“Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski discovered dead in prison cell Ted Kaczynski

infamously known as the Unabomber, and serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for a string of bombings that claimed the lives of three individuals, was found dead in his prison cell in North Carolina, as confirmed by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Kaczynski, aged 81, was being held in North Carolina due to declining health after being transferred from a maximum-security prison in Colorado in 2021. The cause of death has not been disclosed.

Following his arrest in 1996 at a rudimentary cabin in western Montana, Kaczynski was incarcerated for his involvement in 16 explosions that resulted in three fatalities and 23 injuries across the United States between 1978 and 1995. The homemade bombs, sent through the mail by Kaczynski, including an altitude-triggered explosion on an American Airlines flight, had a profound impact on how Americans sent packages and traveled by air.

In 1995, Kaczynski’s threat to detonate an airplane departing from Los Angeles during the July 4 weekend caused widespread disruption to air travel and mail delivery. The Unabomber later claimed it was a “prank.”

With a background in mathematics and education at Harvard University, Kaczynski vehemently opposed the consequences of advanced technology. His actions led to the longest and costliest manhunt in U.S. history, with the FBI dubbing him the Unabomber due to his early targeting of universities and airlines.

In September 1995, The Washington Post and The New York Times published Kaczynski’s anti-technology manifesto, titled “Industrial Society and Its Future,” at the request of federal authorities, who promised to halt his acts of terrorism if it received national coverage. The manifesto caught the attention of Kaczynski’s brother, David, and his wife, Linda Patrik, leading to his subsequent capture.

In April 1996, authorities discovered Kaczynski residing in a small 10-by-14-foot cabin in Lincoln, Montana, where he had been living since the 1970s. The cabin contained journals, a coded diary, explosive materials, and two completed bombs.

Kaczynski strongly rejected the notion of being labeled mentally ill and attempted to dismiss his attorneys during his trial when they proposed an insanity defense. Ultimately, he chose to plead guilty rather than allow his attorneys to proceed.

In his personal journals, which were made public during the trial at the request of the victims’ families, Kaczynski described his motivation as “simply personal revenge.”

“I often fantasized about killing the people I despised, such as government officials, police officers, computer scientists, and rowdy college students who littered the arboretum with their beer cans, and so on,” he wrote.

Kaczynski claimed the lives of Hugh Scrutton, the owner of a computer rental store, Thomas Mosser, an advertising executive, and Gilbert Murray, a timber industry lobbyist. Additionally, California geneticist Charles Epstein and Yale University computer expert David Gelernter were severely injured by bombs that exploded within two days of each other in June 1993.