The Unabomber: Ted Kaczynski
Starting in 1978, a serial bomber used the United States Postal Service to deliver homemade explosives to his unsuspecting victims. The FBI had little information to go on, only a police sketch made from eyewitness testimony. They called their elusive killer the Unabomber, since his targets were mainly UNiversity professors and Airlines. His domestic terrorism career spanned 18 years, injuring 23 people and killing 3. Finally, the bomber sent an essay to the New York Times, describing his ideals and threatening more killings if it wasn’t published. A woman named Linda had been following the case and had her suspicions about the identity of the culprit. She convinced her husband, David, to read the piece and after much internal conflict, he contacted the FBI. He told the Bureau that he suspected the Unabomber was his brother, Ted Kaczynski.
The Life of Ted Kaczynski
Theodore John Kaczynski was born on May 22, 1942 to Wanda and Theodore Kaczynski in Chicago,IL. For the first few years of his life, Ted didn’t seem much different than any other little boy, with one exception. Social interaction seemed very difficult for Ted. When he was only nine months old, he was hospitalized for an allergic reaction and was very isolated. This took place in the 1940s, a time during which parents weren’t encouraged to visit infant children in the hospital. Ted’s parents were allowed to visit him twice a week and could only stay for two hours. When they brought Ted home he didn’t show much emotion and wouldn’t look people in the face. His mother, Wanda, believes that he felt abandoned and that the incident created fear of abandonment in her son. She said that before the hospital stay, her boy was a happy, playful baby, who liked to coo and pull on people’s hair, but afterwards he was a somber child.
In 1949 Ted’s younger brother, David Kaczynski, was born. A few years later the family moved out of Chicago into the SouthWestern suburb of Evergreen Park. During his first years of schooling Ted was described as “well-adjusted” and “healthy.” In the fifth grade a school counselor gave Ted an IQ test and he scored 167. It’s generally noted nowadays that IQ tests aren’t really a good measure of intellect or academic ability. There’s many different parts of intellect, so it can’t really be measured in one test, but just for comparison a “genius IQ” is generally considered to be around 140. Ted was allowed to skip the 6th grade and enter the 7th. Being the youngest and smallest kid in the class didn’t help with his social issues and he was never a very popular or talkative child.
In interviews and writing, Ted would claim that his childhood was an unhappy one. His story is that his parents, especially his father, that they put a great deal of pressure on him to succeed and this pressure made home a hostile environment. Ted’s parents, and his brother, David, all disagree with this version of his childhood. David remembers his parents only ever being supportive and loving and his parents recall Ted as a happy, if socially stunted child.
Ted graduated high school at the age of 16 and was encouraged to apply for Harvard. He was accepted and even though he didn’t have his driver’s license yet, he joined the freshman class in 1958.
In a move that didn’t help an emotionally immature freshmen , such as Kaczynski, the administration housed several of the highest achieving freshmen in a separate dorm. Most of the students in the dorm were in single rooms, so they were socially separated from many of their peers and not made to interact with others outside of the classroom. Despite his lack of social progress, Kaczynski continued to exceed expectations in his classes, especially in mathematics.
In his sophomore year, Kaczynski participated in a psychological study conducted by Dr. Henry Murray. Murray was, and still remains, a big name in psychology. His research attempted to bridge the disciplines of psychology and sociology by studying the smallest social unit, the interaction between two individuals, which he named the dyad. During World War II, Murray served in the OSS, the predecessor of the CIA. He was charged with creating a test to determine how well soldiers could withstand interrogation. After the war, he continued his research on college students.
The series of tests that Kaczynski participated in was called “Multiform Assessments of Personality Development Among Gifted College Men,” and is now considered to be highly unethical experiment. The participants were required to write an essay detailing their deepest held beliefs, their aspirations, and their most secret sexual desires. Murray then read the essays and came up with a “plan of attack.” The participants were strapped to a chair and connected to electrodes to measure physical responses to stress. They sat in front of a one way mirror through which they were video taped. A law student then used Murray’s detailed “plan of attack” to belittle, verbally assault, and humiliate the participant, all which added up to be what we would now call psychological torture. The experiment lasted three years and the students were made to endure the ordeal several times. They were also made to relieve the experience by watching the video recording. Many of the participants reported being deeply disturbed by the experiment, even as long as 25 years after. Many people believe that this traumatizing experience may have been a turning point in both Kaczynski’s ideals, and the state of his mental health.
Nevertheless, Ted Kaczynski graduated from Harvard with a degree in mathematics in 1962, at the age of 20. Then, he went on to the University of Michigan where he earned his Master's degree in 1965 and then his PhD in Mathematics in 1967. At the age of 25, Kaczynski was offered a professorship at the University of California Berkeley, which he accepted. He worked as an assistant professor of mathematics for two years, but once again his subpar social skills proved a hindrance. His student reviews were extremely negative, claiming that he read straight from the book and his lectures were pointless.
In 1969 he abruptly quit his position without notice and moved back in with his parents in Lombard, IL. During this time he seemed to become closer to his brother, David. However, in 1971 he made the decision to build a one room cabin in the Montana wilderness and live in isolation. His cabin had no electricity or running water. He lived off of the land, growing a garden and hunting for food. He had a bicycle that on very rare occasions he would ride to the nearby town of Lincoln for supplies. According to his journal, in 1978 he decided to take a trip to one of his favorite wild spots, about a two day hike from his cabin. He made the journey up there and found that the wilderness had been interrupted by an interstate. He became angry and frustrated, finally deciding that it was impossible to live in nature and moving back in with his parents in Lombard.
During this stint of living at home, Kaczynski got a job working at a foam rubber plant where his brother, David, was his boss. During this time Ted began dating a female supervisor at the plant. David remembers him coming home one evening in a very good mood. Ted told him that the woman had given him a ride home and they had shared a kiss. However, the relationship didn’t last long. The woman told Ted that she didn’t believe the relationship would work because they didn’t have enough in common. Ted did not handle the rejection well. He began harassing the supervisor and even writing rude notes and poems about her. David found himself in the difficult position of having to fire his brother. Ted once again moved to the Montana wilderness and David pinpoints that incident as being his first indication that Ted wasn’t just anti-social, but that there was something seriously wrong with his brother.
Kaczynski would continue to live in his cabin outside of Lincoln, Montana until his arrest in 1995. His family attempted to keep in contact with him, but Ted would write back mean, abusive letters and demand that they cut all contact with him. He wrote to his parents, saying that his childhood was very unhappy. He claimed that his parents put far too much pressure on him to succeed academically because they were vain and wanted a “perfect genius child.” When David wrote to tell Ted that he was getting married, Ted wrote a letter criticizing everything about David and Linda, David’s finance whom he had never even met. In one letter to his parents he claimed that all his childhood stress had stunted his growth, which was why he was shorter than his brother. In another he wrote, “There is nothing that could ever be important enough so that you would have to get in touch with me. Even if Ma dies, I don’t want to hear about it.” When his father committed suicide in 1990, Ted did not attend the services. In 1991, David Kaczynski and his wife, Linda Patrik, did some research to see what it would take to have Ted committed to a mental institution, as they knew that was the only way that he would receive any sort of medical attention from a mental health professional. They found that they couldn’t do much, as they lived far away and had no proof that he was a danger to anyone, or that anything was really wrong with him. All they could prove was that he liked to be alone, but that would change in the coming years.
Timeline of Unabomber Attacks
May 26, 1978
Mary Gutierrez found a brown package in the parking lot of the Science and Engineering Building of Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. She attempted to put the package in a mailbox, but it wouldn’t fit. Instead, she noticed that the return address listed Professor Buckley Crist as the sender. She contacted Crist and handed over the package. Crist was suspicious, as he didn’t remember sending the package, so he contacted the campus police. Officer Terry Marker responded. As Marker examined the package it exploded, leaving him with slight injuries.
May 9, 1979
Almost exactly one year after the first attack, John Harris, a Grad student at Northwestern University, noticed a cigar box stuck between two study corrals in the student meeting room. He opened the box, triggering an explosion and fire. He was taken to the hospital, but was released less than an hour later. Neither this incident, nor the first attack received a great deal of media coverage and they were treated by the police as separate, unrelated incidents.
November 15, 1979
While en route from Chicago to Washington D.C., crew and passengers of American Airlines Flight 445 heard a large thump. The cabin began to fill with smoke and the pilot struggled to retain control of the partially depressurized airplane. After an emergency landing 12 passengers were treated for smoke inhalation, but no deaths occurred. The bombing of an airplane is a felony, so the FBI were given jurisdiction over the case. They found a homemade bomb in the cargo hold. If it had exploded at full force, it would have destroyed the entire plane mid-flight, killing everyone on board. The FBI began to look at the series of bombings, which at this point were mainly centered around Chicago, as the work of a serial bomber. The bureau called the culprit the Unabomber, using the first few letters of “university” and “airline,” his two main targets. A task force was created and the most expensive man-hunt in American history began.
June 10, 1980
Percy Wood, the president of United Airlines, received package on his birthday, which isn’t unusual in the slightest. Inside was a book, also a fairly usual occurrence. In fact, Wood had some indication that it was coming. He had received a letter a few days previously. The letter stated that the book would be arriving soon and the sender wished that Wood and “everyone who made important decisions for the public” would read it as it was a “good social lesson.” What wasn’t usual was the explosion that occurred when Wood opened the package. He received several cuts and burns on his face and right leg. The initials “F.C.” were stamped on piece of metal inside the package.
October 8, 1981
A student leaving a lecture hall at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City noticed a package left in the hallway. Suspicious, due to the bombings, he called the campus police, who in term called the city bomb squad. The bomb was disarmed without injury and inside the package was a metal plate with the letters “F.C.”
May 5, 1982
Patrick Fischer, professor of computer science at Vanderbilt University, was lucky enough to be on vacation when the Unabomber targeted him. Unfortunately for Janet Smith, his secretary, that meant that she was the one to open the package addressed to him. The bomb exploded upon opening, leaving Janet Smith hospitalized with burns and cuts on her face, hands, and chest. It’s possible the bomb wasn’t even intended for Professor Fischer. The Unabomber often did not put enough postage on the packages he sent, leading it to be sent to the return address listed. This made it more difficult to track him. Therefore, it’s possible that Fischer wasn’t the target, but rather another computer science professor who was listed as the sender.
July 2, 1982
A bomb was left in the Faculty Lounge of Cory Hall, a building used by the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UC Berkeley. Diogenes Angelakas, the vice chair of the department, happened upon it. The device was a metal, cylindrical shape covered in dials. Thinking it was a misplaced construction tool, Angelakas reached down to pick it up. The bomb exploded, ripping through his right hand and badly burning his arm. Despite his bad injuries, the event could have ended far worse. The fuel component of the bomb didn’t ignite correctly. If it had, it would have exploded with far more force, likely killing anyone in the area. Angelakas made an almost full recovery from his injuries. However, his time spent in the hospital was time away from his terminally ill wife, who died about a month after the attack.
May 15, 1985
Once again, the Unabomber struck the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UC Berkeley. The bomb was in a plastic bin in a lab, on top of several three ring binders. It sat there for several days before grad student, Air Force pilot, and aspiring astronaut, John Hauser moved it, intending to find it’s owner. After moving it, Hauser heard a loud noise, and then it exploded. The blast shredded his right hand, and severed two arteries in his arm. The explosion was so powerful that the word “academy” was printed into the wall where his Air Force Academy ring hit. Diogenes Angelakas, the previous Unabomber victim, was the first to respond. He applied a tourniquet to Hauser’s arm, saving his life. Although he survived, and is enjoying working as a professor at the University of Colorado, the bomb cost Hauser four fingers, his career as a fighter pilot, and his dreams of being an astronaut.
June 13, 1985
A bomb was mailed to the Boeing Museum in Auburn, Washington. The package wasn’t addressed to any particular person, so it got shuffled around in the internal mail system for awhile. Eventually, somebody began to open it, but recognized that it contained a bomb and called the police. It was successfully disarmed without injuring anybody.
November 15, 1985
A package was mailed to University of Michigan professor, James McConnell. A note was glued to the exterior of the package saying that it contained the dissertation of Ralph C. Kloppenburg. McConnell and his teaching assistant, Nicklaus Suino were in McConnell’s kitchen when Suino opened the package. The explosion shook the kitchen. Suino received shrapnel wounds and McConnell partially lost his hearing. The letters “F.C.” were printed on the metal pipe plugs and inside the package there was a note. It said, “I want you to read this book. Everybody should read this book.”
December 11, 1985
38 year old Hugh Scrutton owned a computer store in Sacramento, CA. He found what appeared to be a road hazard behind his store, a wooden block with nails sticking out of it. He attempted to move it, and it exploded. His employee, Dick Knight, heard the commotion and ran out of the store. He found Hugh and later would go on to say “his right hand was missing and his heart was half out of his chest.” Hugh Scrutton was hit by the full force of the bomb in his chest. He was the first Unabomber fatality.
February 20, 1987
Gary Wright, owner of a computer store in Salt Lake City, Utah, attempted to remove what appeared to be a piece of lumber from from the parking lot of his store. In the chaos that ensued, Wright says that his first thought was that somebody shot him with a shotgun. In reality, the lumber was a device planted by the Unabomber and Wright was his 12th victim. His left hand and arm were torn apart by shrapnel. He lost several fingers and had permanent nerve damage to his left arm. However, the Unabomber made a mistake. He was seen placing the bomb in the parking lot by Wright’s secretary (name unknown because she wished to remain anonymous.) She would describe him to the police, which resulted in the famous sketch of a man with curly hair in a hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses.
June 22, 1993
Geneticist Charles Epstein of UC San Francisco was injured when he opens a mail bomb and it exploded in his home. According to accounts it was forceful enough to throw him against the wall. He also lost several fingers, received abdominal wounds, and partially lost his hearing.
June 24, 1993
David Gelernter, a computer science professor at Yale, opened a box that was marked to look like a student’s dissertation. When it exploded he received injuries to his right eye, abdomen, and chest. His right hand was reported as “smashed beyond repair.”
Two hours after the bomb exploded, his brother, Joel Gelernter received a phone call that simply said, “You’re next.”
On the same day, Warren Hoge, assistant editor of the New York Times, received a letter from a person, or group calling themselves “F.C.” The letter was mailed right before the attacks on Epstein and Gelernter and claimed credit. It also contained a numerical code, saying that future correspondence would contain the code so the paper could ensure that it was genuine. The letter went on to explain that F.C. stood for “Freedom Club,” a group of anarchists with anti technological views. It would later be determined that “Freedom Club” didn’t really exist, or at least it wasn’t a group. The Unabomber was working alone.
December 10, 1994
Thomas Mosser, a public relations representative, was killed when he opened a package containing a bomb in the kitchen of his New Jersey home. His widow recalls the whole house rocking. When she ran into the kitchen, she found Thomas lying on his back with his face badly burnt and his stomach ripped open. Unlike some victims and their families, who find closure in discussing the incident, Mrs. Mosser has done her best to stay out of the public eye after the tragic loss of her husband.
April 19, 1995
In Oklahoma City, Timothy McVeigh planted a bomb in his truck under the Federal Building. It ignited at 9:02 AM. The resulting explosion killed 168 people and injured more than 680 more. It was the largest terrorist attack on U.S. soil until September 11, 2001.
Although not committed by the Unabomber, this crime did have an effect on him. Until then, he had been the most famous and feared bomber in America. The media attention given to McVeigh likely caused some jealousy. It’s been theorized by many that the incident led to an attempt by the Unabomber to make his bombs more deadly, in order to be in the spotlight once again. Unfortunately, his attempt was successful.
April 25, 1995
The president of the California Forestry Association, Gilbert Murray hung up the phone. He and a co worker had been discussing the devastating loss from the Oklahoma City bombing. He then turns his attention to a package on his desk, which was addressed to the association’s previous president. Since the package was sent to the office, Murray likely assumed that it was intended for whoever held the position, and began to open it. The following explosion rocked the building and coworkers rushed to see what happened. One described the scene as something one could only imagine in a war zone. One report claims that it took eleven body bags to collect all the pieces of Murray’s remains. The veteran who survived two tours in Vietnam was struck in his own office. Thankfully, Gilbert Murray would be the Unabomber’s last victim.
September 19, 1995
The Washington Post published an unusually long article called “Industrial Society and Its Future.” It was a 35,000 word manifesto about the evils of technology written and sent under the pseudonym of F.C. The sender told the papers that they had 90 days to publish it. If they did, the bombings would stop. If they did not, the sender said “We will begin building our next bomb.” The Post discussed the issue and sought the advice of the FBI. They believed that the threat to kill again was genuine. The FBI encouraged them to publish the document, hoping it might entrap the sender, who they believed to be the elusive Unabomber.
Capture and Trial While on vacation in Paris, Linda Patrik closely followed the Unabomber story in the newspapers. Reading about the case gave her an uneasy feeling, as she began recognizing similarities between the FBI’s profile of the killer and her brother-in-law.
1.He had some connection to Chicago. Ted was born in Chicago and spent his childhood in the suburbs.
2.He had some connection to Salt Lake City. Ted briefly lived in Salt Lake City during a hiatus of his solitary life, though it didn’t last long.
3.At least by the 1990s he was some way associated with the San Francisco Bay Area. Ted had taught at UC Berkeley.
4.The Unabomber had anti-technology views. Ted hated technology so much that he lived as a hermit in the Montana wilderness.
She spoke to her husband, David Kaczynski, about her suspicions. At first, David didn’t take her concerns too seriously, but after awhile he agreed to read the “Unabomber’s Manifesto” as it was called when they returned to the states.
David kept his promise and read the lengthy “Industrial Society and Its Future.” Much to his horror, the writing and the ideals behind it, sounded exactly like his brother, Ted. Soon after, his mother, Wanda, became ill and he stayed with her at his childhood home during her recovery. While there, he stumbled upon an old essay of Ted’s. It was 23 pages of anti-technology rhetoric. After reading the essay, and noticing the glaring resemblance to the “manifesto,” David knew he had to take action.
The couple hired Susan Swanson, a private investigator and childhood friend of Linda’s. Swanson compared the bombings with Ted’s known movements. When they matched up, she hired criminal profiler, Clint Van Zandt, and lawyer, Anthony Bisceglie. Both men read the manifesto and the essay several times. Bisceglie remembers, “at one point I couldn’t remember what I read from where.” At was at this point that he knew that he needed to get the authorities involved.
David had a difficult decision. His brother was his only sibling and although they weren’t close, they had been once. He tried to imagine the betrayal Ted would feel, being turned into the FBI by his own brother. Eventually, David made the tough choice and gave Bisceglie the O.K. to give Ted’s name to the FBI.
Overnight, Ted Kaczynski became the number 1 suspect in the FBI’s UNABOM case. Agents made their way to Lincoln, Montana. On April 3, 1996 the FBI executed a warrant to search Kaczynski’s cabin. They found diagrams of bombs, two live bombs, journals admitting to several bombings, a list of potential victims (including 25 Berkeley Math professors and 2 high school classmates) and the original draft of the Unabomber Manifesto. Ted Kaczynski was promptly arrested and indicted with 10 counts of illegally transporting, mailing, and using bombs, and three counts of murder.
Kaczynski disagreed with his counsel. His lawyers believed that his best bet would be to enter an insanity plea. However, Kaczynski refused, believing that would make people view his manifesto as the work of a madman, rather than the philosophical piece he believed it was. Also, a federal psychiatrist concluded that Kaczynski was competent to stand trial, but also diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia. Frustrated with his counsel, Kaczynski asked the judge if he could represent himself. The judge denied the request, accusing Kaczynski of trying to sidetrack the proceedings. Kaczynski ended up accepting a plea deal. He pled guilty to all charges and in return the prosecution didn’t pursue the death penalty.
Ted Kaczynski is currently in a maximum security prison in Colorado, serving eight consecutive life sentences without possibility of parole. His brother, David, has reached out to the victims and their families. David has sent letters and made phone calls in which he gives a heartfelt apology, as he feels a great deal of guilt about his brother’s actions. Needless to say, not everyone responded kindly, and some didn’t respond at all. However, one phone call didn’t go as expected. When David contacted Gary Wright, Kaczynski’s 12th victim, the two chatted, and Wright told David he had no reason to carry the guilt of his brother’s crimes. The two have unlikely friends and have done interviews together about the case.
Ted Kaczynski is now being investigated in another case that has long baffled the FBI. In 1982 seven people in Chicago died after taking tylenol that had been poisoned with potassium cyanide. The case was never solved, but due to advances in forensics the police have begun reexamining the case. Kaczynski is one of many prisoners who have been asked to provide a DNA sample to test against samples from the case. Kaczynski states that he had nothing to do with the tylenol poisoning and claims that there are papers among his belongings that would prove his innocence. However, he made this statement in 2011, when the courts ordered that his writings be auctioned and the proceeds go to his victims’ families. So, it’s possible that his statement was just an attempt to prevent the auction.
Regardless of whether or not Kaczynski is guilty of other crimes, the bombings that he did commit tore apart the lives of dozens of people and led many more to fear even opening their mail. Ted Kaczynski is one of the scariest types of criminals, a very intelligent one. He evaded the authorities for 17 years and was the subject of the most expensive manhunt in United States history. If it weren’t for Linda Patrik’s sharp mind and dutiful following of the case and David Kaczynski’s steadfast integrity, we would likely never know the identity of the domestic terrorist we call the Unabomber.