ABC News Footage on Ted Kaczynski's Arrest

News Reporter: Federal agents have taken into custody a man may suspect as the Unabomber. This drama is unfolding outside the tiny town of Lincoln, Mt, and Tom Foreman is there.

FBI Officer: We're going to be moving people in and out of here. Comes through.

Tom Forman: After 17 years of looking today, FBI agents think they may have finally had a look at the unit. Bomber late this afternoon, Ted Kaczynski was taken from his backwoods cabin. Leaving folks in. The nearby town of Lincoln stunned.

Local Resident: He was just a real quiet guy, you know? He came to town, he never bothered anybody. He never gave anybody a hard time. He was never in trouble. Never was at the bars. Just a real. Quiet guy and you know, if you had a conversation, it was a real intelligent conversation with him. Know he's just. Just not the guy that I would think would be the unabomber.

Tom Forman: Locals say Kaczynski has lived here for about 18 years in his cabin down a dirt Rd. Today, the FBI sealed the area off as they searched his. Those who have gone to his place say it has no indoor plumbing, no electricity, that he grew his own vegetables and had scores of books. Gene Youderian went there as a census taker and found a pleasant but reserved man, reclusive.

Gene: Hermit type you know. He didn't go out of his way to make friends or anything. Like that, you know he wasn't what you would call a social person.

Tom Forman: When he came to town, always alone, Kaczynski, who did not own a car, rode a bicycle. One of his favorite stops. They are people say he told them he was a Vietnam veteran living on a pension. Former librarian Beverly Coleman says he often wore army green or camouflage clothing and had unusual taste.

Beverly: You know, I mean, he didn't need, like, the normal junk the rest of us were reading.

Tom Forman: You have to order in the books?

Beverly: Ohh yeah, most generally you have to order anything in for him because what he wanted was so off the wall and a lot of stuff he wanted was out of print for years. You know he just he's very, very well, read man. Very educated man.

Tom Forman: The other place he was frequently seen. The post office.

Local Resident: I've seen him come out of the post office. I've seen mail things, you know, just being in there.

Tom Forman: Like letters or packages?

Local Resident: Oh I don’t know, we all go to the post office. We all go to the post office, nobody gets their mail delivered to them. So I don't think I don't ever remember packages or anything.

Tom Forman: At this hour, Kaczynski is believed to be in Helena, where he was taken by the FBI at last report in a small, windowless office on the third floor of the building. But the FBI keeps in this town cookie.

News Reporter: Tom, what happens tomorrow in Helena?

Tom Forman: It's hard to say what's going to happen right now. At last report, he has not been charged with anything. Now, if he is charged, he will be arraigned tomorrow in Helena. But at this moment, the FBI is looking at things a lot of people here are looking at things and wondering just that very thing. What's going to happen? With Ted Kaczynski.

News Reporter: Tom Foreman in Montana and now from San Francisco at our station, KG. TV ABC's chief investigative reporter Brian Ross, Brian. What? Brought the investigators to this point. Finally a suspect.

Brian: It really was a phone tip that a lawyer for the Kaczynski family called in a tip that ironically was almost ignored and almost put in sort of not the a file that the B file but one agent here. And San Francisco took the time and began to work it. The problem was that they had thought all along the suspect was somebody who lived in the San Francisco. Area and when it first came in, as somebody in Montana, it was ignored. But as they looked closer and closer with this man, they found he began to fit the profile, in particular the fact that he in the mid 80s worked in the Salt Lake City area as a construction worker, an area where one bomb was mailed and another bomb went off.

News Reporter: Now, tomorrow's New York Times is reporting that the. FBI has fingerprints, typewriter imprint. Unexploded devices and interestingly, DNA analysis of his saliva from the stamps on the postage is have. You heard those. Reports and and what are they saying about them?

Brian: That's right, cookie. In fact, ABC News has learned tonight that in the raid today and the search warrant that went down at his home, they're looking for a typewriter. Certain kinds of stamps, a particular kind of blue and red stripe mailing label, and also a certain kind of pipe bomb and an explosive filler with the stamps. They hope they can do a DNA kind of test that would match him up. Those are the things they need to actually have a case that would stand up in court. It's one thing to call the suspect, it's another to prove it in front of the jury.

News Reporter: Thank you, Brian Ross in San Francisco.