By Le Figaro with AFP
Posted 38 minutes ago, updated 9 minutes ago
Ted Kaczynski, nicknamed “Unabomber”. RICH PEDRONCELLI / AFP
The Harvard graduate sent sixteen bombs hidden in postal packages to different people for 18 years starting in 1978, causing a total of three deaths and 23 injuries.
Ted Kaczynski, nicknamed “Unabomber”, whose package bombings traumatized America between 1978 and 1995, was found dead in his cell at the age of 81, American media said on Saturday, citing the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Since 1978 and 18 years, the Harvard-educated mathematician had sent sixteen bombs hidden in postal packages to various people and companies, causing a total of three deaths and 23 injuries. After a long hunt, he was arrested in 1996 and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1998. According to the New York Times, citing the Federal Bureau of Prisons, he was found unconscious in his cell early Saturday morning and the cause of death has not yet been determined.
Paranoid schizophrenia
He was long held in the maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado – known for having housed famous prisoners like drug lord El Chapo – and was transferred to a prison health facility in North Carolina in 2021. Theodore Kaczynski, a brilliant mathematician-turned-recluse, had embarked on a crusade against progress and technology, making his bombs in a cabin in the mountains of Montana (Northwest) with no running water or electricity.
His first targets are academics and airlines, earning the assassin the nickname “Unabomber” (for “university and airline bomber”). In September 1995, he vowed to stop sending bombs and got the New York Times and Washington Post to publish a lengthy manifesto expressing his hatred of technology and the modern world.
Reading it, David Kaczynski, a resident of the East Coast of the United States, sees a resemblance to the ancient writings of his brother Theodore, who was separated from his family for years. He then alerted the FBI and allowed his arrest in April 1996. A diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia did not prevent him from being tried and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1998 after pleading guilty.