By Steve Neavling
Ted Kaczynski, the former math professor who came to be known as the Unabomber and baffled the FBI during his 17-year bombing campaign, died by suicide in prison on Saturday.
Kaczynski, who was 81 years old and had late-stage cancer, was found unresponsive in his North Carolina prison cell, the Associated Press reports.
The Harvard-trained mathematician was serving a life sentence after sending homemade bombs by mail around the country between 1978 and 1995. His targets ranged from university professors to airline executives.
Kaczynski had spent most of his life as a recluse, and in September 1995, The New York Times and Washington Post published his manifesto, “Industrial Society and Its Future.”
In exchange for the publication, Kaczynski pledge to stop his terrorism campaign.
He was arrested in 1996 and pleaded guilty to setting 16 explosions that killed three people and injured 23 others. He was sentenced to four life sentences plus 30 years.
Between 1998 and 2021, Kaczynski had been lodged in the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Col. As his heath declined, he was transferred to the Federal Medical Center in Butner, N.C., where prisoners with serious health problems are treated.
