Suspect Is A Quiet Loner

Chicago (Reuter) — The man suspected of being the Unabomber was described Thursday as a reclusive 53-year-old who grew up as a promising but extremely quiet student in the Chicago area with a youthful interest in handmade explosives.

Federal officials said bomb-making materials and a partially assembled device were found in Theodore John Kaczynski’s crude cabin in a mountain village in Montana, raising hopes that the 17-year-long search for the serial bomber was over.

The bomber left a trail of three dead and more than 20 maimed with his devices.

Those who knew him painted Kaczynski as a socially awkward but talented child with a doting mother who skipped grades in high school but left little impression on most classmates except that he was remote, intelligent, and good with his hands.

“He wasn’t exactly gregarious, but he was extremely articulate,” Dale Eickelman, Kaczynski’s friend in his early teenaged years and now an anthropology professor at Dartmouth College, told the Daily Southtown newspaper m Chicago.

“I remember Ted was very good at chemistry... I remember Ted had the know-how of putting together things Like batteries, wire leads, potassium nitrate and whatever, and creating explosions” at the age of 12 and 13, Eickelman said.

The two detonated explosives in fields or in a family metal garbage can, using as components household products and items bought at the hardware store.

“We were just bright kids who read a lot of science books and experimented,” Eickelman told the newspaper. The two also played chess, with Kaczynski nearly always winning.

Kacyzinski’s father, Theodore, ran a polish sausage factory in Chicago and in, 1990 he committed suicide after contracting a terminal form of cancer. His mother, Wanda, was a teacher whom neighbors recalled reading to young Ted from Scientific Amen- can in their two-story Cape Cod home on a quiet suburban street.

According to federal officials, the concerted investigation of Kaczynski- was precipitated by his mother’s planned move from her longtime home in the Chicago western suburb of Lombard, to the upstate New York home of her other son, David.

The writings unearthed before the move in mid-March showed a strong resemblance to the rambling, anti-technology manifesto written by the Unabomber and published in September by two major U.S. newspapers. The Unabomber promised to end his 17-year bombing campaign, which has killed three and maimed 23, if the 35,000 word manifesto was published.

A 1958 yearbook picture from Evergreen Park High School, located in a southern suburb, shows a square- jawed youth with dirty-, blond hair swept back in a slight pompadour at his graduation at age 16. No one remembered him having a girlfriend — one classmate called him the “class nerd” — but Kaczynski joined several student organizations, including the coin club, the German club, the math club, the biology club and band.