U
Unabomber capture
The Event Apprehension of the perpetrator of a
series of mail bomb attacks in the United States
between 1978 and 1996
Date April 3, 1996
Place A cabin outside Lincoln, Montana
Until he was identified and arrested in 1996, the
Unabomber was responsible for a series of high-profile terror-
ist bombings, most often targeting researchers in high-
technology fields, including engineering, genetics, and
computer science.
Though he first gained notoriety many years earlier,
the most active period for the Unabomber, eventu-
ally identified as Theodore Kaczynski, was during
the 1990’s. In his early life, Kaczynski showed great
promise as a mathematician, but in
1969 he left a budding academic
career to begin living as a semi-
recluse. Nearly a decade later, he be-
gan the terrorist campaign that
would make him infamous and cul-
minate in the discovery of his iden-
tity and his subsequent arrest.
Terrorist Bombings In 1978, Ka-
czynski sent the first in a series of
mail bombs targeting specific but
highly idiosyncratic recipients. By
1980, four bombs had detonated
in academic institutions and air-
lines, earning the unidentified ter-
rorist the name Unabomber, based
on the Federal Bureau of Inves-
tigation’s (FBI) handle for its case:
UNABOMB, for “University and
Airline Bomber.” These early ex-
plosives were fairly crude, cobbled
together from wood and bits of
metal, and they caused only rela-
tively minor damages and injuries.
Sporadic bombings continued for the next several
years, and by the middle of the 1980’s, employees of
computer stores had also become targets, confirm-
ing investigators’ suspicions that the perpetrator was
engaged in a campaign against technology. Also by
this point, the bombs had become more sophisti-
cated and begun to inflict serious injuries and even
one death.
For several years after 1987, it appeared that the
Unabomber had ceased his activities, but in 1993 he
resurfaced with broader aims, more frequent bomb-
ings, and deadlier results. While he continued to tar-
get and injure university employees, particularly in
high-tech fields, his bombs also killed a public rela-
tions executive in 1994 and a forestry official in- Many of the bombs bore false clues, designed
to keep the authorities off-kilter in their investiga-
The mug shot of the Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski, taken in 1996.(AP/Wide
World Photos)