US murderer Ted Kaczynski, known as the “Unabomber”, has died at the age of 81 at Butner Prison Hospital, in the US state of North Carolina, the US prison authority announced on Saturday. The former math teacher was responsible for a series of bomb attacks that lasted from 1978 to 1995, killing three people and injuring 23 others.
In 1996, Kaczynski, who lives in a hermit hut in the mountains, was arrested following a tip from his brother and sentenced to life in prison in 1998 – despite being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Kaczynski himself pleaded guilty and asked the court to reject his defense attorneys’ claim of innocence. He was called the “Unabomber” because his attacks mainly targeted universities and airlines.
In September 1995, the “New York Times” and the “Washington Post” published a long manifesto by Kaczynski, in which he expressed his dislike of modern technology and the modern world. In return, Kaczynski had promised to end his series of attacks.
The publication of the manifesto eventually led to Kaczynski’s arrest: his brother David read the text in the newspaper and suspected that the Unabomber could be Ted Kaczynski. With suspicions of him, he turned to the Federal Police of the FBI.
After his conviction, Kacyznski spent many years in a maximum security prison in Colorado. In 2021, he was transferred to North Carolina Prison Hospital.