Among the best-documented final statements by infamous American killers are Gary Gilmore’s “Let’s do it” and Ted Bundy’s farewell to his family and friends. John Wayne Gacy is often credited with a much cruder line, but the sources reviewed here do not establish who recorded it. The distinction matters: a last-words quotation may be an official response in an execution chamber, a contemporaneous account, or a phrase repeated later without its original source.
Gary Gilmore: “Let’s do it”
Gary Gilmore was executed by firing squad in Utah on January 17, 1977. In a report written by William Greider and reproduced in The Washington Post’s archive, the words to the warden, witnesses, and executioners are explicitly called his “official last words”: “Let’s do it.” The archive page, published in 1999, identifies the original report as dated January 18, 1977, the day after the execution.
HISTORY.com also records the phrase and describes Gilmore as the first person executed in the United States after capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. The newspaper report is the closer-to-event account; the retrospective provides historical context.
Ted Bundy: a farewell to family and friends
At Bundy’s execution in Florida on January 24, 1989, prison superintendent Tom Barton asked whether he had any last words. A contemporaneous Los Angeles Times report records his reply: “Jim and Fred, I’d like you to give my love to my family and friends.” The article identifies Jim as lawyer Jim Coleman and Fred as Methodist minister Fred Lawrence.
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This is not a short slogan or an answer about his crimes; it is a farewell addressed to two people present. The Times reports that 42 witnesses attended the execution. Later compilations sometimes shorten the quotation, so the full wording in the contemporaneous account is the more useful version.
John Wayne Gacy: the attribution is less certain
John Wayne Gacy was executed in Illinois on May 10, 1994. CBS Chicago repeats the phrase “Kiss my ass” as Gacy’s last words. However, that report does not identify who heard or recorded the line, or provide a contemporaneous execution account or official transcript supporting the exact wording. A later Fox News compilation includes a censored version, but repetition in another compilation does not independently verify the attribution.
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It is therefore more accurate to say the phrase is often attributed to Gacy than to present it as a confirmed transcript. CBS Chicago also reports that Gacy was convicted on 33 murder counts; that background does not resolve the source of the quotation.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What counts as a killer’s “last words”?
The phrase can describe different things: an official answer to an execution official’s question, a statement made shortly before the procedure, or final spoken words that were later reported by a witness or compiler. Those categories are not equally documented. Gilmore’s line is identified as official in the archived report, while Bundy’s question and answer are narrated in contemporaneous newspaper coverage. For Gacy, the sources cited above repeat a familiar attribution without exposing its original documentation.
A specialist compilation discussed by WHYY draws on newspaper accounts, prison archives, and recollections from priests. That range of records helps explain why checking the source behind a quotation matters: a memorable line may survive widely even when its precise provenance is unclear.
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