Greg Stejskal served as an FBI agent for 31 years and retired as resident agent in charge of the Ann Arbor office. He wrote two critiques (1 and 2) of the Discovery Channel series, “Manhunt Unabomber,” in which he criticized the way FBI agent Jim Fitzgerald was portrayed as having a much bigger role in the Unabomber case than he actually did. Fitzgerald, who is now retired responded that he had a bigger role than Stejskal acknowledged and that the show also took artistic license to make him look as if he did more than he actually did. This is Stejskal’s response to Fitzgerald’s column.
By Greg Stejskal
ticklethewire.com
I wasn’t going to respond to Jim Fitzgerald’s recent rebuttal to my two critiques of the Discovery Channel series, “Manhunt-Unabomber,” but Mr. Fitzgerald personally called me out and seemingly questioned my voracity.
“In closing, one doesn’t have to be a criminal profiler or forensic linguist to realize that Stejskal’s continued silence regarding his alleged sources speaks volumes regarding what he wrote about me. Quite frankly, it speaks volumes about him, too.”
First, I stand by everything I wrote in those two critiques. As for my sources, they were all longtime members of the Unabomber Task Force. Several of them were in leadership roles. (Since writing the critiques, I have heard from other members of the UTF thanking me for writing them – none have challenged the accuracy of what I wrote.)
Fitzgerald has questioned what, if any, was my role in the Unabomber investigation. I was the case agent on the James McConnell bombing. University of Michigan Professor McConnell was the tenth victim of the Unabomber/Kaczynski in 1985. My involvement in the investigation continued through the identification, arrest and prosecution of Kaczynski. I have never claimed to be any thing more than a member of the investigative team.
In Fitzgerald’s rebuttal, he suggests that I don’t understand the concepts of dramatic license or the use of a composite character. I addressed the use of dramatic license in my first critique.
I do understand the need to sometimes use a composite character to simplify the plot and/or make a more compelling story. But I am admittingly confused why the composite character in the Unabomber series bears the name of Jim Fitzgerald which in effect gives the Fitzgerald character credit for the work of other agents. In the series no other agents’ true names were used. Several of those agents had far more involvement in key aspects of the investigation than did Fitzgerald. (Fitzgerald was a paid consultant for the series and involved in promoting the series when it first aired in the summer of 2017.)
I will again quote one of my personal heroes, Bo Schembechler, legendary Michigan Football Coach:
“No man is greater than the team, no coach is greater than the team; the team, the team, the team.”
