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Ted Kaczynski: The Unabomber

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Ted Kaczynski, more commonly known as The Unabomber, killed 3 people and injured 23 others over a 17 year period with bombs he made himself in his secluded Montana cabin (Goldman 1 of 2). These bombings occurred between 1978 and 1995 (Ted 1 of 3). He was called the Unabomber for University and Airline Bomber, which is where he targeted the bombs. Ted sent bombs to universities and professors, and also targeted industries (Goldman 1 of 2). He was a brilliant man, at 16 he started attending Harvard, but was also quite twisted (Ted 2 of 3). Those he targeted with his bombs were innocent, he chose them randomly from research done at the library (FBI 1 of 2). Forensic linguistics, or the comparison of documents, was a major part of this case (Forensic …show more content…

The trial with a jury started on November 12th, 1997 (Ottley 10 of 15). The evidence from the cabin was questioned by the defense, and they wanted it to be thrown out due to improper obtaining of a search warrant. They claimed that they only got the warrant because the FBI distorted David’s suspicion of his brother from questioning, to full on belief that his brother was in fact the Unabomber. Judge Burrell challenged the evidence from the cabin search, except for the journals which were allowed to be admitted into evidence for court. The journals were extremely convincing about the guiltiness of Kaczynski. The defense team tried to claim that Kaczynski was mentally ill, which Ted did not give them permission to do. They thought this was the only way to combat the substantial and convincing evidence against Kaczynski. In 1998, Ted tried to hang himself with his underwear in his cell. Kaczynski decided to represent himself and underwent an examination of his mental capability which was performed by Dr. Sally Johnson. Dr. Johnson diagnosed him as a paranoid schizophrenic, but declared him able to defend himself, and so the trial recommenced (Ottley 12 of 15). Ted Kaczynski “pleaded guilty to thirteen counts for attacks in three states that killed three and injured two” in 1998 (Ottley 13 of 15). He was convicted to serve a life sentence in prison without possibility of parole, and he avoided the …show more content…

In the end, there was just one Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. Ted was a smart man, he skipped grades 6 and 11, and started attending Harvard University at the age of 16 (Ted 2 of 3). While at Harvard in 1958, he participated in a multi-year psychological study which was said to have had a negative impact on him. Ted was a professor at UC Berkeley for a few years, the youngest there at the time. He never had a significant relationship with a woman (Ottley 11 of 15). He was against “societal progress” and was against technology, hence why he isolated himself in the cabin in the woods of Montana (Ted 2 of 3). Ted Kaczynski was jobless and cutoff from the world, so he had to get the money to make and transport the bombs in some other way (Goldman 1 of 2). It turns out, his family was unknowingly supporting his bomb manufacturing by sending him checks. Investigators composed “detailed accounting of checks Kaczynski had received from his mother and brother from 1985 until 1995 and had established a correlation between when Kaczynski received checks and the dates of the bombings” (Goldman 1 of 2). Over the years Kaczynski’s family sent him about 17,000 dollars which was used to construct the bombs. Ted’s family has to live with the guilt and be haunted by the fact that unbeknownst to them, they funded their brilliant Ted’s bombing spree that killed and injured innocent people.

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