December 18, 1998

Theodore Kaczynski, a recluse known as the unabomber because he mailed bombs to universities and planted them in airplanes, was sentenced to life without the option of appeal in a plea bargain on January 22 for 13 counts of bombing and the deaths of three people. He was apprehended on April 3, 1996, after his brother David Kaczynski provided letters and other writings of his brother to the FBI that were similar to those in Kaczynski's "Manifesto" (printed in The New York Times and The Washington Post).

Psychiatrist Phillip Resnick, M.D., expert for the prosecution, said during a presentation at the American Academy for Psychiatry and the Law that he studied the "Manifesto," Kaczynski's autobiography, and journals and letters that were recovered from his shack in Montana, and his social history. This evidence revealed Kaczynski's difficulties in relating to peers and revenge fantasies toward those who rejected him, said Resnick.

After completing a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Michigan and working for two years at the University of California at Berkeley to earn some money, Kaczynski moved to a wooded area four miles from Lincoln, Mont., where he built a small one-room cabin, grew vegetables, and hunted for game. He hated the noise of airplanes and technology and became enraged when snowmobiles went near his hut. He vandalized snowmobiles and motorcycles, and while doing so he wore extra soles attached to his shoes so that no one would suspect him as the person committing the crime (a fact later used in his trial as evidence of his knowledge of the wrongfulness of his deeds).

Later he began to construct and mail bombs to people he described as "techno nerds." Kaczynski wrote in 1971 that "my motive for doing what I'm going to do is simple personal revenge," and "my central motive for trying to get revenge is that organized society is destroying opportunities for independent life in wild country and is closing off all other avenues of personal autonomy."

Kaczynski also said in his writings that he did not want to be seen as sick, or mentally ill, said Resnick. When a jury was being selected for his trial the judge referred to a mental health defense and Kaczynski became enraged. He fired his attorney and hired one who would present a necessity defense suggesting that rather than having a mental illness, Kaczynski felt that it was necessary to kill some people to save humankind from the evils of technology.

Later when Kaczynski tried again to fire his attorneys because he did not want a mental illness defense used, Judge Garland Burrell refused to let him do so, saying it was too late in the trial. Kaczynski then said he'd rather represent himself, but the judge rejected the idea. Around this time Kaczynski attempted to smother himself.

Judge Burrell asked Sally Johnson, M.D., from Butner Institute in North Carolina to do an assessment of Kaczynski's competence to stand trial. She made a provisional diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia and paranoid personality with avoidance and antisocial features. Johnson said she found two delusional themes-that Kaczynski thought modern technology was controlling the country and that his life dysfunction was due to verbal abuse by his parents. Johnson still found him competent to stand trial.

Kaczynski then elected to plead guilty to all charges to avoid the death penalty.