SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Slava ‘Sal’ Veder, best known for his picture of a U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel joyfully reuniting with his family after five years in a prisoner of war camp in Vietnam, died Aug. 22. He was 99.
Veder’s family on Wednesday confirmed that the retired Associated Press photojournalist died in his sleep, just eight days shy of his 100th birthday, at his home in El Dorado County, California, outside of Sacramento.
The San Francisco Bay Area native was 46 years old in March 1973 when he was sent to Travis Air Force Base for the arrival of Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm and other war prisoners returning from Vietnam. Veder was in a crowded bullpen jockeying for pictures with dozens of other photographers when out of the corner of his eye he spotted Stirm’s four children begin to gallop toward their father.
“You could tell, even at a distance, what they were feeling. It was all over them, their faces, the way they all broke into a run. There was a surge of emotion from the crowd, too,” Veder said in a 2015 interview with The Guardian.
Using a makeshift darkroom set up in a women’s bathroom on base, Veder cranked out six images, including “Burst of Joy,” which won the 1974 Pulitzer in feature photography. Veder noted that in the photograph, Stirm has his back to the camera, rendering him an everyman soldier returning to the undeniable joy and excitement on the faces of his children.
The photo became a symbol of the end of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. But for Stirm, it represented heartbreak as he had been handed a “Dear John” letter from his wife, Loretta, by a chaplain upon his release and the couple divorced a year later. Stirm died in 2025.
Slava J. Veder was born Aug. 30, 1926, in Berkeley, California, to Ivan and Anka Veder, who had left Russia and taken the names John and Ann when they settled in the U.S. He was their only child.
He worked as a sports writer and news editor at several publications and in 1961, he was hired as a staff photographer by The Associated Press at its Sacramento bureau. Later, he transferred to the San Francisco office, which is where he was based when he took the prize-winning photograph.
Friends and former colleagues remembered Veder as a warm and humble person who loved to ice skate and sail. He mentored younger photographers and always took time to ask the people around him how they were doing that day.
“He was the first Pulitzer Prize winner I ever met, like holy smokes,” said Brad Mangin, a freelance sports photographer in the San Francisco Bay Area. “He was just the sweetest man.”
Eric Risberg, a retired AP photographer who worked in San Francisco, said Veder was a great mentor and teacher.
“He really, really emphasized the marriage between pictures and words. He encouraged me to dive deeper, and get more into what’s really the story?” Risberg said.
Among his many assignments, Veder took photographs of the late Ronald Reagan when he was California governor, university campus protests against the war in Vietnam, the bank robbery trial of newspaper heiress Patty Hearst, and the assassinations of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk by disgruntled former city supervisor Dan White in 1978.
Veder retired from AP in 1993.
Har, a former AP journalist, contributed reporting previously for this story. AP staffer Randy Herschaft contributed to this report.
FILE - Released prisoner of war Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm is greeted by his family at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, Calif., as he returns home from the Vietnam War, March 17, 1973. (AP Photo/Sal Veder, File)
A man accused of arranging the fatal shooting of a Microsoft design manager on a Florida road was convicted Wednesday in a murder-for-hire scheme that followed years of a stormy child custody arrangement between the victim and his wealthy ex-wife.
Jared Bridegan was shot in 2022 after he got out of his SUV to remove a tire from a road in Jacksonville Beach. The attack stumped police for months as they struggled to understand why someone with no apparent enemies would be killed while his daughter sat nearby in her car seat.
Prosecutors believe he was killed because of ongoing strife with his former wife, Shanna Gardner, over the parenting of their twins.
Mario Fernandez Saldana, 38, was convicted of first-degree murder and solicitation of murder. He’s married to Gardner, 39, whose trial is set to start in September.
“They wanted a majority of the decision making. They wanted more custody, even 60-40," Assistant State Attorney Christina Stifler said during closing arguments Tuesday in Duval County court.
“It doesn’t matter if they were completely right about the situation or completely wrong. What matters is how they fixed it,” Stifler said. “They fixed it by executing a man when they had other alternatives available to them. That’s why we’re here.”
Prosecutors said Fernandez Saldana hired Henry Tenon to carry out the fatal ambush. He had no personal connection to Bridegan, but was a former tenant at Fernandez Saldana’s rental property in Jacksonville. The prosecutor described him as “basically homeless, squatting on people’s couches with overdrawn bank accounts.”
Jurors saw three checks totaling $10,000 written to Tenon after the homicide, marked as payments by Fernandez Saldana for handyman work and a business idea — “good luck!!”
Tenon’s DNA was identified on the rim of the tire that was intentionally placed in the road, police said.
He initially pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against Fernandez Saldana but backed out and will stand trial in 2027.
Defense attorney Jesse Dreicer told jurors that Fernandez Saldana had no motive to have Bridegan killed. Fernandez Saldana and Gardner are estranged, and Gardner moved to Washington state after the killing. She was arrested in 2023.
“He certainly gained no benefit from the death of Jared Bridegan,” Dreicer said, noting there was no testimony that Fernandez Saldana told anyone that Bridegan “deserves to die.”
Gardner is the daughter of the co-founder of Stampin’ Up!, an arts-and-crafts company based in Utah.
Bridegan was shot twice when he stopped his Volkswagen Atlas to move the tire out of the way. He had just returned two children to Gardner's home after a meal with the twins. At the time of his death, he was married to Kirsten Bridegan and they had two children.
Kirsten Bridegan told the jury that the post-divorce relationship between her husband and Gardner was “pretty terrible,” adding there was “absolutely no trust.” She said it interfered with the kids' medical appointments and even routine meetings at school.
Bridegan was chief technology officer at Utah-based Clean Simple Eats before working at Microsoft for less than a year before his death, his wife said.
Kirsten Bridegan reacts on the witness stand in the trial of Mario Fernandez Saldana at the Duval County Courthouse, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026, in Jacksonville, Fla. (Corey Perrine/The Florida Times-Union via AP, Pool)
Defense Attorney Jesse Dreicer gaves the closing arguments for the defense in the the Mario Fernandez Saldana trial Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026 at the Duval Count Courthouse in Jacksonville, Fla. [Doug Engle/The Florida Times-Union via AP, Pool)
Assistant State Attorney Christina Stifler presents her closing arguments during the Mario Fernandez Saldana trial, Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026 at the Duval Count Courthouse in Jacksonville, Fla. [Doug Engle/The Florida Times-Union via AP, Pool)
Defense Attorney James Hill, left walks in his client, defendant Mario Fernandez Saldana, during his trial on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026 at the Duval Count Courthouse in Jacksonville, Fla. [Doug Engle/The Florida Times-Union via AP, Pool)
