All language subtitles for Historys.Greatest.Mysteries.S07E07.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

[suspenseful music]

- Tonight, an evil genius
uses homemade bombs

to terrorize a nation.

- It was designed to
create a mass explosion,

which would have
brought that plane down.

- Millions of
Americans are terrified

as to where the next
bomb is going to end up.

- He leaves no trace,
no fingerprints, no DNA.

It's like hunting a ghost.

- Federal agents join forces
and launch a massive manhunt,

but still, this mastermind
is always one step ahead.

- It seems like he's
taunting law enforcement,

and to him, it's kind of
a game of cat and mouse.

- Now, we'll explore the top
theories in the FBI's hunt

for one of history's
most notorious criminals

as they finally crack the
case of the Unabomber.

[rousing music]

[suspenseful music]

- [Laurence] 11:50 a.m.,
November 15th, 1979.

30 minutes after
departing Chicago,

passengers aboard an
American Airlines 727

bound for Washington DC

hear a muffled thump
in the baggage hold,

followed by a sucking sound.

- [Sami] Following that noise,

you start to get
this chemical smell

in the cabin of the plane.

The pilot makes an
initial announcement

to the passengers on board, all
72 of them, and explains that,

"Oh, we just have a problem
with a valve in the plane.

Nothing to worry about, folks.

Everything's gonna be fine."

[passengers panicking]

20 minutes after the pilot's
announcement, however,

you start to get all of this
thick smoke filling the cabin,

filling the fuselage.

- The crew doesn't
know what happened.

All they know is a
big bang went off.

All the passengers in the cabin

are now putting on
their oxygen masks,

and there's a lot of smoke,

and they've gotta
get that plane down.

- [Sami] The real fear
is that this fire

might end up actually reaching

either the hydraulic
system of the plane,

or worse, the fuel
tanks of the plane,

which would cause it to explode.

- The pilot comes on and
says to the passengers,

"Brace for impact.

We're gonna land, 20
minutes, at Dulles Airport."

[passengers screaming]

- [Laurence] The plane descends
at over 600 miles an hour,

twice the normal
speed of approach,

as fire trucks and ambulances
scramble to the runway.

- [Kavitha] Thankfully,
the pilot is able

to successfully land the plane.

All the passengers
are safely evacuated,

and at least 12 passengers
are rushed to the hospital

for potential smoke inhalation.

[siren wailing]

- [Laurence] The terror
and trauma are palpable,

but it could have
been so much worse.

- Eventually they managed
to extinguish the fire,

and they discover the
source of the explosion.

It's a pipe bomb that's
housed inside a wooden box.

It's wrapped in craft paper,

and been completely
covered in stamps

to make it look like
a nondescript package.

It's been mailed from
a fairly large facility

in suburban Chicago.

- Now, at the time, air mail
wasn't regularly scanned

by metal detectors before
being put onto a plane,

so the bomb was able
to make it very easily

onto the aircraft with no
real suspicion by anyone.

- Post-analysis identified

that this was a very
sophisticated bomb,

in that the trigger
mechanism was

what we call an altimeter bomb.

So when the plane
reached a certain height,

the bomb would detonate.

[explosion thumping]

- If the bomb had gone off the
way the bomber had intended,

there would've been a
major fire on that plane,

blowing out the fuselage and
bringing that plane down.

- Normally when you have
a fairly intact bomb,

it's pretty easy
for investigators

to use the components to trace
the origins of that bomb.

But in this case, they find
that whoever built this bomb

did a really good job of
removing any kind of traceable

or identifiable information
from the components.

- [Laurence] The FBI
conducts a nationwide search

for any bombings that
used similar devices

and find two matches

in a pair of
attacks at Chicago's

Northwestern University.

The first took place a
year and a half earlier.

- [Lis] May 25th, 1978,
Northwestern University.

A woman sees a package on the

ground in the parking lot,

picks it up.

She brings it to campus
police, who open it up.

[explosion booming]

It's a loud explosion.

Everybody's scared, but
nobody's really hurt.

- [Sami] Cut to a year
later, in May of 1979,

also Northwestern University.

You have a grad student
who also gets a package,

and when he opens it,

the package explodes, and
this time, the grad student

receives minor cuts
and minor burns.

- [Lis] So here you have two

bombs in 1978 and 1979

that really don't

garner much attention,

either nationally or
even within the FBI.

Then you have, again in 1979,

the bomb going off
on the airline.

That gets national attention.

That's spread all across
the national media.

- The FBI, once they finished
their post investigation,

made the determination
that the airplane bomb

was constructed in
exactly the same manner

as the other two bombs,
leading them to conclude

that the individual who
placed the bomb on the plane

was in fact the same individual

who placed or sent
the other two bombs.

- And their concern is that

if they don't find
this person soon,

these bombs are
just going to become

more and more sophisticated

and ultimately, more
and more dangerous.

- [Laurence] But before the FBI

can develop any viable leads,

the so-called Junkyard
Bomber strikes again.

On June 10th, 1980, in the
exclusive Chicago suburb

of Lake Forest,

Percy Wood, the president
of United Airlines,

opens a parcel delivered
to his home mailbox.

- [Lis] Percy Wood is
celebrating his 60th birthday.

He thinks it's maybe a
belated birthday present,

and when he takes a look at it,

it looks like the book,
the "Ice Brothers,"

which has to do
with World War II.

That's something he
might be interested in.

- Wood is examining the book.

As he turns it
back to the cover,

he notices that several of
the pages are glued together,

and it's at this point, boom.

- The bomb exploded in Wood's
hands late this afternoon,

and he is now being treated

in a hospital just
outside Chicago...

- He gets shrapnel in
his face, in his body.

You've got three-quarter pipe
that rips across his thigh.

- Wood is alive, but he
requires emergency surgery,

and it definitely seems that
the bomber is honing his skill.

These bombs are getting
more and more deadly.

- [Laurence] Agents from the
FBI, ATF, and US Postal Service

now join forces and race
to identify the attacker.

They also give the manhunt
a new case name, UNABOM,

short for university
and airline bomber.

And the attacker, he's now
known as the Unabomber.

This mysterious attacker
will continue to strike

for many years to come.

- Over the course of 18 years,
the Unabomber sends 16 bombs

to homes, institutions, and
offices across the country.

In all, 23 people are
injured, three people die,

and millions across
America are terrified.

This is no longer a
localized incident.

- The Unabomber
investigation would involve

ultimately more than 150 special
agents across the country,

and it would cost
more than $50 million.

That's more than any
investigation in history

up and to that point.

- [Laurence] Federal agents
are increasingly desperate

to catch this phantom and end
his deadly reign of terror.

But first they have to figure
out, who is the Unabomber?

- Experts start digging
through the devices

to see whether or not they
might have missed a clue

as to who this
Unabomber might be.

One of the things
that they notice

is that the metal
pieces on the bombs

are fused together in a
way that an airline worker

would fuse metal together.

And so, this clue
leads investigators

to who they think the
Unabomber might actually be.

[suspenseful music]

- [Lis] Looking at the
welding of these bombs,

and they're very similar
one to the other,

maybe the universities
were test drives

for what the bomber
really wanted to do,

which is take down an airline.

So the FBI early on
tries to get a profile,

and this is honed
as cases go on.

But at first they thought,

somebody maybe in
their 30s to 40s,

male, blue collar welder.

- [Michael] The
bombs were housed in

a custom-made wood casing.

The individual took great care
in constructing the bombs.

The FBI concluded
that this individual

had some obsessive-
compulsive tendencies,

perhaps was a loner,
had isolated themselves

from mainstream society.

- Imagine you've been fired
from American Airlines or United

and you're angry about that.

This is a way to get back,

and that's what the FBI thought.

They looked for recent
fires at American Airlines,

they crosschecked with criminal
history with those people,

they went out and
interviewed these people.

We're talking about thousands
and thousands of man hours

trying to track down hundreds
and hundreds of employees

from different airlines.

- But despite all
of these efforts,

it turns out that
all of their leads

for any potential airline
workers being the Unabomber

come up empty.

All investigators
can ultimately do is

wait to see if the
Unabomber strikes again,

and hope that in his
next attack he slips up.

[suspenseful music]

- May 5th, 1982,
Nashville, Tennessee.

A secretary working in the
computer science department

of Vanderbilt University
opens a package

addressed to her boss and
gets a horrifying surprise.

- It immediately explodes,
peppering her entire upper boy

with powder burns
and lacerations.

She's rushed to the hospital
for emergency surgery,

but she does survive.

- [Lis] When this bomb goes off

and hurts a secretary
in Tennessee,

they realize the
Unabomber is back,

and now, he or she is
targeting universities again.

- Now the task force
shifts its focus to,

okay, maybe this isn't somebody
who's an airline employee,

but maybe it's somebody
that actually just holds

a resentment towards
higher education.

[suspenseful music]

- [Eric] The first four bombings

are originating from Chicago,

so they think this is

maybe a Chicago bomber.

Then there's a bombing

at Vanderbilt University

in Nashville.

And then they find out
a few months earlier

there's been an attempted
bombing in Salt Lake City, Utah.

- [Sami] With the bomb
that was defused out west

at the University of Utah,
agents start to think,

"Maybe we've been looking
in the wrong spot,"

and they start to focus
their efforts out west.

- [Laurence] Sure enough,
the Unabomber's next attack

takes place at the University
of California Berkeley.

- Now in 1982, a professor
of electrical engineering,

he sees this
package on the floor

with a wire sticking out of it.

He's just headed to go
get a cup of coffee,

but he picks it up
to be a nice guy.

[explosion booming]

The bomb explodes.

The right side of his
body, his face, his arm,

everything is hit by shrapnel.

- [Laurence] Three years
later on the very same campus,

the Unabomber strikes again,

this time at a computer lab.

A Berkeley graduate
student notices

an unclaimed binder
attached to a plastic box.

- [Kavitha] John Hauser.

He's an Air Force captain
and an astronaut candidate.

He decides to
investigate further

and unlatches the plastic box.

- [Sami] When he ends up
opening the box, it detonates.

[explosion booming]

The ring on his right
hand just gets blown off,

flies six feet,
and embeds itself

into the plaster wall nearby.

It also destroys his right arm,

it does severe nerve damage,

and it also blinds
him in his left eye.

- He is lucky to have
survived the blast,

but his dreams of becoming an
astronaut are over in a flash.

- [Laurence] Explosive
experts confirm,

this is the work
of the Unabomber.

It's his eighth known attack,

and his bombs are getting
more sophisticated.

- These bombs are more lethal,

they're exploding
at a higher pace,

and they're causing
greater injury.

- Unlike the previous
Unabomber devices,

which were mailed
to their targets,

the two Berkeley bombs were
hand delivered to the building,

which suggests that
whoever the bomber is

is really familiar with
the Berkeley campus.

- So task force
members decide to pull

Berkeley employee records to
try to see if they can find

any employee,
possibly a professor,

'cause again, highly
intelligent individual,

who may hold a grudge
toward the university.

- Berkeley's significant,

Berkeley's one of the centers
of the counterculture.

In the 1960s, there are
a ton of student protests

against the Vietnam War.

Is this someone who has
been part of that movement?

- [Laurence] But once again,

the task force is unable to
identify any viable suspects,

and the Unabomber carries
on with a new boldness.

- 1985 turns out to be a pretty
busy year for the Unabomber,

because the ninth device
that goes off is a mail bomb

that explodes at a Boeing
plant in Washington state,

and then you have a 10th
bomb, another mail bomb,

at the University of Michigan.

- The bomber is getting better,

and yet the FBI and
the ATF are no closer

in getting their man, or
woman, or organization.

They don't know.

- [Laurence] As 1985 continues,

things get even more
frustrating for law enforcement,

as the bomber turns to what
feels like a random target,

this time with a lethal result.

- [Sami] It's
December 11th, 1985,

at a Sacramento,
California computer store.

The manager of the store,
38-year-old Hugh Scrutton,

goes outside to move
this pile of lumber

with nails inside of the
boards from behind his car.

As he goes to move the wood,

[explosion booming]

he detonates a pipe bomb.

It explodes right
there in front of him.

- He's injured terribly,
and dies 30 minutes later.

For the first time,
on device number 11,

the Unabomber has
killed someone.

This elevates it to a new level.

- [Lis] All these years,
they've been focusing

on universities and airlines,

and here you have a manager
of a computer store.

What rhyme or reason
can the FBI make

of what's going on?

- [Laurence] Then, in early
1987, the FBI catches a break.

- On February 20th, 1987,

at a second computer store,

this time in Salt
Lake City, Utah,

an employee spots a suspicious

man lurking near her car.

She sees the man pull
something suspicious

out of a canvas bag and
place it near her tire.

So she asks another
employee to go check it out,

and within seconds, it explodes.

- There for the very first
time in the investigation,

there's someone who thinks
they've seen the bomber.

- [Michael] So the FBI
bring in a sketch artist,

who then begins to put
together what the Unabomber,

or what this
individual, looked like.

White male, approximately
5'10", 160 pounds,

with curly, reddish hair,
wearing sunglasses and a hoodie.

- Federal agents have
released the picture

of a suspected mass bomber.

- [Laurence] This
sketch is later revised,

and becomes the now infamous
image of the Unabomber.

Investigators finally
have a real lead

to share with the public.

- Everybody's looking
for the Unabomber,

and then nothing happens,

for six years,

no bombings.

So the FBI begins to think

that he's never
gonna come out again,

and what happens
here is that the FBI

almost gets rid
of the task force.

- [Sami] But there are
individuals in the FBI,

other agents that say,
don't close it up just yet.

They believe that all he's doing

is laying low and continuing
to hone and refine

his bomb making skills so they
can be that much more deadly.

[suspenseful music]

- [Laurence] It is now 1993,

six years after the
Unabomber's last attack.

That June, two mail bombs
strike in quick succession,

again to what feel
like random targets.

- A prominent scientist,

a geneticist named
Dr. Charles Epstein,

who lives in
Tiburon, California,

across the bay
from San Francisco.

Dr. Epstein receives
a package in the mail.

It turns out that the
package is a bomb.

- [Reporter] Violence
shattered the life and career

of one of the West's most

prominent genetic researchers.

A package bomb blew
as Dr. Charles Epstein

opened his mail at
his home late Tuesday.

- The force of this bomb
blows out the kitchen window,

knocks out the table legs.

This bomb is in a small package,

but it's got a lot of force.

- The explosion is so powerful

that Epstein suffers
damage to his right hand,

he gets shrapnel
lodged in his abdomen,

and he also suffers
permanent hearing damage.

- [Laurence] Just
two days later,

another professor is attacked,

this time, across the
country at Yale University.

- Bomb number 14 is sent
to a computer scientist

named David Gelernter.

- He opens up a small,
padded envelope.

- [Reporter] Authorities believe
a Yale computer scientist...

- Not only is the size
of the bomb different,

gone from being housed
in this wooden box

to being in just
a padded envelope,

but the detonation got stronger.

[typewriter keys clicking]

The FBI is able to
look at the typewriting

on the mailing labels,

and they note that
both of the bombs

have these labels from
the same typewriter.

[suspenseful music]

So what the task force
realizes immediately is,

the Unabomber is back, and he
or she is much more forceful.

- [Laurence] On June 24th,

the same afternoon
as the Yale bombing,

a third envelope shows up, this
time at the New York Times.

- This envelope
doesn't contain a bomb,

it contains a letter,

and what's written
in that letter

raises the possibility
for the first time

that the Unabomber might
not be working alone.

- [Laurence] The letter
is supposedly written

by a member of a group
with the initials FC,

which stands for Freedom Club.

- The author of the letter

claims that they're writing
this letter to the Times

for two main reasons.

One, to establish
the group's identity,

to let people know
who Freedom Club is.

The second reason is so that
they can provide a secret code

in all further communication

so that no one else
can take responsibility

for bombings that are
carried out by Freedom Club.

- The public doesn't
know this at the time,

but each of the devices
that the Unabomber had sent

had contained a metal disc

with the letters FC
engraved in them,

and that disc was designed
to withstand the blast.

So it's kind of
like a calling card.

- [Lis] In their analysis,

the FBI is also
able to determine

that the letter is off
the same typewriter

as all of the other
mailing labels

on all of the other bombs,

so they know that
it is the Unabomber,

calling themselves
FC, Freedom Club.

- [Laurence] The letter's author

calls the club an
anarchist group.

- This letter gives
us the first glimpse

into what could be the
inner workings of the minds

behind all of the
bombings thus far.

[suspenseful music]

- [Laurence] Despite
revealing the group's

alleged identity in the letter,

the author refuses to
reveal their motive.

- Is this anarchist
group FC really a thing?

What do we do with this?

So many of the clues in
Unabomber are like that.

Where does it lead us?

- [Laurence] But in
sending this letter,

the Unabomber may
have inadvertently

revealed something new.

- [Eric] As they
analyze the letter,

they notice there's
an indentation.

It's not written out in pencil,

but as if someone was writing
something on top of the letter

and there was a mark left
from the writing that says,

"Call Nathan R.,
Wednesday 7:00 p.m."

What does that mean?

- So investigators are now
thinking, who is this Nathan R?

Could this person be a
member of the Freedom Club?

Could this be a clue

that leads us to the
identity of the Unabomber?

- So they started digging
into the Nathan Rs

in the United States,

and you can only imagine
how many there must be.

They looked at more
than 10,000 individuals

to see if there was anything
that might somehow correlate

to a person who might
be the Unabomber.

- [Sami] But despite all of
their Herculean efforts,

nothing comes of it.

It ends up being just
another dead end,

and they start to think,

well, maybe they just
indented this handwriting

onto that letter to serve
as a sort of distraction.

- [Laurence] To move
the search forward,

the FBI opens up a tip line
with a $1 million reward

for information leading
to the Unabomber's arrest.

- People have lots of suspicions
about who this could be.

Maybe it's someone they know,
maybe it's a family member.

So the UNABOM task force

is being inundated
with information.

- When the tip line is opened,

thousands of tips
start coming in,

and all of them
are investigated.

Many of them really
don't lead to anything.

However, there is one name

that comes in from
numerous individuals,

over and over again.

- By the mid 1990s, the
failure to catch the Unabomber

creates a climate of fear.

People are terrified to open
packages or fly in planes

for fear of being killed or
maimed by a hidden pipe bomb,

and so far, it feels like
there's nothing the FBI can do

to end this reign of terror.

- Adding to the concern,

the Unabomber launches
two more fatal attacks,

but these seem much more random.

The first victim is attacked
in December of 1994.

It's an advertising executive
named Thomas Mosser,

and the attack takes place
at his home in New Jersey.

The second victim,
four months later,

is a timber industry lobbyist

that goes by the name
of Gilbert Murray,

and that happens in
Sacramento, California.

- Why these two guys?

I mean, they really don't have

anything in common
with each other,

nor do they have
anything in common

with the rest of the people

who have been victims
of the Unabomber.

- He's gone from someone
who was struggling

to make devices
that even went off,

to someone who seems to
be able to kill at will.

- That summer, with
the FBI scrambling

to get any leads on who
the Unabomber might be,

[suspenseful music builds]

a notorious fugitive
joins the suspect list.

- James Kilgore is a
California grad student

turned political activist, and
will later become a soldier

in the Symbionese
Liberation Army,

which is this radical
left wing group.

This is a group that
becomes famous, or infamous,

for the kidnapping of
Patty Hearst in 1974.

It's believed that he
helped Patty Hearst

escape from the FBI during
a shootout with police.

- He was responsible for
planting bombs under police cars

all across the
state of California,

and thankfully, none of
those ever detonated.

As law enforcement's
closing in on the SLA,

Kilgore was wise enough
to escape the area

and he's never been
heard of since.

And just before Kilgore
goes underground,

he puts out a communication
to all of his followers

that he's gonna
continue the fight

against this tyranny
of government.

- 20 years later after he
was involved with the SLA,

they're wondering
if James Kilgore

is now making good on those
threats by all of these bombs.

He certainly would have
the expertise to do it,

and certainly the
anger to do it.

- [Laurence] Kilgore's
ties to Berkeley

and his history with explosives

aren't his only similarities
with the Unabomber.

Digging into Kilgore's
past turns up even more.

[pensive music]

- [Sami] They find that
James Kilgore was raised

about 20 miles north of
Berkeley, California,

and that his father
is a lumber broker

in Northern California.

And this makes the FBI think

that maybe there's
a connection here,

because a lot of these early
devices from the Unabomber

have a through line
that deals with wood.

- The bombs are made of
wood, which is very unusual.

You have one of, the fourth
target is Percy Wood,

who lives in Lake
Forest, Illinois.

- One of these devices
was sent to somebody

that lives on Aspen Drive.

And then you have Gilbert
Murray, one of the victims

who was somebody that also
worked in the lumber industry.

- During the case,
investigators noted

really interesting similarities

between the way in
which the SLA bombs

were constructed
in those early days

and the way in which Unabomber
was constructing his bombs.

- [Laurence] Investigators
note the strong similarity

between Kilgore and
that infamous sketch.

- By now, he's somebody

that would've been
in about his 40s,

and the last time he's seen,

he stands at about 5'10",
weighs about 170 pounds,

and he has this
reddish, brown hair.

- [Mike] Looking at Kilgore as
a suspect made perfect sense,

and the idea that
this '70s terrorist

was now reinventing himself
wasn't out of reach.

- [Laurence] But those
who know James Kilgore

insist he doesn't fit the
profile of a serial killer.

- For starters, Patty Hearst
describes Kilgore in her book

as a, quote, "model of reason."

The other challenge in
pinning Kilgore down

is that the FBI can't find him.

They don't know where he's at.

- [Laurence] Meanwhile,

the Unabomber seems to
be getting more brazen,

taunting the media as
well as his victims.

- [Eric] A letter arrives at
the San Francisco Chronicle,

and it's a short letter, and
it says that the Unabomber

is going to place a bomb
on an airplane out of LAX

in the next six days,

and this sends the entire
country into a panic,

and it turns out that this
whole thing was a hoax.

- [Laurence] The Unabomber
then sends more letters

to the Washington Post
and the New York Times,

but these are very different

and give investigators
fresh insights

into the bomber's motives.

- He sends a letter
to the Washington Post

and the New York Times
saying that he will, FC will,

stop bombings if they publish
their 35,000-word manifesto.

What is this manifesto about?

It's a diatribe against
the industrial complex,

that computerization is
going to kill our society

and must be thwarted.

If the papers publish
his manifesto,

FC says, they will stop bombing.

- [Laurence] The papers
aren't sure what to do,

and consult with Attorney
General Janet Reno

and FBI Director Louis Freeh.

- [Eric] Do we give in
to this guy's demands,

do we publish this in the hopes

that he really
will stop bombing,

or do we refuse to publish it

because what kind of an
example does this set?

- Ultimately, the FBI
tell the New York Times

and the Washington Post,

"Go ahead and publish
the manifesto.

We realize that there's
a risk involved,

but it might be worth the risk.

- [Reporter] The Washington
Post published his words

only after speaking with
Attorney General Janet Reno

and FBI officials.

The Justice Department
hopes to use his own words

to lead investigators

to one of the most hunted
men in the country.

- I think if he wrote one
sentence or 37,000 words,

he's revealing more of himself

every time he writes anything.

- [Sami] The manifesto's
published on

September 19th, 1995.

Millions of people
read this manifesto,

and following its publication,

you have thousands of new tips

that are coming into that
tip line that the FBI set up

that are providing potentially
hundreds of new suspects.

- [Laurence] On
November 12th, 1995,

two months after the Unabomber's
manifesto is published,

journalist Tom Bates,
at the Oregonian,

says he knows who
the Unabomber is,

a criminal on the
FBI's most wanted list.

- Bates claims that the
language used in the manifesto

and the ideas that are
espoused in that writing

match up to someone that
is known to have planted

bombs and explosives on
university campuses in the past

and is someone who is a
pretty famed fugitive.

- On August 24th, 1970,
at 3:40 in the morning,

the group pull up in a
van that they've loaded

with 2,000 pounds of explosives,

preparing to detonate
a bomb at a university.

And the man who
allegedly built this bomb

and dreamt up this scheme
was a 22-year-old student

named Leo Burt.

[suspenseful music]

- [Laurence] Born and
raised in Pennsylvania,

Burt came to the University
of Wisconsin in the late 1960s

to row varsity crew.

But after being
cut from the team,

his interests turned
more political.

- So he works at the
student newspaper

as a student journalist,
but one reason

for wanting to carry out
these forms of protest

is because he actually covers

the shooting that
happens at Kent State,

and he's badly beaten
by a police officer

that's putting down
that protest that day.

But over time, his protest

starts to lean in a
more violent direction.

- On New Year's Eve 1969,

Burt and three associates
steal a small plane.

They drop homemade bombs

on the Badger Army
Ammunition Plant,

but they don't detonate.

- [Laurence] That summer,

Burt sets his sights
on a new target.

- [Sami] On the campus of

the University of Wisconsin
Madison at the time,

there is the Army
Mathematics Research Center,

which is a government funded

think tank known as Army Math.

- Army Math, as it was known,

was despised by many
anti-war activists,

who believed that the
center was responsible

for much of the death and
destruction in Southeast Asia

and had no place on a
government-funded campus.

Burt and his New
Year's Eve associates,

they steal a van from
a campus parking lot

and fill it with six barrels
of fertilizer and fuel oil.

They wait until the wee
hours of the morning

and they drive the
van to Sterling Hall.

At 3:42 a.m., they
light the fuse.

[explosion booming]

[dark tense music]

- [Sami] The bomb explodes,

and this huge rattle is
felt all across campus.

Now, the Army Math building
itself isn't really touched,

but everything around Army Math

and near Army Math is
basically destroyed,

including a physics lab

in which you have a
33-year-old graduate student

who is working late that night.

He ends up dying in the blast.

And there are also five
other people in the lab

that are critically injured.

- [Kavitha] Burt's
three co-conspirators

are caught, tried and sentenced,

but Burt himself
remains a fugitive

throughout the
Unabomber's active years.

Journalist Tom Bates
writes a book about Burt

and the Sterling Hall bombing.

Years later when the Unabomber's
manifesto is published,

he insists that it
has to be the work

of the fugitive campus bomber.

Bates cites a magazine
article written by Burt

called, "Do We Need a
National Organization?"

- The writing is similar,
the style is similar,

and so, Tom Bates makes
the argument that,

just looking at the language

and the way that the
manifesto is written,

it's very much like what Leo
Burt wrote many years ago.

- [Sami] He also says
that Burt is somebody

that really has no
regard for loss of life,

as evidenced by the fact that
the Sterling Hall explosion

kills that graduate student
and Burt shows no empathy,

instead just decides to flee.

- [Laurence] Federal
agents investigate Burt,

claiming that he can't
be completely discounted

while still at large,

but someone else
reading the manifesto

hears a different voice.

- She recognizes
the style, the tone,

and the anger that's
present in the manifesto

because she's seen this,
but much closer to home.

[suspenseful music]

- [Laurence] It's now late 1995,

17 years after the Unabomber

first began his
terrifying attacks.

Linda Patrik, a
philosophy professor

from Schenectady, New York

is in Paris on sabbatical.

- She's reading an
English language newspaper

with excerpts of the
recently published

Unabomber's manifesto,

and the words seem
eerily similar

to something she's read before.

This writing contains
striking similarities

to some letters that had
been sent to her husband,

David Kaczynski, from
his estranged brother.

He was furious that

David was marrying Linda

despite never having met her,

and he wrote long,
vengeful letters

disparaging their marriage

and the institution
of marriage itself.

- [Laurence] Shortly after
the manifesto was released,

David comes to Paris for a visit

and Linda shares her concerns

that his brother Ted
might be the Unabomber.

- He doesn't
believe it at first.

He hasn't read
the manifesto yet.

He said, "I know my brother.

He's a little wacky.

He's out there
living off the grid.

I know he is strange,
but he's sweet.

He wouldn't hurt a fly."

[welding torch sparking]

- He says to Linda,

"I think there's one
in a thousand chance

that my brother could
be the Unabomber."

And she says, "Well, one in
a thousand is significant.

We need to start
thinking about this."

- [Lis] And that's when Dave
looks up the manifesto.

He's able then to
get all the letters

he's received over the
years from his brother.

As he and his wife look
through all of these letters,

they realize that there is

a very striking similarity.

- [Laurence] In February 1996,
David reaches out to the FBI

to share his suspicions,

and turns over a trove of
Ted's writings for comparison.

After looking into more
than 2,000 suspects,

the task force may
finally have their man.

- [Sami] Ted Kaczynski is born
in Chicago, Illinois in 1942

to working class parents,

but he's an incredibly
gifted student,

especially in mathematics.

He actually scores
a 167 on an IQ test,

and he even skips two
grades in high school,

graduates by the age of 15,

and is immediately
accepted to Harvard.

Once he finishes at Harvard,

he then goes on to
University of Michigan

to obtain his master's, and
then later his doctorate degree.

- He's quickly hired

by the University of
California Berkeley.

He's put on a tenure track as
a professor in his mid 20s.

And so, this is a
guy who seems to have

a huge future ahead of him.

So that's one story
of Ted Kaczynski.

The other story of Ted Kaczynski
is that this is someone

who always felt
alienated from his peers,

he's always had
difficulty making friends.

- At Berkeley, he's not
well liked by his students.

They think that he's dull,

and unengaged, and
pathologically shy.

And so, in 1969, he resigns
without any explanation.

In 1971, he moves to a tiny
remote cabin in Lincoln, Montana

where he lives a
life off the grid

without electricity
or running water.

- [Laurence] Despite
the peaceful setting,

his mind is not at rest.

[suspenseful music]

- [Lis] Now, Ted Kaczynski
is living off the grid,

as he wanted,

but he's still writing
letters to his family,

diatribes against
the government,

and socialization
and computerization.

Ted Kaczynski is
not a happy guy.

The FBI is optimistic.

Now they have a real lead.

They speak with David,
they speak with Linda,

and the more that they
compare letters

that he's written
to them in the past,

they think they have their guy.

- [Laurence] On April 3rd, 1996,

the FBI finally shows
up at the Montana cabin.

- They bring their operations
teams to Lincoln, Montana.

They have snipers,

they have everyone ready
in case things go wrong.

Probably most
importantly for them,

they wanna have all of
their evidence intact.

- So for 18 years, the FBI
has been chasing a ghost,

someone they believe
who's highly intelligent,

well-educated, trained,
and versed in terrorism

and counter-terrorism
activities.

But when they arrest
Ted Kaczynski,

they find something
completely different.

- [Sami] His clothes have
all of these holes in them.

He's covered in ash.

His face, his hair is matted.

He smells.

- As soon as they enter
the cabin, it becomes clear

they essentially
have a confession

to the UNABOM attacks
in physical form.

- [Laurence] It's a
treasure trove of evidence.

- Bomb making materials.

There are things
linked to the attacks,

like the Smith
Corona typewriter

that was used to type
copies of the manifesto,

that was used to type
some of the letters.

- [Lis] They find 40,000
pages, journal pages,

which explain every single bomb,

how to build a bomb even.

But Ted Kaczynski is
proud of his work,

and he writes about
it in these journals.

- Under the bed, they find
an aluminum wrapped package

addressed to an aerospace
company in Texas,

and sure enough, there
is a live bomb inside.

- [Laurence] One of the longest

and most expensive manhunts
in US history is finally over,

but the quest to fully
understand the Unabomber

carries on.

- [Sami] So what exactly were
the Unabomber's motives?

Was this person just evil?

Were they somebody
that was just insane?

- Look, Ted Kaczynski
could've gotten away with this

for years longer than he did,

and it was really his
wanting that attention

and wanting that recognition,

and getting that
manifesto published

that led to his arrest.

- In January of 1998, Ted
Kaczynski pleads guilty,

and is moved to an isolated
cell in a Supermax prison

in Colorado, where he
dies by suicide in 2023.

David Kaczynski, long
torn by his decision

to turn in his own brother,
collects the $1 million reward,

but turns it over

to the families of
his brother's victims.

I'm Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching
this Case Closed episode

of History's Greatest Mysteries.

[suspenseful music]