Programme 9: 9th September 2007

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Programme 9: 9th September 2007
David Kaczynski, brother of the Unabomber

The FBI's most wanted criminal, the 'Unabomber' (sketch on right), had terrorised America with mail bombs for 16 years.  By the summer of 1995, the national obsession with the Unabomber's identity reached a climax when the Washington Post published his eight-page manifesto.  David Kaczynski had no more interest in the story than anyone else - until his wife suggested that the Unabomber might, in fact, be David's brother, Ted.

Ted was a maths genius, who had been a Berkeley professor before he dropped out of society and retreated to a small cabin in the Montana wilderness.  After wrestling with his conscience, Kaczynski approached the FBI with his concerns - knowing that if his brother was found to be the Unabomber, he would most likely be sentenced to death.

He secured from the FBI a guarantee of anonymity but, when his brother was arrested and charged, the press were alerted that the tip-off had come from the Unabomber's own brother.  Eventually, Ted admitted the Unabomber crimes in a plea bargain that spared him the death penalty.  He remains in prison and has never replied to monthly letters from his family.