“Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, who carried out a 17-year bombing campaign that killed three people and wounded 23, committed suicide, sources told The Associated Press.
terminal cancer at age 81, was found unresponsive in his cell at the Federal Prison Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina, around 12:30 a.m. Saturday.
The Harvard-educated mathematician has been incarcerated since May 1998, when he was sentenced to four life sentences plus 30 years in prison for terrorism that put universities across the country on edge.
He admitted to committing 16 bombings between 1978 and 1995 that permanently injured several victims.
Kaczynski was dubbed “Unabomber” by the FBI because his early targets appeared to be universities and airlines.
Emergency personnel performed CPR and revived Kaczynski before he was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead late Saturday morning, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.
They were not authorized to discuss Kaczynski’s death publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.
Kaczynski’s death comes as the BOP has faced increased scrutiny over the past few years Jeffrey Epstein also died in federal prison In 2019, he was awaiting trial on sexual abuse charges.
Kaczynski targets include academia and airlines
In 2021, Kaczynski was transferred to Commonwealth Medical Center in North Carolina, a facility that treats inmates with serious health problems.
Kaczynski retreated to a dingy cabin in rural Montana, where he conducted a solo bombing that changed the way Americans mailed packages and boarded planes.
His targets included academics and airlines, the owner of a computer rental store, an advertising executive and a lumber industry lobbyist.
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In 1993, a California geneticist and a Yale computer scientist were killed by bombs within two days.
Two years later, he persuaded the New York Times and the Washington Post to publish his manifesto, a 35,000-word tirade against modern life and technology and the destruction of the environment, with constant threats of violence.
His brother, David, and David’s wife, Linda Patrik, recognized the tone of the paper, and they tipped off to the FBI, which for years has been searching for America’s longest , the most costly manhunt for the bomber.
Authorities found him in April 1996 in a plywood and tarpaper log cabin outside Lincoln, Montana, filled with diaries, coded diaries, dynamite components and two completed bombs.