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Ted Kaczynski

Also known as: Unabomber, Theodore John Kaczynski

Active
1978–1995
Region
Lincoln, Montana, USA
States
CA, CT, IL, MI, MT, NJ, TN, UT, WA
Kind
Serial
Status
Pleaded guilty
Victims
14

Between 1978 and 1995 Ted Kaczynski, a former mathematics professor living in a remote cabin near Lincoln, Montana, mailed or planted 16 bombs that killed three people and injured more than 20 at universities, an airline, computer stores and homes in several states, including a bomb that went off aboard American Airlines Flight 444 in 1979. The FBI's UNABOM investigation was one of the longest in its history. After The Washington Post published his manifesto in 1995, his brother David recognized the writing and went to the FBI, and agents arrested Kaczynski at his cabin on April 3, 1996. On January 22, 1998, in federal court in Sacramento, he pleaded guilty to all charges in exchange for life without parole. He died in federal custody in North Carolina in 2023.

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Victims

We remember the people whose lives were taken.

Timeline of locations

  1. May 25, 1978
    Northwestern University, Evanston (Crime scene, approximate area)

    The first two bombs went off at Northwestern University. In 1978 a package addressed to a professor was found in Chicago and returned to campus, where it injured a university police officer; in 1979 a bomb left on campus injured a graduate student.

  2. June 10, 1980
    Lake Forest, Illinois (Crime scene, approximate area)

    A bomb mailed to United Airlines president Percy Wood injured him at his home in Lake Forest.

  3. October 8, 1981
    University of Utah, Salt Lake City (Crime scene, approximate area)

    A bomb left at the University of Utah was found and defused; no one was hurt.

  4. May 5, 1982
    Vanderbilt University, Nashville (Crime scene, approximate area)

    A package bomb sent to a computer science professor injured a university secretary who opened it.

  5. July 2, 1982
    UC Berkeley (Crime scene, approximate area)

    Two bombs went off at the University of California, Berkeley: one injured engineering professor Diogenes Angelakos in 1982, and another injured graduate student John Hauser in 1985.

  6. June 13, 1985
    Boeing, Auburn, Washington (Crime scene, approximate area)

    A bomb mailed to the Boeing Company in Auburn was found and defused; no one was hurt.

  7. November 15, 1985
    Ann Arbor, Michigan (Crime scene, approximate area)

    A package bomb sent to University of Michigan psychology professor James McConnell injured him and his research assistant, Nicklaus Suino.

  8. December 11, 1985
    Computer store, Sacramento (Crime scene, approximate area)

    Hugh Scrutton was killed by a bomb left behind his computer rental store in Sacramento: the first death in the bombings.

  9. February 20, 1987
    Computer store, Salt Lake City (Crime scene, approximate area)

    Gary Wright was badly injured by a bomb left outside his computer store in Salt Lake City.

  10. June 22, 1993
    Tiburon, California (Crime scene, approximate area)

    A package bomb injured geneticist Charles Epstein at his home in Tiburon.

  11. June 24, 1993
    Yale University, New Haven (Crime scene, approximate area)

    Two days later a package bomb seriously injured computer scientist David Gelernter in his Yale office.

  12. December 10, 1994
    North Caldwell, New Jersey (Crime scene, approximate area)

    Thomas Mosser was killed by a package bomb at his home in North Caldwell.

  13. April 24, 1995
    California Forestry Association, Sacramento (Crime scene, approximate area)

    Gilbert Murray, president of the timber industry group, was killed by a package bomb at its Sacramento office. It was the last bombing.

  14. April 3, 1996
    Cabin near Lincoln, Montana (Arrest, approximate area)

    Kaczynski lived without electricity or running water in a small cabin near Stemple Pass, about five miles outside Lincoln, from the early 1970s. FBI agents arrested him there on April 3, 1996, and found bomb components and his journals inside.

  15. 1998
    ADX Florence, Colorado (Prison, approximate area)

    Kaczynski served most of his sentence at the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.

  16. January 22, 1998
    U.S. District Court, Sacramento (Court / trial, approximate area)

    On the eve of his trial for the Sacramento bombings, Kaczynski pleaded guilty to all federal charges in exchange for life in prison without parole. He was sentenced in May 1998.

  17. December 14, 2021
    FMC Butner, North Carolina (Prison, approximate area)

    He was moved to the federal prison medical center at Butner in December 2021 and died in custody on June 10, 2023.

Watch, listen, read

Watch

  • Manhunt: Unabomber (series, 2017, Discovery Channel)
  • Unabomber: In His Own Words (2020, Netflix)

Read

  • Every Last Tie: The Story of the Unabomber and His Family (2016, David Kaczynski (Duke University Press))
  • Harvard and the Unabomber: The Education of an American Terrorist (2003, Alston Chase (W. W. Norton))

Active at the same time, nearby

A coincidence of time and place, not a connection. All overlaps

Sources

Each location also lists its own sources in the data file.