Even by his standards, his complaints were surreal. Of course, one person strongly objected to its exhibition at the Newseum: Ted Kaczynski.
(“We call it an artifact, they might still call it evidence,” she added.) Why? “It is on loan to us from the FBI,” said Christoffersen. Of course, that price didn’t include his notorious 10′ by 12′ cabin. History: Home of the Unabomber.” (They also noted it offered “great fishing and hunting.”) The bizarre fate of his home. In 2010, a Montana real estate company drew national attention after they reduced the price of Kaczynski’s 1.4 acres from $154,500 to $69,500-still inflated above the usual $50,000 asking price for the area-while urging potential buyers to David received a $1 million reward from the FBI and donated the bulk of it to victims’ families. (Ted’s sister-in-law, a professor of philosophy, thought it seemed similar to a 23-page essay Ted sent her husband.) When the FBI raided his cabin, they found a live bomb and knew they had their man, leading to the plea bargain to avoid the death penalty. Ted’s own brother David and his wife made the link. They were correct, though the person who turned Kaczynski in was still unexpected.įound by family. Investigators believed a reader might be able to provide clues to the identify the Unabomber. “Are we going to inspire copycats?” Law enforcement, however, wanted it published and ultimately the Washington Post ran an eight-page spread with the financial support of the New York Times. “Are we bowing to the demands of the terrorists?” Christoffersen said. Spanning 35,000 words, the Unabomber demanded its publication in exchange for an end to his attacks. (“It didn’t appear to have any rhyme or reason, although to him, I suppose, it did,” Christoffersen said.) It is terrifying to consider how long he might have avoided capture if not for… He even picked his victims at random through library research. The Unabomber also made a point of constructing them from “ scrap” materials, to ensure he left as little forensic evidence as possible. There were few chances to expose him as he so carefully avoided people and kept building increasingly sophisticated bombs.
Living largely in insolation in Montana, Kaczynski was a man off the grid. Kaczynski’s habit of targeting universities and airlines led them to take the “un” and the “a” to come up with “una” which they combined with “bom” from “bombing.” Hence the UNABOM case and the Unabomber as the authorities began to pursue a person with what Christoffersen termed a “hyper-opposition to technology.” The Discovery Channel’s miniseries Manhunt: Unabomber, in which Kaczynski is portrayed by Paul Bettany ( A Beautiful Mind), premieres tonight.Ĭarrie Christoffersen, Curator of Collections for Washington, D.C’s Newseum which has partnered with Discovery, discusses some of the reasons Kaczynski and his attacks on technology still hold our attention after two decades (as well as the Newseum’s truly unique Unabomber artifact and how Kaczynski feels about them having it): (The Unabomber is currently in Colorado’s federal prison known as Supermax, whose inmates have included Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, World Trade Center terrorist Ramzi Yousef and mobster Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano.) In 1998, the domestic terrorist pled guilty to an array of federal charges and was sentenced to life in prison, avoiding the death penalty. On April 3, 1996, FBI agents arrested Theodore Kaczynski at his isolated Montana cabin.