On May 22, 1942 Theodore John Kaczynski was born in the Chicago suburb of Evergreen Park to Wanda and Richard Kaczynski. His parents raised him and his younger brother, David, well.
Kczynski was intelligent but socially withdrawn due to the fact that he skipped two years of school, both the sixth and eleventh grades, and showed an aptitude in math and making small explosives. His closest friend during his childhood was his brother.
He started attending Harvard University at the age of sixteen and went on to receive his masters and doctorate in mathematics from the University of Michigan by the time he was twenty-five.
While attending Harvard in the late 1950's and early 1960's, he volunteered for a program sponsored by the CIA at Harvard which included mind-control experiments.
On graduating from U of M in 1967, he became an assistant professor of mathematics at the University of California-Berkeley. He quit this position in 1969 stating that he failed to see the relevance in what he was teaching. His employment became sporadic from 1969 until 1971. At that point he began to live off the land, occasionally finding work to support himself when absolutely necessary.
On May 25th 1978, a package that appeared to be an undelivered parcel from Professor Buckley Crist and addressed to Professor E.J. Smith was found in a parking lot at the University of Chicago. The finder notified Professor Crist that it had been found and the professor, although having no knowledge of the package, asked that it be delivered to him. When the professor realized that the handwriting on the package was not his, he asked a campus security officer to open it for him.
Officer Marker opened the package which was made from wood and the bomb inside exploded in his hands and he became the first person to be injured by the Unabomber. The ATF was called in and because it was addressed from one professor to another, the clues led the agency on a series of wild goose chases.
At this time Ted Kaczynski had returned to his Chicago area hometown and was working in the same factory where his brother was a supervisor. His brother wound up firing him for harassing a female employee. After being fired by his brother, Ted returned to his cabin in Lincoln MT.
Some time later, a civil engineering graduate student named John G Harris opened a cigar box made from a wood veneered cardboard and another explosion occurred. Fortunately Harris only received minor cuts and burns from the incident. However, examination of the bomb revealed that the bomber was indeed improving his craft.
From 1976 to 1996, Ted borrowed small sums of money from his family. He was living as a hermit in MT, hunting rabbits and growing vegetables. He complained about pay phones and worried about getting rabies from a skunk.
Then American Airlines flight 444 from Chicago to Washington experienced an incident. A package in the cargo hold was set to explode when the plane reached 35,500 feet. The package began to smolder and filled the main cabin with smoke.
The incident with the American Airlines plane brought in two more federal agencies to investigate, the FBI because the crime had now crossed state lines and the US Postal Service Inspectors because the package in the plane had been mailed.
In many ways, the fact that there were so many agencies now involved it may have hampered the investigation because none of the agencies communicated with each other and thus many leads were investigated and dismissed two or three times.
In June 1980, United Airlines president Percy Wood received a letter stating that he would soon be receiving a book that was being sent to various prominent citizens in the Chicago area. On June 10th the package arrived and received the book. The book was hollowed out and when it was opened, it exploded. Wood sustained injuries to his face, hands and thigh.
Even thought the package had been signed FC (for Freedom Club), following this incident, the FBI identified the case as the UnAbom- standing for the University and Airline Bombings.
The Chicago area bombings stopped and investigators thought the bomber may have died, been arrested for a different crime or may have even blown himself up. But on Oct 8, 1981 a bomb bearing the FC signature was discovered at the University of Utah, but was neutralized before it could do any damage.
Seven months of silence followed.
In May 1982, a secretary for a professor that was teaching in Puerto Rico opened a package addressed to her boss. The bomb exploded and she was rushed to the hospital with severe injuries to her face and hands.
Two months later an engineering student at Berkeley was examining a strange piece of equipment when it exploded and caused injuries to the students face hands and arm. His tendons in his hands were decimated.
For almost three years after that there were no more bombings. Then in May 1985, a grad student at Berkeley noticed an out of place three ring binder and picked it up to move it when it exploded.
In June 1985, an alert mail clerk noticed a package that looked suspicious and had it x-rayed. It was another bomb from the UnAbomber.
Also in June 1985, another book was sent to a University of Michigan professor and again a bomb went off causing a partial loss of hearing.
In Sacramento CA, a computer store owner noticed a hunk of wood with nails protruding from it in his parking lot. He went to move it and it exploded causing a piece of wooden shrapnel to pierce his heart and he died instantly.
In Feb. 1987 a stranger was observed outside a computer store in Salt Lake City placing something on the ground. Later that day the computer store's vice president kicked a piece of wood with nails protruding from it and it exploded.
Mercifully the bombings stopped again for six years.
In June 1993, the UnAbomber had a week of mayhem in Sacramento CA.
Two packages were mailed the same day in June. One to a geneticist in San Francisco, which caused major damage that the man luckily survived, the other to an associate computer science professor at Yale. This was the last person to survive one of the bombs. He lost a part of his right hand and sight in one eye and hearing in one ear.
In July, the UnAbomb task force was formed.
In December 1994, an advertising executive opened a package and was killed instantly from the explosion.
In April 1995, the California Forestry Association President was killed when he opened a package that had been addressed to his predecessor.
FC (the UnAbomber) then started mailing non-lethal letters demanding that he have the right to destroy property and in return he would not kill anyone again. He then sent his now infamous Manifesto to Penthouse magazine. This is a long rambling rant putting down technology.
One man realized that the UnAbombers writing style was familiar. This was David Kaczynski. He realized that the writing style was just like his brother Ted's. There were too many similarities. Too many for David to ignore. He contacted a private investigator and had the manifesto compared with some of Ted's other letters to his brother and experts told him that the two were probably written by the same person. That was when David made the difficult decision to turn in his brother to the FBI.
On April 13th 1996, Ted Kaczynski was arrested in his cabin in Lincoln MT. The tiny cabin was filled with proof that Ted Kaczynski was indeed the UnAbomber.
On January 21, 1998, Ted Kaczynski agreed to a plea bargain to serve consecutive life terms.
The University and Airline Bomber (aka the Unabomber) case was the nations' longest and most expensive serial terrorist investigation.
Currently Ted lives his life in a ten by twelve cell. His writings show how other bombers have been doing it all wrong. He is full of advice on how to run the world.