Ted Kaczynski’s Correspondence with Maria DiLorenzo
1. Maria to Ted — 2020
‘In 2020, during the height of the pandemic, while isolated at home, I began to seek answers. I created a website, Beyond the Crime, which serves as a platform for people incarcerated for murder to discuss any subject of their choosing in the hopes of gaining a better understanding of the criminal mind and criminal justice system. After sending out a bundle of letters, the responses I received from incarcerated people all over the country were overwhelming.
2. Ted to Maria
‘his first letter asked for my thoughts on societal issues and hypothetical situations involving the current political climate.’
3. Maria to Ted
‘I have always been open-minded and one to believe that anything is possible, no matter how far-fetched, so I played along. In my next letter to him, I considered various outcomes to his proposed outlandish scenarios involving sexual reparations. I also explained why it was unlikely such a thing would ever happen,’
4. Ted to Maria
“The fact that at least one intelligent person—yourself—has taken it seriously shows how far the left has wandered into absurdity.”
“it was a joke with a point.”
Undated Letters
‘For months, we continued to correspond, often discussing topics ranging from political correctness to language to societal issues in America and other cultures.’
“We now have a society in which people (and not just those on the left) try to get what they want by making other people feel sorry for them. This isn’t something that happens only in individual instances—it’s a mass phenomenon.”
‘Eventually, he agreed to a formal interview, giving me permission to share it on Beyond the Crime.’
X. Ted to Maria — September 26, 2021
Dear Maria,
Thanks for your letter of 8/23/21, which I received on 9/13/21. There’s quite a lot that I would like to say in answer to it, but I have too much work to do, and at the age of 79 I don’t have much energy left to do it with. So I’ll have to limit myself to the following:
-
“True crime” writers are not my favorite breed, but I’m inclined to like you, and maybe even trust you a little bit, because—as far as I can tell from your letters—your ideas seem to be balanced and rational. Nevertheless, I probably will not do the “Q&A” that you propose, because it’s unlikely that I will have time for it, especially since I would consider it necessary to compose my answers with great care. However, I might have time to answer one or two key questions about the content of my books. Instead ...
Y. Maria to Ted
We had planned to discuss his book Technological Slavery, but when I sent him my questions in the late fall of 2021, I was met with silence. Never trusting the prison mail system, I wondered if my letter had been lost, so I followed up with another letter, asking if he had received my questions—more silence.
In the pit of my stomach, I knew something was wrong. In the next letter, I asked if he was okay. By the end of December 2021, news stories had been released, explaining that he had been transferred from the prison in Colorado to Butner, the federal medical center in North Carolina.
Z. Ted to Maria — December 2021
“I have to apologize for not answering sooner, but I have a good excuse: I’m very sick and may not live long—that’s why I’ve been transferred to the federal prison hospital in North Carolina ... whatever time I have left has to be spent on getting some legal matters squared away and (if possible) on finishing up some writing projects. So, I won’t be able to correspond with you any longer.”
‘He then went on to give me an idea for a future book that he wished I would write and referenced where I could start my research, encouraging,’
“I expect you’ll find a lot of this material fascinating (even if sometimes horrifying), maybe even fascinating enough so that you’ll want to write about it.”