BOMB PSYCHO
How ‘Unabomber’ Ted Kaczynski escaped FBI for 17 YEARS – as Netflix show relives his twisted pipe bomb murder spree
TO outsiders, Ted Kaczynski was a well-educated professor who led a quiet life, but underneath the calm exterior lay a psychopathic terrorist.
The infamous 'Unabomber', as he is now known, was a twisted killer who murdered and mutilated dozens of people by targeting them with homemade bombs.
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For nearly 18 years, between 1978 and 1995, the homicidal professor mailed and hand-delivered 17 bombs, which killed three people and maimed 23 others.
Most of the victims were academics who worked in modern technology and he was later dubbed the 'Unabomber' by the press because some of his targets included universities and airlines.
Now, Netflix has just released a new documentary series which documents Kaczynski's life and includes the first-ever interview the killer has given.
But what were Kaczynski's motives for his heinous crimes and where did it all begin?
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A sick and 'brutalising' experiment
Growing up in Chicago and later Illinois, Kaczynski was a bright teenager with a high IQ - but is said to have been bullied by his peers.
Despite his social awkwardness, Kaczynski - described as "another Einstein" - went on to flourish and won a scholarship to Harvard University when he was just 16 years old, from which he graduated with a degree in mathematics in 1962.
While at Harvard, Kaczynski participated in a psychological experiment, later as "purposely brutalising".
It was led by Harvard psychologist Henry Murray and saw each student write essays detailing their personal beliefs and aspirations.
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These would then be passed to an anonymous attorney, who would make "vehement, sweeping, and personally abusive" attacks on each of the students, using parts of their essays each time.
Electrodes were reportedly placed on the students to monitor their physiological reactions.
Their angry outbursts and reactions would then apparently be played back to them repeatedly, over a span of three years.
It's long been debated whether the experiment played any part in Kaczynski's ongoing hatred of technology, which later prompted his murder spree.
'Antisocial' psychopath
A few years later, after earning a Master's and doctoral degree at the University of Michigan, the mathematical genius became the youngest-ever assistant professor at the University of Berkeley in California, aged 25.
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But Kaczynski wasn't interested in mathematics; he was trying to save up money to buy himself a piece of land in Lincoln Montana, along with a small wooden cabin with no access to electricity or running water.
This is where his murderous journey began.
"I hate the system, not because of some abstract humanitarian principle, but because I hated living in the system," the killer says in the new Netflix series.
"I got out of it by living in the mountains, but the system wouldn't let me alone."
Mutilating scientists and blowing off fingers
Kaczynski spent the next few years making and delivering five bombs, which caused minor injuries to the recipients.
But his first big target would develop into his biggest obsession - scientists - starting with professor Patrick Fischer at Vanderbilt University in 1982.
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The murderer sent a pipe bomb to Patrick's office, which was accidentally opened by his assistant, Janet Smith, who was seriously injured by the explosion.
That same year, Kaczynski struck again, with a pipe bomb disguised as a can, which badly hurt professor Diogenes J Angelako at the University of California.
But the sinister attacker wasn't satisfied with the quality of his bombs and wanted to inflict more harm.
Zap, you know it exploded, threw my hand over to the other side
John Hauser
He spent the next three years perfecting a new design, so strong it blew off four fingers of graduate student John Hauser, who found it in a computer lab at Berkeley University – where Kaczynski used to work.
"Zap, you know it exploded, threw my hand over to the other side," John recalls in the documentary, while showing off his now healed stumps.
"I could see my hand was really, really torn up very badly, then I noticed that I had this really big gash out of my arm and blood was starting to bubble up out of there".
The first victim
The killer showed no remorse in his journals, but outlined his desire to "kill a scientist".
"I'm no longer bothered by having crippled this guy, I laughed at the idea of having any compunction about crippling an airline pilot," Kaczynski wrote in one diary entry about the attack on John.
"I think that perhaps I could now kill someone."
The serial killer's first fatal attack was on Hugh Scrutton, a 38-year-old man who ran a computer shop in Sacramento and was killed by a bomb left in the parking lot of his store in 1985.
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This was quickly followed by another vicious bombing on another computer store owner, named Gary Wright.
Gary, who Kaczynski described in his journals as "Experiment 121", was hit by 200 pieces of shrapnel and the nerve endings in his left arm were ruined.
He was lucky to survive the attack at all.
Evading the FBI
Kaczynski, however, had messed up. A woman spotted him in a hooded sweatshirt and aviator sunglasses dropping off the bomb that would hit Gary.
A sketch was released to the media, but due to the vague description, no arrests were made.
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Kaczynski becomes cautious. The next attack wouldn't come for another six years.
"I will kill but I will make at least some effort to avoid detection, so that I can kill again," he wrote in his journal.
Ahead of his next attack, Kaczynski also visited a public bathroom, grabbed a few strands of pubic hair from the urinals and put them into his next bomb, to throw the FBI off his track.
In 1993, now feeling more confident about his technical abilities to build deadly devices, Kaczynski stepped up his game by sending out two bombs, injuring a geneticist and a computer scientist, as well as making himself known to the press.
I will kill but I will make at least some effort to avoid detection, so that I can kill again.
Ted Kaczynski
He sent a letter to the New York Times, signing it off as an anarchist group named "FC", but there were no finger prints and the paper wasn't traceable.
In the letter, he promised to stop attacking people with bombs if a national paper printed his 35,000-word manifesto.
Wanting to avoid more deaths, this was eventually printed by The Washington Post as an eight-page supplement but it didn't stop the Unabomber.
Catching a killer
In the mid-90s, Kaczynski murdered two more people, but neither worked in the technology industry.
An avid nature lover, he killed an advertising executive called Thomas Mosser, who worked for Exxon Corp in New York - a company that caused an oil spill - and Gilbert B Murray, a timber industry lobbyist.
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The following year, in 1996, the police finally got their big break from an unexpected source: Kaczynski's brother David.
Kaczynski didn't approve of his brother's marriage to Linda Patrik, and sent an aggressive letter to the couple, before cutting ties with his entire family.
When the FC manifesto was printed, David and his wife noticed that there were similarities in the Unabomber writing and in Kaczynski's letters.
Distraught but determined, David alerted the authorities.
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On April 3 that same year, the FBI descended on Kaczynski's small cabin in Montana, arrested him and found overwhelming evidence of his crimes in the cabin, including a rough draft of the manifesto, the hoodie, the sunglasses and bomb materials.
Two years into his court proceedings, Kaczynski pleaded guilty to his crimes and was given eight life sentences without any possibility of parole, and transferred to ADX Florence prison in Illinois.
The Unabomber nightmare was over. But what was his real motive?
A desperate bid for revenge
"It was simply anger and revenge, and I was gonna strike back," Kaczynski can be heard saying in the series, before adding with a chilling laugh: "Try not to get blown up."
Kaczynski kept journals about his attacks and in them he outlined his "desire for revenge", .
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He attempted to justify his attacks by claiming he was trying to preserve humanity and nature from what he believed were the harmful effects of technology and exploitation.
However, more journal entries left that up for debate as he appeared completely unaffected by harmful effects to nature in one.
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"I believe in nothing," Kaczynski wrote. "I don't even believe in the cult of nature-worshippers or wilderness-worshippers. (I am perfectly ready to litter in parts of the woods that are of no use to me - I often throw cans in logged-over areas ...)"
Instead, he simply wrote: "My motive for doing what I am going to do is simply personal revenge."
He 'wanted a sex-change' op
A 47-page psychiatrist’s report was released in 1998, compiled from interviews with the killer behind bars as well as his journal entries, which also revealed his desire to have a sex change.
According to , he wrote in 1966 about visiting a psychiatrist to ask about the operation - but ended up leaving without speaking of the fantasy.
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Instead, he returned home and wrote: "I felt disgusted about what my uncontrolled sexual cravings had almost led me to do and I felt humiliated, and I violently hated the psychiatrist.
";Like a phoenix, I burst from the ashes of my despair to a glorious new hope. I thought I wanted to kill the psychiatrist and anyone else whom I hate."
The words would go on to prove chillingly true as he directed his hatred at scientists across America.
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