Ted Kaczynski: Where it Started and How it Ended

Teds personal life 

Theodore John Kaczynski was born in Chicago Illinois on May 22 of 1942 to parents, Wanda Dombek and Theodore Richard Kaczynski. As a baby he was hospitalized and during this time he had a bad reaction to some medication. It’s said that after this period of being isolated, his personality was very different and it only got worse when his younger brother, David was born. From the very beginning, Ted was thought to be academically gifted, which was quite true. In the early years of his education, he skipped two grades and at the age of 16 he got into Harvard with a scholarship. At Harvard, he studied math and eventually ended up being a part of a psychological study. This study or rather, experiment consisted of heavy verbal abuse to find out better what kind of impact stress has on a person's spirit. Ted graduated from Harvard in 1962 and went on to earn his doctorate from the University of Michigan in 1967. 

Ted went back to Evergreen Park in Illinois and lived with his parents for two years. He decided this wasn’t the life for him and in 1971 he moved to Lincoln where he built a cabin that was remote and didn’t require him to have much interaction with other people. He enjoyed living an isolated life, away from people with nobody to rely on but himself. He taught himself all of the necessary skills to continue living a life off the grid. Ted taught himself to hunt, grew his own food, and enjoyed spending his free time reading. Eventually, he moved back to Chicago and worked in a factory with his brother. During his time at the factory, he developed a relationship with a supervisor. One thing led to another and the relationship ended. Ted couldn’t just let this go without a word. He said and wrote awful things about his former fling and that led to him being fired. 

The attacks 

In 1978, a package was found in the parking lot of Buckley Crist's office building. The package had his return address on it but he told security that he’d never sent the package. The package was opened by a security guard who in turn suffered an injury to his hand when the bomb exploded. At this time, he was still living in Chicago but soon made his way back to Montana.  

When Kaczynski made it back to Montana, he sent yet another bomb to Northwestern University. He then sent two bombs to American airline companies. The first was in 1979 on a flight, thankfully the bomb never detonated. However, the second bomb, sent in 1980 to the president of the United Airlines. This attack caused only minor injuries but was still enough to bring everyone into panic. Within a few years, Kaczynski’s bombs became more dangerous and in 1982 a professor at Berkeley and a secretary at Vanderbilt University both received packages that caused more severe injuries than ever before. In December of 1985, Ted added a death to his list of destruction. A computer store owner was the first of three deaths throughout Kaczynski’s attacks. In total the fourteen attacks which consisted of sixteen bombs, resulted in 26 people injured, three of those unfortunately being deaths.  

The Manifesto 

By the time of his last attack in 1995, the FBI was already on the case. All of the cases were similar and the FBI knew they were all connected, but they didn’t know yet who was behind it. Everything changed during the summer of 1995 when he sent letters to the media ordering his manifesto to be published.Biography.com said, “The big break in the case came in 1995 when Kaczynski sent out a 35,000-word essay on the problems of modern society. He even threatened media outlets, such as The New York Times, to publish his so-called "Unabomber Manifesto," telling them he would blow up a plane if they failed to do so. The manifesto, titled "Industrial Society and Its Future," was first published in September 1995. It was highly debated whether it should be published or not but Janet Reno, U.S. Attorney General, and FBI Director, Louis Freeh made the decision to publish it. Its said by, History.com, that The writings advocated for “an ideology that opposes technology” and the “counter-ideal” of nature. In fact, Kaczynski argued that technology and an industrialized society effectively destroys human freedom because it needs to “regulate human behavior closely in order to function.” and “Interestingly, critics and academics would later write that while Kaczynski deserved scorn for the violent acts he committed, many of his manifesto’s ideas were quite reasonable.” 

David Kaczynski had suspicions that his brother may be the Unabomber. He said that the ideas throughout the manifesto were familiar to him. The two brothers hadn’t been in contact for quite some time when the manifesto was released. David shared his suspicions along with letter Ted had written with the FBI. Through further analysis investigators confirmed the letters and the essay were written by the same person. 

The Arrest 

A search warrant of Kaczynski’s cabin was approved and on April 3, 1996, they found Ted and his bomb making tools. “Later that month, he was indicted by a federal grand jury on 10 counts of illegally transporting, mailing, and using bombs, and three counts of murder. Although his attorneys wanted to him to enter an insanity plea, Kaczynski refused and instead pleaded guilty to all charges.” History.com said Kaczynski is now at the Supermax prison in Colorado serving eight life sentences with no chance of parole.