The Key Players

The Key Players

THEODORE KACZYNSKI

The former U.C. Berkeley professor pleaded guilty to killing three and injuring others during an 18-year period.

QUIN DENVIR

The federal public defender has secured reversal of three guilty verdicts in death penalty cases.

JUDY CLARKE

The defense attorney helped convince a South Carolina jury in 1995 that Susan Smith didn't deserve to die for killing her two young sons.

GARLAND E. BURRELL JR.

The federal judge is considered fair and without ego but lacking in criminal trial experience. The Unabomber trial was his first capital case.

DR. SALLY JOHNSON

The government psychiatrist determined that Kaczynski was competent to stand trial.

DAVID KACZYNSKI

The defendant's younger brother turned him in.

ROBERT J. CLEARY

The federal prosecutor came on the Unabomber case after 1994 slaying of Thomas Mosser.

R. STEVEN LAPHAM

The Unabomber case has thrust the Sacramento federal prosecutor into the national spotlight.

STEPHEN FRECCERO

The San Francisco federal prosecutor has been on the Unabomber case since 1993.

KEVIN CLYMO

The criminal defense attorney was appointed to handle the issue of Kaczynski's competency.

JANET RENO

The U.S. attorney general made the call to pursue the death penalty against Kaczynski.

Theodore J. Kaczynski – The Unabomber

Born: May 22, 1942, in Chicago. While still an infant, Kaczynski had a severe allergic reaction to medication. He was hospitalized in isolation for several weeks and allowed infrequent visits from his parents, during which they couldn't hold or hug their child. The once-happy baby reportedly was never the same.

Childhood: Grew up in Evergreen Park, a suburb of Chicago, where his mother helped fire her oldest son's intellectual drive. The pair would sit on the front stoop and read Scientific American together.

When he was about 12, Kaczynski dropped off a caged animal at neighbor Dorothy O'Connell's home for her to watch while his family camped. He carried with him a copy of "Romping Through Mathematics from Addition to Calculus."

Friends and neighbors have said the boy's genius was apparent but his social skills severely lacking: "I would see him coming in the alley. He'd always walk by without saying hello. Just nothing," said Dr. LeRoy Weinberg, a former Kaczynski neighbor. "Ted is a brilliant boy, but he was most unsociable ... This kid didn't play. No, no. He was an old man before his time."

But classmates said Kaczynski did horse around, albeit with chemicals, not toys: "We would go to the hardware store, use household products and make these things you might call bombs," junior high classmate Dale Eickelman told the Daily Southtown, an Illinois newspaper, in 1996. "Once we created an explosion in a metal garbage can."

While other young people listened to rock 'n' roll, Ted preferred classical music by Vivaldi and Bach that "had mathematical perfection and symmetry," his brother, David, said in a January 1997 interview. "I can't ever recall him singing songs or listening to lyrics."

Education: Skipped two grades, graduating from high school in 1958 at the age of 16; earned bachelor's from Harvard University in 1962. Earned master's and Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

Professors have recalled Kaczynski as a brilliant graduate student able to solve complicated equations that stumped other math experts. Socially, he was a loner.

Career: Hired as an assistant professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, on a two-year contract that started in the fall of 1967. Resigned without explanation in 1969.

"He said he was going to give up mathematics and wasn't sure what he was going to do," John W. Addison, then department chair, wrote in 1970 to Kaczynski's dissertation adviser at the University of Michigan. "He was very calm and relaxed about it on the outside. We tried to persuade him to reconsider, but our presentation had no apparent effect."

Addison called Kaczynski "almost pathologically shy," a man who had made no close friends in the department.

Calvin Moore, vice chairman of the department in 1968, said that given Kaczynski's "impressive" thesis and record of publications, "he could have advanced up the ranks and been a senior member of the faculty today."

In a financial affidavit filed June 25, 1996, Kaczynski reported that he was unemployed, having last worked in 1979, when he earned $760 per month.

Published: Papers with such daunting titles as "Boundary Functions and Sets of Curvilinear Convergence for Continuous Functions" in prestigious math journals.

Life in Montana: With his brother, David, bought land in Lincoln, Mont., in 1971. Lived in a 10-by-12-foot ramshackle cabin he'd built himself with no electricity or running water. Mostly unemployed, surviving on a few hundred dollars a year, chopped wood for heat, hunted deer, food from his garden and cans of Spam and tuna. Rode a bike for transportation, sometimes dressed in overalls and a straw hat; in the winter used chains on his bicycle tires for traction or hitched a ride with a mail truck.

Teresa Brown, a sales clerk at Garland's Town & Country store in the heart of Lincoln, described him as being "polite, shy, very nice."

"Someone you'd never suspect, I guess, she said. "He was always alone. ... I didn't think he had any friends. I don't even think he had a job, just a little lonely hermit up there."

Occasionally, he would visit with Carol Blowars, a real estate broker who lived a quarter-mile away, and bring gifts to her and her husband, George. "He talked about his garden," Blowars said. "He brought all kinds of things, carrots and spinach."

"He was very highly educated, way beyond a level of anything I would read," said Linda Bordeleau, a librarian's assistant. "He read literary works. A lot of the books he wanted had to be ordered because they were extremely intellectual works. He would bring back his books and I would ask him: You can read and understand this stuff? I couldn't."

Communications: Instructed family members to draw a red line under the stamp if a letter contained urgent information. Such a letter came in 1990, after his father's suicide. Kaczynski reportedly was upset because he felt the note didn't warrant the urgent symbol. After his brother's marriage in July 1990, Kaczynski wrote his brother a venomous letter stating, in capital letters, that he never wanted to see or hear from David or any other member of the Kaczynski family again. He has refused any contact with his mother or brother since his arrest.

Unrequited romance: Smitten with Ellen Tarmichael, a supervisor at a foam-rubber plant in Addison, Ill., where he worked while living with his family briefly in 1978. The two saw each other a few times socially before Tarmichael, who has since said there was no romance between the two, told Kaczynski that she no longer wanted to see him. Kaczynski made rude comments about Tarmichael at work and wrote rude limericks, which he hung around the plant until his supervisor — his brother, David — fired him. Kaczynski worked another job before moving back to Montana in 1979.

Residence: Curiously, since 1982, listed in Harvard's alumni directory as Afghanistan. Now confined to a Sacramento County jail cell with a toilet, sink, running water and electric lights — comforts not found in his Montana cabin.

Recognition: Named on of the 25 Most Intriguing People of 1996 by People magazine.

Family: His terminally ill father, also named Theodore, committed suicide in 1990. His mother, Wanda, now lives in New York. Both were warm and nurturing "talkers," who while their sons were growing up spoke often of the value of education and of the need to do what is right. "They weren't rigid disciplinarians and by and large I don't think they needed to be," David Kaczynski has said. "Neither of their children ever created problems in the community or problems in school."

Pleaded guilty: Jan. 22, 1998, in exchange for life in prison with no chance for parole; will be formally sentenced May 15, 1998.

On the plea bargain: "We feel it is the appropriate, just and civilized resolution to this tragedy, in light of Ted's diagnosed mental illness," his brother, David Kaczynski, said.

Related items:

• Suspect led hermit's life in Montana (April 4, 1996)

• Rural acquaintances say Kaczynski attracted little notice (April 5, 1996)

• Many in Chicago suburb not surprised by arrest (April 5, 1996)

• Unabomber profile strikingly close to Kaczynski (April 7, 1996)

• Role in capture haunts Kaczynski's brother (Jan. 19, 1997)

Quin Denvir – Federal public defender

Role: Lead defense attorney, U.S. vs. Kaczynski.

Born: In 1940 on Chicago's South Side, an Irish-Catholic kid whose father was a personal injury attorney and a Mayor Richard Daly precinct captain.

Education: Graduated from University of Notre Dame; spent four years in U.S. Navy. Earned master's in economics at American University. Graduated with honors from University of Chicago School of Law.

Early career: Worked at Covington & Burling, a highly regarded law firm in Washington, D.C., until 1971, when he joined California Rural Legal Assistance, a publicly financed agency that represents the poor in civil matters. "I had worked for big, corporate clients and felt there were a lot of people who couldn't afford me," he later said of the decision. Spent a year as a public defender in Monterey County; worked as California state public defender from 1978 to 1984 and then in private practice until 1996.

Present job: Took over the Sacramento defender's office in June 1996. His four-year appointment, made by the San Francisco-based Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, put him in charge of a law office of more than 20 attorneys and some 30 support personnel, as well as an annual budget of $5.5 million.

Notable cases: Represented former state schools chief William Honig in the appeal of his conviction of awarding state contracts to programs run by his wife. Defended Michelle "Batgirl" Cummiskey, a young prostitute convicted of the brutal slaying of a Sacramento man; she faced the death penalty but received a 26-year sentence.

Capital expertise: In August 1997, helped halt the scheduled execution of Thomas Thompson only minutes after the convicted rapist-murderer said his final goodbyes to his family; has argued before the California Supreme Court more than 25 times, securing reversal of three guilty verdicts in death penalty cases.

On Kaczynski's plea bargain: "This case has reached the only just resolution," Denvir and co-counsel Judy Clarke said.

Impressions: "I consider him to be one of the best lawyers, most ethical lawyers I ever worked with," Cruz Reynoso, a former justice of the California Supreme Court, said of Denvir in 1996. "A real craftsman, a person of great sense of justice."

Apparel: Often wears polos, jeans and running shoes in the courthouse; a suit and his trademark boots in the courtroom. The boots are "good for kicking ass," he's joked.

Sidenote: An avid hiker and biker.

Family: Married to Ann Gallagher more than 30 years. The couple has a son and daughter. His two brothers also became lawyers; one now teaches law at the University of San Francisco and the other is a judge in Colorado.

Related items:

• 'One of the best' to head defense team (June 16, 1996)

Judy Clarke – Federal public defender

Role: Defense attorney, U.S. vs. Kaczynski.

Born: 1953.

Grew up: In Asheville, N.C., where she dreamt of becoming Perry Mason or the chief justice of the Supreme Court.

Education: Received bachelor's in psychology from Furman University in Greenville, S.C., in 1974; awarded law degree in 1977 from the University of South Carolina Law Center. Member of the faculty of the National Criminal Defense College in Macon, Ga.; has sat on its Board of Regents since 1985.

Professional career: Started out as a trial attorney for Federal Defenders of San Diego Inc., later becoming its executive director. Joined private law firm in 1991; left a year later to start a new federal defender program in Spokane, Wash. Also a widely published author of legal articles and co-author of the Federal Sentencing Manual, the benchmark treatise on the federal sentencing guidelines system.

Notable cases: Helped convince jurors that Susan Smith didn't deserve to die for killing her two young sons in South Carolina in 1995. Clarke donated her nearly $83,000 fee from the case to South Carolina's Post Conviction Defender Organization, an agency that defends the poor against criminal charges. Her co-counsel, David Bruck, has called her "a one-woman Dream Team."

Present job: Executive director of Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington and Idaho.

The Unabomber case: Appointed co-counsel for Theodore Kaczynski in July 1996.

On Kaczynski's plea bargain: "This case has reached the only just resolution," Clarke and co-counsel Quin Denvir said.

Milestones: First public defender and second woman elected president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers for 1996-97.

Impressions: "She is the patron saint of defense lawyers," former NACDL head Gerald Goldstein told The Recorder, an affiliate of Court TV, in 1996. "(Her specialty) is impossible tasks that require untold amounts of labor and imagination. There is not anybody I'd rather have at my back in my courtroom."

From Clarke's statement on separate trials for Oklahoma City bombing suspects Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols: "At a time when Congress and the presidential contenders appear willing to do or say anything to seem 'tough on crime,' Judge Matsch's ruling should be commended by all Americans who believe in the United States Constitution. The Constitution says both of these men are innocent until proven guilty, and each of them is to be judged separately and fairly. That way all, including the victims and survivors of the bombing, can be more certain of the ultimate outcome."

Married: More than 20 years to Speedy Rice, an attorney and teacher at Gonzaga University in Spokane. The couple has a giant schnauzer, Abe, named after the late Abe Fortas, a former U.S. Supreme Court justice who, as a trial attorney, won a 1963 high court decision guaranteeing legal counsel to poor people.

Related items:

• Susan Smith's lawyer may join Kaczynski defense team (July 16, 1996)

Garland Ellis Burrell Jr. – U.S. District Judge

Role: Presiding judge, U.S. vs. Kaczynski.

Born: July 4, 1947, in south central Los Angeles.

Early career: Started work at age 10, cleaning out back yards. Later jobs included stints as a newspaper carrier, janitor, brick tender and Chicken Delight deliveryman. Also worked off and on for a number of years as a cashier at the Mayfair market in Inglewood, eventually becoming the store's assistant manager.

Education: Spent a semester at East Los Angeles Junior College before entering the U.S. Marine Corps. After his discharge, attended the University of Nevada, Reno, before transferring to California State University, Los Angeles, where he received a sociology degree in June 1972.

Early inspiration: "The Autobiography of Malcolm X." After reading the angry account of the black-nationalist leader's life, Burrell, a former high school high-hurdles champion, shifted his focus from athletics to academics.

Graduate studies: Has two graduate degrees — one in social work from Washington University in St. Louis, the other from California Western School of Law in San Diego. Passed the California Bar exam in the fall of 1976.

Professional career: Worked as a researcher, then a prosecutor in the Sacramento District Attorney's Office; spent nine months in private practice; was a senior deputy Sacramento city attorney; headed the civil division of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Sacramento.

On the bench: Confirmed in 1992 by the U.S. Senate as a federal judge in the Sacramento-based Eastern District of California, which stretches from Bakersfield to the Oregon state line. His lifetime appointment, made in 1991 by then-President George Bush, came at the recommendation of Gov. Pete Wilson, then a U.S. senator. He is the first African American federal judge in the 34-county district.

Dislikes: Surprises in the courtroom. "He is very open with attorneys, and he has a short fuse if you don't give it back in kind," criminal defense lawyer Robert Holley has said of Burrell.

Viewed as: Fair, deliberate and without ego. The biggest marks against him appear to be that he is slow and has little criminal trial exposure.

Milestones: Theodore Kaczynski's trial was Burrell's first capital case and the first death-penalty case in the Eastern District's history. Burrell got the assignment after at least two other Sacramento federal judges recused themselves.

Notable cases: In 1992, declined to rule on whether or not accused mass murderer Charles Ng should be confined to a steel cage during court recesses, saying a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court ruling precluded his intervention. Later that year, ruled against Gov. Wilson's use of IOUs to pay state workers during the 1992 budget stalemate; later settled the case. Postponed the sentencing of Jason Judd, an Orangevale man who pleaded guilty to hate crimes against two African American families, because the prosecutor had not convinced Burrell of Judd's leadership in the campaign of bigotry; held an evidentiary hearing and later gave Judd a maximum 21-month sentence.

Family: Married Karen Kerchner in June 1972. The couple has a daughter and three sons. Burrell has described his marriage as "the best decision I've made."

Related items:

• From ghetto to U.S. judge (March 17, 1992)

• Unabomber judge called fair, exact (June 23, 1996)

Dr. Sally Johnson – Government psychiatrist

Role: Determined that Kaczynski was paranoid schizophrenic but competent to stand trial.

Born: In 1954.

Resides: In Raleigh, N.C.

Education: Undergraduate degree from Pennsylvania State University in University Park; medical degree from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia in 1976. Johnson earned her degrees in five years through an accelerated program. She spent her internship and residency at Duke University.

Career: Johnson is associate warden and chief psychiatrist at the Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, N.C. She began work as a staff psychiatrist at the facility in 1979 to repay a public health scholarship. Now, she supervises medical services for about 1,000 inmates, conducts assessments and oversees a training program. Johnson also teaches courses in psychiatry and law at Duke University.

Notable cases: At the age of 29, Johnson headed a team that evaluated John Hinckley Jr., who attempted to assassinate former President Ronald Reagan in 1981. She testified that while he had personality disorders, Hinckley was in control of his behavior and competent to stand trial.

In 1989, Johnson was tapped to examine former televangelist Jim Bakker, facing fraud and conspiracy charges, after his attorneys questioned his mental state. She found no evidence that he was psychotic, but labeled him "passive-aggressive," easily manipulated and somewhat vain.

Johnson also examined New York mob boss Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, whose defense lawyers said he was delusional and suffered from Alzheimer's disease. Prosecutors said Gigante, facing murder-conspiracy and racketeering charges, was faking mental illness. Johnson and other psychiatric experts concluded that he may have suffered from dementia, but also could have faked signs of mental illness.

The outcomes: Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a mental hospital. Bakker and Gigante were convicted.

Sidenote: Hinckley, interviewed 57 times by Johnson, wrote her a poem, "A Poem for My Favorite Pregnant Psychiatrist."

Impressions: "Sally Johnson is known for being very thorough in her evaluations, and very fair in the conclusions she draws," said John Monahan, a psychologist and law professor at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville who has crossed professional paths with the psychiatrist. "She is known for calling the shots as she sees them."

"The Bureau of Prisons sort of trots her out when they want a certain result," said Jack Martin, an Atlanta criminal defense lawyer who represented a murder defendant last year whom Johnson found competent but suffering from a personality disorder. "... Her future is with, and depends on, the bureau."

Family: Married with two children.

Related items:

• Fair or biased? Views vary on Kaczynski psychiatrist (Jan. 15, 1998)

• High-profile cases thrust psychiatrist into the limelight (Jan. 14, 1998)

• Psychiatrist playing mental chess with Kaczynski (Jan. 13, 1998)

David Kaczynski – Defendant's brother

Cracking the case: The Unabomber's manifesto struck a chord with David, who found the ideas and language similar to those expressed by his brother, Theodore, in conversations, letters and other writings. In early 1996, David took a train from New York to Chicago to help his mother clean out her house and pack for a move to New York. In a desk drawer, he found documents that added to his fears that his brother might be the Unabomber. He sought the help of an attorney friend from Washington, D.C., and eventually agreed to meet with FBI agents.

Impressions: "Everyone involved in this case is also eternally indebted to the heroic actions of David Kaczynski," lead prosecutor Robert Cleary after Ted Kaczynski's plea.

Born: Oct. 3, 1949, seven years after Ted, in Chicago.

Childhood: While his older brother was quiet and withdrawn, friends and neighbors from the Evergreen Park, Ill., neighborhood where the Kaczynskis grew up have described David as bright, outgoing and "happy-go-lucky."

Still, the boys played friendly but competitive games of Monopoly and chess, David has recalled, and performed duets, with Ted on the trombone and his little brother on the trumpet. They loved word games, and Ted punned incessantly.

One of his earliest memories of Ted was when David was a toddler and his brother fashioned a special knob on the family's screen door that the younger boy could reach.

Education: Earned an English degree from Columbia University.

Career: Assistant director for a program that provides shelter to youths in Schenectady, N.Y.

Kaczynski took some time off to deal with his feelings about what had happened, assist lawyers in the case, respond to an avalanche of letters he'd received from supporters and write letters to family members of the Unabomber's victims.

An unwitting accomplice: Over the years, sometimes bought airline tickets for his brother. Two of those trips were to cities where the Unabomber struck.

A common thread: For four winters during the 1980s, lived in an earthen dwelling, covered by corrugated metal on an isolated plot of Texas land, while building a one-room cabin to escape his job in New York. Once the two-room cabin with limited electricity was completed, became a place where he worked on books and short stories, writing them in longhand.

"David wasn't out here hiding away to plan revenge on the technophiles," the Rev. Mel La Follette, an Episcopal priest who befriended David, told the San Jose Mercury News in 1996. "We're people who like to sit in a rose garden instead of in front of a TV, people who like to have as many pets and animals as we like, people who like to look out and see mountains instead of high-rises. This is a place of people doing what they want to do."

Beliefs: A Buddhist, fiercly committed environmentalist and strict vegetarian who doesn't even eat eggs or dairy products.

Thoughts:

— On his involvement in his brother's arrest:

"I know that my life has changed forever. It's never going to be the same. And I know that I am going to be processing what has happened to me for the rest of my life."

— On the possibility that he and his wife unwittingly may have helped fund some of the bombings:

"There is no question that my feeling of sorrow has been intensified by the thought that we may have assisted Ted, provided him with the means to do some of these things. That is an awful thought."

— On the impact on his mother, Wanda:

"She is a very strong woman, an amazingly balanced woman considering the grief and trauma that she has been through. But she is very concerned about Ted. She wonders what Ted is feeling, what he may be suffering, particularly considering the isolation that he seems to have insisted upon."

— On his relationship with Ted:

"There were times when he would invite me into his world, take me up to his room and show me the books that he was reading, or invite me to go for a walk, and it was as if I had been given a rare privilege that other people did not have."

— On coming to the decision to turn Ted in to authorities:

"It's agony when you love someone, when you want what's best for them, you want to protect them, and yet you are afraid that they may be hurting other people. Certainly my interest from the beginning was to protect life."

— On reading the Unabomber manifesto:

"I read it twice in two days, and another time before the week was over, and I felt a growing sense of dismay."

Married: To Linda Patrik in a Buddhist ceremony in the couple's back yard in Schenectady, N.Y., on July 14, 1990. The marriage angered Ted, who wrote his brother a venomous letter stating, in capital letters, that he never wanted to see or hear from David or any other member of the Kaczynski family again.

Honored: Sept. 23, 1997, in Albany, N.Y., for his courage in turning in his brother to the FBI. While accepting the award, David promised that if Ted were convicted and he received the government's $1 million reward, he would give the money to Unabom survivors and victims' families.

Related items:

• Kaczynski's family began own probe (April 9, 1996)

• Role in capture haunts Kaczynski's brother (Jan. 19, 1997)

• Victim kin may get Unabomber reward (Sept. 24, 1997)

Robert J. Cleary – First Assistant U.S. Attorney

Role: Lead prosecutor, U.S. vs. Kaczynski.

Born: 1956.

Resides: In Manhattan.

Education: Earned degrees from the College of William and Mary in Virginia and from Fordham University Law School in New York in 1980. Returned to Fordham in 1991 as an adjunct professor, teaching a semester-long seminar to second- and third-year law students selected to serve as interns with federal and New York state prosecutors.

Career: Worked as a private attorney until winning a job with the tax division of the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., in 1984. Two and a half years later joined the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Manhattan, which has jurisdiction over Wall Street. Rose to head of the major crimes unit, and prosecuted some of the most complex fraud and embezzlement cases of the last decade.

Present job: Tapped in 1994 as first assistant U.S. attorney — second-in-command — for the Northern District of New Jersey, a job he still holds while on special assignment for the Unabomber case.

Notable cases: In 1989 successfully prosecuted a New York attorney and his colleague for a complex $1.6 billion tax-fraud scheme.

The Unabomber case: Two months after joining the New Jersey U.S. Attorney's Office led the investigation into the murder of Thomas Mosser, an ad executive killed by a package bomb sent to his North Caldwell, N.J., home from the Unabomber.

Impressions: "He is meticulous, extremely calm under pressure and decent," Daniel Richman, a law professor at Fordham who once worked with Cleary, said of him in 1996. " ... He's just so unflappable — he really conveys a sense of integrity."

Sidenote: Has run the New York City Marathon and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.

Married: To Marguerite Abbruzzese, a federal prosecutor in New York. The couple has no children. Cleary's father was a New York City policeman.

Related items:

• Top Unabom prosecutor called 'unflappable' (June 25, 1996)

R. Steven Lapham – First Assistant U.S. Attorney

Role: Prosecutor, U.S. vs. Kaczynski.

Born: In San Bernardino, Calif., in 1953.

Education: Attended University of California, Los Angeles, and graduated from Hastings College of the Law in 1979.

Professional career: Worked as a civil litigator in San Francisco for four years before joining the U.S. Attorney's Office in Sacramento in 1984; spent first three years there defending claims against the government, then shifted to the criminal division.

Notable cases: Prosecuted cases including an $80 million investor fraud scheme involving offshore banks, a conspiracy to fool wineries by mislabeling grapes, and the 1992 trial of Katherine Pappadopoulos, who was accused of conspiring with her husband, Constantine, to burn down their 10,000-square-foot home while they vacationed in Greece. She was convicted of arson and conspiracy charges. Her husband is a fugitive.

The Unabomber case: Assigned to the Unabom task force — run jointly by the FBI, U.S. Postal Service and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms — in April 1993.

On the Kaczynski trial: "This is a big case nationally, but no different from any case we have to try," Lapham said. "Our job is to put the evidence together and present it to a jury."

Impressions: "He projects an image of confidence," veteran Sacramento defense lawyer Clyde Blackmon has said of Lapham. "He's not flashy, but he's straightforward and competent."

Sidenote: Enjoys skiing, mountain and road biking, reading, cooking and appreciating wine.

Family: Married; has a daughter.

Related items:

• Local prosecutor in national spotlight (April 13, 1996)

Stephen Freccero – First Assistant U.S. Attorney

Role: Prosecutor, U.S. vs. Kaczynski.

Born: In Baltimore in 1959.

Education: Majored in religion at Wesleyan University; earned law degree from the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley.

Career: Worked for Morrison & Foerster, a San Francisco legal firm, for a year before joining the U.S. attorney's office there in 1989. Took a year off in 1992 to study Italian law in Florence as a Fulbright scholar.

The Unabomber case: Began handling legal issues for the San Francisco-based Unabom task force — run jointly by the FBI, U.S. Postal Service and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms — in 1993.

On the job: "You live and breathe your cases — you have to," Freccero told the San Francisco Chronicle in 1996. "My beeper has gone off in every conceivable place. We have canceled vacations."

Impressions: San Francisco public defender Barry Portman told the Chronicle in 1996 that Freccero is someone "you would want to be in a foxhole with. What he will disdain is notoriety. What he will enjoy is the challenge. I think he is really a superstar."

Sidenote: Holds a first-degree black belt in judo.

Family: Married with a family. His father is a Dante scholar and on the faculty at Stanford University and New York University; mother worked for a number of years as the registrar and planning administrator at Smith College. Has three sisters.

Kevin Clymo – Criminal defense attorney

Role: Appointed to handle the issue of Kaczynski's competence to stand trial.

Born: In San Francisco in 1948.

Education: Earned psychology degree from Stanford University; graduated from Sacramento's McGeorge School of Law in 1979.

Career: Clymo, who served in Vietnam, headed to law school after he grew bored with his job as a truck driver. After graduation, he became an assistant public defender for Sacramento County. He left that office in 1990 and has been in private practice since.

Notable cases: Clymo represented Dorothea Puente, an ex-convict who ran a downtown Sacramento boardinghouse where seven corpses were unearthed in November 1988. Puente was found guilty of murdering three of the buried tenants and sentenced to life without parole.

Clymo also defended Angela Dawn Shannon, who was found guilty of mailing a letter to a Wisconsin doctor threatening to "hunt you down like any other wild beast and kill you" if he did not stop performing abortions. Shannon, the daughter of ultra-radical Rachelle "Shelley" Shannon, was sentenced to almost four years in prison.

The Unabomber case: Judge Garland Burrell Jr. summoned Clymo to mediate a dispute between Kaczynski and his attorneys over their plans to use a mental defect defense. He then appointed Clymo to help present the defendant's position in the discussion of his competency to stand trial.

On Kaczynski's plea bargain: "All's well that ends well. I'm glad it's over," Kevin Clymo said.

Impressions: "He (has) an easy, unpretentious, down-to-earth manner, and a loose-jointed way of moving which led his foes in the (district attorney's) office to unkindly dub him 'the man made entirely of spare body parts,'" Carla Norton wrote in "Disturbed Ground," her book on the Puente case.

Related items:

• New attorney for Kaczynski a trial veteran (Jan. 9, 1998)

Janet Reno – U.S. Attorney General

Born: July 21, 1938, in Miami.

Education: A debating champion at Coral Gables High School in Dade County, Fla. Studied chemistry at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Earned her law degree at Harvard in 1963 as one of 16 women in a class of more than 500 students.

Early career: At Cornell, earned room and board as a waitress and dorm supervisor.

Professional career: Won five elections by large margins for state attorney in Dade County; during her 15 years as Miami's chief prosecutor, managed a law office of some 900 people and an annual budget of $30 million. Her office prosecuted cases involving homicide, child abuse, rape and other violent crimes, drug trafficking and white-collar crimes. Her office won 80 capital punishment convictions for first-degree murderers under her tenure.

Nominated: For U.S. attorney general by President Clinton on Feb. 11, 1993. Sworn in on March 12, 1993, ending an embarassing search by Clinton, who looked first to corporate attorney Zoe Baird and federal Judge Kimba Wood; both were tripped up because they had employed undocumented immigrants.

Milestones: The first woman attorney general of the United States. Had a more extensive criminal law background than any attorney general in the previous two decades. Decided to pursue the death penalty against Kaczynski.

Impressions: The 6-foot, 2-inch Reno has been described as "a tough, tough lady ... an adversary of steel."

Family: Unmarried, no children. Has three younger siblings. Her father, Henry Reno, came to the United States from Denmark; he was a police reporter for the Miami HeraId who died in 1967. Her mother, Jane Wood Reno, became an investigative reporter for the Miami News after her husband's death; she died in 1992.

Related items:

• Miami prosecutor picked for attorney general (Feb. 12, 1993)

• Attorney general choice wins Senate panel's unanimous OK (March 11, 1993)

• Prosecutors urge Reno to seek death for Kaczynski (May 15, 1997)

• Reno will pursue Kaczynski death (May 16, 1997)

The Bombing Victims & Survivors

DIOGENES ANGELAKOS

The U.C. Berkeley professor survived an attack by the Unabomber but later died of prostate cancer.

BUCKLEY CRIST JR.

The Northwestern University professor became the Unabomber's first target when he received a package bomb in 1978.

DR. CHARLES EPSTEIN

The world-renowned geneticist was injured when he opened a bomb mailed to his Bay Area

PATRICK C. FISCHER

The Vanderbilt University professor may have crossed paths with Theodore Kaczynski at Harvard in the 1960s.

DAVID GELERNTER

The Yale University computer scientist was targeted twice by the Unabomber: once with a bomb; two years later with a taunting letter.

JOHN G. HARRIS

The force of a 1979 blast at Northwestern University blew the eyeglasses from the graduate researcher's face.

JOHN E. HAUSER

The U.C. Berkeley engineering student lost his dream of becoming an astronaut when he opened a bomb left in a campus computer lab.

JAMES V. McCONNELL

The University of Michigan psychology professor was targeted by the Unabomber in 1985.

THOMAS MOSSER

The New Jersey ad executive was killed because his public relations firm had represented a company responsible for an oil spill.

GILBERT B. MURRAY

The Sacramento timber lobbyist was killed when he opened a package addressed to his predecessor.

HUGH C. SCRUTTON

The Sacramento merchant had traveled the world but died just outside his computer rental store.

PERCY A. WOOD

The president of United Airlines was injured when he opened a bomb that was mailed to his home disguised as a book.

GARY WRIGHT

A blast that slightly injured the computer repairman also provided investigators with their first description of the Unabomber.

Diogenes J. Angelakos

Injured: In blast on July 2, 1982, at the University of California, Berkeley.

Synopsis: Angelakos, an electrical engineering professor, was injured when he grabbed a booby-trapped package left in a coffee room in Cory Hall. The blast mangled his right hand, but he avoided more serious injury when a gasoline can attached to the pipe bomb failed to explode. Following extensive surgery, he learned to write again, but powder burns served as a reminder of the bombing.

Disaster strikes twice: Also present at the May 15, 1985, blast at Berkeley. He tied a makeshift tourniquet around the arm of bombing victim John Hauser moments after the explosion.

On the Unabomber: "I would like to ask the guy ... if he believes in making changes for the good, why would he be hurting people? That's the only thing I'd like to know," Angelakos said after Kaczynski's 1996 arrest.

Born: Chicago, 1919.

Died: In his Berkeley home on June 7, 1997, at the age of 77 after battling prostate cancer for more than six years.

Education: Received degrees from the University of Notre Dame and Harvard.

Career: Worked briefly at Notre Dame before he went to Berkeley in 1951, becoming director of the Electronics Research Laboratory in 1964. He retired as director in 1984, but continued to work with the lab until three weeks before his death.

Awards: Received the school's highest award, the Berkeley Citation.

Accomplishments: Considered a pioneer in the field of microwaves, antennas and electromagnetic waves, as well as an advocate for students.

Impressions: "He was very much a people person, encouraging faculty and students to interact with one another," Andrew Neureuther, whom Angelakos enticed to Berkeley as an electronic engineering professor in 1966, told The Associated Press after his death.

Family: His wife, Helen, died of cancer in 1982, and his son, Demetri, of sickle cell anemia and thalassemia in 1979. He is survived by a daughter, Erica Angelakos of Seattle.

Buckley Crist Jr.

Targeted: On May 26, 1978, at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill.

Synopsis: A woman walking through a parking lot at the University of Illinois Chicago Circle campus found a package lying on the pavement. The parcel, which had $10 in uncanceled stamps pasted on it, was addressed to E.J. Smith, an electrical engineering professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. The return address was that of Crist, a materials engineering professor at Northwestern's Technological Institute.

The package was returned to Crist, who could not recall sending it. Neither did his secretary, so Crist called campus security. Northwestern police officer Terry Marker opened the parcel, which exploded and injured him slightly. Neither Crist nor Smith knew why they might be targeted.

Education: Earned bachelor's from Williams College and Ph.D. from Duke University.

Present job: Professor of materials science and engineering and chemical engineering at Northwestern.

Reflections: "If you've been involved in something like this, you really want to know why," Crist told the Chicago Tribune after Kaczynski's 1996 arrest.

Dr. Charles Epstein

Injured: In blast on June 22, 1993, in Tiburon.

Synopsis: Epstein, a world-renowned geneticist at the University of California, San Francisco, was injured when he opened a bomb in a padded brown envelope mailed to his home. He lost several fingers on his right hand, and suffered a broken arm and severe abdominal injuries. The blast blew out the windows of the house. The injuries required five hours of surgery. The return address on the package was that of James Hill, chairman of the chemistry department at California State University, Sacramento.

Early theory: Not sure initially if the blast was the work of the Unabomber, FBI investigators also questioned whether the bombings of Epstein and Yale professor David Gelernter could be the work of someone influenced by the hit movie, "Jurassic Park," which portrayed in a negative light two genetics researchers, one from Yale and the other from San Francisco. The film characters helped develop a theme park featuring extinct dinosaurs brought to life through gene-cloning procedures.

Impressions: "Everyone seems to indicate Dr. Epstein is a fine, upstanding gentleman, well-regarded and well-liked not only by his neighbors but by his associates and employees at the hospital at the university," John Covert, acting head of the FBI's San Francisco office, said shortly after the bombing.

Career: Professor of pediatrics and chief of the division of medical genetics at the University of California, San Francisco.

Accomplishments: Editor of the American Journal of Human Genetics; located a gene that may contribute to Down's syndrome; has won many awards for his research.

On the Unabomber: "For the longest time I couldn't feel anything for him," Epstein said after Kaczynski's plea bargain. "I don't feel anger per se. I looked at him in court, and I came to the decision this is a profoundly evil person. He is really the essence of evil."

"The bottom line is," he said, "he's a coward. He himself, who was willing to sentence other people to death, was afraid to die himself. He wasn't willing to die for his ideas. He was willing for me to die for them."

On the Unabomber manifesto: Epstein wrote in a guest editorial for Genetic Engineering News that the Unabomber's sentiments were not out of line with much that has been said or written by "less disturbed minds." He added that if all of the criticisms about genetics and its potential applications were at the level of the Unabomber's manifesto and similar types of writing, "I would be concerned but would not be deeply troubled."

Related items:

• Two blasts end six years of silence (July 4, 1993)

• Two survivors piece lives back together (Nov. 9, 1997)

• Doctor maimed by bomb calls Kaczynski coward (Jan. 24, 1998)

Patrick C. Fischer

Targeted: On May 5, 1982, at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.

Synopsis: Fischer, head of the computer science department at Vanderbilt, was giving a series of lectures in Puerto Rico when his secretary, Janet Smith, opened a parcel addressed to the professor.

The package, a wooden box containing a pipe bomb, bore a return address from an engineering professor at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. It was sent to Pennsylvania State University, where Fischer had taught prior to moving to Nashville, and forwarded to Vanderbilt. Smith suffered cuts to her chest, arms and hands.

Present job: Professor of computer science at Vanderbilt.

Education: Earned bachelor's in mathematics at University of Michigan in 1957; master's in actuarial science, University of Michigan, 1958; Ph.D. in mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1962.

Career: Held positions at Harvard, Cornell, the University of Waterloo and Penn State before becoming a Vanderbilt professor in 1980; also served as computer science chair at Vanderbilt for 15 years.

Experience: Founder of the ACM Special Interest Group for Algorithms and Computability Theory; also served on the Association for Computing Machinery; holds positions on the editorial boards of the Journal of Computer and System Sciences, and Computer Languages.

Research: In theoretical computer science until 1972 and primarily in database theory since then.

Kaczynski connection: Both men studied mathematics in Cambridge, Mass., in the early 1960s. Fischer, then a graduate student at MIT, took a course at Harvard in 1962, the same year Kaczynski got his math degree from the university.

"It's conceivable that we took a course together but I don't know for sure," Fischer told the Chicago Tribune after Kaczynski's 1996 arrest. "We could have overlapped as students. I don't remember the name or the face."

David Gelernter

Injured: In blast on June 24, 1993, at Yale University in New Haven, Conn.

Synopsis: A bomb injured Gelernter, a computer scientist, when he opened a package mailed to his office. The return address was that of Mary Jane Lee, a computer science professor at California State University, Sacramento. Gelernter suffered serious wounds to the abdomen and chest, and lost part of his right hand, vision in his left eye and the hearing in one ear.

Education: Earned bachelor's at Yale in 1976; received Ph.D. from The State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1982.

Career: Joined staff at Yale in 1982; now a professor of computer science.

Research interests: Parallel programming, software ensembles and artificial intelligence.

Achievements: Best known for developing, along with Yale's Nicholas Carriero, a computer programming language called "Linda"; received a Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1986.

Author: Of "Mirror Worlds" and "1939: The Lost World of the Fair," a look at the 1939 World's Fair and the passionate feelings it still evokes in those who were there; the autobiographical "Drawing Life: Surviving the Unabomber" was recently released. Also co-wrote several textbooks.

On the Unabomber: "I couldn't care less what the man's views on technology are or what message he intended to deliver; the message I got was that in any society, no matter how rich, just and free, you can rely on there being a certain number of evil cowards. I thank him for passing it along, but I knew that anyway." — a reflection by Gelernter in Time magazine after Kaczynski's arrest.

Other thoughts: "The bright side, so to speak, of grave injury, discomfort and nearness to death is that you emerge with a clear fix on what the heart treasures. Mostly I didn't learn anything new but had the satisfaction of having my hunches confirmed. I emerged knowing that, as I had always suspected, the time I spend with my wife and boys is all that matters in the end." — also from Time magazine, April 15, 1996.

Follow-up: In 1995, the Unabomber mailed a letter to Gelernter mocking him as a "techno-nerd" and jeering him for opening the explosive package two years before. The letter, mailed from Oakland on the same date as three other letters and a package bomb that killed timber lobbyist Gilbert B. Murray, criticized Gelernter for writing in his 1991 book, "Mirror Worlds," that the advance of computerization was "inevitable."

On Kaczynski: "I don't think the guy is deranged," he said during an interview on the "Today" show. "I haven't seen a shred of evidence to suggest that he isn't telling the truth when he tells us he's absolutely sane, cogent, that he's proud of being a cowardly terrorist killer."

On the outcome: "We have a death penalty in this country to use in the case of vicious, terrorist killers," he said. "I think if we don't have it in us to use the death penalty in these cases, it's a tragedy for the American people."

Related items:

• Two blasts end six years of silence (July 4, 1993)

• Unabomber letter taunts professor hurt in '93 blast (April 27, 1995)

• Text of Unabomber's letter to Gelernter

• Survivor wants death penalty if 'Hut Man' guilty (Sept. 20, 1997)

• Two survivors piece lives back together (Nov. 9, 1997)

John G. Harris

Injured: In blast on May 9, 1979, at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

Synopsis: A disguised explosive device left in a common area in the university's Technological Institute slightly injured Harris when he attempted to open the cigar box and it exploded. The graduate researcher suffered cuts on his arms and burns around his eyes.

The force of the blast blew his eyeglasses off his face and singed his eyebrows and lashes. Harris and several other graduate students had been researching ground motion of strong earthquakes at the time.

Reflections: "From my perspective, it was a random event, nothing different than being hit by a car," Harris told the Evanston Review in 1996. "I think the big impact has been all the interest from the press."

Born: Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Education: Earned bachelor's in electrical engineering at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada; master's in applied physics from Stanford University; and Ph.D. in mathematics from Northwestern University in 1979.

Present job: Professor of theoretical and applied mathematics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

John E. Hauser

Injured: In blast on May 15, 1985, at the University of California, Berkeley.

Synopsis: Hauser, an Air Force pilot, engineering student and aspiring astronaut, was severely injured when a bomb left in a computer room in Cory Hall exploded. He lost partial vision in his left eye and four fingers from his right hand, and major nerves in his forearm were severed. The force of the blast pitched his Air Force Academy ring into a wall so hard its lettering left a legible impression.

Professor Diogenes Angelakos, a previous victim of the Unabomber, happened to be across the hall at the time of the bombing. Angelakos made a tourniquet for Hauser's arm out of a colleague's tie.

Before the blast, Hauser had not been to the computer lab in weeks. He noticed a three-ring binder attached to a small box by a rubber band sitting on a table. He checked the items for identification to make sure a friend had not left them behind, an act which set off the bomb.

An element of luck: "I was standing at the table and there was a chair between me and the bomb. I think that caught a lot of the blast. It could easily have killed me, given the force of the explosion," Hauser said months after the bombing.

Education: Earned bachelor's at the U.S. Air Force Academy, master's and Ph.D. at UC Berkeley.

Present job: Engineering professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

On capital punishment: "I don't have a functional right hand any longer," Hauser said after learning that the death penalty would be sought for Kaczynski. "I have constant pain. But what good would it do to seek revenge or to be bitter? If someone said I had to make a decision today, I would come in against the death penalty, but I believe in the system, in which we consider all the facts before we come to some kind of decision."

On Kaczynski's plea bargain: "It could have been a very long and drawn-out ordeal. And I think the result might not have been so different with a jury of citizens," Hauser said.

Related items:

• Serial bomber's bloody trail has few clues (Dec. 25, 1985)

James V. McConnell

Targeted: On Nov. 15, 1985, in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Synopsis: A bomb disguised as a manuscript sent to the home of McConnell, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, exploded when his research assistant, Nicklaus Suino, opened it. The parcel spewed lead fishing sinkers causing shrapnel wounds and powder burns on Suino's chest and arms. McConnell, who was about eight feet from the blast, suffered hearing loss.

Born: Oct. 26, 1925, in Okmulgee, Okla.

Died: April 9, 1990, of a heart attack.

Education: Earned bachelor's in psychology from Louisiana State University in 1947; served in U.S. Naval Reserve 1944-46; received master's and Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Texas at Austin.

Early work: Worked as a disc jockey and waiter while attending LSU.

Professional career: Started work in the psychology department at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1956; promoted to full professor in 1963; retired two years before his death.

Honors: Awarded the Distinguished Teaching Award by the American Psychological Foundation in 1976.

Reflections: "I would like to spend half an hour with him in a dark alley," Suino said of the bomber in 1995.

"To me, what this man is doing is every bit as abhorrent as the bombing in Oklahoma City," he added. "There is simply no justification for taking lives based on your personal views."

Possible connection: Unabomber suspect Ted Kaczynski attended graduate school at the University of Michigan.

Follow-up: Suino sued Kaczynski in August 1996 seeking at least $10,000 in damages for burns, hearing loss and emotional anguish resulting from the bombing.

Thomas J. Mosser

Killed: In blast on Dec. 10, 1994, in North Caldwell, N.J. He was 50.

Synopsis: A package bomb mailed to the home of Mosser, a New York City advertising executive, exploded when he opened it in the kitchen of his suburban New Jersey home. The package carried a San Francisco postmark and return address and was similar in size to two videocassettes stacked together.

The blast, at about 11 a.m., nearly decapitated Mosser, dressed at the time in his bathrobe, and carved a two-foot-wide crater in the kitchen counter. He had planned to take his wife and children Christmas tree shopping that day.

Motive: Letter written later by the Unabomber claimed Mosser was a target because he had worked for a public relations firm which had represented Exxon. In 1989, an Exxon tanker spilled oil in Alaska's Prince William Sound.

Early work: Mosser was a former journalist and had served in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War.

Career: Worked 25 years for Burson-Marsteller, a public relations firm; promoted to general manager and executive vice president of Young & Rubicam, one of the world's largest advertising firms, shortly before his death.

Impressions: "If you were a friend of Tom's, you were a friend for life," close friend and colleague James Dowling told Time magazine shortly after Mosser's death.

Family: Mosser's wife, Susan, and daughters Kim, then 13, and Kelly, then 15 months, were home at the time of the explosion but were not injured. He also had another daughter and a son.

On Kaczynski's plea bargain: "Nothing will bring closure. Nothing will end the pain," Susan Mosser said in an interview with the The (Newark, N.J.) Star-Ledger.

Related items:

• Serial bomber killed ad exec (Dec. 12, 1994)

Gilbert B. Murray

Killed: In blast on April 24, 1995, in Sacramento. He was 47.

Synopsis: A bomb mailed to the lobbying offices of the private California Forestry Association exploded when it was opened by Murray, the association's president. The package was addressed to Bill Dennison, the predecessor who retired in April 1994 after having handpicked Murray as his replacement.

The office receptionist typically opens the mail but gave the package to Murray because it was too difficult for her to unwrap. The force of the explosion was so great that it pushed the nails partly out of the walls in other offices located in the same building.

A pregnant assistant who had brought Murray the scissors used to open the package had just left his office and was heading down to the hallway to her own office when the explosion occurred. The return address was Closet Dimensions, a custom furniture company in Oakland. The explosion occurred just five days after the Oklahoma City bombing.

Education: Forestry degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

Career: Survived two tours in Vietnam. Worked for Collins Pine Co. in Chester, Calif., as a summer student before landing a full-time job there as a professional forester. In 1982, he was named chief forester of the company. Left in 1987 to join the California Forestry Association staff as vice president for private timber. He became president in 1994.

Impressions: "He was a soft-spoken cordial person, always looking for common ground on issues," Mark Pawlicki, a business associate, said of Murray shortly after his death.

"My father was the greatest man I ever met," Murray's son, Wilson, said at his father's funeral. "He loved my mom, my brother and me more than life itself. He was always there for us. We always came first ... I can only hope I can be half the man he was."

Tributes: Friends and colleagues from the timber industry placed a sandstone boulder with a bronze plaque at the edge of a meadow near Chester. Murray's sister, Barbara, staged a 10-day fast after her brother's death to help her contain her rage. Veteran postal inspector Tony Muljat, a long-time member of the Unabom task force, chose April 24, 1996 — the one-year anniversary of Murray's slaying — as his retirement as a tribute to the slain timber lobbyist.

Family: Lived in Roseville with his wife, Connie; and sons Wil and Gilbert, who were 18 and 16 when their father died.

Follow-up: Just hours before the one-year anniversary of Murray's death, his widow and son, Wil, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Theodore Kaczynski. The suit included unnamed and an unspecified number of other defendants listed only as "Does." The Murrays filed the suit themselves without a lawyer.

On Kaczynski's plea bargain: "While his killer's life continues, my husband and the father of my sons is gone forever," Murray's widow, Connie, said.

Related items:

• Unabomber kills again, timber lobbyist slain in capital (April 25, 1995)

• Victim called caring, kind (April 25, 1995)

• Quirk in routine brought bomb, lobbyist together (April 25, 1995)

• 400 bid farewell to bomb victim (April 29, 1995)

• Unabom victim's wife opens window on loss Nov. 8, 1997)

• Gilbert Murray touched many in life, death (Nov. 9, 1997)

• 'I don't think justice can ever be served' (Jan. 25, 1998)

Hugh Campbell Scrutton

Killed: In blast on Dec. 11, 1985, in Sacramento. He was 38.

Synopsis: Scrutton left his computer rental store at Century Plaza shopping center for lunch at about noon, when he stopped to pick up what he apparently thought to be litter. The bomb exploded, sending shrapnel as far as 150 feet. Scrutton took the full force of the blast in his chest. Metal shrapnel penetrated his heart and tore off his right hand.

Born: Sept. 13, 1947, in Sacramento.

Education: Graduated from the University of California, Davis. Traveled through Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Pakistan and India.

Career: Owner of RenTech Computer Rentals in Sacramento.

Impressions: Old UC Davis roommate and friend John Lawyer described Scrutton in 1996 as someone who lived for new experiences. An inheritance allowed him to travel and devote time to crafting pottery. And given more time, he also would have been a successful businessman, he said.

"What I've thought a thousand times is Hugh was a guy who traveled all over the world," Lawyer reflected. "And he gets killed in his own back yard."

Possible connection: May have studied math at U.C. Berkeley while Unabomber suspect Ted Kaczynski taught there, though Scrutton did not attend Kacynski's classes.

Capital punishment: "I've been waiting for this," said Bessie Dudley, Scrutton's mother, after the announcement that the death penalty would be sought for Theodore Kaczynski. "He took my son from me. The sad part is that he didn't even know him. He didn't know any of these people, and he didn't think about them at all."

A change of heart: "As long as he will be put in prison and never get out, what's the difference? I'm very accepting of what happened because you can't change it ... So why be angry?" Bessie Dudley said in an interview with KCRA news after Kaczynski's plea bargain.

Related items:

• Mystery blast kills capital merchant (Dec. 12, 1985)

• Sacramento case linked to 10 others (Dec. 20, 1985)

• Friend wonders 'Why Hugh?' (April 6, 1996)

• Hugh Scrutton led life full of joy, adventure (Nov. 9, 1997)

Percy A. Wood

Injured: In blast on June 10, 1980, in Lake Forest, Ill.

Synopsis: Wood, president of United Airlines, suffered injuries to his hands, face and thighs when he opened a bomb disguised as a book. The package, postmarked Chicago, was mailed to his home. Weeks before, he had received a letter telling him that he would be receiving a book that all business executives should read. The book: "Ice Brothers," by Sloan Wilson.

Wood spent several weeks in a hospital and underwent plastic surgery to regain the use of his hand.

Career: Joined United in 1941; named president of the airline in 1978, taking over the post from Richard J. Ferris, who was named chairman of the board. Retired in 1983 and moved to Florida.

Reflections: "I've thought about it a lot, but I still don't know why it happened," Wood told the Chicago Tribune after Kaczynski's arrest in 1996. "I've never heard the guy's name. I never saw him before."

Possible connection: Wood was on the Bay Area Pollution Control Advisory Board when Unabomber suspect Ted Kaczynski taught at U.C. Berkeley.

Family: Wood's wife was vacationing in California at the time of the blast. The couple's children were grown and no longer living at home.

Related items:

• Package bomb injures United Airlines chief (June 11, 1980)

• Letter, package bomb had same address, police say (June 12, 1980)

Gary Wright

Injured: In blast on Feb. 20, 1987, at CAAM's Inc., Salt Lake City.

Synopsis: A bomb inside a couple of nail-studded boards in a canvas bag and disguised as a road hazard exploded in the parking lot of a computer sales and service company, maiming Wright, the store's co-owner.

The blast yielded the first major break in the Unabom case. A secretary who had been looking out a window at the parking lot told investigators that she had seen a slight man wearing sunglasses and a hooded sweatshirt place the bag on the ground moments before the explosion.