Death in prison of the “Unabomber”, whose attacks traumatized the United States

Ted Kaczynski, nicknamed “Unabomber” and whose parcel bomb attacks traumatized America between 1978 and 1995, was found dead in his cell at the age of 81, American media announced on Saturday, citing the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

From 1978 and for 18 years, this Harvard-educated mathematician had sent sixteen bombs, concealed in postal parcels, to various people and companies, causing a total of three deaths and 23 injuries. After a long hunt, he was arrested in 1996 and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1998. According to the New York Timesciting the Federal Bureau of Prisons, he was found unconscious in his cell early Saturday morning and the cause of his death was not yet known.

Paranoid schizophrenia

Long detained in the high security prison in Florence, Colorado – known for having sheltered famous prisoners such as drug lord El Chapo – he was transferred in 2021 to a prison health facility in North Carolina. Brilliant mathematician turned hermit, Theodore Kaczynski had embarked on a crusade against progress and technology, making his bombs in a cabin in the mountains of Montana (northwest) without running water or electricity.

His first targets are academics and airlines, earning the assassin the nickname “Unabomber” (for “University and Airline Bomber”). In September 1995, promising to stop sending bombs, he obtained New York Times and washington post that they publish a long manifesto in which he expresses a hatred of technology and the modern world.

While reading it, a resident of the east coast of the United States, David Kaczynski, sees in it a similarity with the old writings of his brother Theodore, cut off from his family for years. He then alerted the FBI and, in April 1996, allowed his arrest. A diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia did not prevent him from being tried and then sentenced, in 1998, to life in prison, after pleading guilty.