Prime Crime: Solved Murders - The Unabomber Pt. 1

Episode Date: July 19, 2023

Spotting his genius at a young age, Ted Kaczynski’s parents pushed their son to academic excellence — but Ted never found a true home in the hallowed halls of academia. Instead, by 1969, he was a former math professor with a festering hatred for the modern world. This episode originally aired on Serial Killers in April 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of this episode, listener discretion is advised. This episode contains discussion of psychological torture and violent injuries that some listeners may find disturbing. Extreme caution is advised for listeners under 13. Terry Marker didn't know what to expect inside the package. It certainly was a strange one. It was addressed to a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, but it had made its way back to Terry at Northwestern. The label indicated that the package was sent by a professor here at Northwestern,

but the man swore he didn't know what it was. So Terry, a campus security officer, had recovered it and brought it to his office. The wooden box was beautiful and just begged to be opened. Terry had no idea what he would find inside, but he never expected what came next. The sound of the explosion was sharp, like a door slamming but much louder. it turned out the box concealed a rudimentary pipe bomb, an instrument of harm inside a thing of beauty. Crude, though the device was,

Terry was severely injured in the blast, and the bomb was just the first of many in what was set to be a 17-year nightmare for the entire country. Hi, I'm Greg Poulson. This is serial killers, a Spotify original from Parkast. Every episode, we dive into the minds,

and madness of serial killers. Today we're taking a look at Theater J. Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify,

or wherever you listen to podcasts. In today's episode, we'll take a look at the troubled childhood of young Ted, his retreat from society, and the quest for revenge against a world he came to despise. Next time, we'll walk through the Unabomber's reign of terror and the unexpected betrayal that led to his arrest. We've got all that and more coming up. Stay with us. The concept of evil genius is something of a cliche in true crime stories, though it's seldom accurate.

Sometimes the intellect of a killer or criminal is inflated to explain how they lured in their victims or how they evaded capture for so long. But this story is different. Ted Kaczynski is a genius. But what good is genius when it leads to expectations? What good is genius when it means loneliness? To Ted, his mind was less of a gift and more of a curse that allowed him to clearly see the world's flaws. What's more, after years in academia, he could only see a system that was failing its people, and people who were failing him. This criticism wasn't always fair, especially in the case of his parents.

Theodore and Wanda were the children of Polish immigrants. Turk, as Ted's father was known, was a factory worker his whole life. Hard work, but Turk was good at it. He was well-liked by his supervisors and never struggled to find a job. Turk and his wife Wanda lived in a single family home in the suburbs of Chicago when Theodore John Kaczynski was born in 1942. The Kaczynskis adored their bright hands. happy baby, the beginning of their precious family.

But when Ted was only nine months old, he faced a crisis that changed his life forever. Baby Ted developed a strange rash, almost like an allergic reaction, and was rushed to the hospital. Doctors never learned what caused the rash, but the hospital stay itself had profound effects. Ted was in the hospital for a week, and due to a strict visitation schedule, Turk and Wanda were only allowed to visit twice, for a gym. just an hour at a time. According to Wanda, when he returned home, Ted was different. The bubbly, smiley baby was sullen and unresponsive.

Even at nine months old, this brief abandonment likely had profound effects on Ted's psyche. Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but she has done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. hospitalization is stressful for someone at any age, but children struggle more than most. This would have been particularly true until the 1950s. Before then, it was common practice to limit visitation by the parents.

In a 1976 study, research psychologist M.C. McGillicuddy demonstrated that facing hospitalization without their parents leads kids to struggle with, quote, separation anxiety, aggression towards authority, and apathetic withdrawal. You may think that as a baby, Ted would be spared some of this struggle, but infancy is actually one of the most difficult times for a child to be hospitalized. Anywhere from six to ten months,

infants begin to recognize and develop attachments to their parents. To be taken away from your family can interrupt this important bonding time, leaving an infant more susceptible to the adverse effects of hospitalization than other children. And sure enough, Ted grew up a quiet child. He wasn't antisocial, but he was quite shy. Instead of spending time with other children, he preferred the company of his mother.

Wanda was exceptionally well-read and shared a love of learning and literature with her child. She was delighted to find that Ted could understand material far beyond his age. Curious about the six-year-old's burgeoning mind, the Kaczynskies took Ted to see a child psychologist. By his estimation, the boy was unquestionably a genius. Turk and Wanda were excited, eager for their brilliant child to become a great scholar. A year later, in October of 1949, the Kaczynski's welcomed their second child, David. Ted loved his brother dearly, and the two were constant companions, spending the next few years growing and learning together.

In 1952, after finding success in the post-war economy, the family moved four. further out of the city, to the middle-class suburb of Evergreen Park. Now living out of the city, Turk was better able to share his love of the outdoors with his sons. The family frequently went camping, and the boys learned how to survive in the wilderness. By 10, Ted knew how to find plants for food and acquired a respect for animals and other wildlife. Around the same time, it became clear Ted was well beyond his peers academically. Wanda and Turk were thrilled by this progress and pushed him to focus on his studies. At their urging, Ted skipped a grade. But with this encouragement came pressure. Ted was a child who wanted to make friends and experience

the world, but faced unrelenting pressure to live up to his intellect. To Ted, the adults in his life cared more about his brain than his happiness. Already a bit of a loner before skipping a grade, Ted had even less luck making friends after. A year behind developmentally, but several years ahead academically, Ted was adrift socially. As lonely as this was, it's easy to imagine why young Ted didn't push back against this pressure. It's possible his early experience, feeling abandoned at the hospital, led him to pursue his parents' wishes for him, lest they leave him behind again.

However, this focus on his studies exacerbated Ted's inherent. social awkwardness. Soon, Ted was ostracizing his peers and his extended family. An aunt remembers he once refused to talk with her during a visit, claiming she wouldn't understand him anyway. But Ted wasn't without friends. They just weren't his classmates. Ted spent more time with David and David's friends, all seven years younger than with kids' own age. As David tells it, his presence made Ted feel safer around other children. As with many teens, as with many teens, high school challenged Ted's shaky social foundation. He joined numerous clubs and the school band,

but didn't fit in with the older students. Everyone knew Ted was smart, but made no effort to find out anymore. As one classmate remembers, everyone considered him a walking brain. He found a place amongst the other gifted students of his grade, but they too thought Ted odd. Even though he was only a year younger,

he seemed far more immature to his peers. which was likely a result of his stunted social development. Interestingly, this group of brains was well known for small-scale pranks, many of which involved chemistry experiments. The intelligent pranksters knew the right compounds to create small, harmless explosions. However, Ted liked to push the envelope. He helped a wrestler at the school play a prank on a girl, but his more powerful explosion caused her temporary hearing loss.

It was a chilling early experiment with explosives, but also a troubling sign that Ted perhaps lacked compassion for others. That said, Ted was a teen, and sometimes teenage pranks go too far. And like most teenagers, Ted was prone to mood swings, except his had a dark bent to them. He sometimes isolated himself from friends and family, hiding in his attic bedroom for days. As much as he struggled socially, no one was not worried. worried about Ted. He was odd, but he was very smart. People assumed that his unusual qualities were just the struggles of a young genius. In fact, his teachers considered him a model student.

Beyond his awkward and prickly exterior, Ted had an affection for people. Once you got to know him, he could talk for hours. He just wasn't quick to let people in. This was especially true when it came to girls. Ted had a tendency to go on dates and quickly identify a flaw. rejecting the girls before they could reject him. To his parents, Ted seemed to constantly strike out with all of his peers. Perhaps assuming he would flourish socially and academically at college, his parents encouraged Ted to graduate early. So at 16, Ted finished high school after only three years.

Being that much smarter than everyone around him was always going to be hard for Ted, but his accelerated education only made things worse. By the time he was preparing for college, Ted had already skipped two years of school and didn't see himself as part of any community. He felt like an outsider, too intelligent, too shy, too altogether different. Still, things were looking up. In 1958, 16-year-old Ted earned a scholarship to Harvard. With that, it was time for a new chapter. He'd always been told he would do well at college, and he was excited to make a fresh start.

Maybe there he wouldn't be such an outsider. But Ted's time at Harvard was crueler than he could have ever imagined. Coming up, a secret experiment changes Ted forever. Now back to the story. In the fall of 1958, 16-year-old genius Ted Kaczynski began attending Harvard. He was hopeful that he'd fit in better there than he had in his Chicago suburb, but this hope was quickly dashed. In the 1950s, Harvard was known as a generally elitist institution.

Most students came from wealth, from New England, and from families that came to America generations ago. Ted fit none of those categories, and he stood out in other ways. Ted's suit and tie, compulsory in classrooms and dining halls, were ill-fitting and looked sloppy next to the well-tailored students. Additionally, Ted's housing assignment placed him with other scholarship recipients, but instead of giving him friends he could relate to, this made it easier for the Harvard elite to look down on him. There were factors beyond elitism that ostracized Ted from his peers, too. Just like in high school, he was younger than the other students. Plus, he didn't spend much time on personal hygiene. Once again, Ted was on the outside. But as he continued his study,

Ted did make some friends. Amongst them, a boy named Roy Wright. Together they spent hours discussing political ideologies, something that was front of everyone's mind at the time. In the 1950s, American academia was going through a great change. World War II culminated in one of the greatest scientific achievements of human history, but it was twisted into a weapon, the atomic bomb, and used against civilians. Plus, the truth about what Nazi scientists did at their death camps was slowly revealed, causing many academics to question their own pursuit of knowledge. Meanwhile, Harvard introduced a new concept to the American university system, general education. Almost ubiquitous today, this is the system by which

all freshmen receive a common knowledge base as both educational foundation and bonding exercise. But because of 1950s ideology, these lectures sometimes combined. to deliver a depressing message. Alston Chase, a writer who attended Harvard at this time, reflected on this in an essay for the Atlantic in June 2000. He said, From the humanists, we learn that science threatened civilization. From the scientists, we learn that science cannot be stopped.

Taken together, they implied that there was no hope. Now, many students were able to hear this information without internalizing it, the way most students engage with scholarly readings, But for Ted, this ideology struck a chord. The susceptibility was likely a result of his age and from spending his childhood with a father who loved nature but was stuck in factory jobs. Now, Ted started to see technological advancement

as a barrier to individual happiness, and he loved discussing his new ideology with anyone who would listen. One group sought to use that enthusiasm for questionable means. Early in Ted's time at Harvard, he became involved in a psychological, experiment that arguably changed the course of his life. This chapter of Ted's life is shrouded by sealed records, tight-lipped researchers, and Ted's own silence.

Some of what we suspect can't be proven, so we'll start with what we know to be true. Early during his time at Harvard, Ted enrolled in a psychological experiment under Dr. Henry A. Murray, a leading psychiatric researcher of the time, despite his lack of formal training in psychology or psychiatry. Participants were asked to write out their philosophies on any subject and were told they'd be discussing their ideas with a fellow student, but this was a ruse. Instead, the discussion partner was actually a researcher, instructed to mercilessly berate these ideas and the participant themselves for writing them.

It was, ethically speaking, dubious at best. On paper, the purpose of the experiment was to determine how people reacted to moments of high stress. It's unclear if Ted knew this purpose or at what point he caught on, but after only a session or two, he must have known the experiment wasn't about intellectual debate. Even now, 60 years later, we're unable to access the records of the experiment, but a recording of a single session exists. In this early session, we hear a young Ted feebly try to defend himself against beratement that becomes increasingly harsh and personal. Subjecting people to traumatic stress.

just to see what happens, is bad science and hard to defend. Unfortunately, we don't know what kind of conclusions were drawn from this experiment because those records are also sealed. But strangely, Ted kept with it. For three years, he showed up to be abused in the name of science every week. It seems he was intent on proving that these people couldn't break him. Even years later, when he finally talked about the experiments, he claimed that they had no real effect on him.

But according to those around him at the time, that wasn't entirely true. Ted's friend Roy remembered how Ted changed during their time at school. Always shy, he retreated, becoming downright anti-social, and cut people off entirely. When Ted moved into new housing, he spent all of his time in his room, studying and playing the trombone. He was becoming a complete recluse, and there's a clear line between this behavior and the ongoing abuse he faced in the stress experiment. It's hard to deny these weekly interviews had an influence on Ted's life, especially when we consider his specific psychology

and the rumors about the real purpose of the experiment. Henry Murray, the researcher behind the stress test, is known to have worked with the OSS, the World War II era precursor to the CIA. While there's no proof, it's possible that Murray continued researching with the intelligence community for the rest of his country, career. Murray's area of expertise was enhanced interrogation, a gentle euphemism for torture, drugs, psychological manipulation, and hypnosis are all controversial methods covered by the term.

Knowing Murray's background and the setup of the experiment, it's possible it was designed to investigate verbal abuse as an interrogation tactic. It's also possible the study was state-sponsored. While the specifics of the experiment are shrouded in mystery, we know enough about abuse and about Ted to speculate about what happened to his psyche as a result. To be clear, there's no single way people respond to abuse, but it's important to remember that Ted was 17 when he first joined this study. He was a child with a still developing brain. Developmental psychologist Sasha Reed has looked closely at the information we know about

both Ted and the study itself. She points out that Ted's intellect was very important to him, and in this experiment, this core facet of self-perception was challenged. He was repeatedly told he was not smart and that his ideas had no merit. But because Ted's mind was foundational to his sense of self, this likely didn't create a sense of doubt. Instead, it strengthened his belief in his ideas and in himself as a thinker, and it showed him that the world would respond with hostility to the intellect he valued. No one could be trusted. As a result, Ted became distrustful of institutions, stubborn in his belief in his intellect, and incredibly hostile. If he was going to be attacked, he would be ready to fight back. But as all of this hardening was happening

under the surface. Ted relentlessly pursued his studies. He embraced mathematics, loving that it was something of a game. After all, theoretical math is just complex puzzles. Puzzles he was good at solving. But it wasn't all fun in games. To further his career, he needed to attend graduate school. So in 1962, 20-year-old Ted continued his education at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In the 60s, the University of Michigan was the center of a political, revolution building at American universities. The Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement inspired anti-government protests and radical student groups dominated campuses.

Within the math department itself, this political upheaval led some to question the applications of their work. If science was building tools for war, were mathematicians contributing to that science? Interestingly, Ted avoided participation in the discourse. Despite his lack of direct participation in that debate. Ted's work remained distinctly apolitical. He was a prolific researcher, but he worked in the type of theoretical mathematics that has no clear practical applications. His dissertation was award-winning, but basically useless. From the outside, it seemed all Ted did in Ann Arbor was study and research,

but his diary entries from this time reveal the beginnings of violent fantasies. He described dreams in which a psychiatrist would attempt to discredit his own statements about himself and use mind control on him. In these dreams, he violently murdered the psychologist, which brought him a sense of relief. This anger toward psychology makes sense, considering the abuse he suffered at Harvard, but it also shows a troubling preoccupation with revenge. However, that wasn't the only thing on his mind. Ted also described his difficulty connecting with others, especially with women. He couldn't actually work up the nerve to talk to women, but still felt rejected by them. As a result, his journal is full of sexist diatribes.

Despite his building frustrations, Ted didn't act on his rage. He finished his doctorate in 1967 and left Michigan behind. He accepted a tenure-track teaching position at the University of California at Berkeley, but his heart was never in it. Despite his brilliant mind, Ted wasn't a particularly good professor. According to his students, he taught straight from the textbook and had little time for questions. Those critiques aside, he published regularly and was well-liked by the heads of his department. They were interested in the young genius for his research, and he was solving problems long-believed unsolvable. So he coasted. Meanwhile, Berkeley became a hotbed of 60s revolutionary thought. Conservative crackdowns tried to force the direction of work of professors

and researchers, but their efforts were met with violent protests. Berkeley resisted the push, but again, Ted stayed out of it. Apparently, he saw the revolutionary behavior as a fad. He didn't last long at the Forward Thinking campus. Two years after he started teaching, Ted resigned. He didn't give a reason, only saying that he was leaving mathematics altogether. His colleagues were shocked. It was unusual for someone to reach his level of the field, only to walk away.

They wondered if Ted was just fed up with a political turmoil and was leaving academia to avoid it, but the explanation was much simpler. Ted had been bonding with his brother David over their love of nature and nursed a growing desire to live off the grid. So, in the summer of 1969, 27-year-old Ted found himself unsure of what came next. He'd spent his life chasing academic pursuits, but that was over now. With no other obligations, he and his brother toured the Canadian wilds. While hiking and camping around the countryside, the two talked about philosophy and literature. David had idolized his brother for years, but the two connected in a new way on this trip.

David respected his brother's survival skills, and Ted appreciated how his brother had grown up. It was a great summer, and by the end, Ted had formed a plan for the future. He put in an offer on an undeveloped patch of Canadian land. The review process on the offer took months, so in the meantime, David returned to college and Ted stayed with their parents. After years apart, Wanda and Turk struggled to reconnect with their son, who seemed forlorn and disinterested. They encouraged him to find a new job, but Ted resisted, dreaming of his land in Canada. While he waited, Ted started writing letters to newspapers. He decried logging, pollution, the loud noises of motorists.

cycles and anything he felt was manipulating the public, including advertisements and politicians. Ted was clearly thinking big. His views from Harvard had developed and now he rejected the technological system altogether. He believed that the structures of modern society were making people unhappy and needed to be stripped away. And as his arguments in the papers became more intense, so too did his arguments with his parents. It was early 1990. It was early 19. 1970, when Ted's bid for the Canadian land was rejected. When he got the news, he fell into a month's long depression. He moved out of his parents' place, and at times during the next year, the family lost

track of him altogether. Meanwhile, David was on something of a parallel track. That spring, he finished college, but couldn't decide what to do next. He worked odd jobs and moved to Great Falls, Montana. One day, Ted showed up on his doorstep, completely unannounced, eager to experience the Montana wilds. And here, Ted found what he'd wanted all along, a patch of land in the Montana countryside to call his own.

His dream of a solitary life in the wild seemed within his grasp. But the modern world wasn't so easily shut out. Coming up, Ted's dream becomes America's nightmare. Now back to the story. In June of 1971, 29-year-old Ted Kaczynski was finally living his dream. He purchased a plot of land in Lincoln, Montana, and began his truly rustic life, separated from the drawbacks of modern technology. Ted built a small cabin on the land, just 10 by 12 feet. There was no electricity or running water, so during the harsh winter, he kept warm with a wood-burning stove. He grew and gathered his own food from the nearby woods and bathed in a makeshift shower of gathered rainwater.

Ted spent long stretches of time alone in his cabin, cleaning himself up only to head into town for necessities or a visit to the library. Librarian Sherry Wood was perhaps the person in Lincoln who knew Ted best. She saved him copies of local papers and helped track down obscure, complex books, ranging from classic literature to science textbooks. Ted's behavior made him somewhat unique in the small Montana town, but not so much that he drew suspicion. It was an incredibly rural community, so most of the town had their own land and kept to themselves. While living a more private rural life isn't uncommon, it's atypical for a person to willingly isolate themselves for so long. But Ted's desire to do so is clearly rooted in his social development. Even before Ted became physically isolated, he faced severe social isolation for most of his life.

In a 2009 study, Dr. John T. Cassiopo and Louise C. Hawkeley looked at the effects of perceived social isolation on a person. They found that when an individual faces ostracization from others, it can create negative and depressive thoughts, a hypersensitivity to perceived slights, and a cognitive bias towards isolation. But in time, social isolation tends to be self-fulfilling. The more a person feels isolated, the more vigilant they become for social threats and criticisms. Eventually, they may develop a confirmation bias. So after enough actual rejection, they start seeing rejection everywhere. This can lead to behavioral adjustments that isolate the individual even further.

It's a vicious cycle that seems to match what we know about Ted's life. In a way, fleeing academia for a life of solitude in the wild was the inevitable. end to his cycle of increasing isolation. Ted became convinced he was a social outcast, and so he cast himself out of society. Although Ted severely limited his social contacts, he did check in with his family via letters. It's not clear how much Ted valued their emotional relationship at this point, but the correspondence came with other benefits. His parents supported his lifestyle financially. Turk and Wanda had done well for themselves, but he was a lot of but were quite frugal, so they had the money to spare.

Meanwhile, David was inspired by his big brother, and by 1974 he'd bought a remote patch of land in Texas. Despite the distance between them, the brothers felt like kindred spirits, happier amongst nature than society. But society had a way of invading Ted's happiness. He'd purchased his land from a man who ran a lumber mill, and over time he came to deeply resent the business.

It enraged him to see old, growth trees cut down to fuel the industrial machine. Because of this, Ted wasn't the best neighbor to the Gairings, who owned the mill. He was never outwardly hostile, but he certainly wasn't kind. They often saw him in the woods with a rifle on his back, a clear warning to steer clear of his land. What Ted hated most about his neighbors was the noise. His idyllic paradise was soundtracked by the grinding and sawing of the lumber industry. He couldn't stand it and set out to stop it.

Unbeknownst to the Gairings, Ted sabotaged a piece of their noisiest equipment in the dead of night by throwing rocks into the expensive saw. It had to be replaced, winning Ted a moment of respite from the constant noise. Disturbingly, this penchant for revenge and outbursts went beyond the Gairings. One day, a motorcyclist drove by Ted's cabin, disturbing the quiet. So Ted broke into the man's horse. home, trashed it, and defecated in his bathtub. It was clear that his anger at the world had only festered since he moved into the woods. Frustratingly, he was still forced to participate in the world to

some degree. He had to make money and helped out doing odd jobs for neighbors. Sometimes he took the bus into nearby Helena, and from there visited nearby cities for work. The same summer David bought his land in Texas, Ted worked at a truck stop pumping gas. He fell for a waitress at the truck stop restaurant, but she barely remembered him. He only worked there for two weeks before he quit. Understandably, the waitress was shocked when a series of letters showed up at her college dorm that fall. Ted attempted to woo her, detailing his academic accomplishments and asking her to move into the wilderness with him. It seemed that Ted craved companionship of some kind, but had no idea how to seek it out. So he remained alone. For much of these first

Seven years of Ted's life in Montana, the pattern continued. He spent some stints hiding out in the woods, then quietly disappeared for work. Unfortunately, this time alone left him little to do but stew in the loneliness and anger. He'd spent his childhood ostracized for his intellect, then forced into academic pursuits, which he found unfulfilling. He'd fled to the wilderness to find peace, only to have the world continuously invade. Happiness seemed unattainable. In the spring of 1978, 35-year-old Ted tried to do something about it.

This encounter was never verified by investigators, but Professor Donald Sari at Northwestern University claims that Ted came to his office with a 20-page treatise on the evils of the technological world. Ted wanted the piece published, but it was poorly written. So Professor Sari suggested he returned to school and honed his skills in academic writing. Since Northwestern was expensive, he recommended the nearby University of Illinois at Chicago Circle.

But according to Professor Sari, the faculty at Chicago Circle rejected Ted as well. Knowing about Ted's experience in the Harvard experiments, it's easy to imagine how triggering this would be. He once felt mocked for his ideas and rejected by university elitist, and now it was happening again. He'd finally had enough. Ted swore he would make those who had wronged him pay, and he wasted no time getting to work. Ted's instrument of revenge was an unusual one, a bomb. Using tools stolen or borrowed from his neighbors,

Ted built an ornate wooden crate to house the device. Despite its destructive potential, the box was a thing of beauty. When he was done, Ted wrapped the crate and addressed it to a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Circle. For the return address, he listed a professor at Northwestern University. Then, on May 24, 1978, he left the bomb in a parking lot on the Chicago Circle campus. Either the package would be opened at Chicago Circle or returned to Northwestern, no matter how it played out, one of the universities that rejected him would pay. The package was eventually returned to Northwestern,

where it was opened by a security officer. No one suspected the strange package was a bomb, so it was open right there in the security office. A small but powerful explosion ripped through the room, badly injuring the guard, and terrifying everyone nearby. News of the explosion spread as campus security and local police began gathering clues. The general reaction was shock at the attack and a sense of relief that it hadn't been any worse. Unfortunately, the clues didn't much help investigators. There was little physical evidence remaining and no clear motive. At this point, authorities weren't even sure what kind of criminal they were dealing with.

If Ted intended to send a message with this first bomb, it was unclear. While investigators were spinning their wheels, Ted's life proceeded as though nothing had changed. Again in need of money, he moved in with his parents for the summer. By then, the Kaczynskies had left Chicago and lived in Lombard, Illinois. Coincidentally, David had also moved home to make some money and had taken a job at the foam-cutting factory where their father worked. He was a supervisor by the time Ted joined them, working at the factory in late July, 1978. Ted had never done well as a blue-collar employee, but for a while, things went okay. This might have been because he was increasingly fond of his supervisor, 29-year-old Ellen Tar Michael.

Ellen was a great boss and a kind person, and Ted was a good boss. and Ted was smitten. He pursued her, even convincing her to go on a date. David was surprised and perhaps a little relieved. It was the most he'd ever seen his brother connect with a woman romantically. He hoped the burgeoning relationship might signal a change. Perhaps it would finally soften Ted's rougher edges. But it wasn't to be. After a few dates, Ellen admitted that she wasn't interested in Ted romantically, and he lost it. After a brief moment of depression, he sought revenge.

He began writing crude limericks about Ellen and placing them around the factory. It was childish and cruel behavior from a once-respected academic. David was livid. He thought Ted was doing so well, but now he'd taken several steps back, and the worst was yet to come. One evening after work, Ted climbed into Ellen's car with violent visions of revenge. He wrote in his journal about how he planned to murder her for rejection. him, but at the last moment, he changed his mind. He didn't have it in him to commit such an intimate crime, but he was still angry. He continued posting hateful poetry about Ellen,

defying David's direct orders to stop. As a supervisor, David felt responsible for his brother's actions, and when Ted goaded him, David snapped. He fired Ted. Ted was shocked by what he saw as a total betrayal. David was the one person in his life who had always been an ally, a kindred spirit. Now Ted felt stung by his brother turning his back on him. Suddenly unemployed, Ted didn't yet return to Montana. So tensions between the brothers simmered. Eventually, living under one roof was unbearable and David bailed. He left his job at the factory and returned to his remote Texas property. Soon after, in early 1979, Ted set out for his own isolated cabin. By this stage, he felt weighed down by a lifetime of rejections, perceived and real,

and desperate to make the world feel his pain, and his intellect made him capable of terrible things. Alone in his cabin, Ted got to work. On May 9, 1979, 35-year-old John Harris was tucked into a cubicle trying to study. He was a graduate student at Northwestern University's Technological Institute. As far as he knew, it was just a normal Wednesday. Except something caught his eye, a wooden cigar box sitting on a nearby table seemingly abandoned. Upon closer inspection, John saw that the box was taped shut. Curious, he opened it. The slam echoed around the building. In the aftermath, John was disoriented, in a total state of shock, but managed to get his bearings.

The room was in disarray. A table was on fire, and strange objects were scattered about. Wires sticking out of a flashlight battery match heads everywhere. It took a moment for him to put it together. He was looking at a bomb. John's injuries were minor, mostly cuts and burns. But the damage of the blast went far beyond the physical. This was the second bomb to explode at Northwestern University.

One bomb was odd. Two was the beginning of a terrifying pattern. The reign of the Unabomber had begun. Thanks again for tuning in to serial killers. We'll be back soon with Part 2 as the Unabomber crimes take hold of the nation. Ted's amateur bomb construction skills grew more sophisticated and more deadly, and his genius left the FBI scrambling to catch up. You can find all episodes of serial killers and all other sources. Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify.

We'll see you next time. Have a killer week. Serial Killers is a Spotify original from Parcast. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, sound designed by Scott Strannick, with production assistants by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden, and Bruce Kitovich. This episode of Serial Killers was written by John McDonough,

with writing assistance by Joel Callan, fact-checking by Haley Millie. and research by Brian Petrus and Chelsea Wood. Serial killers stars Greg Poulson and Vanessa Richardson.