Podcast Episode Details
Back to Podcast EpisodesTed Kaczynski AKA The Unabomber (Part Two)
Possessing a 167 IQ, admitted to Harvard University at age 16, a uniquely talented mathematician, this former Berkeley college professor became the subject of the longest and most expensive investigation in FBI history.
But Kaczynski had another motive for heading to Chicago. Before he left Montana on a Greyhound bus, he constructed the first of his explosive devices. He meant to send it to a professor at RPI, but when he got to Chicago in late May of 1978, the box wouldn’t fit in a mailbox so he merely left it at the University of Illinois-at Chicago in between two parked cars, the device eventually returned to the professor believed to have mailed via the professor’s presumed return address at Northwestern University. But Kaczynski was disappointed when there was not any media mention of what happened with this device. After leaving the device he showed up at his parents’ house without any specific notice.
Because a fatality finally occurred, the FBI would not have sole jurisdiction in the ensuing investigation. The homicide division of the Sacramento police department also became involved but immediately found the situation frustrating. Despite their belief that the more publicity about the bomber that was released to the public the better, the Sacramento police were told that, no, the FBI did not want to alert the Unabomber to the fact that they knew of his existence. The local police felt that the FBI was more concerned with the fact that after ten years of bombings, the FBI had no idea who the perpetrator was. The Bureau’s explanation was illogical in that by stamping FC on each bomb the killer was trying to let them know that he was responsible for numerous attacks. This would not be the first FBI investigation that was driven as much by public relations as it was by criminal investigation. Within weeks Sacramento homicide found themselves being excluded from meetings and ignored. Both they and the FBI got nowhere in trying to even begin to figure out who killed Hugh Scrutton.
Published on 3 years, 7 months ago