Former mathematics professor Ted Kaczynski, better known for other work, was found dead in his jail cell today. He was 81.
Between 1978 and 1995, Kaczynski placed or mailed 16 bombs that killed three people and injured two dozen others, according to authorities. In 1995, before he was identified as the Unabomber, he demanded newspapers publish a long manuscript he had written [PDF], saying the killings would continue otherwise. Both the New York Times and Washington Post published the 35,000-word manifesto later that year at the recommendation of the U.S. Attorney General and the director of the FBI. If it hadn't been for the suspicions of his brother and sister-in-law, Kaczynski might never have been caught. Kaczynski's sister-in-law, Linda Patrik, was one of the first to identify Kaczynski as the Unabomber after reading the Unabomber's writing.
Wikipedia's summary of his decline from respected academic to reclusive murderer:
In 1971, Kaczynski moved to a remote cabin without electricity or running water near Lincoln, Montana, where he lived as a recluse while learning survival skills to become self-sufficient. After witnessing the destruction of the wilderness surrounding his cabin, he concluded that living in nature was becoming impossible and resolved to fight industrialization and its destruction of nature through terrorism. In 1979, Kaczynski became the subject of what was, by the time of his arrest, the longest and most expensive investigation in the history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).[5] The FBI used the case identifier UNABOM (University and Airline Bomber) before his identity was known, resulting in the media naming him the "Unabomber."
