Program:
P John introduced author Max Noel, former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent who told the story of how the FBI captured Theodore Kaczynski, the notorious Unabomber, after the longest chase in the bureau's history. For the full story, check out the video here.
P John introduced author Max Noel, former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent who told the story of how the FBI captured Theodore Kaczynski, the notorious Unabomber, after the longest chase in the bureau's history. For the full story, check out the video here.
Following a 1978 explosion of a homemade bomb at a Chicago university, an FBI-led task force grew to more than 150 full-time investigators and analysts who worked in search of clues to identify the bomber. During this time Kaczynski mailed or hand delivered a series of increasingly sophisticated bombs that killed three Americans and injured 24 more.
A task force was set up after the first four bombs 1985. There was no bombing activity 1987-1993 and then two bombs went off at opposite ends of the country on the same day. The only similarity to these and the previous bombs was use of an antique Smith Corona typewriter. (click read more to learn what happened next)
With notoriety of the Unabomber moniker from the FBI, the Unabomber called NY Times fashion editor and identified himself. The FBI established a 1-800 number which generated huge number of leads that took extraordinary investigation. They also offered a $1M reward, funded by pledges from targeted universities, computer companies and airlines since government didn’t offer rewards.
The leads resulted in 59,000 volumes of data collected and then data had to be computerized and searchable for the first time. By 1994 agents were being reassigned and the team was reconstituted to include foreign counter intelligence agents along with criminal investigators. Bombings continued-more sophisticated shoebox size bombs. The Unabomber wanted to kill people, not just maim them. A break came when a 35,000-word manifesto was delivered to the FBI with a demand to publish or he’d blow up aircraft.
Linda Kaczynski was the wife of the Unabomber’s brother, David, and saw the manifesto in September of 1995. She immediately thought it was her brother-in-law. She brought it to husband David’s attention telling him this looks like your crazy brother and in January 1996 they hired an attorney to talk to the FBI about their suspicions. This resulted in the FBI going to Lincoln Montana in January and in order to collect information on the suspect. It was -35 degrees. He lived in an unheated and uninsulated shack at the end of a box canyon 4.5 miles from town. It had no toilet and no running water. It turned out that the sophisticated kiln necessary to make metal bomb parts turned out to be a pot belly stove and the Lincoln town library was used for research into addresses of intended targets and learning bomb making.
He was arrested in his cabin in the spring and they found the antique typewriter along with bomb making materials. Ted went to jail in 1996 culminating seventeen years of dogged investigatory work.
