On This Day: FBI Arrests Ted Kaczynski for Unabomber Crimes

Ted Kaczynski sent his first mail bomb in 1978 to a university professor in Chicago, injuring a security guard who opened it. Between 1978 and 1995, he would send out 16 mail bombs to universities and airlines, killing three people and injuring 24. The FBI formed a task force in 1979 code-named “UNABOM,” beginning a 17-year search for the man known as the “Unabomber.” The code name came from the universities and airlines he targeted.

In the mid-90s, Kaczynski promised to cease his terror campaign in exchange for the publication of his 35,000-word manifesto, a polemic against the post-industrial world. The Washington Post, with the help of The New York Times, printed it on Sept. 19, 1995.

It was the printing of the manifesto that led to Kaczynski’s capture, as his brother David Kaczynski and his wife recognized the writing and alerted the authorities. The FBI tracked Kaczynski to a remote shack in the woods of Montana.

Agents infiltrated the nearby town of Lincoln, keeping a watch for Kaczynski to make sure he didn't try to leave or send off another bomb. According to TruTV.com, the surveillance also helped them learn more about the man people in Lincoln, Montana, called "The Hermit."

The FBI "literally surrounded" Kaczynski with sharpshooters, satellite surveillance and lookout posts.

"It's interesting to note that the technology the Unabomber despised worked against him—to great effect," TruTV.com said.

Locals knew something was going on with so many people appearing in town at once, but Kaczynski had "no neighbors to inadvertently warn him of the strange goings on," TruTV.com said.

FBI agents arrested him on April 3, 1996 and found his shack full of bomb-making materials and anti-technology writings.

During a News Hour program which aired the night after Kaczynski's arrest, a former FBI agent, Lou Bertram, described how Kaczynski matched a profile the agency had drafted while looking for a suspect.

"Highly intelligent, loner, anti-social, uh, again, an individual who, who keeps to himself and there are a few other aspects of it. But I think the profile is probably 80, 85 percent accurate," Bertram told Jim Lehrer.

Even as news of the arrest broke, there were unconfirmed reports that a family member had turned Kaczynski in, CNN reported.

"FBI officials said a recent search of his family home near Chicago produced materials possibly linking him to a series of mail bombings," CNN reported on April 3, 1996.

Theodore Kaczynski was born on May 22, 1942, and raised in a normal middle-class household in suburban Chicago. A gifted student, Kaczynski graduated high school at age 16 and attended Harvard University. A social loner, he became increasingly distant during his time at Harvard, and later at the University of Michigan, where he earned a Ph.D. at age 25.

Unable to form meaningful relationships with women, he questioned his sexuality and even considered a sex change. In 1971 he and his brother bought a plot of land in Lincoln, Mont., where he would build a shack by hand and live there for much of the next three decades. It was in this shack that Kaczynski wrote his manifesto and built bombs.

"His writings describe him thinking seriously about planning to murder a scientist in 1971," wrote Dr. Johnson in her psychological evaluation. "During the later 1970's, he began experimenting to create explosive devices that could succeed in killing individuals. He also describes thoughts of harming people whom he felt had humiliated him."

Kaczynski is currently serving his sentence in AZX Florence, a supermax prison in Colorado that also holds Oklahoma City bombing accomplice Terry Nichols and Olympic Park bomber Eric Randolph. In an Oct. 18, 1999, prison interview with Time columnist Stephen J. Dubner, he claimed that he is not insane and said of his brother David, "I think his sense of guilt is outweighed by his satisfaction at having finally gotten revenge on big brother."

Dubner wrote, "Speaking with him, one is struck not by the burning anger that characterized his Una-bomber campaign but by a satisfaction that the world, at long last, is treating him like a valuable human being."

After his arrest, federal psychiatrist Dr. Sally Johnson diagnosed Kaczynski with paranoid schizophrenia, prompting the decision to sentence him to life rather than have him executed. Kaczynski continued to claim he was of sound mind and asked to defend himself in court.

On Jan. 22, the defense agreed that Kaczynski was fit to stand trial. However, U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell denied Kaczynski’s appeal to represent himself. Later that day, the defense reached a plea bargain with federal prosecutors for Kaczynski to receive life in prison without parole. “The Unabomber's career is over,” declared prosecutor Robert Cleary.