Theodeore Kaczynski, better known as the
Unabomber, is an American
anarchist notorious for the
series of bombings that spanned almost 15 years. Born in Chicago on May 22, 1942, the former academe turned terrorist began his campaign with a mail bomb sent to Professor Buckley Crist, found on a parking lot in the University of Illinois. Suspicious that the return address was not written in his own handwriting, he called campus policeman Terry Marker. Upon opening the bomb exploded, but Marker sustained slight injuries in the arm, because the bomb was inferior. Next was in 1979 when a bomb was planted on the cargo bin on America Airlines Flight 444. But it only emitted smoke, prompting the pilot to make a emergency landing. Authorities assesed that the bomb is powerful enough to destroy the whole plane, if only for the faulty timing device that prevented it from exploding. Soon the FBI launched a manhunt operation codenamed
UNABOM ( hence the Unabomber). In 1985, John Hauser became the first seriously injured victim when he lost four fingers and a vision on one eye. That same year Hugh Scratton, a computer store owner in California, was killed when a bomb lying in his parking lot exploded. The bombs are assembled in a similar manner: hand-crafted, with wooden parts and some inscribed with the initials "FC" , once thought to stand for "Fuck Computers", later to be found out as "Freedom Club". Another similar attack occured in a computer store in Salt Lake City, Utah on February 20, 1987.
Kaczynski struck again after a six year break, in 1993, against David Gelemter, developer of the programming language Linda. Geneticist Charles Epstein also became a target. He then wrote to the New York Times saying that his group FC claim reponsiblity for the attacks. The following year Thomas Mosser, an ad executive from New Jersey was killed from a mail bomb sent to his home. In 1995 Gilbert Murray of the California Forestry Association was also killed in a similar fashion. all of these attributed to Kaczynski himself. All in all there were a total of three persons dead and twenty-three injured attributed to Kaczynski himself.
His streak ended with his arrest on April 3, 1996 in a cabin in Lincoln, Montana. The prosecution initally sought a death penalty
sentence for Kaczynski, but he managed to avoid it by pleading guilty on January 7,1998. He is currently serving his life sentence without parole.