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The Unabomber

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Real Name: Unknown (at the time of the broadcast)
Aliases: FC
Wanted For: Terrorism, Serial-Bombings, Murder, Attempted Murder
Missing Since: February 20, 1987

641422800

Hugh Scrutton

Case[]

Details: The "Unabomber" is an unknown serial bomber who is responsible for at least twelve bombings throughout the United States. His most recent one occurred on February 20, 1987, in Salt Lake City, Utah. That morning, he planted a homemade bomb in the parking lot behind a computer store. He disguised it as a prankster's device to blow out car tires.
At around 10:30am, Gary Wright, the owner of the computer store, arrived at work. He says that as he pulled into the back parking lot, he noticed a couple of 2x4s nailed together with nails sticking out. He figured that he better move it so that no one would run over it. He got out of his car and walked around to the device. As he picked it up, it exploded. The explosion severed nerves in his left arm and propelled over 200 pieces of shrapnel into his body. Police and paramedics soon responded to the scene. Fortunately, he survived.
Over the past nine years, the same bomber has built twelve bombs and planted them at universities, airlines, and computer-related businesses. So far, one man has been killed and twenty-one others have been injured by his devices. Over the past nine years, he has only been seen once. The huge taskforce of FBI agents, local police, and federal law enforcement agencies is desperately trying to find him. They all agree on one thing: unless he is caught, he will strike again. It is only a matter of time.
According to FBI agent Bennett Cale, the bomber likes to disguise his bombs, and he does this by making them fit the environment where he intends to place them. In some cases, he has mailed a book containing a bomb through the mail. In others, he has placed the bombs outside of businesses, where they look like they would fit into that area. Cale thinks that the bomber spends a considerable amount of time making sure that where he places the bomb, it will draw some curiosity and, therefore, he will be able to get to the victims that he is after.
The locations and cities from which the bombs originated may offer clues to the bomber's identity. Between 1978 and 1980, four bombs were either placed in the Chicago area or mailed from there. On May 25, 1978, a bomb, wrapped in a brown paper bag and further concealed in a package, was found in the parking lot of the engineering building at the University of Illinois at Chicago. It bore the return address of Buckley Crist, a professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
On May 26, the bomb was "returned" to Buckley's office. Suspicious, he asked university police officer Terry Marker to investigate it. Terry opened it, and it exploded, slightly injuring him. On May 9, 1979, another bomb, concealed in a cigar box and left on a table, exploded at the same university, injuring graduate student John Harris. Both bombs were nonmetallic and consisted only of wads of matchheads fused together and wrapped with paper to form small packages.
Another bomb was concealed in a package and mailed to Washington, D.C. On November 15, 1979, it partially exploded in the cargo hold of an American Airlines passenger jet while in flight from Chicago to Washington, D.C. Twelve passengers suffered from non-lethal smoke inhalation. Fortunately, a faulty timing mechanism prevented it from exploding with its full force, and the plane was able to make an emergency landing at Dulles Airport in Virginia.
Yet another bomb was mailed in a hollowed-out book to the Lake Forest, Illinois, home of Percy Wood, the president of United Airlines. It had a fictitious Chicago return address. On June 10, 1980, he opened it, and it exploded. He received severe cuts and burns as a result. Around the time of this bombing, a large taskforce was formed to identify the bomber.
In 1981, the bomber may have moved to Utah. The next two bombs originated in Salt Lake City and Provo. On October 8, 1981, a bomb disguised as a package was discovered in a hallway at the University of Utah. It was defused by a bomb squad. On May 5, 1982, a pipe bomb was sent from Brigham Young University in Provo to Patrick Fisher, a professor of computer science at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. He was on vacation at the time. His secretary, Janet Smith, opened it and received injuries to her face and arms.
On July 2, 1982, the bomber placed a device disguised as a student's physics project in a break room in Cory Hall at the University of California at Berkeley. When engineering professor Diogenes Angelakos tried to move it, it exploded, seriously injuring him. In 1985, after a three-year break, the bomber planted four more bombs.
Around May 12, 1985, at the University of California at Berkeley, the bomber slipped unnoticed into a campus computer lab in Cory Hall and left behind a bomb disguised as a binder attached to a checkbox. It sat in the lab for about three days before it attracted the attention of John Hauser, an Air Force captain, on May 15. He was a graduate student who had been accepted for training by NASA. His career as an astronaut came to a tragic end that day.
Hauser says that when he saw the bomb, he believed it was someone's lunch or project. He decided to open it to see what was inside. Almost instantly, it exploded, blowing the fingers off of his right hand. His academy ring was on his ring finger; it lodged in the wall. Blood immediately started spurting out because both of the major arteries in his right arm had been severed.
Hauser says he knew he was in a life-threatening situation. He thinks that if the box had been turned the other way, if he had opened it toward him, and if the blast that went into his arm had gone into his chest, he would be dead. Coincidentally, Diogenes, whose office was nearby, helped tend to Hauser's injuries. This was the only known time that the bomber targeted the same place twice.
On June 13, 1985, the bomber mailed another bomb from Oakland, California, to the Boeing company in Auburn, Washington. It was defused by a bomb squad. On November 15, he mailed a bomb disguised as a package from Salt Lake City to the University of Michigan. He included a letter asking the recipient to review a student's master's thesis. A psychology professor and a research assistant were injured in the resulting explosion.
Finally, on December 11, 1985, the bomber killed his first victim. Thirty-eight-year-old Hugh Scrutton, the owner of a Sacramento computer rental store called "RenTech," died in a violent explosion in the parking lot behind his store, which was located in the Howe Avenue shopping center. The bomb contained nails, splinters, gunpowder, an electrical battery detonator, and an anti-disturbance device. It was hidden in a brown paper bag.
At 10:30am, the bomber planted the device behind the store. At 12pm, Hugh went out for lunch. A coworker, Rick Knight, says that Hugh had an appointment that day, so rather than eat lunch in one of the places in the shopping center, he went out the back door to his car. Rick was in the back working on some repairs at the time. As Hugh left, he said, "Well, I'll be back in a while. See ya."
Rick says that when he remembers the events of that day, it feels like everything happened so slowly, as if time were slowing down. He says it was almost like a nightmare. As Hugh went out the back door, he apparently noticed the bag left by the bomber. As he picked it up, it exploded. Shrapnel went through the store walls.
Rick heard Hugh scream out. He immediately opened the back door, which had been damaged in the explosion. Hugh was standing there looking at him. Hugh was missing a hand, and the force of the explosion had blown a hole in his chest. He looked at Rick with an "incredibly puzzled" look on his face. Despite frantic attempts by paramedics to save him, Hugh died almost immediately. A little over a year later, on February 20, 1987, the bomber placed the bomb at the computer store in Salt Lake City.
The police have concluded that in all the recent attacks, the bomber was targeting an institution rather than a specific individual. But they still do not know his exact motive. Lt. Ray Biondi of the Sacramento Sheriff's Department says they know that the bomber's motivation is to maim and kill. But they are not sure what his reasons are. Lt. Biondi says the bomber is not leaving enough clues behind. He thinks the bomber is trying to make a statement. But it is still open to speculation what the bomber's "grudge" is and if it is imaginary or real.
Authorities were able to link the bombs together based on the similarity of the design, construction, and materials used. The bomber builds his cleverly disguised devices from simple hardware store items, such as batteries, string, glue, fishing line, metal pipes, wood, nails, and matchheads. All of these items are ingeniously constructed into lethal killing devices. The bomber has made sure not to use parts or numbers that could be traced to him. He has even ripped the skin off of batteries to make them untraceable.
The building of the bombs may provide clues to the bomber's identity. The electrical circuitry and switches appear to be homemade. He appears to have a talent for soldering and metalwork. The bomber has regular access to a drill press, soldering equipment, and, possibly, a wood router.
Lt. Biondi believes that part of the bomber's enjoyment or fantasy is building the bomb. He says that there has to be some enjoyment in putting these things together. Because the bombs are more sophisticated and take more time to put together, the fantasy grows within him. Lt. Biondi thinks the bomber represents a great danger to everyone. Most in law enforcement agree that the only way he will stop is if he blows himself up or is caught.
Lt. Biondi says that the bomber did make one mistake in Salt Lake City. Up to that point, they were chasing a ghost. They had no idea what the bomber looked like. Now, they at least know that they are looking for an adult white male. In the Salt Lake City bombing, the bomber was clearly seen by witnesses for the first time. As he was placing his device, he looked up and made direct eye contact through a window with two store employees. He was calm and collected and had no reaction to being spotted. He simply finished his business and walked away.
Salt Lake City Detective Ken Farnsworth says that there is an underlying game going on with the bomber and the authorities. Based on the construction of a device, they know whether it is the bomber or not. Detective Farnsworth says that the bomber intends to do that. He could make the bomb in a different way, and they would not know it was him. But he does not do that. He intends for the authorities to know that he is striking again.
Detective Farnsworth says the bomber is both extremely dangerous and cowardly. He thinks a national television program like Unsolved Mysteries provides a great opportunity to help catch him. Detective Farnsworth notes that the bomber lives next to someone, and that person has to know that he travels around. He hopes that someone will come forward with a good suspect.
The authorities believe the bomber is extremely intelligent, with a high school and possibly a college education. He may also have a military background. He is believed to be very meticulous. He may be a loner. He may be involved with universities, computer facilities, or airlines. He might be a disgruntled employee, an academic, or someone displaced from his job by a computer.
Extra Notes:

  • This case originally aired on the September 24, 1987 Special #3 episode of Unsolved Mysteries hosted by Karl Malden.
  • A brief update was broadcast on the April 19, 1996 episode while a more in-depth update, investigating a connection between the Unabomber and the Zodiac Killer, aired on the September 20, 1996 episode.
  • It was also profiled on America's Most Wanted during the investigation and later documented on The FBI Files and several other shows after it was resolved. In 2017, the show Manhunt: Unabomber was released about it.
  • It was excluded from the FilmRise release of Robert Stack episodes.
  • During the initial broadcast, he was not referred to as the "Unabomber."
  • Similar cases of mail bombers include: Zip Gun Bomber and Televangelist Bomber.
  • The updated Unabomber composite was done by sketch artist Jeanne Boylan.
  • Lt. Biondi was also interviewed for the Pizza Parlor Killer segment.
  • This case is not to be confused with the still-unidentified "Italian Unabomber."
  • The bomber was called the Unabomber because he initially targeted universities (UN) and airlines (A).
  • At the time, this investigation was the most expensive one in FBI history.
  • Some dates of the bombings vary between sources.
  • The Unabomber was a subject in a "purposely brutalizing" psychological experiment while at Harvard. Some sources claim that it was related to Project MKUltra, the CIA's research into mind control. This same project may have led to the death of Frank Olson in 1953.
50408 Unabomber1

Ted Kaczynski

Results: Captured - On June 22, 1993, after a six-year break, the bomber mailed a bomb concealed in a wooden box to the home of Dr. Charles Epstein, a geneticist at the University of California at San Francisco. When Charles tried to open it, it exploded. He lost three fingers, broke his arm, suffered abdominal injuries, and damaged his eardrum.
Just two days later, on June 24, the bomber mailed another bomb to the New Haven, Connecticut, office of Dr. David Gelernter, a computer science professor at Yale University. In that explosion, David suffered severe burns and shrapnel wounds, damage to his right eye, and the loss of the use of his right hand.
These two bombs carried Sacramento postmarks and the return addresses of Sacramento professors. Around that same time, the bomber sent a letter to the New York Times, warning of a "newsworthy event." The author identified himself as "a group calling ourselves FC."
A year and a half later, on December 10, 1994, the bomber sent a bomb through the mail to the North Caldwell, New Jersey, home of Thomas J. Mosser, an advertising executive at Burson-Marsteller. He was killed in the resulting explosion. Gilbert Brent Murray, president of the timber industry lobbying group California Forestry Association, was killed in his office a few months later, on April 24, 1995, by a mail bomb addressed to the group's previous president, William Dennison.
Shortly afterwards, geneticist Phillip Sharp of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology received a threatening letter from the bomber, suggesting that he would be the next target. In June 1995, the bomber sent several letters to various media outlets, demanding that a major newspaper print his 35,000-word essay/manifesto, "Industrial Society and Its Future." He once again referred to himself as "FC."
In the letters, the bomber claimed that he would "desist from terrorism" if his manifesto was published in either the New York Times or The Washington Post. He also suggested that he would build "one more bomb" if his demands were not met. In one letter, he specifically threatened to blow up a plane flying out of Los Angeles. Some experts speculated that he was trying to attract more attention to himself because he felt "upstaged" by the Oklahoma City Bombing earlier that year. However, he denied this in a letter to the New York Times.
The magazine Penthouse volunteered to publish the manifesto. However, the bomber felt that Penthouse was not respectable enough; he threatened to plant another bomb if a more "respectable" source did not publish it. On September 19, 1995, The Washington Post published it. In it, the bomber said that his actions were extreme, but necessary, in attracting attention to how modern technology was "eroding" human freedom and dignity. He hoped to destroy the "industrial-technological system" by sparking a revolution.
Linda Patrik of New York read excerpts of the manifesto and began to suspect that her brother-in-law, fifty-three-year-old Theodore J. "Ted" Kaczynski, was the bomber. The geographical information regarding the bombings (such as the bomber living in Chicago and having connections to Salt Lake City and San Francisco, which Ted had) led her to urge her husband (and Ted's brother), David Kaczynski, to read the manifesto.
After reading the manifesto, David also began to believe that Ted was the bomber. David found old letters from the 1970s that Ted had sent to newspapers to protest the "abuses of technology." In these letters, he used phrases (such as "sphere of human freedom"), language, arguments, and themes similar to those found in the manifesto.
Ted was known to be extremely intelligent (another trait attributed to the bomber). He attended Harvard University on a scholarship when he was just sixteen. After graduating from there, he attended the University of Michigan (where one bomb was sent). In September 1967, at the age of twenty-six, he became the youngest assistant professor of mathematics ever at the University of California at Berkeley (where two of the bombs were placed). In June 1969, he abruptly resigned from his position. After that, he briefly lived in Salt Lake City.
In 1971, Ted moved into a remote ten-by-fourteen-foot cabin (with no electricity or running water) near Lincoln, Montana. While there, he worked odd jobs and received financial support from his family. He also tried to live as a survivalist (based on skills learned from his father), eating animals he caught around his cabin.
In 1978, Ted briefly moved back to Chicago and worked in a factory with David. However, he was later fired after writing "crude limericks" about a coworker he was infatuated with. Around that same time, the Unabomber bombings began (with the first four originating from Chicago). Shortly after the second bombing, he returned to the Montana cabin and stayed there.
After making the connection, David and Linda asked Susan Swanson, a friend of Linda's and a private investigator, to investigate Ted's activities. Swanson hired Anthony Bisceglie, a Washington, D.C. attorney, to organize the evidence she had gathered and contact the FBI with their findings. In early 1996, Swanson also asked a former FBI profiler, Clint Van Zandt, and his analytical team to compare the manifesto to known typewritten letters by Ted. The team determined that there was a high likelihood that the manifesto and letters were written by the same person.
In February 1996, Bisceglie gave copies of essays written by Ted to an FBI agent. The agent forwarded the essays to the San Francisco-based Unabomber task force. Based on linguistic analysis, FBI profiler James R. Fitzgerald determined that the author of the essays and the author of the manifesto were almost certainly the same person. In fact, he said that one of the essays was like an "outline" for the manifesto. Based on this and other evidence, a search warrant was issued for Ted's property.
On April 3, 1996, FBI agents, after staking out Ted's cabin, arrested him there. A search of it revealed a "wealth" of bomb components, 40,000 handwritten journal pages that included bomb-making experiments and descriptions of (and confessions to) the Unabomber's crimes, a live bomb, a typewriter that appeared to match the writing of some Unabomber documents, draft copies of letters sent by the bomber to newspapers, and the original manuscript for "Industrial Society and Its Future."
Some of the documents found in the cabin contained a specific code that the bomber had used in his writings to verify his authenticity. In one journal entry, written shortly after Hugh's death, Ted expressed glee after finding out that one of his bombs had killed someone. Noting that Hugh had been "blown to bits," he also wrote: "Execellent! Humane way to eliminate someone. Probably never felt a thing." He also wrote that the reward in the case was "rather flattering." Other entries referred to his hatred of airplanes and technology, along with his greatest desire: "I must get revenge."
Shortly after Ted's capture, there was speculation that he may have also been the Zodiac Killer, who murdered five people in northern California in 1968 and 1969. Ted had lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area during that time period. He had used the Zodiac symbol at least once, when signing a high school classmate's yearbook. He also drove the same type of car that the Zodiac was seen driving. Furthermore, he somewhat resembled the composite sketch and general description of the Zodiac.
Both suspects were believed to be highly intelligent, with interests in bombs and codes. In later letters, the Zodiac stated that he was going to use bombs to kill people. The cryptograms he used indicated an interest in or familiarity with mathematics, which was Ted's expertise. At the end of one cryptogram, eighteen characters were not deciphered; there are eighteen letters in Ted's full name. During one murder, the Zodiac mentioned Deer Lodge, Montana, a town not far from Ted's cabin.
Both suspects wrote letters to newspapers, demanding that their works be published and threatening continued violence if their demands were not met. Shortly after the Zodiac sent his last letter, the Unabomber's crimes started. However, the crimes (stabbings and shootings vs. bombings) differed significantly; authorities looked into Ted as a suspect in the Zodiac case, but later ruled him out via fingerprint and handwriting comparisons.
Ted was initially charged with possession of bomb-making materials. In June 1996, a federal grand jury indicted him on ten counts of illegally transporting, mailing, and using bombs. These charges were related to the bombs that were either mailed or detonated in Sacramento. He was later charged in some of the other cases as well.
Authorities believe that Ted committed his crimes after witnessing the destruction of the wilderness surrounding his cabin (around 1975, he set fire and boobytrapped several developments near his cabin). He decided he wanted to fight industrialization and modern technology through terrorism. So, he targeted people who he believed were advancing modern technology and destroying the environment. He chose his victims at random based on library research. To help elude authorities, he purposefully left false clues with his bombs and used untraceable parts for them. He also wore gloves and even vacuumed the compartments of the bombs.
Ted's lawyers tried to enter an insanity defense to avoid the death penalty, but he rejected the idea, claiming that he was not mentally ill. At one point, he asked a judge to let him fire his lawyers and hire a private attorney. The judge refused, believing that Ted was purposely trying to delay his trial. Shortly afterwards, Ted attempted suicide.
A psychiatrist who examined Ted believed that he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. This psychiatrist and two others agreed that Ted suffered from grandiose fantasies and delusional rage as a result of his schizophrenia. However, on January 21, 1998, the psychiatrist declared him competent to stand trial "despite the psychiatric diagnoses."
Once again, Ted attempted to fire his lawyers and represent himself. And once again, the judge denied his request. The next day, January 22, Ted pleaded guilty to all of the charges against him. As part of his plea bargain, he confessed to all sixteen of the Unabomber bombings (which had resulted in three deaths and twenty-three injuries). He was also spared the death penalty. In May, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
In 2011, the FBI looked into the possibility that Ted was responsible for the "Tylenol murders," a series of unsolved poisonings that took place in Chicago in fall 1982. The FBI compared his DNA to several partial samples taken from those cases. However, no match was found. That case, along with the Zodiac case, remain unsolved.
On June 10, 2023, Ted died by suicide in prison at the age of eighty-one.
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