Suspect seen as ‘weird’ even in college
Messy Loner

DENVER—One of seven Harvard University undergraduate students who lived in the same hall as Theodore John Kaczynski in the late 1950s and early 60s remembers the man suspected of being the Unabomber was strange “even back then”.

“One friend I just talked to said he was living by himself even then. I don’t know why Harvard would let that happen They’re sensitive to students socializing.” astronomer Patrick McIntosh said in a telephone interview from his Boulder home Thursday.

McIntosh and five others roomed with Kaczynski in a seven-room suite at Harvard s Elliot Hall between his sophomore and senior years. 1959–1962.

But the 55-year-old retired scientist is quick to point out that he and Kaczvnski were not roommates in the traditional sense’

“The only reason I ever met him is because we were all in the ‘low-income’ wing of an unusual suite.” McIntosh said. “We had seven private bedrooms, two bathrooms and a cedar closet. It used to be the maid’s quarters for the master of the house when the house was built in the ‘30s.”

A retired National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expert on solar spots and sun flares. McIntosh said Kaczynski kept to himself and almost never allowed anyone m his bedroom.

Debris littered the floor of “Kaczynski’s room, including decaying food that made the room stink to high heaven.” McIntosh recalled.

“He was unusual even then I tried talking to him. but I just gave up He had the messiest room I ever saw in my life. ” McIntosh said. “It’s hard to believe anyone so meticulous could do that.”

He said Kaczynski always ate alone at Elliot Hail’s dining room. In an era that predated personal computers, the only instrument in Kaczynski’s room was a trumpet that he played occasionally.

“Not often, but a few times I would remember him annoying the rest of us with his unusual behavior. I just excused his behavior as just being a student Harvard had a lot of intense people.” McIntosh said

Still, he said he and two other former roommates he had spoken to by Thursday morning were shocked to hear of Kaczynski’s arrest.

Even with his weirdness. I did not see anything that could have predicted this There’s nothing he did, m my thinking, that would have predicted terrorism of any kind.” McIntosh said. “He may not have liked the world, but none of his expressions were threatening.”

McIntosh, who has lived in Boulder for 30 years, was raised m southern Illinois, far. he says, from the Chicago culture Kaczynski knew as a boy.