Unabomber (Theodore J. Kaczynski, 1942–)

Person responsible for the worst serial bombing case in U.S. history. On January 29, 1998, Theodore J. Kaczynski, then 55, pled guilty to 13 federal charges involving the bombing deaths of three people and injury of two others. Kaczynski's plea—made two years to the day after a tip by his brother led the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to Kaczynski's remote Montana cabin—ended the 18-year search for the so-called Unabomber.

Ted Kaczynski, a Harvard-trained mathematician and former professor at the University of California, Berkeley, admitted responsibility for mailing and placing 16 bombs in a string of attacks motivated by his antitechnology beliefs. The attacks began on May 26, 1978, when a security officer at Northwestern University opened a small wooden box he had found in a parking lot. The box contained a bomb and the officer narrowly avoided injury.

Other victims of the Unabomber were not as fortunate. Sacramento computer-store owner Hugh Scrutton; timber lobbyist Gilbert Murray, who also lived in Sacramento; and Thomas Mosser, a New Jersey advertising executive, all died as a result of bombs sent by the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. A total of 29 people were injured in the bomber attacks. The identity of the bomber was a mystery for years.

In 1995, the Unabomber promised to suspend his attacks in exchange for the publication in several newspapers of his Unabomber Manifesto—a 35,000-word attack on technology. A man named David Kaczynski, who turned out to be the Unabomber's brother, contacted the FBI after noting similarities between the manifesto and letters he had received from his brilliant but reclusive brother. David hoped his actions would spare his brother from the death penalty. That turned out to be the case. In 1998, Ted Kaczynski—the Unabomber—received consecutive life sentences for the attacks and was fined $4.7 million to prohibit him from profiting from Unabomber movies or book deals.