Ted Kaczynski, the man known as the "Unabomber," died by suicide in his prison cell after serving more than 25 years of his life sentence, according to a senior law enforcement official.
Kaczynski, 81, was found dead Saturday in his North Carolina prison cell, the Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed. He was transferred there in 2021 from a maximum security Colorado prison because of his declining health.
Kaczynski pleaded guilty in 1998 to a series of bombings across the country that took place between 1978 and 1995. His first bomb was found in a parking lot at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
Some of his other collegiate targets included the University of Michigan, Yale University, Vanderbilt University and University of California, Berkeley.
Three people were killed and 23 others injured in 16 explosions created by the Harvard-educated bomber. Kaczynski's homemade bombs were sent by mail, including one altitude-triggered explosion that went off on an American Airlines flight.
A 1995 threat to blow up a plane out of Los Angeles before the end of the July 4 weekend threw air travel and mail delivery into chaos. The "Unabomber" later claimed it was a "prank."
The name "Unabomber" came from the FBI codename used in his case, "UNABOM," which was created based off the university and airline targets.
Kaczynski was eventually arrested in 1996 at a cabin where he was living in western Montana. Authorities found one live bomb, components to make more bombs and 40,000 handwritten journal pages that included bomb-making experiments and descriptions of his crimes, the FBI said.
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Kaczynski's anti-technology rant, "Industrial Society and Its Future," was published jointly by The Washington Post and The New York Times in 1995. The decision was made at the urging of federal authorities after the then-bombing suspect insisted he would desist from terrorism if a national publication published his writings.
But the screed also led to his capture, as his brother, David, and David's wife, Linda Patrik, recognized his work and turned him in to the FBI. His brother was also able to provide authorities samples of other writings from Kaczynski that were inspected by a linguistic analysis at the FBI.
The analyst's review determined the samples to be authored by the same person who wrote the diatribe, which served as the basis for a search warrant.
Following his arrest, Kaczynski refused his attorneys' attempts to mount an insanity defense. He fired his lawyers and instead entered a guilty plea to avoid the death penalty.
Kaczynski described his motive as "simply personal revenge," according to his personal journals that were released during trial.
"I often had fantasies of killing the kind of people I hated — i.e., government officials, police, computer scientists, the rowdy type of college students who left their beer cans in the arboretum, etc., etc., etc.,″ he wrote.
Kaczynski killed computer rental store owner Hugh Scrutton, advertising executive Thomas Mosser and timber industry lobbyist Gilbert Murray. California geneticist Charles Epstein and Yale University computer expert David Gelernter were maimed by bombs two days apart in June 1993.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the network, previously known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741 or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional resources.