Going West: True Crime - The Unabomber / Part 1 // 494

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

Starting in 1978, a Montana man murdered three people and injured 23 others during a nationwide bombing campaign. Hiding behind a comfortable upbringing, mathematician degrees from prestigious universities, and his perspective of doing right by the environment, Ted Kaczynski violently opposed modern technology and industrial society. And through a 35,000-word manifesto and multiple horrific attacks -many of which were on innocent civilians- he plead his case. This is the story of the Unabomber.

What is going on true crime fans? I'm your host T and I'm your host Daphne and you're listening to going west Hello everybody. Hope you're doing well today. Here we are going west. Hello everybody hope you're doing well today here we are the Unabomber. This is a case that Heath and I have been wanting to cover for a while it's kind of like a different type of case you guys know that we typically try to stray from major cases but sometimes we can't help ourselves so this week we will be doing uh for both our Tuesday and our Friday episodes this is going to be a two-part series on the Unabomber. And we know a lot of you guys love two different cases every week, but we can't deny how fascinating

and just disturbing this whole story is as a whole. So buckle up because we're going to dive deep. You know, I actually really didn't get into this case until that Netflix show, Man Hunt. Do you remember that show? Yeah, I remember that one. It was so well done. And I've just been interested in it ever since. until that Netflix show, Man Hunt. Do you remember that show? Yeah, I remember that one. It was so well done,

and I've just been interested in it ever since. It's just one of those stories where we really get to dive into human nature and the psyche of somebody who would do these types of things, because that's really what this is about. It's about who Ted Kaczynski is and how he got to be this way

and why he wanted to do such Intense things to society. Is it also slightly because your dad looks like the Unabomber? No, my dad is like Unabomber chic Without the evil yeah without the evil He loves aspects of the Unabomber and Ted's mind. Because that's what's so interesting about it is there are things about him where you're like, okay, like I kind of get that but it's like, okay, but that's like, that's horrible. Yeah, yeah. That's why it's so interesting. He's just a

fascinating human being but it is truly a horrible story. Absolutely. So without further ado, let's dive into part one. Alright guys this is episode 495. Oh it's 94. Alright guys this is episode 494 of Going West. 494 of Going West. So let's get into it. The FBI agents hunting for the deadly Unabomber have detained a Montana man described as a hermit. A neighbor identified him as Theodore Kaczynski, who has been living for years in a cabin in Lincoln, Montana.

He was detained by FBI agents when he refused to let them in. A man identified as Theodore Kaczynski did graduate from Harvard in 1962, and the University of California at Berkeley says a man by that name taught in its mathematics department from 1967 to 1969. The neighbor identified or described Kaczynski as 5'9", with scraggly hair, often wearing a straw hat, having no automobile, and riding a bicycle into the town of Lincoln nearby to get his groceries. Believed to come from the Chicago area,

and that's where the Unabomber's attacks began. Starting in 1978, a Montana man murdered three people and injured 23 others during a nationwide bombing campaign. Hiding behind a comfortable upbringing, mathematician degrees from prestigious universities, and his perspective of doing right by the environment, Ted Kaczynski violently opposed modern technology and industrial society.

And through a 35,000 word manifesto and multiple horrific attacks, many of which were on innocent civilians, he pled his case. Unabomber, was born on May 22, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois. His parents, Wanda and Theodore, or Turk Kaczynski, who went by Turk, were both working class first generation Polish Americans. They were known for their kind, gracious natures and were deeply loving and devoted parents.

Ted later described them though as cold and emotionally abusive, but Ted's brother who is seven years his junior disputes this claim completely. So it's hard to say for sure exactly what their childhood was like in this regard. But to be fair, I mean, sometimes kids in the same household experience different things. Like some kids get along better with their parents while others don't feel supported.

And I think especially in Ted's situation with his mental state, as we are very much going to dive into today and this week, like I could see him not feeling the same as his family, you know? Yeah, and also just kind of like that age-old saying of like the first child usually gets kind of the harshest treatment. Yeah. I'm not saying that's the scenario here, but it could have been. Yeah, things can be different. And it's also possible that both things are true, that they were good parents, but also

not what Ted needed or wanted. But he has a lot of really strong opinions and views. So keep that in mind. Yeah, he has a lot of views throughout his entire life. And to kind of show how things started off for them, at nine months old, Ted was hospitalized after his parents spotted a rapidly spreading rash on his body. These turned out to be hives, but because of this, you know, at the time it was a strange rash, he was forced to stay in the hospital for a week.

And his parents were only permitted to visit for a few hours a day during his stay, which was very difficult for them and for him. And it seems like it caused a lot of harm later on. Because Wanda and Turk would later say that when they brought him home, he was a different baby entirely and not like he was switched in the hospital. That is not what happened here, but suddenly he was like fussy. He was avoidant and he seemed to lack attachment.

He turned into a devil baby. And this is a really interesting, um, it's kind of psychological conversation. A lot of people have regarding Ted Kaczynski, um, because years later, they would wonder if this was what went wrong. That maybe his time away from his parents created this lack of trust at such a young age. Like it seemed to really create this deep-seated fear of abandonment in him as an adolescent. So a lot of people wonder if he, his mind developed

the way it did because of this week away at such a young age. I mean, it is very hard for me to believe that at nine months old, you know, you start developing like this idea of society in your mind, but no, your parents, you know, you start developing like this idea of society in your mind, but no, your parents, you know what I mean? I mean, like, like he felt so abandoned by his parents and didn't know why that happened. Yes, he was very young. So it's also like, okay, but what he really know, what he really remember that. That's what I mean. Yeah. But there's still so much we don't know about the human mind. So I think it's just an interesting thing that some people touch on as a hmm

Maybe this did something well, and it's also interesting that his parents were the ones to kind of point that out Well, yeah I mean Wanda maintained after this that he was never the same like happy-go-lucky child After his stint in the hospital, which is really interesting that you get to know this baby for nine months, they're in the hospital for a week, and then like a light switch, it's a different baby, a different person. So nonetheless, Ted grew into a mathematical genius, but a social recluse. Up until he was seven, Ted was an only child, and then he became the proud older brother to David, and the two would maintain a very close relationship for most of Ted's free life. Now, despite the monster that he would later become, because he was a monster in many ways,

his parents recalled Ted as an empathetic child. Interestingly, his father Turk once brought Ted hunting and shot a rabbit in front of him and Ted was reportedly inconsolable, like he was devastated at the loss of this creature. So Turk swore to his son that he would never hunt again, which is really fascinating considering where this story will go regarding human life. But also later on when Ted would really like withdraw from society, he would live off the land as well as animals that he himself hunted. Like he used rabbit pelts as reusable toilet paper. Yeah, so this guy is, you know, he's crying at the young age because,

at this young age because his dad is hunting an animal, but then in his later life, he's doing the exact same thing. Yeah, and maybe like in another instance, his dad trapped a rabbit in a cage and he was showing the kids from the neighborhood. But when Ted learned about this, he grew similarly despondent and ordered that his father release the rabbit without harming it and his dad, you know, obliged. So maybe maybe this is why he didn't like his dad. you know, obliged. So maybe this is why he didn't like his dad. You know, maybe this also really affected him. Because even though he would hunt later,

maybe this just affected him in his more vulnerable youth. And then as he aged, she's like, fuck them animals. Yeah, yeah, and a lot of people do change like that. And I will say that the fact that Ted kind of withdrew from society and was so like pissed off at the world, I mean, it's like, it goes to show you that his mind changed a lot,

and it's because he felt slighted by society. Yeah, absolutely. And it seems like even by his parents, which is why I bring up the hospital incident, like if he, did he feel slighted then did he feel slighted by his parents hurting these animals? which is very interesting because a lot of serial killers or killers or criminals will You know abuse animals in their youth and that's kind of like how they get started, but he was he was kind of the opposite

Yeah, it is definitely strange. Well, his brother David recalls a mostly simple, happy, and well-adjusted childhood, unlike the humble beginnings of many others who later turned to violent crime, as we know. After having been born in the city of Chicago, Ted and his family moved out to a small house in Evergreen Park, which is a southwestern suburb when he was young. The Kaczynskis absolutely loved to spend time outdoors together. David was athletic, Turk enjoyed hunting and fishing, and the whole family loved to go on camping trips. But Ted's true passion was for academics, and specifically mathematics and science.

So naturally, Ted excelled as a student and had even skipped the sixth grade due to his smarts and would later even skip the eleventh grade as well. He was well known in his school and even in his community for being somewhat of a prodigy. You know, he was this clean-cut young man who seemed like he was going to do massive things. So while other kids were outside playing, going to parties, and starting to go on dates, Ted was solving math equations and experimenting with chemical explosives. Like for example, one fellow student remembers Ted constructing a small pipe

bomb out of ammonia and iodine, handing it to her, and then laughing when it exploded in her hand. So he was definitely, there was definitely something off about him. And thankfully this fellow student was not hurt when this this pipe bomb went off, but when she told him angrily that she was gonna report him and that he would possibly be suspended, Ted replied smugly that he couldn't be disciplined because he was too smart. So he definitely thought highly of himself. Yes, he absolutely did, and small animal abuse warning here because here's another interesting thing about animals and Ted's disturbance of his dad's actions.

This same exact student later found the skin of a dead cat in her locker, which were remnants from a dissection project in their biology class, which I thought usually they did that with frogs, but... Yeah, that's intense. Cats, really? Yeah, that's kinda messed up. Well, she could never be sure that it was placed there by Ted, but she always suspected that it probably was, which is a weird and cruel way to get revenge for something that he did.

Yeah, she put a pipe bomb in her hand hand and she said she was gonna report him and he's like, well take this dead cat then. Now you get some dead cat parts. Well in another instance, Ted detonated an amateur bomb in the chemistry lab of his high school and blew out two windows of the classroom and this permanently damaged the hearing of another student, which is just a, that's a big deal. Yeah, that's a huge deal. I mean, and this was also like in the 50s as well,

because this is when he was growing up, so. Yeah. It's kind of strange, he was like this nutty professor back then. Yeah, but he was really known for this, like everybody at school knew that he would get up to these things. And you know,

some people think it was because he was two years younger than everybody else. Like he'd said he skipped two grades, but still, you know, he was doing a lot of shit to his peers. And I don't think at all that it was just because he was young because a lot of people don't do anything like this at any age. Yeah. And there was a lot of indications that there was a darker side to these various experiments that he did and his behavior as a child and a young man and just a man in general. Like his actions were definitely and obviously different.

And his personal excuse for these antics, as he once told his brother, was that all geniuses needed to have a sadistic streak. So smart and devious. But it's also like he's almost justifying it saying, oh, well, I'm a genius, which by the way, he is. I will get into that in a second. So I'm allowed to be crazy. Yeah, I'm allowed to be a bad person because I'm so smart.

Yeah. But like David also remembered a time when he tripped his mother while she was carrying a dish full of piping hot spaghetti sauce, which caused her to fall while barely able to hold on to the pot. Now, obviously this would make a huge mess. This could have really hurt her if she fell on the pot. If she got sauce on her, she could have gotten burns from this. Luckily, she was able to avoid doing that in the way that she fell, but as she fell, Ted laughed heartily as Wanda was on the floor and continued to laugh as he was sent to his room,

which is just, it's just a little evil. It is, it's not a little evil, it's very evil. I mean, that's your fucking mom. Well, when he was asked why he would do such a thing, knowing that he could have really hurt her, he offered no explanation. To no surprise, David recalls Ted having few friends and being guarded about opening up to others. And though he participated in clubs and sports throughout his high school

and college careers, he made close friends very sparingly. I mean, he was capable of opening up once you got to know him, but he was generally introverted and very standoffish, which to me it clicks. In June of 1958, Ted graduated high school at just 16 years old, and was one of just five national merit scholars

for the year. He was bound for Harvard that fall again 1958, and later became one of the youngest Harvard graduates on record. Like I said earlier, Ted was a genius, but he was actually a certified genius with an IQ ranked as high as 168, though some have placed it at 167, so about 8 points higher than that of Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. That is so crazy. That gives you a really good idea of how much of a genius Ted Kaczynski was, which is why he considered himself one.

But despite his academic prowess, Ted's emotional intelligence, as you guys can imagine, really lagged, and he floundered in his early years at Harvard, rarely making connections with fellow students. He also participated in a psychological study, and this is said to have expedited his resentment of society and his fellow academics, especially in the field of psychiatry. And essentially, this is what happened. So the same year that he enrolled in Harvard, Ted volunteered for a study run by Dr. Henry

A. Murray, who's a noted psychologist, professor, and researcher. And these tests, which may have been for the benefit of the CIA, were designed to explore the effects of stress and interrogation techniques, and the extent to which people can be psychologically broken down when faced with harsh critiques of everything that they believe to be true. A fellow student later described the trials as evil and inhumane. I mean, as you guys can imagine, it sounds like a pretty intense test. And there, Ted was, thinking that he was just being brought in to debate political ideology,

but the reality was much, much more sinister. After writing an essay detailing their morals, ideals, and worldview, the participants would be purposefully shamed and traumatized by hearing denigrating feedback from Dr. Murray. The recordings have since been sealed, so precious few exchanges from the tapes have been released, but the few that have been were not flattering for Ted at all. In one, Dr. Murray tells Ted casually, quote, I ought to warn you before I start this, I was not, I do not have a very favorable impression of you as a result of

reading your philosophy." He went on to call Ted's perspective and ideas asinine and insipid, and derided his outlook on life as dripping with weakness and fear. Again, for the sake of testing stress techniques. Really just to see how Ted and others would kind of react to these horrible comments. When Ted spoke of wanting to escape industrialized society even then, Dr. Murray continued, quote, On this avoiding of society or of this society is bad thing, is that why you're trying to grow that beard?

Ted then stuttered, no? Dr. Murray continued saying, quote, I mean, are you conforming with the nonconformists? All the nonconformists have beards. And when Ted said, I mean, really, this isn't really a beard yet, Dr. Murray responded, quote, you're darn right it's not. He called Ted's ideas and writing a lot of garbage. However, though many have cited these experiments as the potential beginning of his radicalization,

critics of Ted Kaczynski defend the experiments, saying that they were in no way inhumane. Though the techniques, you know, may be controversial today, Ted was a willing participant, and his hubris, desire for debate, and specifically, for winning an argument, overrode any sense of risk or trepidation that may have existed. And Ted actually underwent these experiments for three years, which is quite a while, later saying that he wanted to prove to himself and to others that he could handle it. And he later maintained that he didn't believe that it had any negative effect on him, so

take that, I guess, how you will. I honestly find that hard to believe, though, that being undermined, like even if you're aware that it's not real, for three years doesn't affect your psyche. I mean on the other hand, he was already different since he was a baby as we know, so if this did affect him, it didn't create all of his issues, but I can't imagine it helped. It kind of feels to me like they're trying to, instead of target his intellectual side, they're trying to like target his personality and kind of degrade that, hoping to break him down that way, because he already knows he's smart, you know?

Well, I wonder if for three years, if like how much ground did they really cover? They probably told him a bunch of horrible things about himself You know they probably broke him down in a lot of different ways and especially what we're gonna talk about soon regarding his personality And his love life it feels to me like he had really low self-esteem Oh, yeah, definitely and maybe he already had that but I just feel like this really did not help the situation at all Kind of his defense was like yeah, I'm weird, but guess what? I'm a genius and you're not. That's like his thing. But it didn't even feel like to me, just based on, again, where this is gonna go, that he...

I mean, I guess in a way it kind of felt like, I'm a genius, you should be obsessed with me. It definitely gives that, but I don't think he really believed that about himself. I actually feel like he was very insecure. It's literally like that character, have you seen that movie Grandma's Boy? God, that sounds so familiar. He's wearing like a black trench coat and he's on one of the- Is that like David Spade or something? No, no, it's, anyway-

Is it like a comedy? It's a comedy, yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, there's like a genius that like creates video games in that film film and he thinks very very highly of himself but he's extremely insecure yeah I mean of course and it's like he wants people to like kiss the ground that he walks on well I feel like it's almost like you're trying to push hey I'm amazing you have to be obsessed with me because you don't really think that that's true so you need other people to believe it so right that's why I mean it's like again I

don't think this helped but I think it's interesting that he says, oh no, but hey, maybe we don't believe in them, too He's saying oh that didn't that didn't fuck me up. Yeah, that didn't affect me and it's like, oh really? Are you sure? Well Ted graduated from Harvard in 1962 at the age of 20 with a modest GPA of 3.1 Despite his incredibly promising beginning and he subsequently enrolled in graduate school at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. There he earned both a master's and a doctorate in mathematics and was also offered a teaching position. And this didn't go well because Ted would later write that his time at the University of Michigan was the most

miserable time of his entire life. In 1964, the same year he received his masters, Ted's parents moved out of his childhood home in Evergreen Park, Illinois, bound for a small town in Iowa after his father, Turk, accepted a job there. And Ted was surprisingly distressed about them getting rid of his childhood home which is kind of interesting like David was living with them at the time he was a young teenager so if anyone should be affected it should be David like this is directly affecting his life yeah and Ted

already like moved out and had gone to college and graduate school so why does he care all right but I do think this really clicks, again, for Ted. He would get upset about something like this. Now, David described him as moody and quiet around this time, and his mother, Wanda, remembered that, as the movers arrived to box up and remove their belongings from the house, Ted was shouting at her, make them go away!

And he was like 22 at this point. Later when Wanda asked him why he had thrown such a tantrum, he was sullen, quiet, and refused to offer a response, which was very typical for him as we know. In the summer of 1966, so a couple years later, Ted began experiencing what he shyly scribbled in his journal entries was an intense sexual longing and gender dysphoria that made him question if he was meant to be born a woman, and he wrote that he was seriously considering pursuing gender reassignment surgery. So by that fall, Ted decided to meet with a psychiatrist to discuss pursuing this idea

further, but while in the waiting room, he panicked and became ashamed to divulge what he was feeling and experiencing. He decided instead to speak with the therapist about his anxiety regarding being drafted into the Vietnam War, like his fear that that could happen. But the thing is with him, he had been protected from this because of his status as a student and professor. So he probably wasn't going to be going there anyway.

No, but he had anxiety about it, which I guess was really common, the therapist said, like young men were very, very commonly worried about this. Fair enough. Yeah, fair enough. So yeah, Ted left the appointment without revealing his true intention for the meeting, which just created this sense of shame and left him feeling humiliated. Even though it was his choice to not speak about it, like... Which is sad because he feels ashamed to talk about something that he's going through and that's like the point of therapy is to be able to talk about these things.

But this affected him a lot. Well, yeah, because later he wrote, quote, As I walked away from the building afterwards, I felt disgusted about what my uncontrolled sexual cravings had almost led me to do. And I felt humiliated, and I violently hated the psychiatrist. Just then came a major turning point in my life. Like a phoenix, I burst from the ashes of my despair to a glorious new hope. I thought I wanted to kill that psychiatrist because the future looked so utterly empty to me. I felt I wouldn't care if I died. And so I said to myself,

why not really kill the psychiatrist and anyone else whom I hate? What is important is not the words that ran through my mind, but the way I felt about them. What was entirely new was the fact that I really felt I could kill someone. My very hopelessness had liberated me, because I no longer cared about death. I no longer cared about consequences, and I said to myself that I could really break out of my rut in life and do things that were daring, irresponsible, criminal. And let's talk a little bit about Ted's love life, because it definitely was not really happening.

The term didn't really exist back then, but he could now be described as an incel, according to one of his FBI profilers, James R. Fitzgerald. In one instance, Ted met a woman, a fellow student at the University of Michigan, and asked for her number, but apparently he couldn't get up the nerve to call her, later describing her in his journal as a stupid broad, blaming her for his hesitation to make the call, and writing that he didn't need a damn woman. I mean, that's an insult for ya. That's exactly what it sounds like.

I can't get a woman, and it's not my fault, it's their fault because, and this really goes into his self esteem. It's like, well I'm a genius, you don't love me? Yeah, it's that fuck you, you don't like me? Yeah, exactly. Which to be fair, totally normal that you are nervous to make that call, but that's your thing.

That's on you. That's on you. That's on you. You know, pick up the phone, man. So his brother David remembered that in the late 1970s, after finishing his own undergraduate degree, he moved back home with his parents for a bit. And although Ted had settled in the wilderness by then, we're gonna get to that later,

he was also staying with his family in the interim. His father had secured a job back in Illinois working at a foam rubber manufacturing plant, and he was able to secure jobs for both of his sons, so that was nice, you know, the boys, the young men, David and Ted get to work with their dad. And David was well liked, he was hard working, and he climbed to the rank of supervisor and was responsible for his older brother Ted. At this same time, Ted began casually dating a woman and actually went on two or three dates with her, which was a first for him, and he even kissed her.

But when she ended things because she didn't feel a romantic connection, fair enough. Ted began scrolling angry and derogatory notes about her and posting them around the factory that he worked at. So he's posting notes about her at his place of work. And it's really devastating because rejection is so normal. Everybody gets rejected, whether you're drop dead gorgeous and perfect, or you're not. it's like people get rejected all the time, and it just feels like he didn't have

the tools to accept that he could be rejected, even though it is a normal part of life. Yeah. And that's really sad, but if only somebody kind of told him, but I don't even know if that would do it, because in his mind, it felt like his mind was just very unique. And I don't even know if that would do it. Because in his mind, it felt like his mind was just very unique. And I'm kinda wondering if maybe this woman worked at the factory as well,

and that's why he was kinda posting them around. Right. Because there's also the fact that, you know, his brother, who was the supervisor there, actually had to fire Ted because of this. He was like, bro, you can't be posting this shit around the factory. Yeah, but Ted didn't want to stop and he didn't stop and then that's why he was fired. And so then what happened is Ted took to his journal instead and he actually wrote in his journal that he wanted to kill her for not wanting to be with him.

Well, after completing his doctorate at the University of Michigan, Ted was hired to teach mathematics at the University of Michigan, Ted was hired to teach mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, which made him the youngest associate math professor in the university's history. While there, he submitted a personal ad in two newspapers seeking romantic companionship, but never wound up dating any of the candidates who responded. So if anybody's curious, I know this is an intimate detail, but I think it's very interesting when we're talking about Ted as a person, he remained a virgin until his death at the age of 81.

The 81 year old virgin. Yeah. They need to make a movie. Yeah. But you know, this is just, it's a really interesting part of the conversation of Ted is his Hatred towards so many people when it's like women didn't do anything to you But you know you getting rejected isn't the fault of woman. Oh this this guy he hates everything though It's not just women. I mean he hates he hates fucking everything, but that's what I mean like it's like

You wronged me, so you as a whole, this entire group of everybody in your gender or in your profession, as we will discuss, fuck all of you. Yeah, and what's really interesting about this as well is that the fact that, you know, he wanted to transition, he wanted to become a woman, so the fact that he hates women but also wanted to become one I

mean there's just there's a lot to dive into there it's so deeply psychologically rooted and there's there really is so much to discuss there of well that makes sense maybe if you hate women because you feel you are a woman but you're not sure man's body and then you're trying to be with one and that's not working either and so you're just like screw're in a man's body. And then you're trying to be with one and that's not working either. And so you're just like, screw this, everybody sucks. Everybody's out to get me. And it's like, well, no, that's not how it's,

that's not it. Yeah, and his kind of crumudgeon-ness, his negativity about the world just really, really keeps growing with every single day. And I don't know how long those thoughts lasted, if they were lifelong of his feelings of being a woman and all of that stuff, but it does seem like there was at least later on a lot of regret for not trying harder or not pursuing at least dating women.

Because despite his hatred throughout his life, he once wrote to his mother, quote, I am tormented by bitter regret at never having had the opportunity to experience the love of a woman. Ironically, during his time teaching in Northern California, Ted bought a gun and took up hunting, despite being so against it as a child. And this played into his isolation because at UC Berkeley, he was universally loathed by his students, who described him as surly, aloof, and rude. His students also claimed that he would often refuse to engage with them, answer their questions, or even meet with them during his regularly scheduled office hours. Which is not what we need in teachers. Yeah, he's like, I'm a

teacher but I don't want to be around you. But in 1969, after two years at Berkeley, he just resigned abruptly, seemingly on a whim, which really shocked his family and co-workers. But according to Ted, he was never planning on staying long-term anyway, and wanted only to save up for his dream of retreating into the wilderness. By his own admission, Ted said, quote, "...At the time I accepted the job at Berkeley, I had already decided that I would keep it for at most two years before leaving it to go live in the woods.

The fact is that I never at any time felt satisfied with the idea of spending my life as just a mathematician and nothing more. Ever since my early teens, I had dreamed of escaping from civilization, as in going to live on an uninhabited island or in some other wild place. The trouble was that I didn't know how to go about it, and it was extremely difficult to work up the nerve to cut loose from my civilized moorings and take off to the woods. It was very difficult because sometimes we don't know how much the choices we make are governed by the expectations of people around us, and the fact that we go and do something

other people would regard as mad. It's very difficult to do. Furthermore, I didn't know where to go, really. But at the beginning of my last year at the University of Michigan, I went through a kind of crisis. You could say that the psychological chains with which society binds us sort of broke for me. After that, I was sure that I had the courage to break away from the system, to take off and go into some wild place and try to live there. When I went to Berkeley, I never went there with the intention of continuing there indefinitely. I took the job at Berkeley only to earn some money to get started with, to buy a piece of land." And that he eventually did.

Actually, Ted convinced his brother David to go in on a property together, and they took a road trip through Canada to look at land. But when they didn't find anything, he settled back at his parents' home for the time being. David moved to Great Falls, Montana after receiving a job there. And on a whim, Ted decided to join him. One day while his parents were away, he moved out of their home abruptly, only leaving behind a note, and then he just turned up at David's doorstep the next day, convincing him to go in on a plot of real estate together in Montana.

But remember, they were very much friends at this time, so they found a piece of land about six miles, or about ten kilometers outside of Lincoln, Montana, which is just over an hour southwest from the capital of Helena. And in 1971, 22-year-old David and 29-year-old Ted purchased the land from its owner, who would become Ted's neighbor, Butch Garing, for just $2,100. Yeah, they bought that land for a raspberry. Sounds really nice. Well, Ted built himself a dingy 10 foot by 12 foot,

some sources say 14 foot cabin, really using the space of this land wisely. That's literally like a shack or like a shed. Yeah, that is very very small. We will post photos of the inside of it. I've actually seen it in person as we're going to talk about in the next episode really is this actual cabin is a part of a traveling true crime exhibit and my mom works at a museum so I saw it once. I mean it's very small. Live in the dream, Ted. And also really live in the dream because there was no running water and no electricity and he lived on as few groceries as he could from the small number of stores nearby,

preferring to survive on the land. This is where the animal killing comes in, the hunting. He didn't care to bathe or wash his clothes, not that he had space to really do that anyway in his little house, and he appeared to his neighbors like he was homeless. And I know anybody who has seen photos of Ted can really picture this, I mean he- the guy lost his way and this is such a change from his previous clean-cut 1960s Harvard look. Yeah, he was just completely radicalized at this point and did not give a shit for any

societal things. And even though he was so smart, he could do any job in the world, and he bought this property by himself, well obviously with his brother, but his portion he paid for himself, Ted was getting financial help from his parents to sustain himself, living frugally and also not working on purpose, which is so interesting because he's so anti-society, but he's getting money from his parents who work within society for big companies. His dad works for a manufacturing company. Yeah, he's still sucking off the teat, even though he's saying, oh, I'm not going to pay my taxes and I'm not going to, no, society is never going to get money from me. It's

like, well, you know, it's like you're literally using your parents to do this yeah and so it's almost like you're like well I'm not contributing to society but it's like you're still benefiting from the way that society works sure yeah I mean listen I get it the idea of living off the land building your own gardens building your own house all that stuff sounds absolutely amazing. I wish that that was still the case today. But unfortunately, we don't live in that type of society. So I think Ted is kind of running down a pipe dream

that's never really going to happen for him. And in a lot of ways, he can live off the land. He can grow vegetables. He can hunt animals that he comes across. He can do, he can use rabbit pelt as toilet paper. He can do all of that. But the fact that he does still need money to get by because he's not growing all of his food. It's almost like he's equipped, but he's not really equipped to do this. He didn't set himself up fully to do it. It's not like he worked for a long time, which even so, like you said, you are working for the man still.

So it's not like he did that for longer and then really set himself up and built this property so that the rest of his life, he wouldn't have to rely on the man. Yeah, I mean, really all he did was he just bought the land and then built himself a 10 by 12 shack and thought he was, you know, a mountain man. Yeah, and also, by the way, his parents didn't have a lot of money. They were not wealthy by any means. So he was taking money from people who didn't have a lot and still they wanted to make sure that he was okay and that he had what he needed, and so they would help him but sometimes to get this money from them because it's not like they

were like giving him handouts all the time. Yeah, no problem, Ted. Here you go. He would actually lie to them and say that he was sick or he needed medical attention or tests and thus they continued to support him. Meanwhile, in the rugged solitude of the mountains, he was able to flesh out his philosophy of nature-centered anarchy. As his seclusion from the outside world intensified, Ted became enraged as he watched the wilderness

around his Montana cabin be destroyed by so-called titans of industry, especially large-scale companies specializing in lumber and technology. He said in an interview after his eventual capture, quote, technology is useful if it's used intelligently, but if it's used by people who are incompetent, then it's not very effective. God, he would hate 2025. Yes, he would.

He'd be like, kill all of the iPads. And the TikTokers. Yeah, oh my God, he would hate 2025. Yes he would. He'd be like, kill all of the iPads. And the Tik Tokers. Yeah, oh my god, he would just hate it. Well, even then, in the 1970s, Ted was becoming increasingly sure that humans were being stripped of their autonomy and individuality due to the proliferation of technology. Ted mused, quote, I hated the system not because of some abstract humanitarian principle, but because I hated living in the system. And I got out of it by getting into the mountains, but the system wouldn't let me alone. It's just so funny. Like you went to college and then you went to graduate school. Like

you got a doctorate. Yeah. Yeah. Like you didn't need to do that. That was really playing into the system. I didn't go to college. Like you didn't have to do that. You could have, I mean, if you feel this way, go work for a nonprofit or go, go work for the Peace Corps. Go work for the Peace Corps. Go work for the forestry industry, whatever. Yeah.

I don't know. Go become a park ranger or something. It's like he's not really practicing what he's preaching. He is, but even while he was in college, he's saying that during that time, he wanted to retreat from society, but oh, I needed to save up money first. You could have done that in a way that felt more true to your ideologies. Absolutely, yeah, he could have done that, but I think at this point, Ted really just likes to bitch about stuff.

He's a little hypocritical as well. Yeah. Well, Ted spoke particularly critically of the air travel industry and higher education, despite having gone through that system himself, as we just said. Though clearly, he's not utilizing his resume and degrees. So it's no surprise that these later became his first targets. He wrote that his ambition was to quote, kill a scientist, big businessman, or the like. As his anger and resentment toward the outside world intensified, he began hatching plans to build and plant explosives, and muse that there could be a potential for alliance with

environmentalists, extremists, and also terrorists. As time went by, Ted withdrew even further from his family, and what little community he had surrounding him in the woods. Now, before he was wreaking havoc on national security, he was beefing with locals and neighbors, including his neighbor Butch Gering, the guy that sold the property to him. So basically, Butch's father had actually originally owned the property, but died while Ted was in the process of making the purchase.

Butch eventually took over the family sawmill business and lived there with his wife Wendy and his daughter from his first marriage named Jamie. And although Butch was friendly and warm with Ted, Ted spurred his efforts to become friends. Butch later recalled an instance shortly after Ted moved to the area, in which he invited Ted over for a beer. And Ted, awkward as ever, sat down, drank one sip of the beer, and then just set the bottle down and left.

That's Ted. You know, he's always just been hard to communicate with. Yeah, and he's in his own mind. He doesn't have... It's like he just... he feels like he doesn't have time for leisure, and he doesn't have time for friendship, because there's this bigger purpose for Ted Kaczynski. But also, it feels like if you don't have his exact mindset, if you don't agree with everything, then you're stupid, or you can't... You bore me. Yeah. And, you know, here is But Butch and he owns a sawmill business and Ted doesn't like that.

No Ted very much does not like that. Well still the Gehrings continue to welcome him into their home offering to pay him for odd jobs around the house and occasionally hosting him for dinners and game nights. So again around the house and occasionally hosting him for dinners and game nights. So again, he's taking money for odd jobs, but the way that Butch is getting money is by owning a sawmill business and that goes against what Ted believes. So again, it's like hypocritical. And even though he would go around to the Garen's house and again, do these jobs for them and have dinner with them and stuff like that,

house and again do these jobs for them and have dinner with them and stuff like that. He would write in his journal entries that Butch was a bastard. He accused him of spewing pollution into the air via his sawmill. So this is what he was really thinking about him. That's kind of crazy though that they're like offering him this this love and friendship and bringing him into their home and he's like, I don't like you. I don't like that you have a son, though. You're a bastard.

It's just like we were saying earlier, he just has such a negative view, or you were saying that, how he really likes to complain. He just has negative views of really everybody and everything that they do, even if they're nice people. Well, and Ted, he had so much hatred for what the Gherings did, that in a form of retaliation once, overnight, he poured sand into the Ghering's sawmill to break it down,

which made, you know, obviously extensive and costly repairs that the Gherings had to pay for. Like, this is how much he did not like them. And he also wrote in his journal of wanting to murder the Gehrings had to pay for, like this is how much he did not like them. And he also wrote in his journal of wanting to murder the Gehrings, and Wendy Gehring recalled that he once even pulled a gun on their daughter Jamie when she was only three years old while out in the woods one day. That is so totally unhinged, like, like for what reason? Why? Well, and Wendy also caught him spying on her while she undressed, and when she spotted him

totally gawking at her, he sheepishly made an excuse that he was simply asking for the time, and this is so funny, Wendy snapped back, time to get a watch. Oh my God. But obviously, it wasn't just Wendy, because he was actually doing this to other people in the community.

Like he was kind of known as a peeping Tom. Yeah, he was a little bit of a creep. And Butch also recalled that Ted once strung a wire, this is crazy. He strung a wire up between two trees near his cabin because he was hoping to decapitate outdoorsmen, bikers and snowmobilers passing by his property. These are fellow nature loving folk and he wants to decapitate them. Yeah and it's all because there was you know some

trails and some roads that were close to his property and he didn't like how loud it was so he was like I'm just gonna decapitate them instead Yeah, cuz basically there was a lot of like motorcycles and ATVs obviously during the warmer months and That really upset him. He did not like that. They were out there near his property So maybe he didn't feel like he was in a rural enough area. He didn't feel like he was isolated enough Well, that's one thing I was gonna bring up earlier earlier is the fact that, you know, you're living in Montana. I know that that's pretty rural and there's probably not a lot of people around, but I'm sure there are more rural parts of the world that you could live and be completely isolated by yourself and never see one single person.

His desires don't really align with his choices very well. Yeah. In a lot of ways. But I want to mention as well, because we're just talking about the noise and wanting to decapitate people who are just trying to enjoy nature, there was another neighbor who he had a problem with regarding the ATVs.

And they got into a confrontation because Ted thought that they were being too loud in general. And because they had a confrontation because Ted thought that they were being too loud in general and Because they had a confrontation about this and Ted was so upset by it. He went to their cabin it was a vacation cabin he went there with an axe and Chopped his way through the walls and destroyed the interior of their home. I mean he also shat in their bathtub interior of their home. I mean, he also shat in their bathtub. Oh my god. Just as an extra, an extra screw you. Yeah, exactly.

Gonna do a little, uh, one more animal abuse alert here, but no details. So Ted would also turn his frustration and anger on the dogs that lived in his vicinity, and is known to have killed at least six of them, including the Gehrings by poisoning them. And that's how you just know that there's evil in this guy's van. Absolutely. Well, Jamie Gehring, who authored a book about her experience growing up next door to Ted, writes, quote, The same person my family welcomed into their home and helped during tough winters

had maliciously poisoned our dog. So sad. Puttering around his cabin, Ted became fixated on and even obsessed with dismantling modern society, which was threatening to close in around him. He scrawled pages upon pages of notes of revelations and angry diatribes. In one entry, he wrote, quote, I certainly don't claim to be an altruist or to be acting for the good, whatever that is, of the human race. I act merely from a desire for revenge. Dude, your life was great. Yeah.

You are a privileged ass motherfucker. Yeah, he is. I mean, this is all on him. He acts like everybody did everything. He's such a victim. You know, this huge victim complex. He's such a victim. You know this huge victim complex. That's why his mental state is so crucial here because Any other kind of person? I don't want to say a normal person or regular person

But this is all happening because of his untreated mental health issues, which we will dive into later I absolutely agree well in another page that he wrote he bemoaned that civilization was annexing him, writing, quote, The worst thing about my life in the woods was the inexorable closing in of modern civilization. There were always more houses along Stemple Pass Road and elsewhere. More roads put through the woods, more areas logged off, more aircraft flying over, radio collars on the elk, spraying herbicides, etc, etc. He's essentially saying that they're annexing him, like society is annexing him, but he's the one that chose to go out and live in the woods, and I get that he's, you know, he's obviously very upset that they're building more roads and they're closing in on this beautiful nature that he loves.

But that's part of a growing society that happens as unfortunate as it can be, but... And many of us can agree with that, at least to a degree, that we wish that there wasn't as many things being built. And obviously our population is getting so large and housing prices are going up and things are becoming so expensive and it feels really hard to live in our world sometimes. So I understand the sentiment. And I think a lot of people automatically without knowing too much about this story are like,

oh, well, he really just cared about the environment. But it's like, I don't know if I agree with that. Like, I don't think that's where this stems from at all. I think that's an excuse for his actions. And I do think, to a degree, he does. But what about the animals that you killed? And I understand that you can love the environment and be a hunter. But like, even killing innocent dogs, like you're doing things, again, I'm sorry, I know I keep saying this, but that don't align with your morals and your ethics and your ideals. And it just feels really phony to me. I think he can honestly find revenge out of anything.

I mean, it doesn't matter what you do. You could not open the door for him at the grocery store and he would be like, Revenge. Or you could open it and he'd be like, You have ulterior motives. like, revenge. Like, I'm kind of- Or you could open it and he'd be like, you have ulterior motives. Yeah, exactly. So either way, you're kind of screwed, damned if you do, damned if you don't, with Ted.

Yup. And this is another thing, is that you care about the environment, you care about the planet, get the fuck out there and help it then. Do something, get boots on the ground then. Yeah. You're just sitting in your 10 by 12 cabin,

typing up pages, hee hee hee hee. Fuck the world world fuck everybody Okay, get out there make a difference. Yeah, he's he's he's an outdoors Incel it's the strangest thing I've ever seen in my life like instead of actually doing something about any of this stuff that he's griping About you know He just wants to write pages and pages in his journals and think up ways to get revenge on society. So as tensions with the community surrounding him grew, and Ted devolved into threatening and criminal behavior, he began to steal metal and auto parts from neighbors and scrap yards,

sneaking around during the night to add to his collection. And thus was the birth of his collection of explosives. What followed was a 17 year long investigation that cost American taxpayers over $50 million. His bombing spree of 16 incidents killed three people and injured 23, with many left permanently disfigured. May 25th, 1978 marked Ted's first attempt at full-blown domestic terrorism when he mailed a homemade bomb to the University of Illinois Chicago campus.

The package was deposited in a parking lot, with the return address listed as Buckley Christ Jr., who was a professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. When the package, which had already been stamped, made its way to Buckley, he was skeptical of its contents. Knowing he had not been the one to send it, he called campus security, and it detonated upon being opened, injuring Terry Marker, who was the security officer. Just under a year later on May 9, 1979, Ted struck his home state again when he left a box packaged up like a present inside a classroom at Northwestern University. When the package was moved, it exploded and it injured graduate student John Harris, who

had attempted to open it. After bomb number two, Ted wrote in his journal, quote, I had hoped that the victim would be blinded or have his hands blown off or be otherwise maimed. That is evil. Well, live and learn. I wish I knew how to get a hold of some dynamite. So evil. You wish you blinded the person who opened it?

You wish you blew off their hands or maimed them? I mean, he wished that he killed these people. And I don't know what's worse, to want to disfigure somebody and scar them literally for the rest of their lives or take their life away. I mean, in both situations, in a way you are taking their life. Well, the following year, Ted branched into air travel

when a bomb detonated on a flight bound from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport to Washington, D.C. On November 15th, 1979, American Airlines Flight 444 was consumed with smoke after a bomb went off in a luggage compartment. Thankfully, the bomb didn't work as intended and failed to crash the flight,

which was carrying 72 passengers and six crew members. So this wasn't just this person did something, I want them to be hurt or killed. Yeah, these are innocent civilians. Innocent civilians. The plane managed to make an emergency landing, but 12 passengers suffered lung damage from smoke inhalation. In a journal entry after the airplane explosion, Ted wrote, quote, Unfortunately, plane not

destroyed. quote, unfortunately, plane not destroyed, bomb too weak. Thank you so much everybody for listening to part one of two of the Unabomber here on Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and we've got a surprise for you guys. So you don't have to wait too long for part two of the Unabomber to come out. We're gonna release it on Thursday for you guys so be prepared for that. We're gonna dive a whole lot more into all of the crimes of Ted Kaczynski. We hope that you guys like sometimes when we do the two-parters

like this is the kind of case you cannot cover this in an hour. There is way too much to discuss because his backstory really is such an important piece of the story as a whole. But now next time we get to really go into everything he did, we'll do a little recap and also kind of talk a little bit more about how these bombings came into play. There's so much more craziness ahead. Yes, there is a lot of details here. So thank you guys again.

And also, I just want to mention, if you want to see photos from this episode, head on over to our socials. We're on Instagram, at going west podcast, and we're also on Facebook. Yeah, we're going to do two separate posts. So the first post for this episode, we'll just show photos of everything

we've talked about thus far. You know lot of younger photos family photos college photos and then the early days of him in Montana And then the next episode post will be everything that we discussed then All right guys. So with that for everybody out there in the world Don't be a stranger or an incel or Ted Kaczynski. So I'm just a little bit of a wimp I'm just a little bit of a wimp I'm just a little bit of a wimp I'm just a little bit of a wimp I'm just a little bit of a wimp I'm just a little bit of a wimp I'm just a little bit of a wimp

I'm just a little bit of a wimp I'm just a little bit of a wimp I'm just a little bit of a wimp I'm just a little bit of a wimp I'm just a little bit of a wimp I'm just a little bit of a wimp I'm just a little bit of a wimp