Unmasking the Unabomber

Delve into the dark world of Theodore J. Kaczynski and his relevance in today's society. Explore the motives, isolation, and the terror he inflicted on a nation in this compelling episode!

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Dr. Mystery: The story of Theodore J Kaczynski is one that is becoming increasingly relevant the further that society progresses. Since his capture on April 3rd, 1996, news headlines have been flooded with angry men disenfranchised with the technological advancements of society. And the autonomy of women.

Cam: Feeling vilified and rejected by society, they seclude themselves, fueling their paranoia. Similar to a cornered animal, these men act out in violent, deplorable ways to inflict their own suffering on innocent people. For nearly 18 years, the United States was tormented by a domestic terrorist who could strike anywhere, anytime and at any one.

Dr. Mystery: In today's episode, we take a look at one of the most famous angry white men in history, Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber. Welcome to another episode of the Cabinet of Doctor Mystery. Joining me as usual is goober and Cam. I am your host. Doctor mystery.

Unknown Speaker #1: I tried to create living. Support that have been made by credible observers of relatively incredible things last chance to evacuate before.

Jingle: This is a wicked, wicked world. We are all evil in some form or another?

Dr. Mystery: Welcome to another episode of the Cabinet of Doctor Mystery. I'm your host, doctor, mystery, and this is your even cooler host Cam.

Cam: Here for a new season.

Dr. Mystery: Hell yeah.

Cam: Hopefully this one is going to be a banger.

Dr. Mystery: Ohh, I guarantee you it. It's going to be we have. Some phenomenal stuff on the way. We've got really cool projects that we're working on. If you are on our social media, you can connect with us there and you will learn about all this cool stuff that we're doing. We're giving away a little sneak peeks and stuff like that, and yeah, you should connect with us there.

Cam: Yeah, I'm actually. Working on some T-shirt designs as well that should be coming soon. Ohh yeah. And Speaking of shirts. You had something to tell me about your shirt?

Dr. Mystery: So counterparts, they are one of my all time favorite bands always have been, always will be. I don't really know them personally, I don't. I've hung out with them while we're at shows, but I really know the guys in a. Sight for sore eyes.

Cam: I've never even heard of them.

Dr. Mystery: You haven't. I've shown them to you. Before, but you don't remember which is.

Cam: Oh, OK. I will remember names of bands most times.

Dr. Mystery: Ah, fair enough. Yeah. No, I'm very. It's the same. Yeah. Jess, your wife is not good with. Not good with actors and directors and stuff like that. I am very good because I'm super interested and like just like I I I spend too much time going down these rabbit holes and just. Figuring out what what the different connections are, but back to the shirt story. I was at a counterpart show, bought this shirt and my friends in a site for some eyes were playing and it was really cool to be at that show and it was a really memorable experience. I've seen a sight for some nice play hundreds of times, but you know that counterpart show really solidified me as a counterparts fan. It was an all ages. So too, and so I bought this shirt. I think I was probably 19 or 20, so this would have been at least 13 years ago. And yeah, I bought this shirt at the show and I was really proud of it and I wore it all the time and my friend in the sight for his own eyes was dating somebody who was friends with a lot of my friends. You know, it's a small community. And so when they hit, they had broken up. She had asked if me and a bunch of the other friends would all go out and party with her. Kind of. You know like. Take my mind off of things, right? Yeah, yeah. So I absolutely love this shirt. This is my favorite chart. And I wore it out because we were going out. Didn't matter if we were going to a club or a bar. I I don't. I don't give a ****. I want wearing what I want to wear. I'm going to. Be comfortable, right? Yeah. She didn't really realize I was wearing this shirt until we were. Out like in the light. And we went out and we. Got poutine after. And so I'm I'm eating the Putin and she didn't get any. My other friend didn't get any me and the like the the guy that I was with we got Putin. Yeah. And the ladies were kind of eating our food. And I just said yo, I'm not gonna say her name but I don't want to call her out. Because this was so long ago, I know I don't don't care anymore. It was just it's a really. Really funny story to tell now so. I said yo. Like, chill out. You're eating all of my food, right? You know you can share. I like. I don't mind sharing, but like, don't eat all of my food. You're eating all the ******* cheese curds. That is the point of this. What I'm eating. Right. Now, and she got ******. She was just wasted. So she takes the. Steaming hot Putin that were we were like eating it. Because we were. So hungry, so drunk and so hungry. But we're like our mouths are burning. We're complaining about it.

Cam: Oh yeah.

Dr. Mystery: Well, you know, cooling it, cooling it on.

Cam: Yeah, there's nothing like some good greasy protein when you're drunk.

Dr. Mystery: Drunk right, and it's steaming hot, so she grabs it out of my hand and she pushes it into my chest and smears it around this steaming hot gravy just dripping down my entire body and my whole chest is red. And it was really cold. But I had. To I had to take this shirt off because it was like I could feel.

Unknown Speaker #2: Right.

Dr. Mystery: It burning my chest. And so I had thought that this shirt was completely ruined and I was like, that was my biggest worry. Not gonna lie. I I. Wasn't concerned for. My own health and safety. I was. Worried about this?

Cam: Sure. Skin going back, you can't get a new shirt.

Dr. Mystery: Exactly, exactly. That's my thinking. Exactly. So anyway, I was able to get all the gravy stains off. And yeah, it you know, no harm, no foul. I, you know, skin grows back. No sweat, but she really ****** me up that night. The reason that she smooshed it on this shirt. Was because. The band played with a sight for so Nice. So it reminded her of her ex-boyfriend. Ah. So I took away the cheese curds and that was the final straw. But the real catalyst was the breakup and me having the gall to wear this shirt out.

Cam: How dare you?

Dr. Mystery: To a recovery night. Anyway, so that's my my counterpart story.

Unknown Speaker #1: Love you guys.

Dr. Mystery: If you haven't listened to counterparts, go listen to them. If you haven't listened to a site for sonys, they're not together anymore. But they're still amazing. I wish that my space would have kept all of those files because they had recorded some really cool stuff with their previous vocalists as well, and really older. Stuff that you're never gonna hear again.

Cam: Yeah, unless someone's got it hidden away on a hard drive somewhere.

Dr. Mystery: The real thing. Would be, are they gonna agree to release? Cool. I think we should probably open.

Cam: A beer? I think that would be excellent. Do you want to say? What we're drinking.

Dr. Mystery: I was going to take a sip first, but.

Cam: Oh, OK.

Dr. Mystery: I'm just so eager to drink this.

Cam: I mean, it looks delicious.

Dr. Mystery: It is fantastic. Have you not had this before?

Cam: Uh, you probably have given me some before.

Dr. Mystery: Probably. So we are drinking better Brother Brewing, black currant, lime, kettle sour. And it is so good. Not only does the beer taste phenomenal. The label looks amazing.

Cam: You're so. Right. Oh, I love when a company uses good print products. Yeah. Yeah, it looks very nice. It's so made just down the street here. Right that they brew it there. Or is that just there? You know what? I'm not 100% sure. I think they.

Dr. Mystery: I didn't think you can see that. Could they? I think they. Might brew it there, but I'm not entirely sure.

Cam: Yeah, that's good.

Unknown Speaker #2: Oh my God.

Cam: You can really taste the lime.

Dr. Mystery: Oh my God dude, I love their beer. It is.

Cam: Yeah, I.

Dr. Mystery: Everything I drink from them is fantastic. I think they have one beer that has lactose that I can't have, but everything else I've tried is. Ohh heavenly yeah, no this is this is excellent. But this is amazing. Oh my God. Just just like. If you're not drinking a beer, get in your car, drive to Saskatoon and come and get this beer.

Cam: If you're going to drink it right after you get it, maybe wait to drive again. But.

Dr. Mystery: No. You can come and stay at my place. Yeah, if you want. We're gonna launch our members only section. There's a a special section. That's $1000. You can sign up with if you sign up to that, you can come and you can crash in the studio, and we'll have some beer. Before we start today, we just want to take a second and say that we know that there's. Tons of information. Out there that we could learn about Ted. There's all of his notebooks that we could go through. They're they're all cataloged. We could read all of them if we wanted to. There's no thank you to all. Thank you. Thanks to all of those. Journals and notebooks and all the meticulous notes that he kept. We can. Have a a great understanding about his life. We could look at all of these things and analyze them and we could look at works that he's written. He wrote an autobiography. We could talk about the Netflix documentary that's out there. It's a multi part series on top of that you know. We could look at different interviews. That he's he's had. We could look at all this archival FBI footage. You know, we're today what we're going to do is we're just going to talk about Ted Kaczynski. We're going to talk about what he did. We're we are going to look at his mental state. We are going to discuss his upbringing, but we're not going to truly dive into the mind of a madman, per say. So if you do want us to do another episode and really dive into this and enter the mind of. An absolute madman.

Cam: We will do it.

Dr. Mystery: If you want us to, but today we're we're just going to talk about Ted and everything and we have enough content that we can have a a good healthy episode, a good hearty Stew of crime. But you know there, like I said, there's so much. And Ken was actually saying earlier that we could even do, like, Jonestown. We could do a whole podcast just about Ted. So we're not going to. Do that. Because we have other things that we want to talk about, lots of stuff that we want to talk. About this season. But if you do want. To see us really dive into the mind of Ted Kaczynski, send us an e-mail. You know, let us know on Twitter, hit us up on Instagram, cabinet of mystery@gmail.com at open the cab. In it at Cabinet of Mystery, it's all we'll tell you at the end, and it's all LinkedIn. The in the episode description. But yeah, you know. We just wanted. To kind of paraphrase the episode and and just talk about that a little bit that there is more that we could dive into. But today, we're just going to mainly focus on the facts and focus on Ted and his mindset.

Cam: Yeah, tell the story as it were. So Ted Kaczynski. Theodore John Kaczynski was born on May 22nd, 1942 in Chicago. The oldest child. Of a Polish American couple, Wanda and Theodore. As an infant, Ted suffered an allergic reaction and was hospitalized, according to some family members, his demeanor changed after this incident and the birth of his younger brother, David. His parents pushed a rigorous academic schedule, and he excelled, skipping 2 grades in elementary school. Both grades 6:00 and 11:00. And he was routinely bullied for his small stature, and his above average intelligence. In 1958, at the age of 16, he began his college education at Harvard University through a scholarship. After three years, he graduated with a degree in mathematics and later completed a doctorate. In mathematics. He was a professor at Berkeley for one year, and then he decided he had had enough of society and wanted to retreat to the wilderness while he was enrolled as a student at Harvard University. He participated in a series of psychological experiments run by Harvard psychologist Henry A Murray. That were backed by the CIA. Prior to conducting these Harvard experiments, Murray conducted experiments in which subjects were put through mock interrogations, using blinding spotlights and verbal abuse. The Harvard experiments involved having the participants write essays explaining.

Unknown Speaker #1: Their worldviews followed.

Cam: By interrogations that were meant to tear down the world view using personal attacks and unethical interrogation tactics. Although it has never been confirmed, it is strongly believed that this psychological experiment accelerated Kaczynski's schizophrenia and may have led to his extreme world view and hatred of humanity.

Dr. Mystery: Yeah. I mean, when you look at Ted Kaczynski and what he experienced with the experiments that he went through in episode 10, we do a really deep dive into the MK ultra experiments, the subproject 86 experiments. And this is very, very similar to a lot of the. Experiments that we see and like I was saying earlier, if we look at how this affected Ted's mind for everything that it's worth when these experiments were conducted on a grown man. Unknowingly, he ended up jumping out of a window. Yeah. When? When you think about how this affected Ted's mind, the the this just like, just absolute abhorrent behavior, which would definitely not wouldn't fly under today's standards of ethics? Absolutely not. It's it's abuse. That he, you know, told you his ideals, he told you what he was thinking and his beliefs. And the whole point was to tear his beliefs apart. Yeah. To, you know, tear him. Down anything that he thinks anything that he believes, and it was violent, it was aggressive. It was more than just like, hey, your ideas are stupid. It was picking everything apart, picking apart who he is as a person and really trying to tear him down. When you look at how that could affect someone's psyche. You know, obviously what I was saying to you earlier was obviously a grown man. To say like, just **** *** or you know, like I like. I don't care about your opinion. I don't. I don't care about what you're saying right now, but a like a a 16 year old child.

Cam: Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. He's he's. Young for a university student, first of all right. And like when you go to college. Most people go to college to find out who they are going to be.

Dr. Mystery: As adults exactly. And he's, he's skipped ahead all these grades, right as well. He he's. Advanced. He doesn't have the the social skills that everybody else does because he's skipped all those years. Yeah, we'll see as we go through that. Him not. You know him skipping grades and him not having these social skills greatly affects his life and and ultimately the lives of others. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But yeah, if you haven't listened to episode 10, if you're a longtime listener, I'm sure that you have. But if you're new to the show and this is your first episode or one of your first few episodes, you should definitely go check out episode 10. It's actually one of our top performing episodes.

Cam: It's a it's a good episode, yeah.

Dr. Mystery: It's fun. It's a fun episode like obviously this **** is not fun, but it's a fun episode in terms of how it, you know, like just the the the scope of it, like.

Cam: Yeah, you have.

Dr. Mystery: You have Mkultra and then you have sub Project 86 and the idea that most Canadians don't know about sub Project 86, most people don't know about sub Project 86 but they were one and the same and it's this twisted idea of experimenting on people without them knowing it or without them knowing what the actual experiments are. It's a wild.

Cam: Ride if you want to go even deeper into MK Ultra, there are millions of theories about the effects that MK Ultra have had on the world. There is some really interesting ones. How most serial killers after whenever whenever they instated MK Ultra most serial killers after that point are are. Subjects or related to somehow MK Ultra.

Dr. Mystery: Yeah, they've. They've been experimented on or something like that, and I think a lot of the point of Mkultra was, if I'm remembering correctly, was for military.

Cam: Use as well. To Cold War and. Yeah, things of that and it was definitely military. Military technique development project.

Dr. Mystery: So after these experiments, Ted, I think he was in university for a year.

Cam: He went in university for three years and then he university for a year.

Dr. Mystery: Yeah, he was a professor at Berkeley for a year and. He just felt. All the pressures from society, the the pressure that it it, you know, the the amount of pressure that would come to someone his age who is being a professor. Is, you know, it could be pretty. Found right.

Cam: So yeah, if I'm getting this right, he would went to university at 16, did three years. And then how long after he graduated before he came a professor?

Dr. Mystery: I would probably guess right away.

Cam: So he's a 20 year old university professor, yeah.

Dr. Mystery: Right, who has no social skills and has no chance of being able to interact with anyone who has a vagina.

Cam: Yeah, that's. And he's teaching math, so probably a lot of people don't like him just based on that.

Dr. Mystery: Right. So you know, how do you? How do you deal? How do you how do you deal with that? How do you deal with that? And also having these twisted experiments happening to you, you know that are warping your mind and making you feel like your ideals don't matter and that could be why we see all of these things later on in this episode where we see the manifesto, which we'll get to and. And everything else like that, where we see that he is has this hatred of society. And it could be because this experiment had twisted and and contorted his own ideals into something that he thought were disgusting, and he resented that, you know, experiments that had happened and everything that they had said. He actually called this the very worst moment of his entire life. Was when he endured these experiments? Yeah.

Cam: I I mean, I don't think it needs to be said, but unethical psychological experiments don't usually help.

Dr. Mystery: Yeah, not really. And yeah, so like you had said before, this kind of amplified and then I guess even awoken his schizophrenic issues, his mental health issues. So he decided that he was no longer going to participate in society. So he. And his brother, he and his brother got together and they bought Ted, a little parcel of land and the piece of land where his cabin was built. It was actually next to this family. So this family, they needed a little bit of money. So they decided to sell a little plot of land on the corner of their property. And they sold it to Ted and David and uh. Ted and his brother David, they they built a small 8 by 10 wooden cabin with no electricity, no running water, and he would literally **** in a hole. In the floor and then he would take his fecal matter out to his garden to fertilize his garden and help his vegetables grow. That's one way to get some.

Cam: You know, fertilizer going on there. Well, actually it's not not that actually you but human. Human feces makes excellent fertilizer for tropical plants. Ohh it it, it sure it makes excellent fertilizer for everything. It's just the idea of him ******** in the floor.

Dr. Mystery: And then hauling a bucket out and dumping it on the ground. Yeah, it's a it's just a weird concept for most people, like, yeah, I mean. Technically, we should all be ******** in the floor and taking our our leavings and fertilizing things. But like. You know, no one wants to do that because as we'll see later on in this episode, Ted smelled horrible and you know, it could be because he had no running water and he could never take a shower. It could be because he was constantly working in the dirt or biking or walking around. Or as we'll see. Later ******* around. With **** that he shouldn't. Have been ******* around with. But it you. Know when I am in your garage. And even if I have the the door open a little bit and I smoke a joint, my clothing smells like it. Sometimes my skin will smell. Like a little. Bit yeah. Imagine if you were just sitting in your own **** and **** in an 8 by 10 room. Everything you own would smell like.

Cam: That that's probably why he took it out with the bucket.

Dr. Mystery: Right. But like how how? Often is he cleaning this you have to.

Cam: Yeah, no.

Dr. Mystery: Think he's still a bachelor, right?

Cam: I know.

Dr. Mystery: Now one of the books that we were not able to actually find was the book by Chris Waits, and we'll have the title down in the description and you can check that out at your leisure. Maybe if we find that book. Preferably for free. We're both very cheap. We will read it and we'll talk about it in a future episode about Ted Kaczynski, but. We know a lot about this because Jamie Gehring, so there's a a book that we used a lot of this material from, and it's called Mad Men in the woods by Jamie Gehring. And it's actually a very, very interesting read. I haven't finished it, but I plan on going through the entirety of it. It's a look at Ted Kaczynski from the perspective of the next door neighbor, but not the same as Chris waits. Chris Waits was actually Ted's neighbor as well. Chris, would Chris would offer Ted rides into town and they had they developed a friendship, same as Jamie's mother did. Jamie's mother and father developed a friendship with Ted as well. Ted brought gifts for Jamie. Ted, you know, was around all the time on their property, right.

Cam: So it's like the difference between the books would be like somebody writing a book about that. Their weird neighbor in comparison to my neighbor who was my friend that did weird.

Dr. Mystery: Yeah, right. But you know, Jamie also really analyzes how, how could Ted go from giving her gifts and then mailing a bomb. How could Ted hold her as a baby in his arms and spend the evening with her parents? And then go home, shave and go out and do his well. I didn't shave there. But you know he he would go out to a hotel and shave and then go mail his package. But it was like, you know, she explores this idea of how she was first, very intrigued and thought Ted was her friend. And then as she grew further into adulthood. She grew more. Weary of her, so she explores that as. Well, yeah, it's a. It's a very good. Book, so you should definitely check out both of those. So when we're talking about Chris waits. Weights was an intellectual kind hearted but rugged outdoorsman. That's what most people describe him as. So he met Ted in passing as he drove into town one day, and he offered Ted a ride and several times he offered him a ride and and quite a few times, Ted. I said I'm good. I'd rather walk, right? One day he offered again and Ted said yeah for sure. I'll. I'll take a ride into town. Whether he was tired of walking into town or whether he just wanted a little bit of company. Who knows. But at this point, he hadn't really developed any friendships with anybody. So this was kind of the first thing that he first time that. He started being neighborly with people. So on this day. When they were riding into town and and several times after that when he would give Ted a ride. Into town, they. Bonded over the area's history, they bonded over coin collections, classical music and gardening, and much more, and they developed a friendship. Weights was a kind, caring, considerate neighbor, and he offered Ted. Access to his land and access to any resources that he had. Any tools that he would need, or anything that was on his property was fair game. How about or Ted, the thing that weights didn't know? Was that this kind of gave Ted free reign? To vast areas of land where he could test out his explosives and and do different experiments and and really develop his bomb making skills. And this also allowed him to store rations and survival equipment throughout the property in case the FBI raided his cabin, so he had little cashes all over all over the prop. Pretty and yeah, the idea of this escape from the societal machine as Ted speaks of a lot in his autobiography is exactly what he had achieved by building this cabin in the woods, as we'll see. As we go through this, it wasn't perfect, but you know he he had managed to build this cabin in the woods and escape as far as humanly possible. And the only issue that I see with this is that everybody at some point needs. Human contact on some level, and he made other, I guess what I would call acquaintances, right? A man named Kenny Lee. And these two played cards together all the time. And he would bring handmade gifts to the children of his brother. David's friends. And he painted rocks and gave them to Jamie. And like the the author of Mad Men in. The woods, yeah. And you know all of the neighbors were. Well, I guess. Not all of the neighbors were, but all of the neighbors that were interviewed. They said that they witnessed the unraveling of Ted Kaczynski. In real time, you know a A well groomed, well mannered, shy and kind of weird and off putting, but all around normal Berkeley professor moved in, and an emaciated, disheveled madman was escorted out in handcuffs. That's essentially what they saw was this. The evolution of man in front of them.

Cam: And like this is obviously a small farming community, right?

Dr. Mystery: This isn't even a community.

Cam: No, it's just a a.

Dr. Mystery: Farm it's not a farm. No, it's literally in the. Middle of the. Woods, where there's there's like a house. And then there's parcels and parcels of land, acres and acres of land. I guess I should say. And there's nobody out there. So he could set off these bombs and no one would hear because there's nobody there. It's.

Cam: OK.

Dr. Mystery: He you know it, this land has been in my family for X general. Relations, but we've never done anything with it, right?

Cam: So the the only people he's having any interaction with are the people that are directly connected to his plot of land.

Dr. Mystery: Basically, people that are, you know, neighbor neighboring his plot of land, he would go into town. There could be some evidence that he picked up some odd jobs in town. Or something like that, but I didn't come across any, but I know that he would go into town on his bicycle and he would have interactions with people there, but most of the time that he would go into town, it would just be to research bomb making material or how to make bombs or would be to. Find people to send the bombs to and he would just go to the library and research this stuff. He would also, you know, go into town for some supplies for making the bombs. Yeah. It was highlighted a few. Times that the. Funding for the bombs could have came from his mother. Because he he, you know, did ask to borrow money and that sort of thing. And you know, well, I think I mentioned it somewhere in the in the script that we've written that he lived off of $200 a year. That's. That's the kind of lifestyle that we're talking about and we'll mention it later on how he lived off of the land. But it's just a wild concept to me that even in whatever this was, I can't remember what I said. 70s. Yeah, he he was still living off of $200.

Cam: This would be like the the. You mean I'm trying to think of how much that would be nowadays, $200 in the 70s nowadays. That's probably around like $500, maybe maybe a little more than $500. In its 2007 autobiography, Truth Versus lies, Ted stated my attempt to make advances to girls had such humiliating results that. Even until after the age of 30, I found it excruciatingly difficult, almost impossible to make advances to women. So in 1978. Ted enters society again, returning to Illinois to work for his brother at the foam cutting engineer factory foam cutting engineers. They're probably making like insulation and stuff thing. Well, it's either.

Dr. Mystery: Yeah, it's either. They have like foam insulation or like foam for inside of like gymnastic mats or something. They take a bunch of water. They froth it up and. Then they cut it.

Cam: What? What? Purpose is that, Sir.

Dr. Mystery: I don't know, but that'd be a.

Cam: Cool job. What do you do? I make the.

Unknown Speaker #1: Water for later. Chop it.

Unknown Speaker #2: All right, everybody, the waters frost.

Cam: So this is when we see Ted's issues with women on full display at the factory, he'd become smitten by his supervisor, a woman by the name of Helen Carmichael. For the first time in 16 years, Ted asked a woman out. Their first date went well enough to lead to a second. However, after the second date, Ellen broke things off. She told Ted he was so lacking in social confidence and she had only dated him to satiate her. Curiosity. Devastated, furious, and jilted, Ted wanted revenge. He began writing insulting limericks about Ellen and posting them throughout the office where they worked.

Dr. Mystery: We have a Limerick here for you, written by Ted Kaczynski himself. There's a certain young lady named Ellen. Whose ***** is very repellent. For the overgrown mass of fat on her *** makes a gross, disproportionate swelling. Her girdles, a tight one, of course. Its nylon and steel reinforced. But no matter how hard she squeezes her lard. She still has an *** like a horse.

Unknown Speaker #2: Sorry, I had to add that.

Cam: In the end there. OK, so if I got this right, he wrote these and posted them up around where they work. She's his supervisor, correct?

Dr. Mystery: So he fell in love with her. And he was angry that she didn't return these feelings. So he wrote this angry Limerick and posted it everywhere. So his brother, he actually worked for his brother, right? And David was furious about the limericks. He demanded that Ted take them all down. And the next day, he actually like changed the words. So he made, like, a gentler version of the Limerick, and he posted it directly. David's machine, the machine that David was working on that day, he knew he was going to be working there, and he put it right above the machine. And so this this act of defiance, it was the final straw. For David. And he fired Ted. Ted actually said what you gonna do, fire me? And David said. Yeah, get the.

Cam: **** out that. Yeah, that does not surprise me. It I'm. I'm surprised it took as long as it did from the get fired. Right. It reminds me of a certain place.

Dr. Mystery: Where I used to. Work. No one got fired when they should have.

Unknown Speaker #1: She did what? To who?

Dr. Mystery: So after Ted was fired, you know, I've I've actually only been fired that one time. That was recent. And you know how that ended for that company. Won't talk about it. On this podcast cuz you know it's still. Legal, legal things are still pending, but. Don't **** with me.

Cam: And I got fired from the others. And they're not. Around anymore. Actually, they're coming back now, but.

Dr. Mystery: They are actually. That's where I got that spice world shirt or Spice Girls.

Cam: If they weren't around for a really long time, I don't think it had anything to do. With them firing me though.

Dr. Mystery: But you know, so after Ted was fired. You know you're angry, right? He confronted Ellen in the parking lot. He was furious. He was filled with anger. And his plan actually, was to disfigure Ellen with a knife that he had hidden in a paper bag. And. Luckily enough, whatever Ellen had said. Kind of stamped out his anger and he laughed without incident. But you know he he wrote down like I was going to cut that *****, but we have we have record actually of two more times where Ted, where Ted tried to find love. Mainly through newspaper ads, but oddly enough, he put an ad in the San Francisco paper. And while I was looking through Ted's journals, we can see that there are several other instances of him kind of longing for companionship. Instances where he found someone that he was extremely attracted to and he became enamored with. However, nothing really like came to, for which nothing really happened and essentially we're. Looking at. This angry, lonely man just becoming more angry and more lonely longing for love that he was too afraid to reach for in one instance that we have of this or one example that we have that highlights this is this letter that Ted wrote to his mother. I am tormented. By bitter regret at never having had the opportunity. To experience the love of a woman. So I have a question for you, OK. Was Ted the first insole? And for those of you who don't know what an in cell is involuntarily celibate, so it's men that don't *** **** that are angry that they don't *** ****, and they blame women instead of blaming their weird predatory. Egregious behavior.

Cam: I think that's it's. Yeah, I mean it's it's.

Dr. Mystery: A good explanation.

Cam: The women are the target of all of their rage, but it's not just the women's fault, it's the entire world. Everyone in the world is against them, and they should be seated better because they are nice guys. So when you said that this all.

Dr. Mystery: Variety in general.

Cam: Angry, lonely Man just became more angry and more lonely. So when you say that it just reminds me of like, you know when you are. Working a shift by yourself maybe like when you did. What is it? Called inventory. Yeah. You're working by yourself, and you're especially if you're doing a job where you're working by yourself, you got nobody to talk to you if you. Go into that shift with a ****** thought in your head. By the time your shift's done, that thought has gone through your head over and over and over and built and built and built. Now just think about how that would be living by yourself with nobody to talk to. That little tiny thought that bugs you starts to balloon and snowball and grow and grow and. Yeah, would drive drive a person crazy.

Dr. Mystery: Here's here's the. Thing when I used to work downtown. What have you there by yourself? So you would work the entirety of that shift. 11:30 to 8:30 by yourself. Just you and your thoughts. And when I was working there, this is actually one of the reasons why I took that. The big hiatus on the show was I was having issues with my ex-girlfriend and the police were involved and there was a lot of things that were happening that were I was, I felt very unsafe and and very insecure. In my in my safety and and I felt very helpless with everything that was happening and I was stuck at this store with somebody who I knew was following me around. The city. Not knowing who it is, but having a stalker that's threatening me with violence because of this situation and I was stuck in that building with just the thought of anybody could just come in here and do whatever they wanted and and I could be shot. I could be murdered in here and it like this person told me that they knew. Where I lived, they knew where I worked. They knew my work schedule. They knew which building I would be in at what time, so they knew that they could come in there and I wouldn't know who they were. So I was in that very dangerous situation, and that was very, you know, troubling for me to sit there for the entirety of my shift thinking about that. But even when you have something very minuscule, like there's a bill that you have, you can't pay, or, you know, there's some sort of issue. My my dog cut her foot open and I was downtown worrying about it. And that's all you're thinking about. Just exactly what you're saying, imagine. Constantly being isolated and alone with your thoughts, yeah.

Cam: And you got nobody to tell your thoughts to. No one better get this **** off your chest. It's.

Dr. Mystery: That's why I started the podcast. No, no lie. I was. I was in a small town. I was isolated. I didn't know anybody. And I felt very alone and me talking into the microphone was a way for me to feel like I was connected with somebody, and it's turned into this great experience where I've bonded and connected with people all over the world.

Cam: Yeah, it's awesome. It's pretty fun. Yeah, talking to yourself doesn't have to be. A bad thing?

Dr. Mystery: No, but it was pretty bad with Ted. Yeah. Yeah. What I wanted to show you was a meme. Ah, and it was a book, and the book's title is 0 *****. And what it does. To a ************. I think it was very applicable here. Do you? Do you? Do you think that Ted was the first Intel to go back? To that.

Cam: No, no. Do you think maybe do you think he's the first notable in cell possibly, but I'm for some reason I feel like most of the men in the Bible are in cells.

Dr. Mystery: I mean, I guess men are just ****** ** in general. I just think like this concept of the in cells. I think Ted is a a perfect example of it.

Cam: He's yeah, he's basically the poster child for himself. So is he the first? No. Is he a prime example? Yes. So Ted goes back to the forest and he's living off of his $200 a year. And with only $200 a year, that's that means he's going to have to live off the land, so he starts hunting small game like grouse, porcupine and rabbit. Apparently, he also occasionally hunted coyotes, which, if you're by yourself, that can be dangerous.

Dr. Mystery: Yeah, no kidding. I'm usually honestly afraid.

Cam: I would be too if I ran into a coyote by myself. I don't know what I would.

Dr. Mystery: Do, but usually I just try to scare them off as quick as I can. Like make it, you know, make as loud of a noise as I can, throw something at him if I can. Yeah. I've only ran into a couple, but it's terrifying.

Cam: You know, usually if there's one, there's more around.

Dr. Mystery: Exactly. Get the **** out of here right now.

Cam: So Ted would ride his bike or walk. In the 25 mile radius around his property or his cabin. Booby trapping motorcycle trails with wire traps, sabotaging mining machinery and logging equipment, putting sugar into snowmobile gas tanks and destroying work camps and vacation cabins with explode. But he just didn't want anybody around his property.

Dr. Mystery: No, he didn't. He didn't want anyone anywhere near him. He was just absolutely furious that, you know, everybody was encroaching on his territory, in his space mine, mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine, mine.

Cam: Mine, so there's even some writings in his journals that he claimed he was frustrated with oil companies flying helicopters near his cabin. He wrote that he went out and hid in a ditch and shot at them, trying to take them down. Yeah. So he's probably got like a 22. I would guess if he's shooting, he's only shooting small game and maybe a coyote. Yeah, he doesn't have a big rifle. No. So he's shooting at a helicopter with a 22, which is going to do nothing.

Dr. Mystery: Right. And when we look at his writings, when he's talking about this, he's admitting that he's not hitting anything. He's admitting that even if he had something where he could hit them, he's unable to actually hit the helicopters because they're they're moving too quickly. They're, you know what? What are they're. They were dropping dynamite, testing for oil, I believe, and yeah, he said that he was ******* him off, so he started shooting at them. And yeah, he was. He even admitted that, like, you know, nothing worked. I was just ****** ***. Right. There's there's a few entries where he. Says that he, just like, is defeated. He's angry with something, so he lashes out. But you know, he's defeated. Nothing happens. And I think that's part of it, too, is like. He's angry. He's angry that. This experimentation happened on him and it's warped his mind. He's angry that he's trying to get away and people won't leave him alone. He's angry that he wants the noise pollution to stop. He wants the technology to leave him alone and and he's just upset that. All of this stuff has.

Cam: Happened to him? Yeah, I mean, in a way, I definitely can see where he's coming from, but I think his his methods of dealing with it are. Pretty extreme to say the least, right?

Dr. Mystery: At this point in our story is when we start talking about the bombings. I don't believe with this first bomb he was called the Unabomber, because, as we'll see later on afterwards, when he sends the bomb through on an aircraft, that's when he gets that that tag and they start realizing it's a serial bomber. So when we get to the bombs, Ted sent his first bomb on May 25th, 1978. Now a passerby found a package addressed and stamped in a parking lot at the University of Illinois Chicago Circle campus. I don't know where that is, but it sounds impressive.

Cam: I think it's in Illinois.

Dr. Mystery: Maybe the package was returned to the person listed on the return address, which was Northwestern University Professor Buckley Christ Junior. And the the thing that really struck him as odd is he didn't recognize the package. He I don't think he recognized the writing on the package either. And he called Campus Security, which is probably the right thing to do. The security guard gets his hand on the package and he cracks the joke. What if it's a bomb and then he opens it and it exploded? ****.

Cam: And I don't think it blew off any digits or anything like that, but he was seriously injured. Yeah. Yeah. Not a funny joke. The whole, the whole thing of him sending, sending the bombs and putting the return address of where he wanted the bomb to actually go. That ******* blew my mind. Like, that's.

Dr. Mystery: Right. He's very intelligent. Ohh, very, very, very intelligent, yeah.

Cam: Oh, much so yeah. On May 9th, 1979, John Harris, a graduate student at Northwestern University, was injured when he opened a box that looked like a present. It had been left in a room used by graduate students. On November 15th, 1978.

Dr. Mystery: The next bomb that the Unabomber would send? I'm pretty sure this is where he gained his title. It was sent to an airline. The device was a wooden box with a barrel metric pressure switch, some batteries and wiring, so the barometric pressure switch would. Turn on when they reached a certain level and the bomb went off on American Airlines Flight 444, flying from Chicago to Washington, DC. The plane fortunately landed safely and nobody was killed. Faulty wiring in the device caused the bomb to not work as well as it was intended, and essentially the the cabin filled with smoke and the crew and several passengers suffered from smoke inhalation, but this was. What Ted would call another failure.

Cam: On June 10th, 1980, United Airlines President Percy Woods is injured when he opens a package holding a bomb encased in a book called Ice Brothers by Sloan Wilson. You know that.

Dr. Mystery: One was actually really interesting. He actually had received a letter previously and it it was addressed to him and it said. Hey I'm a student. I'm going to be mailing you this book. Everybody should read this book. This is a book that everybody in your position to read. So I'm going to send you this special book, Beyond lookout for it. Yeah. And then he received the book and he opened it. And when he opened the front cover, it exploded in his face. Yeah. I also think it's pretty crazy how like when you think of someone making bombs. Wood isn't usually what you would think that they're using to assemble these bombs. Well, think about this. Wood was included in every single. Bomb in some form or another. At some point he stopped creating them out of. A wooden box. He would put wood in every single. Device, regardless of the even if it was just wood shavings or something like that, there was always wood in every device that he ever made. Yeah. And I think I think the wood in the devices was him. His calling card. Well, now as we go through this, we'll see what his calling card actually was, but it's like his interpretation of nature's striking back. That's what I see it as, right? Was an environmentalist, yeah.

Unknown Speaker #3: I was actually going.

Dr. Mystery: To bring that up when he said he was shooting at helicopters, the because of the that we're tied to an oil drilling company or whatever is is he doing, is he actually like an environmental terrorist? But then he said he was just ****** *** because they're making noise on this property. I was. Like, yeah, but well, he, he. Is an environmental terrorist like, well, we'll discuss later on about, well, I. Mean we already. Talked about it, talked about him sabotaging logging equipment and stuff like that, but we'll we'll also discuss. How you know how he's angry? With the technological advancement of society like we'll we'll see that more and more as we go through this, that it's not just about the environment, it's about how society is, how we're we're advancing in our technology and computers and those are mainly the people that he targets are individuals that work in computer science.

Cam: And I bet if he.

Dr. Mystery: Was still active today. Mark Zuckerberg probably would have been #1 in. His list of targets. Oh, absolutely, yeah. Just not for the fact that he's an intellect, but just for the fact that he would. You know it would. Be a profound thing if you know I don't want to say it on there.

Cam: Yeah, you know what I mean? You know what I'm talking about. Everybody knows what I'm talking about. I'm just not gonna try it.

Dr. Mystery: Don't send people bombs. No, that's that's a bad idea. October 8th, 1981 a ball wrapped in brown paper and tied with string as discovered in the hallway of a building at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. The bomb is safely detonated without causing injury and I'm sure that really ****** *** Mr. Kaczynski. Yes, I didn't find any writings about that incident in particular, but like I said, we didn't go through all of his, you know, 40,000 journal entries or 3030 to 40,000 journal entries. In a little bit, we'll talk about his thoughts on all of these, quote UN quote failures. May 5th, 1982. That was the next bomb, and he had sent it to the head of the Computer science department at Vanderbilt University. And the unfortunate thing was that it didn't.

Unknown Speaker #3: You know it would.

Dr. Mystery: Have been cool. If it would have gone off at all. But it instead didn't go to its intended target. It went to his secretary, Janet Smith, and after she had opened it in her or in his office, rather she suffered serious injuries. I I actually remember hearing about that one. So a couple of months later, in July, July 2nd, 1982, a package bomb left at the break room of Cory Hall at the University of California, Berkeley, explodes and injuries, an electrical engineering and computer science professor. So this is the school that he was teaching at. What did the electrical engineering and computer science? Professor. Dude, **** him. Off. Well, he existed. Yeah, he studied computer sciences. That's that's all you. Needed to do to **** them off. Yeah. Yeah. After this, Kaczynski starts his first cooling off period and he won't strike again until May 15th, 1985. However, on that day, another bomb in Quarry Hall at the University of California, Berkeley. Enters an engineering student, John Houser.

Unknown Speaker #5: Shortly after that, a penis emerges from the sky and ejaculates on the town.

Dr. Mystery: You know, I don't remember hearing all that one.

Unknown Speaker #5: Turns out Ted had 125 foot ****.

Cam: That's why he was so angry. Why does no wanna **** me?

Dr. Mystery: Because **** **** is the size of a NASA spaceship, Ted.

Unknown Speaker #5: Alright, just massive ****.

Dr. Mystery: On June 13th, 1985, a suspicious package was sent to the Boeing Fabrication Division in Washington. Now this package was safely detonated and disarmed, but most of the forensic evidence was lost, so it really didn't help investigators, but at least nobody was injured or killed. Shortly after, on November 15th, 1985, James McConnell, who was. A University of Michigan psychology professor and his assistant, Nicholas Sweno, they were injured when they opened a package containing A3 ring binder that had a bomb. Inside of it. And the bomber included a letter asking the professor to review a student master's thesis. So I think when he was reading the letter, his his assistant opened the package. OK, so do you think he considered the bomb? His master thesis? I mean it. If you look. At it from the perspective of a master's thesis, that is a very, very impressive master's thesis. Psychology. No, no, that's that's not really a good I was going to say maybe like if it was like a chemistry. Well, I mean, how does this make you feel, doctor?

Cam: Not not good.

Unknown Speaker #5: No. How does this make you feel, doctor? There's some psychology for you, *****.

Dr. Mystery: So on December 11th, 1985, a bomb is left in the parking lot of a Sacramento computer store, killing the stores owner, Hugh Scrutton. The longer the bombings continued, the more intricate and detailed the bombs became. So FBI investigators began paying closer attention to the detail and intellectual designs of these bombs. Ted had filed down anything that had a serial code and her and had removed any wrapping on batteries to completely erase any evidence.

Cam: When we start to see.

Dr. Mystery: Here, as he begins signing the bombs with a metal plate punched FC. We see he's getting more and more sophisticated and his bombs are getting more and more danger. As earlier bombings weren't killing people, they were just maiming them like, yeah, like they were just maiming them or slightly injuring them, right. They're, you know, these people are. Maimed, injured, terrified. But the one thing that he wants is death. Yes, and his moms up to this point have not been killing anyone. Or wait. I think one of his. I think one of his bombs did kill. Sorry, I might. I might have put this wrong part in the script, but.

Cam: Yeah. No, that's OK.

Dr. Mystery: That's OK, but not as many bombs are killing people as he's wanting to. And you know he he he did right at one point, none of his bombs had killed, and he did write in his journal that, you know, he was angry and disappointed. Right. That's another thing I was going to ask. I don't know if maybe you have. Information on this later in the script, but with him being so isolated from society. How is he? Getting the information on how like the results of his bombs. Well, I think he might have had. Like a radio. Right. He could have listened to the news on that. I don't know if he did or not, but you I'm sure you could find a radio that is as old school as possible. True. Yeah. I guess one of the. He's going, he's or he's going to say if he's only got $200 a year, how is he paying a power bill? But he does. Yeah, so. He could have a battery powered. Well, I was going to say he seems like like a doomsday prepper, right? They they. And he's also a ******* genius. I'm sure he probably built himself some sort of a generator. No you don't. No, he didn't want anything to do with power.

Cam: Oh, OK, well, maybe.

Dr. Mystery: No. If he really wanted to, he could. Have you know? Done something? He's smart enough. He wanted nothing. To do with it. I want what I'm thinking is maybe if you just like would. Pick up the newspaper or something like that. I'm sure these all got reported in the. Well, you know, it's not like he never went into town. He went into town regularly, right, to get supplies and stuff. And you know, he he could have gone to a bar and. Had, you know, seen it on television, he could have done, you know, small glimpses, right. Yeah. Little glances of society, you know. But he wouldn't have the Internet to look up.

Cam: How did my bottle?

Dr. Mystery: Do today. No, he he wouldn't. Yeah, he. Yeah, I think I think even when you look at locations that he targeted, he might have gone inside when he was when he was planting bomb somewhere else, he could have gone. These stores and been upset with what he saw. Right and. That could have led him to target these places. Yeah, and I mean, at that point, right, he's separating himself from society every time he steps inside one of these places. It's just another slap in the face of exactly what he doesn't want to see. Right. So he's getting building and building this frustration with. Society. Exactly. Yeah. But yeah, like, like, I was saying, he writes in his journals how he's disappointed that his bombs haven't killed anybody. And when his bombs eventually do kill people. He kind of rejoices, he writes in there, that he's, like, so ecstatic and and happy. It's ohh joyous day, you know. And you know, it's this fantastic thing that happened that he was able to murder somebody and. It's the the concept for me is he is murdering people in a society that. Is hundreds of thousands of miles away. A lot of the time he is mailing these packages. Sometimes he would go and he would place the packages down and they would find something there, right? But a lot of the time he was mailing them and it's that that is a disconnect for me. You know what I mean? Like that is showing that. He doesn't. He doesn't have the balls to go up to you and shoot you in the face. He will send you a bomb from his little hideout. But you know he's he's hiding out. Umm, you know, sending these things and having a disconnect from society and everybody that he's killing and attacking and hurting, right, that that sounds exactly like typical in cell hiding behind the the the grain of the Internet, right? And that's The thing is like. Men that act like this. Are truly not real men. They are just deplorable human beings, obviously. You know, if if you experience these views, we encourage you to get help. Nobody is beyond reproach. But you know, if you have these views towards women in society, you are an ***. I don't know what else to tell you. You should get help. You should speak to your friends and family, talk to a psychologist. Don't do what Ted did. He isolated himself and and he let these negative feelings and and and thoughts. Grow and become something that he couldn't control. Yeah. And he lost his life for it. And many, many other people lost their lives and. Were were hurt. So if you are experiencing, you know, I don't know how to say this in cell behavior in in cell thoughts get help. That's the best advice that anybody can give you is is get help. All right. I don't know. I don't know. Get help. ****. Yeah, I mean. Honestly, if if that's like if your views on women or whatever are are, how do I say this? If if the only way that you can view a woman woman is through the in cell lens, right, the, the all women are the reason that my life is terrible. Try having a face to face conversation with a woman where you don't try and make her feel like less than you, yeah. Or you do. Try to sleep with her or you don't make her feel uncomfortable or you, you know, try to actually have a conversation with a human woman. Is a good starting point. Be amazed how far things can go with just having a pleasant conversation with somebody. We're we're talking about. Ted Kaczynski, we're talking about him being happy that he finally killed somebody. And you know he's put in the work. He's. He's experimenting, he's, you know, and. And he's finally accomplished what he wanted. And I feel like that's why he had a a brief cooling off period. Is he just, you know, finally accomplished what he wanted? Did he want to continue what propelled him to continue? We don't know. We might know if we analyzed all of his journal entries, but that's a lot of work. But following a little brief cooling off period. After this, at this point in time, he struck again on February 20th, 1987. So this bomb was left in a parking lot of a Salt Lake City computer store. And it severely injured one of the owners. I I'm not entirely sure if this was the owner, if it was the owner's son I if he had a stake in it. I'm not entirely sure, so I. Just put it in there. That he is one of the owners because even if. He isn't an owner. He is the owner's son. Cool. I'm glad we cleared that up. So his name was Gary Wright. In case you're wondering. And a store employee actually saw the man that left the bomb. Oh, so they actually see. Ted Kaczynski from the window and that witness helped create a they they worked with a a sketch artist, and they created the composite sketch that became infamous. And we all know today. And this is again where we see Ted and and just to. References like it's very similar to other Syria killers like BTK and stuff. They have these big cooling off period. He has another cooling off period and most people speculate that this was because of the Unabomber sketch that was plastered over every news source and news outlet in America. And this is. This is about. A six year. Cooling off period. This so it's it's quite the cooling off period and and that's kind of why I referenced BTK was we see a lot with BTK that he take those big breaks. But this six year cooling off period, it gave him plenty of time to test out his bombs and make them even more deadly. And in the summer of 1993, the Unabomber reemerged. This time, he sent letters explaining. Is ideals. And this led investigators and they were able to pinpoint different influences that could reveal his age or his personality, reveal things about, you know, who he was, maybe his education as well and. This is another reason why I referenced BTK was because when you look at. Different serial killers. The number one mistake that they make, and not that I want. I don't. I don't want serial killers to not be caught, but a lot of the mistakes that they make are when they try to claim. These events, when they, you know, write out like BTK, got caught because he sent in that floppy disk, right? And as we'll see later on, Ted basically got caught because of his brother, you know and and analyzing his writings. Yeah, right. And so. One of the problems is that they become complacent that they become. I don't know. How do you say this? They they want to take credit. Yeah. They feel like they're not.

Cam: Thank you.

Dr. Mystery: Being recognized, yeah. Yeah, I put in all this work. I've made these bombs. It's been years that I've been out here testing these things. You don't know what I've gone. Through let me tell you. Right. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the the tactics that they use quite often is when there's a prolific serial killer, they'll start putting copycat. Letters out into. The newspaper claiming to be that killer just to ****, to bring them out of the woodworks. And I mean, that's why we see a lot of these killers have their own autobiographies and that sort of stuff as well, right?

Cam: Come on.

Dr. Mystery: Yeah, yeah. Ohh, good old Ted, you can't just. I don't know. Be a normal person. In June of 1993, Charles Epstein, geneticist at the University of California, gets injured by opening a package that explodes in his kitchen. I'm sure it was louder than that. I think it was probably a bit more intense than that, yeah. So two days later, a prominent computer scientist, David Gellert Aner from Yale University, is severely injured and loses several fingers to a male bomb. Not a female bomb. Why they call them the mailman? Ohh ****. Then we're taking a break until the winter. Actually. Oh, that's like a whole year. Yep. So there's a pretty much a year and six month gap here, December 19th, 1994, an advertising executive, Thomas Moser is killed by a package bomb sent to his New Jersey home. Yeah. So we we see that he takes these cooling off periods and I think sometimes it's because he's upset that he hasn't killed. He feels like he needs to, like, try again. And I think sometimes it's because he's proud of himself. I was going to say you think it's ever because he's so busy working on his manifesto that he's forgotten to send out some problems. I mean maybe I guess I never really thought about that. It takes it takes time to write something like that and like that manifesto is quite extent like it's it's big and. Here's the thing. A lot of his writing, not necessarily the manifesto, but maybe the manifesto. When he was working on it, a lot of his writing.

Unknown Speaker #4: It's in code.

Dr. Mystery: Umm. Or it's in Spanish? Yeah. So he had developed this very sophisticated code. At first he there's actually an entry where he said, you know, he he talks about his illegal hunting activities, right. Because, you know, with $200 a year. Who has money for licenses? So he's just going out and hunting whatever he wants. Yeah. And he writes in English in his journal entry. Ohh. I should probably be more careful about writing down my legal hunting activities. I'm going to start writing these in Spanish. And then he starts developing a more sophisticated code where it was. This code that you would have to decipher in order to read it umm and uh, yeah, he had tons of journals of of this material that he had written and it. Was it was about his life. It was about what upset him and it was about his, his ideas and things that he had put in the manifesto but it. Was also about. His his bomb experimentation. So I think that there's a lot of material that he had written down about the bomb making that would not be available to the general public. I think that we would have a hard time getting our hands on it. Yeah. Yeah. When we Fast forward. To the spring, April 24th, 1995, another bomb is sent out and it actually kills the President of the California Forestry Association, Gilbert P Murray, in his Sacramento office. So this package that was opened by Gilbert Murray, he actually wasn't the intended recipient. He was the the current president. But it was addressed to the former president and he just thought he would open it and then call the guy and say, hey, I got something for you or just get rid of it if it's nothing important. Yeah. Or it's meant for him because he is the current president.

Cam: It's business.

Dr. Mystery: Correct. Yeah. So unfortunately this decision ended his life and it quite literally blew him into pieces. Ohh, the blast was so forceful that it destroyed literally everything in his office. And it was heard four blocks away in the Governor of California's office. Holy ****. This was quite the blast, and this was something that I'm sure Ted was extremely proud of. Now, not wanting to be overshadowed by Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing. Ted sent this package one day after the bombing on April 20th, 1995. On this day, he mailed 4 letters and one part. And one letter was to the New York Times. An identical 1 arrived at the Washington Post. And in these letters he claimed responsibility for the attacks on Thomas Moser, Charles Epstein and David Galanta, and he spoke of his goals and objectives. And he said that he wanted them to consider. Publishing A manifesto that he wrote. And if the. Newspapers didn't publish his manifesto. Within 90 days, he said, he would kill again and he threatened to blow up an airline and and another unspecified location if he didn't get what he wanted. And a few days later. That's when Gilbert P Murray died from that bombing. So on September 19th, 1995, the Washington Post and the New York Times published his manifesto. The manifesto is called Industrial Society and its future. Little did Ted know that over six months later, this manifesto will ultimately lead him to being caught. The 2nd letter goes to David Galanta to basically taunting him after surviving the the attacks in April, which, if I can interrupt. You. Yeah, is ******* wild. You survive a bombing and then your bomber sends you a letter. Calling you a *****. And of course, he signed the letter FC, which did we say what FC stands for? I don't believe. We have, as we've seen, many bombs, have borne the signature FC, which was later proclaimed to be the title for a group of people leading a movement FC stood for Freedom Club. All throughout his nearly 18 years of committing crimes as the Unabomber, he did many things that led people astray. He planted hair that he had found from bathroom stalls to lead investigators on a wild goose chase, and he also claimed that this FCC or Freedom Club was actually a group of people and not just him acting alone. So one thing that I think is really interesting is that at one point, the Unabomber suspect. List actually topped over 50,000 names. How many of the names that are on that? List do you think? Are other criminals that have been undetected or. Uncaught like Zodiac. Yeah, that is a. That's a I never thought about that. I bet you somewhere in that list of names, the actual Zodiac is in there. Yeah. I mean, if you, if you, yeah, if you look at the 5th the the yeah, yeah, that's a lot of people, right. Especially if you're looking at like if you're specifically looking for. People that could be capable of this. Yeah. Right. And I know, like, you know, 50,000 is still like a a, a big chunk of people and a lot of those people could just have bought bomb making supplies or something like that, and they could been put on the the the watch list or whatever. But yeah, it's very plausible that. There are a buttload. Of killers and murderers on that list, that would be interesting. You know if. And I bet. You probably about half of those are just people who someone's mad at them and they're like, oh, there's a Unabomber. Yeah. Well, I mean, and. And that's kind of another thing, too, is like, when they put that sketch out, I think a lot of people took advantage of that. And they, like, reported their family members or their ex boyfriends or something, you know. Yeah. You know, **** with me. You're the. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So at this point, this is when we see that Ted is about to be arrested. So Ted has, we've gone over this. Ted has submitted this manifesto. And one thing that this manifesto really did was actually caused his downfall. He had planted all of these bombs. What he had done is he had filed down everything, so anything that could be identified by a serial number or anything like that was filed down anything that he thought could give fingerprints or forensic evidence was destroyed. Like any way that he could, filing it down, burning it. Off whatever, yeah. You know, we see that he's peeling off the wrappers of batteries, he's doing literally everything he can to not be identified. Yeah, right. Yeah. And we see that the FBI, you know, like I was saying before, there's wood in every single bomb. So the FBI are thinking, well, if there's wood, it could lead us to his location. Unfortunately, it never led them to his location, which, you know kind of. You know. It's a little. Bit frustrating. You know, when you when you read this story and when you, I could imagine if you were there in person to, you know, take off little shavings of wood and. Find nothing. Put it under a microscope, spend time analyzing and testing it, yeah. Sorry, go ahead. No, no, just I'm. I'm agreeing with you. But it's also, you know, he he was putting all of those red herrings and, yeah, false clues into everything. So.

Unknown Speaker #4: Right.

Dr. Mystery: There's nothing to make you think that that, that would was specifically wasn't specifically put there to be a false. Exactly. Yeah. That's also another thing to look at too that I I actually didn't think about anything that he puts in there could be a a false lead. Yeah. But you know, he does do a lot like putting people on the wrong path to cover his tracks. The manifesto, like I've mentioned before, was his downfall. Uh, he had this manifesto published. Two newspapers. So everybody was talking about it and it was everywhere. And his brother was sitting at home and came across it and he thought that there, you know, there was a few things that reminded him of Ted's. His his wife had sat down and said, hey, listen, look at this like this. This is something that Ted would write. So he went through a bunch of Ted's old essays and writings that Ted had written and given to him because Ted didn't really have any connection with anyone and. He thought that there. Was a lot of similarities, but you know he wasn't really sure. And then he found this old. Essay that he had written. And everything that he had written in that essay was the exact same thing that was written in that manifesto. And when he read that he could no longer deny, no longer try to push that thought aside, that my brother could be capable of this. Right, no matter how. Troubled he is no matter how much he struggled in society, no matter how many limericks he wrote about some somebody's fat ***.

Cam: That was in. The past though.

Dr. Mystery: That was. There we. Yeah. That was that was in the manifest. So first page, the Limerick. Was it actually? I think he would have known instantly with that he wouldn't have been able. He would have been like, oh **** this guy. Fine you. I told you not to post it in the office. You publish it, you know, publish it for everyone to see. But this manifesto was huge, right? Mm-hmm. It it took up like pages in these papers, and it took them. It took them a really long time to actually publish everything, and it was because they had to think about, you know, how. How would this affect people? How would this look to people that are our, you know, our regular readers or whatever was at this time? I don't know if they if they were on the the inter webs like they are now but you know when you when you look at this they they took a long time to figure out if they were actually going to publish. This or not? But when they did. It it really? Kind of brought the Unabomber into a bigger spotlight. For sure, yeah. But when you look at the downfall of Ted Kaczynski, we see that his brother notified the FBI and said, this is my brother. This is where he lives. I helped you build that. I I helped him build that cabin. And it's technically my land as well. Right. I don't know if Ted had bought it out for him, but when they uh. When they got the cabin and the the parcel of land, they got it together and he said. You know, go and get him. But he he wanted it to be done on his terms, so he didn't want his brother to end up like another Ruby Ridge or another Waco. And that's specifically what he said is I don't want this to happen. I want everything to go safely and smoothly. So the. FBI and everybody that was involved, they played a little game on Ted and they. Had a ruse. Essentially, they created a scenario where Ted would come out of the cabin and they could have two plains plainclothes officers rush at him and arrest him, and that's exactly what they did. And they they staked out the cabin and waited for a good moment that they could do this ascent essentially the way that it was portrayed was that a forest Ranger called Ted out, who knew Ted in order to ask him a question about something. And the two officers rushed him and arrested him. UM. But yeah, when he was arrested, I think it was like a day afterwards that he was charged with everything because of what they found in the cabin. Yeah, he gets arrested on April 3rd in 1996. The police search his cabin and they find. Components for bombs 30 to 40,000 pages of journal entries that document his experiments and his life in the mountains, as well as a live bomb that was set to be mailed. Which is a a wild concept like. Obviously they they were very hesitant to go in there. But you know, when they go in there all in like full bomb gear, but it's still wild. They're expecting that there's bombs and booby traps, but it's still wild to me that that you just, like kind of look under the. Bed. And then there's a *******. Bomb there probably wasn't even under the bed was probably just sitting on this. It could have been, yeah, it could have been just been sitting there, but it was mailed and ready to ship. So somebody, somebody was the recipient of that. I don't think I came across who. So is trial. Starts in January of 1998, but on the first day of his trial he gets it halted because he doesn't want his brother there and he wants to change his legal team. Essentially, he wants to represent himself, but the judge said. You're going to be represented by who we give you and your brother is going to be here. An interesting fact about his brother and how he felt about his brother. He called his brother a Judas. He said his brother was Judas and he wanted nothing to do with them. I mean, when you're in the mind of Ted, that's exactly how you would see your brother. So yeah, yeah. But then that makes him Jesus and Jesus. He is not. He is not. Jesus, isn't that I am not Jesus, I am not.

Cam: You just had follows Jesus had followers. I don't.

Dr. Mystery: Think anyone was following Ted anywhere? No. So the next day, after being denied, Ted tries to hang himself in his jail cell, using a pair of underwear. Which caused the judge to require him to go through a psychic evaluation. Or psychic? Sorry. Psychiatric evaluation. I don't know if. I guess. Yeah. Psychic. And what is the psychic evaluation? I see that there's there's a boy here and he he wants to talk to you. His name is Ted. No. Does that ring a bell, Fred? His name is sad. No, no. Maybe I'm wrong. It's an old man and his name is Anthony.

Unknown Speaker #4: Ohh yeah, I know it.

Dr. Mystery: Exactly. And so that's your great grandfather. You know your your uncles's cousin, your brother, your sister, your nephew.

Cam: My sister, how did you know?

Dr. Mystery: Ohh, it's your sister. I knew it was your sister. Alright. Your sister has something to say to.

Unknown Speaker #5: You and ohh. She's possessing my body. Oh my God.

Unknown Speaker #4: Johnny. Johnny. Don't do that. I know that you're gonna marry sweet Mary Anne from next door. I'm here to tell you that you shouldn't be doing this. Alright, fight.

Cam: Out. All right, they'll be $40.

Dr. Mystery: So that's what the judge told. You have to go through a psychic evaluation.

Unknown Speaker #4: Dad, it's me, Marianne. From preschool. I know you wanted to touch the highly.

Dr. Mystery: Uh psychiatric evaluation. Look, the psychiatric evaluation was to see whether he was competent to stand trial. It took about two weeks.

Cam: OK, sorry.

Dr. Mystery: All right. Why don't you just start? From before I started with the psychic ****.

Cam: No, we're keeping it. We're keeping this. All no cuts.

Dr. Mystery: Though after he goes through his psychiatric evaluation, which takes about two. Weeks he's found competent to stand trial. The both sides, the prosecution and the defense. Say that he should be allowed to represent himself, but once again the judge says not a chance. So on January 22nd. He pleads guilty. To being the Unabomber. And by May 4th, 1998, he is sentenced to four life terms with no. Possibility of parole. The the interesting thing is that everything that I read was that Ted eventually got fed up with not getting his way, not getting what he wanted. And what I was talking about, I don't know if we recorded this or if I just said this to you privately. But like Ted is what? I'm trying to think of this. He's not. Winner, you know? But Ted is a winner. Ted never loses. Ted is smart. He's intelligent, he's tenacious. He is. He's a go getter. He doesn't lose. So Ted is always used to winning. He he wins at everything. He's smarter than everybody at everything. But when it comes to women, he's a loser. When it comes to talking to people in regular society, he's a loser. When it comes to making bombs that kill people, he is a loser. Now he's in the court system and the judge recognizes what he wants is to win, to have his way. And again, he is a loser. And I think he was so fed up with losing that he just said I want nothing to do with your system. Just lock me up. And put me. Away. Yeah, the the way that I understood it was as soon as he was denied the chance to represent himself, he just said, yeah, I'm guilty. Yeah. **** it, then. Yeah, if you're not gonna let me talk then. **** it, I don't give a ****. That's like. That that's exactly what he said was. Yeah, you know what? I'm here and I'm standing before you and you have to let me speak. And they said, well, no. And he was like, alright, whatever. I don't. I don't care about your system. Think about it from his perspective. Think about it this way. Right. I was thinking about this so if I got arrested I could get pretty good dental care. Think about like you know when when we talk about Richard Ramirez, whatever episode that is, I'm not entirely sure, but go back in the archives and you can check out A2 parter on Richard Ramirez. It did. It also performed really well. Yeah, but. He he had halitosis. He had really ****** ** teeth. Just absolutely, horrendously messed up teeth. And I'm doing this because that's what. I'm moving my hand in this motion because that's what his breath did to it was just spread and spray and so he. He went to prison and he got his teeth fixed. He got a brand new set of beautiful, shiny teeth. Now you think about this guy that lives out in the woods. Him being in this isolated environment was probably.

Unknown Speaker #5: Good for him.

Dr. Mystery: It was probably great. You probably had a great time the the probably the worst part about him being in prison for Ted was him having to interact with other people. Yeah, that was probably the worst part. But, you know, he he was isolated from the rest of society. They're they're not. They don't have access to as much technology as the outside. The world does. And you know it, it was probably not that terrible for him. Honestly, I did read the thing about during his time in prison that he would be in charge of administering, like, educational tests to prisoners and stuff like that. Right. I mean that makes sense. So one really cool thing. Is his cabin. I saw pictures of it. We'll put it on social media and it's actually kind of a neat little cabin. If you look at it from not the perspective of a serial murderer hideout and A and a hole in the floor for you to. Shut out of the smelly. Bomb making mess but. They airlifted the cabin to a separate location. Then they tore it down and then they rebuilt it so they could study it. And it's actually in the. I wrote this down the Newseum in Washington, DC, and we have some really exciting news. Cam and I are actually going to go there next week and. See that in person. We have won free tickets from the Ted Kaczynski Foundation of Knowledge. I don't have a passport. What? You don't have a passport? I don't. Oh, alright. Well, I guess I'm you're going.

Cam: You by yourself just don't.

Dr. Mystery: Stay in the cabin.

Unknown Speaker #4: Ted, is that you, Ted, is that you? Oh my God.

Dr. Mystery: In the cabinet and get your psychic evaluation.

Cam: That's me. That doesn't. And I'm here to tell you that I have a rock hard **** in the afterlife because I've never been loved. You're not blue balls are man are ******* purple.

Dr. Mystery: Nice to have you here, Ted.

Cam: This little pops me in heaven and I ejaculated Anna.

Dr. Mystery: I didn't think you'd make it.

Cam: Well, I'm in heaven because Jesus said holy ****, man, you've never had sex. Let's give. You a break. You mean? I've never. You never used that pennis that I gave you? That's what Jesus said to me. He said. How can you never used that **** man that's so big. Just like a not so special.

Dr. Mystery: Speaking of Ted Kaczynski in heaven, he died. Ohh, just talking about murdering ma'am and. Space *****, not even space ***** like space shuttle size *****. Now that's the voice you're gonna have to do every time you want to make a Ted Kaczynski impression. Ohh, you know what I didn't write down you ******* day that he died. I can tell you right? Now hold on June 10th, 2023.

Cam: Ohh fart fart. I don't even know, but we can't. We don't know. We don't have a calendar in present.

Dr. Mystery: I thought you were in heaven.

Cam: I am now, but I didn't know when I died.

Dr. Mystery: Ohh I see. My name is June 10th, 2023. So Ted Kaczynski died. So on June 10th, 2023. Ted Kaczynski died of an apparent suicide. That's very hard to find information on what actually happened, but it's an apparent suicide. But he had also been battling with cancer for. I don't know how long, but a while. Yeah, he had terminal cancer and yeah, he he I guess he this was probably the one thing that he wanted to win at if we could go back to that like not that this is winning but. He wanted to go out his. Exactly. And uh, you know, in this aspect, Ted was a winner. You win, Ted. You won. So before we leave you today. We wanted to talk briefly about the movie, Ted. OK, so I checked that out. It was starring Shatter. I did it again. I can never say this guy's name. He is an amazing actor. He this movie. He did such a good job. Sharlto Copley. I apologize. I can never say your name. It is a beautiful. Name I'm just. Not very good with names, honestly, so this movie does a really good job at setting the scene in the mountains and really illustrates how much Ted hated technology, how much he hated technology, and he longed for seclusion from society. He he longed to be free of its noise and noise pollution. And like I said, Sharlto Copley. Does an amazing job with his American accent, and he portrays Ted. Perfectly anything that I've ever seen of Ted like this guy did such a phenomenal job. The scenes of him riding around on his bike were some of my favorite scenes there. There's amazing, just like even the cinematography and just the connection and the immersion that you feel with just like that isolation. It's it's really, really. Portrayed very well. The film and one thing that I really loved was like the overwhelming majority of the dialogue was actually taken from the writing that appears in Ted's own journals, which was really cool. I thought that was a really good thing to kind of show that's still real life connection. The film to me really evoked Ted's perception. You know, his perception of this invasion into his secluded lifestyle by the technological advancement of society, the. Spraying of pesticides, the logging equipment, the snowmobiles and planes, overhead helicopters overhead. No matter how hard he tries, he just like, simply cannot escape. Yeah, there's a really cool scene. In the film and it's it's a great scene visually, but there's no evidence that I found that suggests the logging was like. So close to his building, his cabin, the scene is essentially like. His cabin and everything around him is just completely gone. Umm and. And there's no evidence that I found. To point to that specific like, that's how close it was, because that land was owned by other people, right? But this is something that I was. Telling you about. Before there's one scene in the film that I thought really highlighted how isolated and lonely Ted really is at this point, he's extremely desperate for any sort of affection, much less the. Affection of a or or attention of a woman. So they had this kind of dream sequence. I don't know if it's like a dream sequence or, you know, like a kind of reality bending sequence. And it was where Ted is working with this beautiful. Net in the back of a store or a library and they're sorting through books and he has this vision of her touching his hand and they share this really intimate moment. And she's so beautiful and gorgeous and she doesn't know what to say. And then they flashed to. The woman's husband getting upset with him and he looks at the husband, then looks back at the woman and she's this. 80 year old lady. So it really. You know that that. Scene could touch on the his schizophrenia. It could touch on his extreme isolation. It could touch on his loneliness and his desire for companionship. But it was a really profound scene in the movie, for me anyway. Overall, I thought the movie was. Fantastic depiction of the life of a man's descent into madness, and I won't spoil the rest of the film for you. You'll just have to go watch it yourself. But it is definitely worth checking out is a great film. Before we leave you today, I did want to highlight two books that I think that you should really check out, Nuna Balmer, The Secret Life of Ted Kaczynski by Chris Waits and Madman in the woods, by Jamie Gehring. If you really want to get a good idea at. An outsiders perspective from a like a neighbor. Of Ted Kaczynski's descent into madness, if you really want to explore the idea of how somebody could. Commit these heinous acts and these these devilish crimes and then still go and hold a neighbors newborn baby and paint rocks for her and share special memories with a child. Those two books are two books. That you should definitely check. Thanks again. Can I also make a recommendation? You can. OK, it's kind of the opposite end of the spectrum here. But if like the whole isolation from society thing piques your interest, there's two movies that you should really watch. Into the wild, which is like the complete opposite of the Ted Kaczynski story, a man goes into the wild into he goes to Alaska, and he ends up stranded in Alaska and realizes that he needs people. It's really, really. Amazing movie. And then the other one, if you are looking for something a little funnier. Swiss army man, it's yeah, isolation story that shows the descent into man. That's when you have no human contact.

Unknown Speaker #5: That's a good thing.

Dr. Mystery: Yes, I think that's where we're going to leave it off for today. We really appreciate all of you joining us and we want to thank you for hanging out with us. Well, we talked about Ted Kaczynski. This episode is produced by Death Hotel Creative, presented by the Slash and Cast Podcast network hosted by myself, Doctor, Mystery and Cam. Hey there for member access to exclusive releases, bloopers, and bonus episodes. Visit youtube.com/cabinet of mystery. Or sign up wherever you're listening. To view more of our art and grab your exclusive cabinet of Miss Dreamer, visit us@notwhatwesay.com. Connect with us on Twitter at open the cabinet or on Instagram at Cabinet of Ministry. You can also hit up our e-mail cabinet of mystery@gmail.com. Please leave us a comment or review if you enjoyed the show and let us know. What topics you'd like to hear? In the future, if you would like to leave us a voice message and appear in upcoming episode, leave us a voicemail at anchor dot FM cabinetmakers. For sources on the episode, please see the episode description.

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Sources:

Unabomber: The Secret Life of Ted Kaczynski by Chris Waits

Madman in the Woods by Jamie Gehring

https://www.thetedkarchive.com/special/index

Real Stories: Who Was the Unabomber?

https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/the-words-of-a-killer-the-unabomber-case-25-years-later-040221

https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/unabomber

https://helenair.com/news/state-and-regional/crime-and-courts/photos-a-look-inside-the-unabombers-montana-cabin/collection_41103cf1-dc68-5950-babc-17861f0b8858.html

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/ted-kaczynski-unabomber-technology/tnamp/

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/ted-kaczynski-unabomber-technology/

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-11/ted-kaczynski-harvard-student-to-unabomber/102466880

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/ted-kaczynski-known-as-the-unabomber-for-years-of-attacks-that-killed-3-dies-in-prison-at-81-1.6435853

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/11/business/media/unabomber-manifesto-ethics-journalism.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/06/11/unabomber-ted-kaczynski-harvard-experiment/

https://www.history.com/news/what-happened-to-the-unabomber-at-harvard

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