Ted Kaczynski’s journal that included his plan to disfigure the face of a romantic interest
Journal Series 6, #2

July 17, 1978: For 2 or 3 weeks I have been working at Foam Cutting Engineers, where my father and brother work (my father got me the job there). The shop superior is a 30-year old woman named Ellen Tarmichael.

She has a beautiful face but a very mediocre figure (too much fat on her ass and thighs). Nevertheless she is very attractive because she has charm; her personality, so far as it is exhibited to the world at large, is very attractive, she is apparently very intelligent, and probably quite competent. The result was that I got infatuated — an unfortuante weakness to which I am occasionally subject. [CROSSED OUT]

I am now cured [ADDED LATER: I thought!] of the infatuation; but the story is interesting and possibly is not yet finished. I wanted to ask her out but suffered from the [CROSSED OUT] inhibitions that usually trouble me when I try to approach attractive women, and the usual problem that I dislike practically all of the usual entertainments — movies, parties, drinking, dancing, etc., etc. Moreover I am so socially inexperienced that I probably give an impression of eccentricity in many social situations through simple ignorance of usual modes of behaviour.

So I figured I would just go ahead and be frankly eccentric and drop in on her unannounced on Sunday (yesterday) afternoon. I knew her address was on a certain Spruce Lane in Glen Ellyn, but I couldn’t find it, so I stopped at a gas station to inquire. A fellow who was there used to live on Spruce Lane and gave me directions to it, but it was so far away that I decided it [CROSSED OUT] was not worth while to traipse all the way over there. If I had been able to walk there I do not know whether I would have had the nerve to actually make that unannounced visit or not; but the matter was taken out of my hands by an astonishing coincidence. As I was walking away from the gas station, maybe 1/8 mile away, the fellow I had talked to [CROSSED] shouted my name. [CROSSED] I turned around and there was Ellen standing next to him. I went back and it turned out that he was Ellen’s brother. I simply told Ellen that I had been coming to pay her a visit, and she drove me to [CROSSED] the apartment that she shares with her sister Liz. Liz was there with her boyfriend George; but they shortly left to play golf so that I had a pleasant conversation of 2 or 3 hours with Ellen. She told me a good deal about herself and by the time she had finished that, I was no longer infatuated. I still find her very attractive, but am convinced that there is such a gulf between us that I could never feel real, sympathy with her. I learned that she is a Catholic (ugh!) and is very bourgeois in her interests and attitudes.

Also she has a streak in her personality that would be attractive if it were not so strongly developed; but as it is, I think it repels me more than attracts me; it is a kind of egotistical streak, or a need for superiority and dominance. [CROSSED OUT] You would never guess from her usual behaviour that she has such a streak; but she told me that when she was a kid (she was the second child in the family) she had a tremendous need to do better than her elder brother (not the brother I met) in all activities whatsoever. In every sport, in school, etc. She would practice and practice a sport all by herself until she could beat her brother. She [CROSSED OUT] claims she succeeded so well that she thoroughly demoralized her poor brother. She says that up to a couple of years ago she believed she “could do anything”. She [CROSSED OUT] seems to be conceited about her job and overestimates her importance to the company. She says she intends to be president of the company some day.

Yet she says all these things in a gentle and feminine manner, not in a brastful or aggressive way. I took her to a restaurant for supper; there we went back to her apartment (where Liz and George had returned) and we all played pinochle until after 11 PM! (George seemed like a nice guy, but rather flabby physically and mentally. Liz had not quite so pretty a face as her sister [CROSSED OUT] and a much better figure, but seemed less intelligent and had a much duller personality than Ellen, and I suspect she is a nasty bitch.)

Finally I asked Ellen whether she expected me to cut any foam tomorrow, and she said “yes, I was just going to say,” and fortwith she drove me home. When we arrived, I said, “Am I being too aggressive if I ask for a goodnight kiss?” She averted her eyes and moved her head in such a way as if she [CROSSED OUT] were hesitating. [CROSSED OUT] Then she said “alright”. (I suspect she really had no hesitation about kissing but was only trying to make a certain impression) Then she [CROSSED OUT] leaned over toward me for the kiss and we had a nice big juicy delicious kiss with firm pressure. Now, I am so very inexperienced in these matters that I am in a very poor position to judge, but it did seem to me that she kissed me somewhat aggressively, at least, she had her mouth on mine before I was even ready for it. I said in a soft and rather fervent tone, “Oh I like you!” She gave the curious reply: [CROSSED OUT] “You can’t say that-You don’t know me.” [CROSSED OUT] Then we said goodbye. I didn’t think much about her reply at the time, but it seems particularly curious in view of a rumor that my father told me about today: It is said that Ellen never goes out with any man more than once or twice.

July 29. Yesterday I took Ellen Tarmichael to an expensive restaurant for supper. She then invited me to her apartment, where, she hastened to add, we would not be alone. Actually we were alone for an hour or more as her sister and sister’s—boyfriend were out–to eat. The situation was not such that I could [CROSSED OUT] readily make any sexual advances, especially as Ellen, instead of sitting on the sofa where I sat down, sat on the floor nearby, I am sure in order [CROSSED OUT] to avoid encouraging any advances at that time. After her sister and sister’s boyfriend returned I had a very boring time listening to a conversation in which I took very little part. Finally, at 12:30 AM, Ellen asked me if I would like to ‘go out for coffee.’ I said yes. So I drove her to a place nearby that she recommended. We spent an hour and a half there discussing various topics. Then I took her home, and, on arrival, asked for a goodnight kiss. I got an even better one than last time. Mouths wide open, tongues rubbing. She started that open–mouth, tongue–rubbing stuff, not me. I pushed her over until she was leaning way back against the [CROSSED OUT] car door (this was my car of course) on the right-hand side and her tit was touching my chest. All this might have lasted, say 3 minutes. Then she said “I think it’s time for you to go home.” So I did. Though she is very charming and attractive much of the time, by now I greatly dislike her because of her egotism and its consequences; for example: she spent some time bragging about how she was going to become president of the company and how she was in on company secrets and so forth; and what is worse than that, I have a strong impression that her motives for giving me these hot kisses are as much egotistical as they are sexual — that is, because the man is usually more anxious for that kind of thing that the woman, Ellen feels that this gives her a kind of control over the man in such a situation; she gives him a hot kiss to excite him, and when it has gone as far as she wants she stops it; and, I think, she enjoys this as much for the feeling of control that she gets as [CROSSED OUT] for sexual reasons.

As we were driving to the place where we ate, she told me a curious thing. She says that [sic; should be Win] (the president of this 2–bit Foam–cutting corporation) likes me and would like to keep me in the company, or at least is thinking along those lines. She asked me not to tell Wynn that I had gone out with her; because she said that Wynn had suggested to her that she should use herself as bait to keep me around the company; but she had refused. A couple of hours later when this subject came up again, she said that Wynn had only made the suggestion in jest. I don’t know just what the truth of the matter is; I wouldn’t trust Ellen for strict accuracy.

I don’t believe I will go-out with her again, unless perhaps I get tempted by purely physical lust. I don’t like her at all any more.

July 30. Let me clarify the reasons why I consider Ellen egotistical and hard, if those are the right words. In ordinary conversation she doesn’t seem so except when she is bragging about her job or something related to it. But (with me at least) she will never … let us say … open herself. Examples: When I told her I liked her that first time I was with her, she gave that cold answer I recorded earlier. When I was with her last Saturday I mentioned in the course of saying something else that I was “very much attracted” to her. She answered the other part of what I said but made no response to my statement that I was much attracted to her. At a later part of the same conversation she said that if I had asked her for a date that first time instead of coming over [CROSSED OUT] unannounced, she would have said No, because it is against her policy to have any personal involvements with anyone at work. I then asked her why she said yes the second time I asked her out. She just shrugged and answered coldly, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” She might at least have said “Because I thought I would enjoy it”, or something like that. Of course, maybe she just doesn’t particularly like me. But then why the sexy kisses? Only 2 explanations present themselves to my mind: Either she is unwilling or unable to express liking for anyone to that persons face; or, what I think is more likely, she doesn’t find me particularly attractive, but goes out with me and gives sexy kisses, exerting her sexual power in a kind of game to gratify her ego. In either case, to hell with her.

Aug 23. Despite the negative conclusions about Ellen that I reached, as stated above I couldn’t help thinking about her constantly, especially since I was exposed to her charms every day at work, and especially since she seamed quite friendly to me. Within a day or 2 after that July 28 date I was as infatuated with her as ever. I always remembered my negative conclusions about her, but I kept hoping those conclusions were wrong [CROSSED OUT], and that she actually was attracted to me but for some reason found it difficult to express this directly. It was easy to hope this because she certainly led me on [CROSSED OUT]. Whenever I phoned her she was always very friendly and receptive, and at the end of the conversation would say “thanks for calling”. For example, the weekend of August 12 I called her; she said she couldn’t see me then because her mother and sister Mary were in town so that she was tied up with family affairs. I offered to call her again the next weekend, and her answer was: “Sounds good! Thanks for calling.” This kind of thing, together with the memory of those hot kisses, naturally made me hope that she really liked me. Since I am extremely inexperienced with women, but by no means deficient in desire for them when exposed to their charms, it is not surprizing that I fell pretty much in love with Ellen on the basis of mere hope. In spite of her failings, I could have loved her deeply if I had had assurance that she cared for me at all.

Well, this last weekend I took her out again. It now seems clear that from the very beginning of this date she was out to humiliate me, or at least to assert a certain type of superiority over me. This in spite of the fact that I [ADDED LATER: had] made it very clear to her that I was very sweet on her. I was at pains on this date to be attentive and agreeable; but she was very cool; not so much so as to bring out any open disagreement, but just the right amount to leave me unhappy and wondering. She insisted on a peculiar way of using her auto and mine; this arrangement was such that I would have no opportunity to ask for a goodnight kiss. At this point I felt that explicit clarification was called for, so I asked her if she was intentionally avoiding a goodnight kiss. After a little hesitation she answered that she was. I then asked further questions and what she told me was essentially this: She had no sexual interest in me; she said she liked me, but the way and the context in which she said it indicated that it was the condescending sort of liking that one might have for a child or for some other kind of social inferior.

She claimed she went out with me mainly in order to satisfy her curiosity about me because she had never met anyone like me before. She said a kiss “doesn’t mean anything.” She claimed there was no sex in it when she kissed me. (This seems a little implausible in the case of an open–mouth kiss with tongues rubbing; but I am quite ready to believe that she took no sexual pleasure in it; only egotistical pleasure.)

During the first part of the date she was cool and a little glum; but this must have been calculated, not just the result of being in a bad mood that day, because after she had humiliated me she immediately became quite cheerful and gay for the rest of the [CROSSED OUT] day.

Of course, I took pains to conceal my feelings, and remained outwardly cheerful and friendly, though half the time I wanted to cry and the other half the time I wanted to kill her.

It seemed to me that during the rest of the day she would occasionally rub in her little triumph by making remarks that were somewhat cutting but not so much so as to bring about any open breach of friendlyness [sic]. For example, I asked her what were some of my unusual characteristics that made her feel I was ‘unlike anyone she had ever met.’ The first one she mentioned was: ‘You are so very lacking in confidence socially.’ (True enough, but not nice to say so, unless after taking special pains to be tactful.)

I loved that damn bitch. She knew I had soft feelings toward her and she intentionally used these to lead me on and then she calculatedly humiliated me.

I was so upset by this that for the next 2 nights I was unable to sleep more than 4 hours a night, and, what was worse, I was exhausted by nervous tension. That date was Sunday. Monday I did nothing about it because I was exhausted and had had no time to think things over. But after work I did think things over; I had an overwhelming need for revenge and I decided to get it by persistently needling and insulting her at work. (I could think of no other way to get revenge without getting in trouble with the law.) I started Tuesday morning by pasting up some copies of an insulting poem that I wrote about her. (Copy accompanies these notes.)

In coming in in the morning she [CROSSED OUT] had to pass a door where I had one of these pasted up. She came into the plant looking glum. [CROSSED OUT] After “good mornings” were exchanged, one of the women said to Ellen, “You don’t look like it’s a good morning”, and Ellen said, “It isn’t.” A couple of times during the day Ellen’s eyes met mine, and she held my gaze (trying to stare me down?). Needless to say, she dropped her eyes first. Curiously enough, she seemed to make an effort to be pleasant on the few occasions she had to speak to me during the day, and as I was getting ready to leave at the end of the day she almost seemed to make overture to renewed friendliness: Referring to some work I’d been doing, she said, “Is that all from before. It seemed clear that she was conciliatory only for one or more of the following reasons: (1) She wanted to get me sweet on her again as a tool to get revenge for the insulting poem (she once said to me that she was “a very vindictive person” and would do anything [CROSSED OUT] “no matter how underhanded” to get revenge if she wanted it). (2) She felt she had lost the power over me that her sex appeal gave her, and she wanted to regain it. (3) I suspect that she fears or dislikes any open [CROSSED OUT] hostility, and prefers superficial friendliness even when hostility is being carried on at a submerged level.

Now, getting back to the narrative: Just after Ellen made that apparent overture at the end of the day Teusday, as I walked out of the plant, I made a point of passing behind her where she was standing and working, and as I passed, I pinched her on the ass. I intended this as an insult. She jumped, but didn’t look around or say anything. And she seemed pleasant and friendly this morning (Wednesday). But I don’t doubt that I could have made things very unpleasant for her by such methods—except that my weak–minded, self–righteous brother took it upon himself to interfere. Having seen the poem I pasted up, he said he would fire me (he is one of the bosses there) and “maybe bust your ass, too” if I did it again. Of course, that was a direct challenge, so I wasn’t just about to back down. This afternoon [August 23, 1978], I went over to where my brother was working and pasted up a copy of the poem before his eyes, and said “OK, are you going to fire me?” Of course, he did. Wanting to make sure that the firing was official (Dave is night boss and I am on the Day crew) I went into Ellen’s office and asked her if the firing was official. In response to her question, I told her why Dave had fired me. She hesitated for awhile, expressing by words and looks a kind of half-humorous [CROSSED OUT] dismay.

Finally she said that since she had promised to “back up” Dave in his postion as night boss, she would have to uphold the firing. I am sure that her display of reluctance to have me fired was insincere, and probably resulted only from her general reluctance to display hostility in any overt way. If she had really had any reluctance to have me fired, she would have talked o Dave before confirming the firing — she knew Dave only fired me on her account, and if she’d told Dave she prefrred not to have me fired, he might not have any desire to be “backed up” in the firing. Of course, it is only natural, under the circumstances, that she should be glad to have me fired. I am merely pointing out the insincerity of her show of reluctance.

Thus, that weak fool Dave has made that bitch’s triumph [CROSSED OUT] complete: She humiliates me sexually, she gets me fired from my job, and she causes dissension in my family. I have shed more tears over that cheap whore than I have over anything since my teens — ordinarily, I rarely cry over anything.

What makes this particularly hard is the fact that it recalls bitter experiences over many years, reaching right back to my early teens; right back to the time when, at the age of 13, I was foolish enough to phone a female classmate and ask for a date. Needless to say, I was turned down-After having skipped a grade, I came to be merely a freak; certainly not someone to be taken seriously by any self-respecting girl.

I have always been strongly attracted to women, but have usually been rejected by them. Women don’t like freaks, even freaks who are intelligent, capable, good physical specimens, and able to be personally agreeable. Well, that’s OK. If they don’t want me, that is their privilege. But this Ellen bitch has used me for a toy.

You understand, what bothers me here is the humiliation, not the need for a woman. I can get along very well without women.

One of the many advantages of living alone in the mountains is that one never meets any women. Consequently, one doesn’t think about them. Not only do I not desire women when I’m alone in the woods, but I am actually repelled by the idea of getting involved with them. Before I came down from the mountains to the city this last time, I was seriously worried about the possibility that I might fall into temptation and get involved with some woman. And you see, that is exactly what happened, and in the worst possible way.

There is only one way left to wipe out this shame, and that is with blood. Tomorrow I am going to get that bitch and mutilate her face.

Aug 26. (Sat.) Last Thursday morning I drove to the plant and parked in the lot, waiting for Ellen. When she arrived, I ran over to her car, said I wanted to speak to her briefly, and told her to move over so I could get out of the rain. This she did slowly and grudgingly, and I got into the drivers seat. I carried with me a knife concealed in a paper bag. I began by saying that she had intentionally humiliated me on Sunday. In the brief discussion that followed, she said that the reason she had been so cold on Sunday was that it “just struck her” at the beginning of the date that there was nothing between us no future in anything between us, because we had nothing in common. She also said that the first 2 times she went out with me she did so because she “really thought there might be something in it; friendship, or …” I had then, and still have, grave doubts about the truth of this last statement, because she has often seemed insincere in the past, and because the statement is contradicted by things she said earlier. Nevertheless, the statement cooled my anger, because if true, it would mean she was not just using me as a toy. So that was the end of that.

All I feel now about the whole thing is a kind of wistful melancholy about the whole affair, brought on by the thought of what a woman with some of Ellen’s best qualities might have meant to me, if she’d been sincere, and if we’d had some common aspirations. I sent Ellen a long letter explaining everything from my point of view.