Known as the “Unabomber” by the FBI, Kaczynski passed away at the federal prison medical facility in Butner, North Carolina.
Theodore J. Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber, died on Saturday in a federal prison medical facility in Butner, North Carolina. From 1978 to 1995, he used homemade bombs to target academics, businessmen, and random civilians, killing three and injuring 23 with the stated intention of causing the collapse of the modern social order. The violent spree came to an end after what was frequently called the longest and most expensive manhunt in American history.
According to a Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesperson, Mr. Kaczynski was discovered unresponsive in his cell in the early morning hours. The official cause of death will be determined through an inquiry. According to federal prison officials, Kaczynski committed suicide. He was 81.
The Mystery of the Bomber
After entering a guilty plea in 1998 for mailing mail bombs that resulted in three deaths and 23 injuries between 1978 and 1995, Kaczynski had been given eight life sentences. The killer was creating untraceable explosives and sending them to arbitrary targets for nearly two decades, with the first one being mailed to a Chicago institution in 1978.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation launched their investigation into the string of bombings, which they dubbed the “UNABOM” case, in 1979. The acronym represented involved “UNiversity and Airline BOMbing”. Over 150 investigators spent years tracing the victims’ lives, retrieving bomb parts, and looking for additional forensic hints.
However, they struggled to determine other information, such as the gender of the bomber. The investigators stated they felt convinced that the suspect, whom they called the Unabomber, had been raised in Chicago and had previously resided in the Salt Lake City and San Francisco areas.
Arrest in Montana
1995 saw the delivery of an anonymous letter to The New York Times and The Washington Post. In the letter, the author or authors claimed responsibility for the UNABOM case’s series of bombs and pledged to cease any future terrorist activity in exchange for the newspapers’ publication of a manifesto that was more than 29,000 words long.
After speaking with the FBI, the papers decided to publish the writing in its entirety later in 1995. Federal officials stated that they hoped a reader may assist in locating the author. The manifesto denounced industrialization, claiming that it produced widespread psychological pain, significant environmental harm, and alienation.
David Kaczynski, Mr. Kaczynski’s brother, contacted the police soon after the piece was published. He thought his brother might be the Unabomber after recognising the language used in the document. The authorities subsequently detained Mr. Kaczynski in his hut in Montana, where they discovered 40,000 handwritten notebook pages with details of his crimes and tests with bombs, along with a live device.
Following Mr. Kaczynski’s arrest in 1996, information about his life became public: He was raised by working-class parents in Chicago and later attended Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught mathematics. It was then discovered that Mr. Kaczynski went on a spree of environmental vandalism, sabotaging mining machinery, burning logging equipment, and ruining hunting camps while living in a cabin he erected in rural Montana without power or running water.
In the isolated hut, Mr. Kaczynski also constructed more than a dozen bombs and came up with his terrorising scheme against individuals he believed was promoting the sins of technology.
