Theodore Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber for his deadly bombing campaign against scientists, died in his prison cell on 10 June, 2023.
He was aged 81 years.
Ted Kaczynski was sentenced to life imprisonment, without an option of parole, after he pleaded guilty to the death of three scientists and injuring 23 others in 1996.
He carried out a mail bombing campaign using home-made devices from 1978 to 1995 causing 16 explosions.
He is notoriously, remembered for his anonymous manifesto entitled: “The Industrial Revolution,” which he intimidated the Washington Post and New York Times to publish as a condition for stopping his bombing campaign.
In the paper, 35 thousand words in length, he argued that the industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
The FBI and then US Attorney-general, Janet Reno, encouraged the newspapers to oblige and it was published in 1995.
His hatred for the modern world and anti-technology slant in the publication gave him away as his brother, David, identified him as the author.
The FBI tracked him to a one-room cabin in the wilderness in Montana where he was living in isolation and arrested him.
Two ready-made bombs and bomb-making materials were recovered in a cabin without a tap, toilet or any modern-day facility.
His arrest, trial and conviction shocked the entire scientific world. He was a mathematician with a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University in 1962 and a doctorate from the University of Michigan in 1967.
He was an Assistant Professor of Mathematics in Berkeley before resigning in 1969.
He joined the family business and soon went into isolation in a wilderness in Montana from where he started his bombing campaign.
On conviction, he spent his life in several maximum security prisons like the one in Colorado from where he was moved to federal prison in North Carolina where he died. He was moved there when his health started declining in 2021.
He never denied his crimes and maintained he is mentally sound and has no psychiatric problems.
Elon Musk, the owner of SpaceX, tweeted on the day that Ted Kaczynski’s death was announced that: “He might not be wrong.”
This has re-ignited the debate whether or not his death is indeed the end of an era in which we should all be wary about some of the advances in science.
photo credit: wikipedia
