to reduce the chance of ecape - Jerry Gay 

Ted grips his pencil while holding his thoughts- Jerry Gay 

Gay was locked in Bundy’s cell for three hours. They chatted and Bundy studied legal papers involved with his case as Gay photographed him. FBI agents visited Gay about three weeks later. They told him not to leave town without notifying them. Bundy had escaped his Colorado cell. Authorities didn’t know how. What they did know was that some guy had taken a camera case into Bundy’s cell and had been alone with him for three hours.

Ted Bundy reads a book in the county law library in Aspen, Colorado to prepare for his criminal defense -Jerry Gay