http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/new … e-1.725206
ATTORNEY SAW ENOUGH TO ACT HE TOLD FBI ABOUT KACZYNSKI’S PAPERS
BY DAVE EISENSTADT , TIMOTHY CLIFFORD NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Monday, April 8, 1996, 12:00 AM A A A
BROOKVILLE, Md. "Disturbing similarities" between the Unabomber’s published manifesto and suspect Theodore Kaczynski’s writings persuaded a Brooklyn-born lawyer to take the case to the FBI. "Two concerns were driving this: The possibility of saving innocent lives and protecting the life of a potentially innocent individual," Washington attorney Anthony Bisceglie told the Daily News in an interview yesterday at his home. The revelations by Bisceglie the intermediary between the Kaczynski family and the FBI came as federal investigators scoured fleabag hotels and bus depots around the nation to track the Montana mountain man’s movements. They also came as two men reported multiple sightings of Kaczynski in Sacramento, Calif. the area where the Unabomber mailed his last four bombs. Kaczynski, 53, is being held on charges of possessing bomb-making materials as authorities scramble to link him to the bombing spree that began in 1978, killing three people and injuring 23. Kaczynski’s brother, David, reached out to Bisceglie in early January after reading excerpts of the manifesto last October. The lawyer, who was introduced to David Kaczynski by a mutual friend, said David found items in the manifesto that reminded him of his brother. "When Dave came to me, they didn’t know if he [Theodore] was the Unabomber or not," said Bisceglie, 43, stressing that the suspect still is presumed innocent. While helping his mother, Wanda, get ready to move earlier this year, David Kaczynski found his brother’s letters in her suburban Chicago home. "There might have been similarities in the writings that were pure coincidences and to launch a full-scale investigation required looking at this very carefully," Bisceglie said. But after examining the writings and the manifesto, Bisceglie said, "There were disturbing similarities.
" The lawyer whose clients have included the Church of Scientology and "Fatal Vision" killer Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald added, "I brought it to the FBI.
" Bisceglie, who was reared on Long Island and in Connecticut, is a partner in the three-lawyer firm of Bisceglie & Walsh. A graduate of the University of Colorado and the Antioch School of Law, he is a specialist in white-collar crime and civil litigation. "We’ve done some sensitive investigations in the past involving the FBI," Bisceglie said. "That was one of the things that led them [the Kaczynski family] to me.
" Bisceglie declined to give full details about his involvement, such as when he first spoke to the FBI. The lawyer has scheduled a news conference today in Washington. On March 11, Wanda Kaczynski permitted FBI agents to search her home without a warrant, U.
S. News & World Report said in this week’s issue. Among the passages that agents spotted in both the manifesto and letters was the twisting of a common phrase: "Well, you can’t eat your cake and have it, too.
" The Sacramento Bee reported yesterday that David Kaczynski first tried to persuade prosecutors not to seek the death penalty against his brother. But when they refused, Kaczynski still informed them about Theordore’s writings. Meanwhile, Justice Department officials were expected to meet today with federal prosecutors from across the country to decided how to proceed in the case. A federal grand jury in Great Falls, Mont., is set to begin hearing evidence against Kaczynski April 17. In addition to bomb-making components recovered Wednesday, a live package bomb was discovered under Kaczynski’s bed Friday though the identity of its target wasn’t revealed. A beat-up typewriter also found in the hovel appears to be the one the Unabomber used to peck out his screeds against society. Meanwhile, a hotel clerk and a manager of a Burger King who work next to downtown Sacramento’s bus depot told The Associated Press they had seen Kaczynski. Clerk Frank Hensley said Kaczynski stayed at the Royal Hotel two or three times, in the late spring or summer, in the past five years. Restaurant manager Mike Singh also recalled seeing Kaczynski a few times in recent years, including one occasion when the disheveled man was carrying an armload of books. "He said he was doing research and he had a breakfast sandwich," Singh said. Kaczynski also reportedly made periodic trips into Helena, Mont., where he would stay at a $14-a-night inn and make bus connections. Four of those stays between 1982 and 1995 roughly coincided with five Unabomb attacks. Tom Stell, a driver for Helena’s Rimrock Stages bus company, said he saw Kaczynski at least five times riding between Helena and Missoula. "He was greasy and dirty and never said anything to anybody," Stell told the Helena Independent Record. Stacie Fredrickson, a ticketing agent for Greyhound bus lines in Butte, Mont. where connections to buses traveling around the country are available said she recognized Kaczynski as a frequent passenger when the FBI showed her a photo last week. "They just asked if I recognized this guy and I said I did," she told Reuter, "because he looked like a geek.
" In another development, Newsweek magazine reported that a former Harvard classmate of Kaczynski’s became suspicious after reading the Unabomber’s 35,000-word manifesto last September. The sharp-eyed classmate noted that the diatribe alluded to the works of 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant a favorite subject of Kaczynski’s during bull sessions more than 30 years ago. GRAPHIC: HOW THE UNABOMBER CAST HIS NET Federal officials are tracing the travels of Unabomber suspect Theodore Kaczynski in an effort to link him to the deadly, 17-year bombing campaign. Here is a list of his travels and whereabouts at time of the bombings. MONTANA From his remote mountain cabin in Lincoln, Mont., Kaczynski would take a local bus or hitch rides with the town’s mailman to Helena, where he would stay atParker Hotel, located next to the main bus station. At least four of Kaczynski’s 25 visits to the hotel over the last 11 years coincided with periods just before or after a Unabomber attack. From Helena, Kaczynski would take a bus to Butte, which provides connections to the rest of the country. A ticket agent in Butte said she had seen Kaczynski "about 15 times since 1991" taking buses to Salt Lake City, or to Missoula, where he could make connections to Washington state and the West Coast. 1. CALIFORNIA Eight of the Unabomber’s devices were placed or sent from Berkeley, Sacramento, and Oakland. Kaczynski had taught mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley for two years before resigning in June, 1969 and moving to Montana. Yesterday, a hotel clerk in Sacramento said he had seen Kaczynski several times in recent years. Four of the bombing incidents coincided with periods that Kaczynski stayed at the Parker Hotel in Helena, where he presumably began his travel to California. They include: May 15, 1985: A bomb found in computer room at the University of California at Berkeley injures one person. Kaczynski stayed at the hotel on April 29. June 13, 1985: A bomb mailed from Oakland to Boeing Co. in Auburn, Wash. is safely defused. Kaczynski stayed at hotel on May 22. June 22, 1993: A bomb sent from Sacramento to a University of California geneticist injures the man in his San Francisco home. Kaczynski stayed at hotel June 6. April 24, 1995: California Forestry Association President Gilbert Murray is killed at his Sacramento headquarters opening a package sent from Oakland. Kaczynski stayed at the Parker on March 13. Other bombings linked to California included the Dec. 11, 1985 death of Hugh Scrutton, killed near his computer rental store in Sacramento; a package sent from Sacramento that injured a Yale University computer sceintist on June 23, 1994; and the Dec. 10, 1994 death of New York advertising executive Thomas Mosser, who was killed in his Caldwell, N.
J. home. 2. UTAH Salt Lake City: The Unabomber sends two bombs to the area: one on Oct. 8, 1981 to the University of Utah, where no one was hurt, and the second on Feb. 20, 1987, injuring a man in a computer store. Federal agents reportedly said that Kaczynski lived in Salt Lake City for a period during the early 1980s. A local hotel clerk said that the FBI has been searching the area since last month. The Unabomber also sent a bomb on May 5, 1982 from nearby Provo to a Vanderbilt University computer scientist in Nashville, Tenn. Another bomb sent to a University of Michigan professor was mailed from Salt Lake City. 3. CHICAGO AREA Three of the Unabomber’s packages were mailed from the Chicago area, where Kaczynski was born and raised. The first bomb, sent on May, 25, 1978, injured a security guard at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill; the second wounded United Airlines president in his home in 1980; and a third injured 12 aboard an American Airlines flight to Washington, D.
C. on Nov. 15, 1979. A fourth bomb left at Northwestern’s Technological Institute in 1979 wounded one person. Six weeks after the first bombing, Kaczynski reportedly obtained an Illinois driver’s license using his parent’s suburban Chicago address, although he lived in Montana. Authorities believe Kaczynski traveled to the Chicago area several times during that period, for a few months. While cleaning out the family’s suburban Chicago home in March, relatives found writings similar to the Unabomber’s that led them to turn Kaczynski in. Police also reportedly searched a shed near the family home and found potassium and phosphorous, which can be used in making bombs, as well as a mixing bowl with trace elements of gun powder and several boxes of wooden stick matches. The Unabomber’s first four bombs contained wooden matches and gun powder. 4. MICHIGAN Michigan On November 15, 1985, a secretary is injured opening a package to a University of Michigan professor. Kaczynski earned his MA and PhD in math there from 1962-67.
http://articles.latimes.com/1997-03-04/ … se-lawyers
Defense Asks Judge to Bar Evidence in Unabomber Case
March 04, 1997|MARK GLADSTONE | TIMES STAFF WRITER
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SACRAMENTO — Attorneys for accused Unabomber Theodore J. Kaczynski on Monday urged a federal judge to toss out evidence seized nearly a year ago at Kaczynski’s Montana cabin, saying the FBI was "deliberately misleading" in obtaining a search warrant.
In several hundred pages of documents filed late Monday, defense lawyers Quin Denvir and Judy Clarke maintained that the FBI "simply failed to provide any trustworthy information that would convince a reasonably prudent person that Mr. Kaczynski committed the Unabomb crimes."
To buttress their argument, the defense lawyers provided a detailed critique of the 104-page search warrant affidavit that sought to establish links between Kaczynski and the Unabomber.
In particular, they contend that the government misrepresented DNA evidence, failed to disclose information that Kaczynski did not match the description of the Unabomber "in virtually any respect," and covered up evidence showing that Kaczynski had an alibi for a 1985 fatal bombing in Sacramento.
As a result, the defense lawyers are asking U.S. Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. to exclude all evidence seized in April at Kaczynski’s remote cabin.
That evidence includes a stack of documents that prosecutors have described as the backbone of the case against the former UC Berkeley mathematics professor, including entries in which they say he took responsibility for the deadly, coast-to-coast trail of 16 bombings.
An FBI spokesman declined to comment on the defense legal brief.
After Kaczynski’s arrest, the government released a list of evidence removed by FBI agents from his cabin, including bomb components, notebooks and typewriters that allegedly tied him to the bombings that started in 1978 and killed three and injured 23.
In June, a federal grand jury indicted Kaczynski in four Unabomber-related explosions, including two fatal attacks–the 1985 death of Sacramento computer store owner Hugh Scrutton and the 1995 death of Capitol timber industry lobbyist Gilbert Murray. Kaczynski, 54, remains in Sacramento County Jail awaiting trial.
Seeking to poke holes in the government’s case, Kaczynski’s lawyers said that documents available to the FBI provided their client with an alibi for the 1985 Sacramento bombing.
"Specifically, bank records and information from bank officials all showed Mr. Kaczynski personally making a deposit in Helena, Mont., on the date of a Unabomb event in Sacramento," according to defense documents.
Another major point made by the defense was that the government’s search warrant affidavit failed to reveal that DNA testing excluded Kaczynski as the source of DNA on two Unabomb letters and probably excluded him as the source of DNA on a third letter.
A third issue in dispute involves the description of the Unabomb suspect given in 1987 by an eyewitness who saw a man plant an explosive device in the rear parking lot of a Salt Lake City computer store.
In contrast to the witness’ description, Kaczynski was 14 to 19 years older, 1 to 3 inches shorter and had a more muscular build, according to the defense team.
Authorities had been searching for the Unabomber since 1978, when his first attack came at Northwestern University, north of Chicago. The FBI gave the case the code name "Unabomb" because early targets included universities and airlines.
Interesting articles.
I find it hard to believe there were TWO anti-technology bombers in Montana. I wonder if Ted called in the threat using a female voice as a disguise?
Do you have a date/year for the article on the bomb found in Bozeman, Montana? Thanks.
Wait I see Sept 4 1970.
MODERATOR
Interesting articles.
I find it hard to believe there were TWO anti-technology bombers in Montana. I wonder if Ted called in the threat using a female voice as a disguise?
Do you have a date/year for the article on the bomb found in Bozeman, Montana? Thanks.
Wait I see Sept 4 1970.
What do you make of this information? This sounds like there could be an accomplice to me.
"Another major point made by the defense was that the government’s search warrant affidavit failed to reveal that DNA testing excluded Kaczynski as the source of DNA on two Unabomb letters and probably excluded him as the source of DNA on a third letter."
Interesting articles.
I find it hard to believe there were TWO anti-technology bombers in Montana. I wonder if Ted called in the threat using a female voice as a disguise?
Do you have a date/year for the article on the bomb found in Bozeman, Montana? Thanks.
Wait I see Sept 4 1970.
What do you make of this information? This sounds like there could be an accomplice to me.
"Another major point made by the defense was that the government’s search warrant affidavit failed to reveal that DNA testing excluded Kaczynski as the source of DNA on two Unabomb letters and probably excluded him as the source of DNA on a third letter."
This sentence:
"Another major point made by the defense was that the government’s search warrant affidavit failed to reveal that DNA testing excluded Kaczynski as the source of DNA on two Unabomb letters and probably excluded him as the source of DNA on a third letter."
Is based on a comparison of DNA found on a stamp on a letter from Ted to David to DNA from a stamp on a letter sent by the Unabomber. There was never a DNA draw from Ted himself. I very much doubt the DNA on the Unabomber stamp was from Ted. He was well aware of DNA and outlined a procedure he used for stamps on Unabomber letters. He covered his hands in plastic and would not lick the stamps but dip them in a saucer of water.
I confirmed with the former director of the FBI CODIS program that they never had a sample directly from Ted.
But the FBI records, from Ted’s own journals and their analysis, show that he had a very careful procedure he used with ALL stamps he bought, regardless of whether they were to be used on bomb packages, letters to newspapers or to family. This is the procedure, as recounted on p. xxi in the book "Unabomber: A Desire To Kill", by Robert Graysmith:
"The previous night he had specially treated the "O’Neill" stamps along with the others – "Lucy Stone" fifty cent stamps, "Frederick Douglass" twenty five cent stamps and another dollar stamp, "America’s Light Fueled by Truth and Reason". THE SOLITARY MAN HAD SOAKED THEM IN SALT WATER, THEN RUBBED THEM WITH SOY BEAN OIL TO ERASE ANY FINGERPRINTS THAT MIGHT HAVE SLIPPED PAST HIS IMPROVISED PLASTIC WRAP "GLOVES" "
Ted never licked stamps or anything else. From 1978 to 1995, the FBI "knew the technophobic bomber never licked labels" or envelope flaps or stamps – but then in 1995 he just "slipped up" and licked a stamp? Graysmith book, pp. 279 and 324. That is highly, highly unlikely. There is a reason the FBI after an 18 year $60 million investigation had a 25,000 person suspect list that did not have Ted’s name on it. He simply made very few slips up of any kind, and never made a major mistake. Kaczynski knew all about DNA – he sent a bomb to leading genetic scientist Dr. Epstien and had the name and home address of the inventor of the PCR DNA method, Kary Mullis, on a death list in his cabin. He thought DNA was yet another way the "techno – nerds" would try to control humanity.
We must also consider that the Unabomber case was happening in the time period of the FBI lab scandal. The lab was found to have grossly violated procedures involving contamination. There were proven accusations of incompetence, contamination violations, bias, unsound procedures, and even perjury and out right fabrication. In regards to the Unabomber case specifically, the explosives analysis was grossly unsound and partially fabricated – that is what the Department of Justice Inspector General found. See http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/9704a/17unabom.htm . In relevant part:
"Furthermore, the concerns raised by Burmeister about Rudolph’s conclusions appear in several instances to be well-founded. The Laboratory did not adequately address these concerns after they were brought to the attention of Mohnal and Laboratory management in September 1995. Rudolph’s work on UNABOM displays the same problems of inadequate documentation and conclusions not supported by sufficient data that we noted in the more general discussion in Part Three, Section A above.
A qualified explosives residue examiner should undertake a detailed review of all of Rudolph’s UNABOM work before it is used further in the case. In response to a draft of this section of the report, Robert Cleary, a Special Attorney to the U.S. Attorney General, advised the OIG that the Government would not be relying upon any of Rudolph’s work in the UNABOM case as part of the prosecution of Theodore J. Kaczyski, who has been indicted on charges related to bombings attributed to the Unabomber. Cleary stated that to the extent the Government will offer explosive residue evidence in the Kaczyski case, it will be relying upon the conclusions of Burmeister and other, non-FBI laboratories."
Thus, the Justice Department agreed NOT to use FBI Lab results because they were so tainted. Lawyers for Kaczynski asserted it was "impossible" for the FBI to have obtained his DNA. In regards to DNA, this is what the writers of a book on the lab scandal found:
"The IG follow-up report dealt only with the explosives unit. But since the publication of our book in the United States, we have investigated the operations of the DNA unit which the IG claimed was a model of scientific integrity. We found that the original IG investigation discovered quite the contrary. That the DNA unit was seriously negligent, but the IG covered up this finding. We discovered that Drs. Greg Parsons and Martin Alevy of the DNA unit had refused to testify on behalf of the FBI because they felt the DNA testing could be faulty, unreliable, and inaccurate. They felt so strongly about this that they left the lab to resume being street agents with a cut in pay and rank.
The head of the DNA unit, Dr. Jenifer Lindsey Smith, and her subordinates totally botched the DNA testing in the Unabomber case such that the prosecution would not have been able to use the results if Unabomber suspect Ted Kaczynski had gone to trial. Smith did not even bother to obtain a sample of Kaczynski’s actual DNA, and an FBI affidavit lied that there was a match found between the Unabomber’s DNA and Kaczynski’s DNA. "
Tainting Evidence: Inside the Scandal at the FBI Crime Lab, John Kelly and Phillip K Wearne
In short, there is very good reason to doubt that Kaczynski DNA is on any Unabomber stamp or personal stamp. And we now know that Kaczynski DNA frrom his body has never been put into CODIS. Federal law requires all convicted prisoners in federal custody to have DNA taken. Yet it has never happened. Kaczynski has never had DNA drawn from his body. So nobody knows what it is, and it may or may not match DNA in the Zodiac, Tylenol or other cases.
There are persons in law enforcement trying to make it happen, but there is a lot more politics and red tape involved than I thought.
MODERATOR
Interesting comparison of Unabomber’s FC with the Mad Bomber’s FP.
http://www.popsci.com/technology/articl … -unabomber
MATCHING WITS WITH THE UNABOMBER
THE INSIDE STORY OF HOW AN ELITE BOMB SQUAD DISMANTLED THE UNABOMBER’S LAST DEADLY DEVICE
By Frank Vizard Posted April 1, 2013
http://www.unabombers.com/News/96-04-16 … ence-4.htm
Copyright 1996 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
April 16, 1996, Tuesday, FIVE STAR LIFT Edition
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 3A
LENGTH: 565 words
HEADLINE: KACZYNSKI CABIN HELD ADDRESSES OF EXECUTIVES SOURCE: Compiled From News Services
DATELINE: HELENA, MONT.
BODY:
FBI agents searching Theodore Kaczynski’s cabin found addresses of corporate executives, maps of San Francisco, bus schedules, firearms and anti-depressant medicine, an inventory made public Monday shows.
In a filing disclosed in federal court, the FBI also confirmed published reports of three typewriters found in the cabin, as well as several unspecified documents and notes.
Although Kaczynski is suspected of being the Unabomber, none of the documents was identified as the original text of the Unabomber manifesto, the 35,000-word tract published in The Washington Post and The New York Times last year. A source said last week that agents had found what appeared to be the original of the manifesto, a diatribe against modern technology.
Kaczynski, 53, was arrested at the cabin near Lincoln, Mont., two weeks ago and is being held on charges of possessing bomb components. He has not been charged with any of the Unabomber attacks, which killed three people and injured 23 over 17 years.
In its list made public Monday, the FBI did not specifically link any of the more than 600 items to the Unabomber.
The list does not identify the corporate executives or list the addresses. The references to San Francisco and to corporate executives were cryptic. The item was listed as: "One ‘Aldrich’ box containing misc. papers, newspaper clippings, bus schedule, addresses of corporate officials and maps of San Francisco."
The references may be significant because the Unabomber, who raged against modern technology, targeted executives. Three of the bombings occurred in the San Francisco Bay area and two in Sacramento, Calif. Five of the bombs were mailed from Northern California, including two from Oakland and one from San Francisco.
A bottle of Trazadone, a prescription anti-depressant drug, was found.
One item simply read: "One ‘Calumet Baking Powder’ can containing soldering wire."
Another specified a pair of brown and green hiking boots with a brand name, Northwest Territory. One entry said "letters." Another read "documents."
Chemicals On List
Authorities also found a pipe bomb and an "improvised explosive device" in a cardboard box, as well as five firearms – a rifle and four handguns.
The list also described a hooded jacket, a blue zippered sweat shirt and hood and two pairs of plastic glasses.
A witness who saw the Unabomber plant one bomb described him as wearing a hooded sweat shirt and aviator glasses, resulting in the widely circulated composite sketch.
Among the chemicals listed in the inventory were saltpeter, ammonium nitrate, abietic acid, ground aluminum, manganese dioxide, boric acid, ammonium alum, a copper compound, lye, lead acetate, lead hydroxide and lead carbonate. Those were in jars labeled by Kaczynski in his handwriting.
Authorities found other, unlabeled jars containing various types of powder.
Agents also listed 232 books, some of which may provide insight into Kaczynski’s thoughts, such as "Eastern Mysticism," "Asimov’s Guide to the Bible," "Holy Bible Dictionary Concordance," "Comes the Comrade," "Les Miserables" and "Growing Up Foolish."
Everything seized from the cabin has been trucked to FBI headquarters in Quantico, Va., where it is undergoing microscopic examination.
The FBI list was ordered released by U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell, who authorized the original search.
The handguns are interesting, because they don’t fit Unabomber crimes or hunting. They do fit Zodiac, VR and EAR/ONS crimes.
Ted also built a one shot handgun from metal parts and wood.
I wish we had more info on the list of corporate execs he wanted to hit. This is what I do know.
THERE WERE SEVERAL MAJOR SPILLS AND LEAKAGES OF CYANIDE IN MONTANA IN EARLY 1982, INCLUDING ONE IN JUNE OF 1982. These actions would be deplored by most citizens of Montana, but they would have ENRAGED Kaczynski, who would regard it as a personal assault on him, the area he loved and even the water he personally drank. He might very well have been inspired to turn Cyanide, the agent of death to his beloved nature, against the very system he hated. Most of the major spills and leakages were by the Pegasus Gold Company. We know that Kaczynski was enraged by these Cyanide spills and leakages because among the items found in his cabin was a death list with the names of the executives of the Pegasus Gold Company listed on it.
This is described as a list of names. I think it is what Ted called his "Hit List". This may have been made fuzzy intentionally by US Marshall’s or FBI, for reasons of privacy for the people on the list. Can anyone get a blow up of this, or clarify image, so we can read the names? One name is reputed to be Kary Mullis, the Nobel Prize winning inventor of the PCR DNA method. Others would be executives of the Pegasus Gold Company. Others are no doubt scientists, computer experts and geneticists.
MODERATOR
He was angry alright. Here is what he wrote and was published in Technology Slavery:
"So deep in my heart, I felt convinced that I would never be able to escape from civilization. Because I found modern life absolutely unacceptable, I grew increasingly hopeless until, at the age of 24, I arrived at a kind of crisis: I felt so miserable that I didn’t care whether I lived or died. But when I reached that point, a sudden change took place: I realized that if I didn’t care whether I lived or died, then I didn’t need to fear the consequences of anything I might do. Therefore I could do anything I wanted. I was free! That was the great turning point in my life because it was then that I acquired courage, which has remained with me ever since. I became certain that I would soon go to live in the wild, no matter what consequences. I spent two years teaching at University of California in order to save some money, then I resigned my position and went to look for a place to live in the forest."
August 14, 1983 (Journal Entry recount)
"…I stopped and said a kind of prayer to the spirit of the spring. It was a prayer in which I swore that I would take revenge for what was being done to the forest. And then I returned home quickly as I could because – I have something to do! You can guess what it was that I had to do."
He was angry alright. Here is what he wrote and was published in Technology Slavery:
"So deep in my heart, I felt convinced that I would never be able to escape from civilization. Because I found modern life absolutely unacceptable, I grew increasingly hopeless until, at the age of 24, I arrived at a kind of crisis: I felt so miserable that I didn’t care whether I lived or died. But when I reached that point, a sudden change took place: I realized that if I didn’t care whether I lived or died, then I didn’t need to fear the consequences of anything I might do. Therefore I could do anything I wanted. I was free! That was the great turning point in my life because it was then that I acquired courage, which has remained with me ever since. I became certain that I would soon go to live in the wild, no matter what consequences. I spent two years teaching at University of California in order to save some money, then I resigned my position and went to look for a place to live in the forest."August 14, 1983 (Journal Entry recount)
"…I stopped and said a kind of prayer to the spirit of the spring. It was a prayer in which I swore that I would take revenge for what was being done to the forest. And then I returned home quickly as I could because – I have something to do! You can guess what it was that I had to do."
Yes the incident he talks about when he turns 24 was in 1966. Ted was born in 1942. He says above when he was 24 (in 1966) he reached a crisis in which he did not care if he lived or died. below he describes the incident in more detail. I think in this moment, the Unabomber was born, and the Zodiac Killer was born at this same moment.
In the summer of 1966, most likely late August/early September 1966, Ted Kaczynski records a break through moment in his life. He is a genius, yet socially alienated and isolated. He decribes hearing the sound of couples having sex in the apartment next door to his, and he says it fills him with frustration and anger. Out of despair and self described "acute sexual starvation", he records in his journal that instead of killing himself he will "really kill everyone I hate."
The people he says he hates and wants to kill are many, but they include two distinct groups. One group is what he calls "bigshots" or "government officials", and these include "scientists", "big businessmen", "politicians" and "police".
The other group of people he hated and wanted to kill included love making "couples", "rowdy college students" and those college men and women he deems "promiscuous". Look at the government psychiatric report on Kaczynski done after he was arrested for the Unabomber crimes:
In the summer after his fourth year [of graduate school, the summer of 1966], he describes experiencing a period of several weeks where he was sexually excited nearly all the time and was fantasizing himself as a woman and being unable to obtain any sexual relief. He decided to make an effort to have a sex change operation. When he returned to the University of Michigan [most likely in late August or early September 1966] he made an appointment to see a psychiatrist to be examined to determine if the sex change would be good for him. He claimed that by putting on an act he could con the psychiatrist into thinking him suitable for a feminine role even though his motive was exclusively erotic. As he was sitting in the waiting room, he turned completely against the idea of the operation and thus, when he saw the doctor, instead claimed he was depressed about the possibility of being drafted. He describes the following:
"As I walked away from the building afterwards, 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. Just then there came a major turning point in my life. Like a Phoenix, I burst from the ashes of my despair to a glorious new hope. I thought I wanted to kill that psychiatrist because the future looked utterly empty to me. I felt I wouldn’t care if I died. And so I said to myself why not really kill the psychiatrist and anyone else whom I hate. What is important is not the words that ran through my mind but the way I felt about them. What was entirely new was the fact that I really felt I could kill someone. My very hopelessness had liberated me because I no longer cared about death. I no longer cared about consequences and I said to myself that I really could break out of my rut in life an do things that were daring, irresponsible or criminal." [Psych Report] {Emphasis added}
That happened sometime in the summer of 1966, most likely in late August/early September 1966. Probably mere days later, on or around September 3, 1966, bombs go off at the suburban Chicago house of Elmwood Park Mayor Elmer Conti and at a glass company on Paulina St. in Chicago. Within weeks there is another attack on a home of an Illinois politician Republican Senate nominee and Bell & Howell CEO Charles Percy, this one far more brutal and lethal, and his daughter Valerie Percy is murdered on September 18. One week later Monsanto chemical engineer Jerry Bricca, his wife Linda and daughter Debbie in suburban Cincinnati are bound and killed. On October 30, 1966, when evidence shows Ted Kaczynski is in California, the first probable Zodiac crime, the murder of college student Cheri Jo Bates occurs.
His first confirmed Unabomber crime was in 1978, when he was 36 years old. Yet we know from research that the most active and violent period for the majority of serial killers is from their late teens to late twenties. And we see that Kaczynski reports the motivation, desire and ability to kill at least as early as the summer of 1966.
In 1966 he was a sexually frustrated and confused young man who resolved to kill those he hated, which included "bigshots" but also college students and young women. He later recorded a fantasy of mutiliating a woman’s face with a knife. He also wanted to – and did – kill "bigshots" like "big businessmen" and "politicians", and Bell & Howell CEO and soon to be Senator Charles Percy would represent those things to him, as well being a man associated with high technology through his company. And Mr. Bricca was a scientist working for a major corporation. The fathers of Valerie Percy, Linda Bricca and Cheri Jo Bates all worked for companies or facilities involved in technology that had government defense contracts.
In September 1966, of course, Ted was officially enrolled at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. But his TA duties and course work were done, and his thesis almost finished. There was nothing to require him to be physically present at the campus. We know that sometime in the later Fall and/or Winter of 1966 evidence shows he went to California for job interviews at the University of California, Berkeley. Where Percy was killed in Kenilworth, Illinois is ony 30 mintues from the Kaczynski family home in Evergreen Park, Illinois. Ann Arbor is only a three to four hour trip by car or train to Chicago, and a four hour trip by car to Cincinnati, Ohio.
MODERATOR
AK:
What’s your take on the desktop poem, the confession letter and the Bates notes? I take you do not rule out Z as a candidate for Bates – meaning, I presume, that you don’t rule out Kaczynski either 
It’s one thing that Ted could have been in RIverside at the time of the murder – but many would say that he would also have had to be behind some, if not all, of the above as well (written the letters and notes, I mean, and the desktop poem too if Morrill is to be believed).
The last part is especially problematic, I should say. If Morrill was right and Z did indeed write that poem, it seems by far the likeliest explanation that he had a connection of some sort to the RCC and/or the library. An outsider makes for a less likely candidate – very much so.
Anyway, curious as to what you think about this part of the case.
AK:
What’s your take on the desktop poem, the confession letter and the Bates notes? I take you do not rule out Z as a candidate for Bates – meaning, I presume, that you don’t rule out Kaczynski either
It’s one thing that Ted could have been in RIverside at the time of the murder – but many would say that he would also have had to be behind some, if not all, of the above as well (written the letters and notes, I mean, and the desktop poem too if Morrill is to be believed).
The last part is especially problematic, I should say. If Morrill was right and Z did indeed write that poem, it seems by far the likeliest explanation that he had a connection of some sort to the RCC and/or the library. An outsider makes for a less likely candidate – very much so.
Anyway, curious as to what you think about this part of the case.
Thanks it is a very good question. Yes I think it very likely Zodiac killed Bates, for handwriting matches, the "Z" signature and all the other reasons usually discussed. And I think it very likely Z was in fact Ted K.
Personally I think the Riverside poem and letters were all red herrings, false clues. Unless Z was an idiot, which he was not, he would not have given such specific clues to his real identity – being a classmate of Bates, knowing her to the point she brushed him off, the desk poem showing he was a student, etc. The police and amateur sleuths have gone over and over all Riverside students in the right age range and physical descriptions, those who later had ties to SF, etc. Morf found a few interesting people. But the pool of Riverside students is small enough so IMO if there was an excellent Z candidate he would have been found. And IMO a Zodiac smart enough to elude capture would NOT say he was a Riverside student and acquainted with Bates if he actually was a Riverside student and knew Bates.
So I think the poem and letters are misdirections, false clues, red herrings and false sponsor clues. And Ted Kaczynski has a proven history of doing exactly that, being an out of town killer who leaves false clues pointing to local suspects with local issues.
Ted Kaczynski was known to do what I call "Red Herring" or "False Sponsor" letters. He would write a letter claiming to be a helpful citizen, friend of the killer or be the killer himself but give false motives and information. Ted did it with the Utah letter trying to give police the idea that the Unabomber attack there was a local situation involving someone who hated attorneys. He did it several times – the "Wu – It worked! I told you it would. RV" being the most famous, a scrap of paper he put into a bomb, which may have been intended to point the finger at two Berkeley teachers, an actual Professor Wu who was at Berkeley at the time and one with initials R.V., of which there were several.
So Ted was from out of town (Montana) yet he left a clue pointing to LOCAL Berkeley suspects, Prof Wu and Prof RV. After a Utah bombing, out of town Ted left a red herring false clue in the form of a letter painting the bomber as an angry LOCAL resident mad at local lawyers and business owners. There are other red herring, false sponsor and red herring clues in the Unabomber and other unsolved cases Ted might have been involved in, almost all with the tendency to shift suspicion to a local resident and/or someone involved with local issues.
The Riverside poem IMO likely written by Zodiac IMO and signed "RH". And it happens to match a known Kaczynski method, leaving false clues, like he did with the "RV" fragment he put into a bomb to steer police off track.
The wood desktop poem in Riverside signed RH was an example (IMO) of the Zodiac giving a false clue that the killer of Bates was a local student. It seems the killer of Aardsma probably left a morbid message on the wood arm of a chair signed RSK.
RH, RSK, RV. Hmm.
The weird "S" on the Riverside poem, looks like an upside down "5", also something Ted K does sometimes. Lots of other handwriting matches.
Compare them better here in blow- ups:
Top is Kaczynski bottom is Zodiac. Put together by Doug Oswell.
Notice the "Th" linkage, lower case "r", capital "I", rare three stroke "k" and many other matches. Also notice similar spacing and feel.
Thanks to AweShucks for the excellent research and graphics work on the handwriting comps.
RAND: Something I wanted to ask about TK. Z had a sense of humor. He was whimsical and strikes me as a bit of a prankster. This doesn’t square with TK. He doesn’t seem to have any sense of humor whatsoever. What say you that think TK was Z?
AK WILKS: Good question. As the "Freedom Club", aka "FC", aka the Unabomber, he was posing as a terrorist group, which are not exactly known for their side splitting laughs and good humor. Most of the Unabomber communications are fairly dry and academic in tone. He was trying to get across what he felt were serious points about society and technology.
There are a few exceptions – the Unabomber admitted that a July 4th threat to blow up a plane was a "prank" and said "we haven’t tried to blow up an airliner (lately)." A rather sly sense of humor – and it matches what Zodiac said when he revealed a threat to mass transit (school bus) was a prank – "if you think I am going to take out a bus the way I said I was you cops deserve to have holes in your head." {Quote from memory}.
Zodiac said "2 cops pulled a goof"; Ted said "The FBI is a joke".
As a kid he hung a dead cat in the locker of a girl he liked. He also wrote a funny article that appeared in either Harpers or Atlantic magazine.
TK wrote dirty limericks and obscene poems against a woman who turned him down for a date.
TK also was a master at adopting different tones in different letters.
As the Unabomber he could be academic and pedantic.
But he also wrote a letter posing as a Utah resident pissed off at local lawyers "I heard you were a scoundrel! A super asshole! I give such people the BOMB treatment…"
As a teen he had an article published in a magazine about making a bomb, and it was funny!
And I think he adopted many other tones in different letters – young, scared, old, right wing, Christian, etc.
The only trouble he ever got into as a prof at U CAL Berkeley was when he wrote a letter pretending to be another faculty member, a ruse to get that person in trouble.
These are the Ellen poems and letter. Like Zodiac, Ted could be funny, sarcastic and cutting. Like the Riverside writer, he could do a poem.
Ellen poems and letter. Uses Zodiac terms "fat ass" and "nasty":
Can you place TK in Riverside during the murder of Cheri Jo Bates? What kind of car did TK drive while living in California?
I notice that TK uses a looped 2 unlike the Zodiac Killer.
I don’t know for sure what car Ted drove in 1966. He often borrowed his brother’s car (a VW, later a Datsun) or the family car.
I can’t place Ted specifically in Riverside, but the Illinois resident and University of Michigan student was in California in the Fall/Winter of 1966, interviewing for a University of California prof job at the Berkeley campus. I do not know if he interviewed, toured or studied at other U Cal campuses, which include LA and Riverside.
For those of us who think Zodiac killed Bates and wrote the Bates letters, that means Zodiac had to be in California in late October and late November (Bates murder and confession letter). And he had to be in California late April ("Bates Had To Die" letters).
All previously known evidence on Ted Kaczynski did show that he was in California in late Fall/early Winter of 1966 (based on a handsigned application to U Cal Berkeley, interview and campus tour). And we know he started teaching at U Cal Berkeley in Fall of 1967, and logically arrived at least by the summer to find a house, rent it, move in, etc.
Ted finished all course work for his PHD in 1966, all he had left to complete was his dissertation, which he could do anywhere there was a university library, and in fact most of it was done already, as it was based on his prize winning published article. And his brother David said he found out that in grad school at U of M, Ted would often never show up for a single class, just hand in a paper the last day.
So we know Ted was in CA roughly the time of the Bates murder and first letter. But while there was nothing preventing him from being in CA between Janury and June of 1967, meaning he could have done the April Bates letters, I have yet to see anything to prove he actually was in CA in that April 1967 timeframe.
Now there is evidence that Ted Kaczynski was in California from January 1967 until June 1967.
In an otherwise not particularly great out of print and hard to find book called Unabomber: On the trail of America’s most-wanted serial killer by fomer FBI Agent and serial killer profiler John Douglas, I found this passage (p.89). Keep in mind that Ted Kaczynski got his PHD in June of 1967:
"According to the course catalog, he was actually named an assistant professor before he received his Ph.D"
That could mean that Ted Kaczynski started teaching a course from January 1967 to June 1967 in Berkeley.
Meaning he was there at the time the April Bates letters were sent (and when Nikki Benedict was murdered, and the August couple murder Morf found).
This is the hand signed application to U Cal Berkeley from December 1966. Although not absolute proof, it is very strong and reliable evidence that Kaczynski was physically present in Berkeley CA in late Fall/early Winter, the time when Cheri Bates was killed.
Everything I had seen previously indicated that Ted started teaching at U Cal Berkeley in the Fall of 67. Then I found this comment by former FBI Agent John Douglas that a course catalog listed Ted as a professor BEFORE he even got his PHD from Michigan. Which lead me to conclude it was possible he started teaching as early as January 1967. As he got his PHD around June 1967 – though may not have actually "got it", in the sense of final approvals and so forth, until sometime later that summer.
Ted stopped his TA duties in the summer of 1966, and also finished all his coursework at that time. As he only had to finish his thesis to get his PHD, there was nothing requiring him to be on campus in Michigan as he could have completed his research at any university library.
Now I found this is the Turchie Affidavit used to secure the search warrant on Ted (which has mostly accurate information though I have spotted a few mistakes):
132. During interviews with UTF members, David Kaczynski provided a review of Theodore Kaczynski’s whereabouts and activities from 1967 to the present, to the extent that he was knowledgeable. David said that after graduating from the University of Michigan, his brother announced he had obtained a teaching position at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB). As previously stated, Theodore Kaczynski was an Assistant Professor in the UCB Department of Mathematics from July 16, 1967, through June 30, 1969, and lived in Berkeley, California. While at Berkeley, Theodore Kaczynski spent time in the woods in Northern California, took up deer hunting and purchased a rifle.
AK – As a side note, I find it interesting that Ted spent a lot of time "in the woods in Northern California" (David later said he thought Ted even had a small cabin there). Interesting in light of the Sonoma County murders, the Sacramento murders of Hakari and Bennallack, and a lot of other stuff that later went on in Northern California – the Visalia Ransacker, EAR, Lodi murders and car bombs. Note also Ted bought a rifle while at Berkeley. The excuse "I am going up to the north cal woods", while perhaps often true, could also be used as excuse for absences – say around 7/4/69 or 9/6/70, etc.
Of more immediate interest, the FBI states here in this affidavit that Ted Kaczynski started as a Berkeley professor in JULY 1967. If true think about the likely implications of that. Starting a new job in a new state, needing to find a house, rent a house, get furniture, etc., it certainly makes sense to look at Ted’s hand signed application of December 1966, strong evidence he was in California in Fall/Winter 66, and conclude it likely that sometime in early 1967 Ted started living in California. That likely puts him in California for the April 30, 1967 "Bates had to die" letters.
MODERATOR
good work mr wilks. you make a compelling argument and i’d like to add a thought i had after reading your post – even if kaczynski is NOT the zodiac, it seems to make sense to put effort into proving/disproving his involvement since we know for a fact he’s a serial killer.
a lot of the personal POIs that folks on here have start with "my guy looks like the composite" or "my guy was arrested for something weird and worked near the murder", that type of stuff. with ted k we have someone we already know is a serial murderer and i think that’s a rare chance to almost start from the other end for once – instead of trying to prove someone is a murderer, trying to prove a murderer committed a specific set of murders seems worth the effort to me. just my 2 cents.
