Ward Lucas, longtime 9NEWS reporter and anchor, dies at age 75

Lucas was an investigative reporter and weekend presenter at 9NEWS for over 30 years until his retirement in 2009.

DENVER – Longtime journalist Ward Lucas, who worked as an investigative reporter and anchor at 9NEWS for more than 30 years until his retirement in 2009, died Sunday at the age of 75.

Lucas was known among his colleagues as a quick-witted truth-seeker with a passion for words and was a mentor to many young journalists.

Born in Kyoto, Japan, Lucas began his career as a television anchor in 1974 at KIRO-TV in Seattle. Two years later, he moved to Denver to begin a decades-long career at 9NEWS. In his more than 40 years as an investigative journalist, his work has included covering the DB Cooper kidnapping and the Ted Bundy murders.

In 1977, he tried to persuade the news director of 9NEWS to fly him to Aspen after Bundy's escape from the Pitkin County Courthouse. At the time, the news director felt the story was not nationally known enough, so Lucas hired a pilot to fly him and a photographer to Aspen to cover the story.

“The news director didn't know about the breakout from the jail there, the Pitkin County Courthouse, until I started broadcasting from Aspen,” Lucas said in a 2019 interview with Tom Green when Netflix released a documentary about the case. Lucas appeared in the documentary.

> Below: Ward Lucas talks about his coverage of the Ted Bundy murders and his role in a Netflix documentary:

Ward Lucas first covered the Ted Bundy murders in Seattle and then here in Colorado for 9NEWS when Bundy was linked to a murder in Aspen. He is also involved in a Netflix documentary about the case.

Lucas has won more than 70 awards for his work, including 11 Emmys. He was inducted into the Heartland Emmys Silver Circle in 2008 and the Broadcast Pioneers of Colorado in 2018.

After leaving 9NEWS, he wrote three books: “Neighbors at War! The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowner's Association,” “Sometimes Ya Gotta Ride the Elephant,” and “The Wacky World of a Recovering Army Brat Family.”

He served on the board of the Alzheimer's Association from 1996 to 2002. Lucas' father, who served in World War II and suffered severe head injuries from a Nazi bazooka, lived with Alzheimer's disease for more than a decade before his death.

He talked about his father's battle with Alzheimer's and what he planned to do after leaving 9NEWS in 2019: