One of the USA's most notorious domestic terrorists has been found dead in his prison cell, it's been reported. Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber, was 81 years old.
He was sentenced to life without parole in 1996 after evading capture for almost 20 years. At the time of his death he was being held in North Carolina after being transferred in 2021 from a maximum security Colorado prison due to declining health.
Authorities have not released a cause of death. The BBC says guards at his prison found his body at 8am.
In an attack on modern life, the Harvard-trained mathematician killed three people and injured 23 more during a mass mail-bombing spree between 1978 and 1995. The FBI says that in 1979, an FBI-led task force that included the ATF and US Postal Inspection Service was formed to investigate the “UNABOM” case, code-named for the UNiversity and Airline BOMbing targets involved.
Kaczynski was living off-grid in a cabin in Montana where he was caught in 1996 after evading capture for almost 20 years. He pleaded guilty to the crimes.
During his campaign of terror, he demanded that the Washington Post and New York Times publish his manifesto, called Industrial Society and Its Future, in September 1995. He pledged to stop bombing if they did.
After the manifesto appeared in The Washington Post, thousands of people suggested possible suspects, reports the FBI. David Kaczynski described his brother Ted, who had grown up in Chicago, taught at the University of California at Berkeley - where two of the bombs had been placed - then lived for a time in Salt Lake City before settling permanently in the cabin that the brothers had constructed near Lincoln, Montana.
