Unabomber Ted Kaczynski dead at 81

Ted Kaczynski, widely known as the “Unabomber,” died in federal custody on Saturday, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Kaczynski, who mailed and hand-delivered a series of homemade bombs over a 17-year stretch from 1978 to 1995 that killed three people and injured 23 others, was found unresponsive in his cell shortly after midnight on Saturday.

The 81-year-old was transported to a local hospital, where he was later pronounced dead. He had been serving out his life sentence at a federal medical center in Butner, N.C. since December 2021.

The FBI manhunt for the Unabomber, whose name was derived from the “UNABOM” code-name given to the case for its university and airline bombing targets, spanned nearly two decades and has been described as the most expensive investigation in the Bureau’s history.

Kaczynski’s bombs targeted universities throughout the country, including University of Illinois, Chicago; Northwestern University; University of Utah in Salt Lake City; Vanderbilt University; University of California, Berkeley; University of Michigan; and Yale University. 

He also targeted an American Airlines flight, the president of United Airlines and a Boeing manufacturing facility.

The Harvard-educated math prodigy sent newspapers a 35,000-word manifesto in 1995 that ultimately helped lead to his arrest a year later, after Kaczynski’s brother came forward to suggest him as a possible suspect. He pleaded guilty in 1998 and was sentenced to life in prison.