Netflix Film Revives Real-Life History of Serial Bomber Ted Kaczynski

Netflix is bringing new attention to the real-life crimes of Ted Kaczynski through its new film titled Unabomber. Kaczynski carried out a deadly bombing campaign across the United States over a period of nearly twenty years.

The Bombing Campaign

Between 1978 and 1995, Kaczynski sent or placed 16 bombs that killed three people and injured 23 others. His very first attack happened in May 1978 with a package bomb at the University of Illinois at Chicago that hurt a security officer. He targeted universities, an aircraft, and people he felt were tied to technology and industry. The three people killed in the attacks were Hugh Scrutton, Thomas Mosser, and Gilbert Murray. The Federal Bureau of Investigation named the case UNABOM because the early targets were universities and airlines, which the media later shortened to Unabomber.

Life and Arrest

Kaczynski grew up in Chicago as a math prodigy and entered Harvard University at age 16. He later got a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Michigan and worked as a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, before resigning in 1969. He then moved to a remote cabin in Montana without electricity or running water, where he grew deeply opposed to modern technology. Federal agents arrested him at his cabin on April 3, 1996, and found bomb-making gear, a typewriter, coded diaries, and about 40,000 pages of notes. He pleaded guilty in 1998 and received four life sentences plus 30 years without parole.

Prison Years and Death

A psychiatrist diagnosed Kaczynski with paranoid schizophrenia in prison, though he disagreed with that diagnosis. He spent time in a high-security prison in Colorado before moving to a federal medical center in North Carolina in 2021. Kaczynski died in prison on June 10, 2023, at age 81, two years after a rectal cancer diagnosis.