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The Unabomber /// Part 2 /// 483

November 08, 2022 / 01:04:44

This episode covers the Unabomber case, focusing on Ted Kaczynski, his manifesto, and the investigation leading to his capture. Key discussions include the bombings, the Freedom Club, and the role of Kaczynski's brother, David.

The episode begins with a timeline of bombings attributed to the Unabomber, starting with the 1993 attack on Dr. Charles Epstein and leading to the deadly bombings in 1995. The hosts discuss the evolution of the attacks and the FBI's growing concerns.

Attention is given to the communications from the terrorist group, Freedom Club, including letters sent to newspapers. The hosts highlight the significance of a letter to the New York Times, which contained a note referencing a "Nathan R," prompting a nationwide search.

The conversation shifts to the publication of Kaczynski's manifesto, titled "Industrial Society and Its Future," and the debate among media outlets about whether to publish it. The FBI's strategy to monitor the publication's distribution is also discussed.

Finally, the episode details David Kaczynski's decision to turn in his brother after recognizing similarities between Ted's writings and the manifesto. The hosts reflect on the complexities of Ted Kaczynski's background and the impact of his actions.

TLDR

The episode examines the Unabomber case, focusing on Ted Kaczynski, his manifesto, and his brother's role in his capture.

Episode

1:04:44
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foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
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enough of the business all right everybody gather round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime
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thank you on July 22nd 1993 an employee at the University of California is injured
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after opening a package that exploded in his kitchen the package was mailed to his home this is world renowned
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geneticist Dr Charles Epstein he was severely injured in the attack just two days later Captain a prominent computer
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scientist from Yale University receives a bomb in the mail and lost several fingers when he opened up the package in
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December of 1994 a package was received at the home of Thomas Moser in North Caldwell New
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Jersey Thomas Moser was an executive at the public relations firm Burson marsteller Thomas opens the package and
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is killed immediately now this is Bomb number 15 if you are keeping score at home
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on April 24th 1995. a male bomb was sent to William Dennison at his office however
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Denison who the package is addressed to is actually the former president of the California Forestry Association located
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in Sacramento so the new president is the one who actually receives this package this is
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Gilbert Murray he opens the package and he is killed immediately so now what we have here
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Captain is two bombs in a row that are both deadly our attacker seems to have perfected his craft which has to be
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scary for the FBI because what we know in his previous attacks is not just sending bombs to individuals but the
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bombs that he put on the flight flight 444 and if that bomb would have went off we're talking about casualties almost up
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to a hundred people and so if he's able to then go hey well this is working instead of going after single
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individuals again I'll go after the Arab lines again and if they don't stop it I mean you're you're talking about a
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massive devastation Captain I want to get into some Communications that have been going on
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through the course of this investigation and these attacks now there was a letter
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that was sent to the San Francisco Examiner in 1985 and I actually have in my notes here that a letter at some
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point was received by the San Francisco Chronicle as well I don't have that date
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in front of me but one thing interesting to our listeners they will remember the
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San Francisco Chronicle from the Zodiac case that's where he sent most of his Communications
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now in this letter back from 1985 the author is explaining what FC stands for so I'll just read the first couple
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sentences of this letter and what it says here is that this was a hand written letter and it says to the San
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Francisco Examiner the bomb that crippled the right arm of a graduate student in electrical engineering and
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damaged a computer lab at U of Cal Berkeley last May was planted by a terrorist group called Freedom club we
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are also responsible for some earlier bombing attempts and it goes on to list some of those attempts and it also goes
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on to State how some of the bombs were constructed to try to prove that we are in fact who we say we are yeah and then
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also they reminded everybody that the first rule of Freedom Club is to not talk about Freedom Club as well as the
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second rule of Freedom Club as well now there was some communication with the New York Times
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from this same terrorist group that's identifying themselves as terrorist group FC in their Communications with a
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Warren Hodge of the New York Times this letter was in 1995. again explaining just like we said with the previous
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letter what the group stands for what they're responsible for and descriptions of
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bombs proving we are who we say we are what's interesting about this scenario with both of these situations
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with the the letter to the San Francisco newspaper and then the New York Times one thing that the FBI was doing in
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their investigations was they were able to really pinpoint and determine where the mail bombs that were actually sent
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through the mail were shipped from where where someone dropped them into the mail
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they found that the majority of the communications as well as the majority of the bombs that were mailed were
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mailed in the San Francisco area so what they believe in their investigation is that they are looking
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for someone who lives in or around the greater San Francisco area now we have another scenario and this
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comes from the 1995 letter to the New York Times what they see on the letter is indentations like someone had wrote
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something on another piece of paper on top of this letter or this envelope that was sent to the New York Times
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through some analysis they're able to determine what what was written and it was written call Nathan R Wednesday 7 pm
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now the FBI is desperately looking for a Nathan R because they believe that this
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evidence suggests to them that the Unabomber made a mistake he accidentally wrote over top of his
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letter and now they need to find a Nathan R because a Nathan R may have received a
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call on a Wednesday at 7 pm at some point from the Unabomber who made a note to themselves call Nathan R Wednesday 7
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pm they are making a national hunt for everyone named Nathan r with the last initial last name initial of R yeah or
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possibly Nathan R is connected to this Freedom Club their second objective once they track down every Nathan R and ask
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them the simple question of do you know who the Unabomber is or do you who called you on a Wednesday at 7 pm so so
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on and so forth yeah or sometimes they ask them to straight up are you a piece of [ __ ] they thought you know what if
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it's not Nathan last name that starts with R once we've cleared all them let's start
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looking for Nathan middle initial R right the problem with this is there's a lot of Nathan ours out there first of
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all and second of all not all these guys want to talk to you you know your law enforcement agency and you're saying hey
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we need to ask you a couple questions you're going what are you doing contacting me I don't know what it is
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that you're talking about get the hell out of here especially if you're nowhere near the San Francisco area I wonder if
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there was any communication within the FBI to go well we have now communication from
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this FC possibly an individual or a group all the communication is coming from San
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Francisco our communication with the Zodiac was coming from San Francisco there's now
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communication between this Unabomber or FC towards newspapers just like the zodiac
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is it I wonder if there was conversation within the agency to go is this somehow
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connected to the Zodiac my guess would be that when you have this many agents working on a case in a case that's uh
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has a span of this many years that you probably have all kinds of speculation and theories especially early on in the
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case when you have really no evidence at all of anything going on other than this
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FC calling card that's being left with each bomb so remember the communication with
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Warren Hodge of the New York Times what we then have are several threatening letters that are sent to
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persons that would later be receiving bombs or at least the threat of possibly receiving a bomb and I'll read one but
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there were multiple of these and this one says Dear Dr Roberts it would be it would be beneficial to your health to
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stop your research in genetics this is a warning from FC Warren Hodge of the New
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York Times can confirm that this note does come from FC which is bizarre because this is a
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complete different approach to some of the attacks later that we're seeing in the 90s compared to what we saw in the
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late 70s and 80s where there is in fact a communication in advance and a threat that is sent out saying stop what you're
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doing here's our threat we are FC and oh yeah this guy Warren Hodge he can confirm
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that we are who we say we are because we've already communicated with him at the New York Times come on we'll learn
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later is by the 90s the mid 90s that the FBI is going to have a list of about 2 000 suspects yes
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um in April 24 1995 that was the last deadly bomb that was received again it was at the California Forestry
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Association exactly two months later on June 24th 1995 copies of a three a copies of a 35
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000 word essay titled industrial society and its future by FC were sent to the New York Times The Washington Post and
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Penthouse Magazine again very similar because it's sending to three different Publications
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and then also very similar like what the Zodiac did to say hey publish these ciphers
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publish this Manifesto right and what you have here Captain is basically it's this very lengthy Manifesto of
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what the author deems to be the industrial society and the damages that it's doing to our society and to our
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freedoms and so on and so forth but also saying you know we are FC we are the freedom club we are this terrorist
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organization who has been terrorizing America for well over a decade now now if you publish our essay and I think
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there was even the words in there publish or perish meaning if you don't publish this we're going to ramp up our
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attacks and oh yeah we've been deadly as of late we've killed the last two people
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that we've attempted to kill now we can ramp up these attacks if you don't submit to our demands which is
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publishing this essay or if you do publish it well we will desist from terrorism if this demand is
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met there was of course a lot of controversy over the idea do we give in to this
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terrorist demand of printing their essay in the papers I believe it was titled industrial society and its future what
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you end up having happen here is this great debate that is going on behind the scenes
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do we publish or do we not publish yeah and really what we want to have happen here the FBI is going to have the final
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say so they are going to tell these Publications if they can publish or not however
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these things were sent to three different periodicals so we have the New York Times And The Washington Post that
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really says that you know we are going to go off of the FBI's recommendation boy and look we we have a debate going
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on with inside the agency because like we were talking about earlier last week um off the Record if you will that they
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did these uh strategies with the Zodiac and never caught him so the people that are saying hey let's we need to publish
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this because this is going to bring other people out to to possibly be able to identify this group or this
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individual and there's other people coming back and going hey it didn't work with zodiac so
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how are you so certain that it's going to work with this Unabomber's Manifesto it didn't work with zodiac but the
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interesting thing is that the majority of the time when these especially when it's a Serial offender
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that when they start communicating the communication is what often leads to their capture
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and so you have this you have this confusion going on of oh we don't give in to terrorist demands but oh this also
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might be this might be our spearhead for our investigation to finally catching this
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guy so the Penthouse Magazine look they're they're looking to become newsworthy I
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guess right they're saying okay times they're going to defer to the FBI the post is going to defer to the FBI we're
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going to publish it here at Penthouse Magazine yeah they said no more with the tatas the tatis and the tatas we're
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gonna we're gonna go right after the industrial society well they were going to continue doing exactly what they were
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doing but they they knew this thing's going to sell a lot of papers so a lot of magazines
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and so of course they wanted to post it and this is public information this is being released to the the ongoing talks
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of whether to publish or not are up front and center and the public is aware of what's going on it's just sad that
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but their editor wanted to call it the Unabomber manifisto well the thing here is though now we have an
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issue of the author of the industrial society and its future they're going well this was kind of a
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good game plan by the author in my opinion because you have two quote-unquote respectable
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too respectable Publications and one that's not respectable and he or the author or whomever it was
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or this group or what have you they want this Manifesto to be printed in an upstanding publication the New York
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Times The Washington Post or both but it's kind of cool that they leverage this against those two by sending it to
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someone who was probably just willing to print it to sell papers sell magazines and so when you see that this debate is
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going on in front of the American public now you have the you have the author or
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authors come forward and say okay look we agreed that we would stop our terrorism we would stop the bombings if
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this was printed however if it's not printed in the two newspapers or one of the two newspapers
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and it's only printed in Penthouse Magazine because it's not an upstanding publication well we reserve the right to
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send one more deadly bomb one more deadly attack and then it can be posted in the
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Penthouse magazine and we will stop our terrorism then our acts of terrorism then but they realize with the three
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different Publications was we should we should print this in the Washington Post
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because it's going to be easier for us to monitor uh it had it had a less of a footprint as far as where the Washington
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Post was received by readers right when you say they you mean the FBI the FBI has to put some strategy some strategy
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into this idea of do we post or not well because they know that once they post it
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that this individual is going to want to read this and so they figured well maybe
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we could catch him that way by wanting to read his work in the paper right so what you have is a
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double-pronged attack the authors the this group FC Freedom Club they picked these three Publications well
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the New York Times is well distributed everywhere across the entire country The Washington Post it's distributed
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across the entire country but there's fewer Outlets to purchase and pick up the actual paper
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Penthouse Magazine I would assume is distributed across the country but again fewer Outlets to pick up the magazine
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and you're exactly right Captain they determined that in San Francisco in the greater San Francisco area where we
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think this guy is uh living there was only I believe one place that you could purchase the Washington Post
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in that greater San Francisco area so they're like cool on the day we will agree to print
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this Manifesto but where it's like the Delphi press release the Delphi press conference that we saw a couple years
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back where they made the announcement in advance this is when we are doing this trying to
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draw the killer trying to draw the attention from the killer to that location on that specific day
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so now we're going to announce yes we will print it it will be printed in the Washington Post only and it will be
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printed on September 19 1995. so author FC you now know when you should be ready to go purchase and pick
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up your newspaper they're going to monitor that location in San Francisco with the idea of
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photographing and questioning every individual that buys a copy at that newsstand or what have you on September
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19 1995. it's a two-pronged approach to their investigation to draw out the killer one either he does show up in the
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San Francisco area and purchase a Washington Post newspaper on said day and they lure him out that way or B they
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print the manifesto somebody that knows FC can identify them by their words and by their writing can contact the FBI
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and say I think I know who you're looking for right and I also think there's some identifiers in there that
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the FBI saw right and you would have that in really any type of writing especially something that's 35
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000 words yeah I mean there's a lot to sift through there there's a lot to consider but not just the identifiers
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that you're pointing out here but it's also the ideals yes I mean this is that's what this manuscript is it's it's
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a list of ideals of how this person believes that the future is going to be affected by the Industrial Revolution
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and and everything going on with technology and nature versus technology and so on and so forth
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that someone will probably at some point recognize the mission of FC or Freedom Club
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and understand that because again we go back to yesterday's trailer when we talk about the psychological
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makeup of this individual it's really patting yourself on the back about that that uh trailer aren't you
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well if he's anything like the mad bomber what Dr Brussel determined was that this
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would be a grudge holder that this person would have certain delusions and would have certain ideas
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that they might be able to act normal and set those aside until it comes up somewhere
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in conversation or until they bring it up somewhere in conversation and this their ideas would be discussed with
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others well also with this Manifesto I mean right away to me it's like this person has a higher level of
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intelligence he's speaking of ideas uh one of the great Eleanor Roosevelt quotes is great
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minds discuss ideas average Minds discuss events and small minds discuss people and he's not essentially doing
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that in this Manifesto he is presenting these ideas uh and these problems that he sees facing the whole of society but
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not blaming individuals I I respect your opinion but I'm going to have to disagree he's not talking about
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individuals specifically but he kind of lumps people together and categorizes people as certain things and
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references them in that manner and he does reference events as well to kind of back up his claims or his beliefs yeah
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but I also think some of Juan you can see is intelligence too there's a lot of futuristic predictions
00:24:50
I think now a lot of stuff that is being talked about now and so that's why I think people are going to wait maybe
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this guy wasn't a complete madman even comparing this Manifesto to you know 1984 George Orwell's 1984. maybe he
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lumped people into very standard groups but he's not going after one individual or multiple individuals and saying all
00:25:18
this is their fault that's correct um anybody I I don't know if you've read it or not Captain but again
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I I have a bit of a different take probably on this than some people that I've seen give their opinions on well
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there's there's also two versions because he updated it so there I think there's one that's like 126 pages
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and then one that's less than that yeah so I'm just going off of the one that was printed in the paper on
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September 19th 1995 when he's making the threats um yeah it's uh yeah it's you can obviously tell that it
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was written by an intelligent individual or group of individuals and it's but at
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the end of the day to me it looks like the ramblings of an Angry Young Man um I I didn't find anything particularly
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brilliant about the the thoughts of the future of society or lack of freedoms that us as individuals may have in that
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Society it I mean it's nothing there's no predictions or thoughts in there that would be any more brilliant than George
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Lucas's Star Wars or stuff that we've seen in sci-fi uh books comic books and TV throughout
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the decade right but I think I I think that's lesson lessening these ideas I mean
00:26:48
maybe he just came out with these ideas in 1995 but he's talking about the way he thinks Society is going to
00:26:57
work with artificial intelligence and that stuff that's we're just now talking about
00:27:03
in the public atmosphere like in the last five years and so yeah I mean I but I think the
00:27:11
work of uh George Lucas and and the creators of like Star Trek and the things that they were able to think of
00:27:18
how they thought their future would go those were genius ideas and so if you compare them to
00:27:26
that I think you'd have to say some of these thoughts are genius level ideas agreed agreed as said I
00:27:34
believe it's obvious that the uh there's some intelligence there from the author
00:27:39
I just don't find it to be anything super unique he's not the only one thinking of some of these ideas now what
00:27:48
this does do though is it does have the desired effect because we start getting a lot of people
00:27:55
coming forward saying oh I know somebody that talks like this I know somebody that has said similar ideas I know
00:28:03
someone that writes like this so on and so forth what we end up having Captain is a
00:28:10
husband and wife will eventually come forward and this will be David Kaczynski and Linda Patrick
00:28:17
and the way that this goes down is Linda Patrick decides she is going to read this Manifesto knows that it's going to
00:28:24
be published decides that she is going to read it she reads it and she informs her husband David she says this sounds
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to me a lot like your brother [Music] thank you foreign [Music] [Music] we're back cheers mates cheers to you
00:29:06
Colonel and cheers to everybody for the the nice birthday wishes yesterday I appreciate it and cheers to the people
00:29:12
in the back all right we brought up David Kaczynski and his wife Linda Patrick the way this
00:29:19
comes about here is Linda Patrick tells David I think that this author of this Manifesto could be your brother it
00:29:27
sounds a lot like how your brother writes this is really interesting because Linda
00:29:33
Patrick had never technically met David's brother Ted right he just would write them quite often he would write
00:29:41
them some nasty letters and a lot of the letters are about David now being married to Linda and how much
00:29:48
Ted does not like Linda and how much Linda has changed his brother David and he never met her for the worse that's
00:29:56
right that's hilarious yeah well he's the ultimate Grudge holder um and so Linda it does take some
00:30:05
convincing to her husband David that the writings are similar and in fact David ends up finding an essay that
00:30:15
Ted had written years before that actually is listing out a lot of these same ideas that are presented in the
00:30:22
what is dubbed by the FBI the Unabomber Manifesto eventually David is convinced that his
00:30:30
brother should be looked at he's concerned because you have things like Ruby Ridge that went down where the FBI
00:30:37
surrounded a home and they had guns inside a gun a gunfight breaks out and we now
00:30:43
have people dead as a result of Ruby Ridge he was worried the same thing could happen with his brother his
00:30:50
brothers living out in the middle of nowhere and Lincoln Montana and a tiny little cabin and he's got guns in his
00:30:58
little cabin got really annoying after like the fifth or sixth person as I'm researching this case said little Log
00:31:06
Cabin this is not a log cabin this looks more like a shed and there's no running water and there's
00:31:14
no I believe there's no electricity as well no he's [ __ ] in the floor inside this cabin wow
00:31:22
to put it as bluntly as possible gave me some warning I'm trying to finish my sandwich he could have bothered to build
00:31:28
an outhouse at some point maybe he did and decided to move it inward I don't know but anyway
00:31:34
it was too cold his [ __ ] was freezing so he had to [ __ ] inside but see David is he's at like a
00:31:43
Crossroads man because he's got to decide do I suggest that my brother could be he's not can 100 convinced right that
00:31:53
Ted is in fact the Unabomber the Most Wanted serial killer in the country at the time he's not 100 convinced
00:32:01
does he make this suggestion to the FBI or look if if he's wrong and Ted is innocent and some type of
00:32:11
gunfight breaks out Ted could end up losing his life if Linda is right his brother Ted could send out another
00:32:22
bomb and kill somebody even though he said hey I'll stop if you print this you can
00:32:29
never take a a threat at its word especially from terrorists yeah I think what's interesting here is
00:32:35
that they can they contact a lawyer and they end up contacting a linguist to basically go over what they think they
00:32:45
are seeing and both the lawyer and the linguists confirm it and say no look we think this is the same individual and we
00:32:54
need to go to FBI with this eventually and it doesn't happen overnight captain again a lot of debate a lot of things
00:33:00
going on behind the scenes here but eventually the FBI does become convinced that Ted Kaczynski is in fact the guy
00:33:09
the problem that they have with Ted Kaczynski being Prime Suspect being the perpetrator is that it actually goes
00:33:17
against a lot of the stuff that they collected against the Unabomber he doesn't live anywhere near San Francisco
00:33:24
right the guy doesn't even own a vehicle he's [ __ ] in his house the other thing too is he doesn't fit the profile
00:33:33
he's a little older than the profiles would suggest I do want to throw this out there there were dozens of profiles
00:33:39
put together about the Unabomber including John Douglas that were not at the end of the day didn't turn out to
00:33:48
be great profiles but also the physical description that was given by the witness that saw the man placing the
00:33:54
package in the the parking lot right had the age wrong had the hair color wrong so there's a lot of reasons to look at
00:34:04
this guy and go I see what you're saying that the language is similar but are we
00:34:09
going to go and get this guy simply based off of language and no physical evidence at all zero physical evidence
00:34:15
so much so that it looks difficult that this guy could be our guy yeah but what they do now because because they have a
00:34:22
name is they can then go well what is Ted kaczynski's past and where how did he get to this point where he was living
00:34:31
in this cabin isolated I'm all alone and they're going to start to see reasons that will tie someone
00:34:39
like Ted to a lot of these attacks first off he has a history his childhood he lived in the he lived in the Illinois
00:34:49
in the state of Illinois right more specifically around Chicago we know that one at least one or two of
00:34:57
the attacks were chicago-based attacks at the age of 16 Ted enters Harvard University he graduates from Harvard in
00:35:09
1962 he is accepted to the University of Michigan for a graduate program to study
00:35:15
mathematics well I mean well let's not glaze over the fact that he was in a three-year long experimental
00:35:22
psychological experimental study at Harvard when he was 16. right not trying to glaze over that just pointing
00:35:32
out what they will look at with his past that's known to them by knowing his name
00:35:37
and how it connects to some of these attacks so we do know that University of Michigan was one of the targets what
00:35:45
they're learning here is look this guy is this guy is smart at one point test IQ of like 167 or something like
00:35:53
that so he's capable of making these bombs and then he goes like you said to Michigan and then also then goes to uh
00:36:01
Berkeley California so now we have connection to Berkeley California as well yes and um
00:36:10
1967 is when he moves from the University of Michigan out to University of California Berkeley there he will be
00:36:17
a teacher he's going to teach math at Berkeley and then in 1969 he resigns from the math department at Berkeley
00:36:26
yeah he moves back home with his parents for about two years but during that time
00:36:31
period him his brother and I I believe his uh father as well they all help him build this Shack in Montana yeah it was
00:36:41
1971 when he purchased 1.4 acres in South Lincoln Montana and he and his brother start to build this cabin but at
00:36:53
the same time captain in 1971 Ted completes an Untitled essay on the evils of Technology
00:37:01
this will be again similar to that of the industrial society in this future once the FBI is convinced that this
00:37:10
could be their guy that this should be their number one suspect you got to look at him and clear him before you can move
00:37:17
on they decide to start surveillance on Ted and his cabin in Lincoln Montana shortly
00:37:25
afterwards Captain Theodore John Kaczynski was arrested by the FBI in April of 1996. he's arrested at his
00:37:34
cabin in Montana and of course he is accused of killing three people and injuring over 20 people
00:37:42
in 16 separate bombings between the years of 1978 and 1995. I mean yeah this is some of the
00:37:52
biggest news uh the capturing of the Unabomber in 1996 some of the biggest news of 1996. you also have Princess
00:38:00
Diana and Charles getting a divorce you have mad cow disease in the UK and then obviously you have JonBenet Ramsey's
00:38:09
killing later on in that year and as you pointed out earlier Captain one of the issues they had with Ted was
00:38:17
they had 2 000 they being the FBI had 2 000 suspects in this case and Ted Kaczynski was not listed in that top
00:38:26
2000. you have to applaud his brother and his sister-in-law for coming forward and saying hey
00:38:32
um because yeah maybe your brother's writing you some strange letters here and there but he's not hurting anybody
00:38:38
and Ted had no History of Violence that his family knew of and and actually the opposite one of the things
00:38:48
you know Ted had a severe hives when he was a kid and he was isolated in the hospital when he was younger before his
00:38:56
little brother was even born but one of the things that his mother said was he always
00:39:01
had a the way he treated animals especially animals that were in caged he had a real empathy for them which you
00:39:10
normally don't see I mean you hear a lot of times with like Ted Bundy and Jeffrey
00:39:15
Dahmer and things like that cruelty to animals at a young age and he had the opposite of that well he may not have
00:39:22
had these deadly desires until later on in his life and probably I think he probably had some of this
00:39:31
before that experimental stuff that was going on at Harvard but I think that really pushed it further along it
00:39:40
certainly didn't help the young man I'm going to argue with you because there there's no sign of that and he was Avid
00:39:46
with journaling and I don't think there's any record of him having any homicidal thoughts until he got to
00:39:54
Michigan which would have been years after the experiment and he and he says three year long experiment which was
00:40:03
done by Henry Murray at Harvard that it was the worst experience of his life but he doesn't think that the
00:40:11
experiment changed the outcome of Ted kaczynski's life or not right I don't think that it did I think he's
00:40:18
absolutely right in saying that I'm saying I don't think it helped if no it doesn't if he was having any kind of
00:40:24
issues or problems before that this certainly would not have helped this young man and many people have pointed
00:40:30
out that look there were other people that were subjected to the same experiment and they didn't go on to blow
00:40:36
people up they didn't they want to be 16 years old that and that's what I'm pointing out that's different set of
00:40:41
circumstances here he he's younger on on all on every level imaginable emotional
00:40:47
intellectually and developmentally you know it and so on I mean look I mean he just to go over his history a little
00:40:57
bit you know he scores high on this IQ test they skip in one grade a couple uh grades go by then they end
00:41:04
up skipping him another grade uh he did some summer classes so then that's how he got to Harvard at the age of 16. but
00:41:12
your your family lives in Chicago and they're sending you across halfway across the United States to go live by
00:41:20
yourself and he just wasn't ready but again there is no record of any homicidal thoughts
00:41:27
or even I believe Suicidal Thoughts until after the experiment to me that is proof I mean one of the things that you
00:41:36
hear constantly when you're looking up Ted Kaczynski is that uh you know Harvard isn't responsible for any of
00:41:43
these actions and none of these deaths should be at a place at Harvard's door and I I argue completely against that I
00:41:52
mean a year after these experiments he is in Michigan talking to therapists about homicidal thoughts I think it's
00:42:01
direct correlation and again if if you had any evidence of it beforehand then I would say maybe it didn't change the
00:42:09
outcome of this kid's life but I I think the this experiment was um you know and again it's also stated
00:42:16
like as fact that this experiment was like mko Ultra and that's not true we don't know for certain what this
00:42:26
everything that took place with inside this experiment so Ted himself is saying that it didn't
00:42:32
affect him or he doesn't think it affected him I think it did affect him and also what he's getting wise to is
00:42:42
how much information they have against him but how all that information is connected to the cabin so now his
00:42:50
thought is if I can get you know the information from the cabin thrown out then I could walk out of here
00:42:58
scot-free yeah he doesn't really get them to he doesn't trick them into presenting the evidence to him they make
00:43:05
the mistake of presenting the evidence to him because they want to get a confession from Ted Kaczynski because
00:43:13
they do not have that great of a case against this guy so they're really hoping to get him to sign on the dotted
00:43:20
line and confess to all of these attacks and the murders and you're right though quickly and they
00:43:27
don't have a good case against them because they have thousands of pieces of evidence against them then why are they
00:43:33
going after a confession I understand that they they had lots of evidence against the guy they wanted a
00:43:40
confession from Ted Kaczynski well because there was no direct evidence to anything
00:43:47
like the actual bombs or anything there's no fingerprints on those bombs and so all they had was these these
00:43:53
diagrams and these these notes but that what I'm saying is they had thousands of
00:43:58
pieces of those correct but he very quickly realizes during the interrogation process that they are
00:44:06
presenting their evidence to him and yes he's going to flip it and use it against
00:44:11
them and tell them you know you based your search warrant off of linguistics that is that's just a word that's just a
00:44:20
term that you kind of made up this is not something that has been used in previous search warrants yes I guess
00:44:27
pseudoscience right so if you're going to use that if I can get this search warrant tossed out then that evidence
00:44:34
that you collected from my cabin from my shed will be tossed out as well and then
00:44:39
you have nothing yeah and I think also some of this is maybe not so much that he goes free I'm
00:44:48
sure he doesn't want to be caught or be put in prison but I also wonder how much
00:44:52
of this uh attitude that he has about this is trying to protect his belongings and
00:45:00
his life work for the last several years yeah well some of that is built into this because
00:45:07
the natural defense here would be an insanity plea or an insanity defense right and
00:45:15
the problem with that is well if he avoids the death penalty and says hey I'm insane and that's my defense that we
00:45:24
put together well then what did any of this stand for it was supposed to be built around this
00:45:30
whole mission this whole agenda of him in the freedom Club well what does this Mission even mean if the man who put it
00:45:37
together and orchestrated everything is an insane person well normally when we have these ramblings that we see from
00:45:45
these killers later that's what they are they're unintelligible ramblings or or rants or or however you want to
00:45:54
look at it and I I I'm not saying that you should read this Manifesto and agree with them
00:46:00
but I but I think what he is what he is saying is is also a little unique and the reason why is because most people
00:46:09
say look technology is happening and you either have to jump on board or you don't and he's making he's making the
00:46:17
statement hey technology will happen but only if we allow it and maybe we need to
00:46:24
pick and choose what we allow as far as technology goes and so to your point I think Ted
00:46:31
Kaczynski is really worried the easy way out is go hey I was insane but then this Manifesto that I worked on
00:46:39
for years people just dismiss it as the ramblings of somebody that's insane and they're not even going to take the time
00:46:46
to read it yeah I would think that that was his one of his many concerns my my own personal opinion of his Manifesto of
00:46:55
that manuscript is it it sounds like the you said unin intellectual ramblings of
00:47:02
a raving mad man this is the intellectual ramblings of a Madman it's yeah I think that's a good way to put it
00:47:13
it's there's certainly some Brilliance there again you can tell it was written by an intelligent entity maybe I'm a
00:47:21
little Askew in my thoughts and and uh comprehension and perception of the document itself because I know who wrote
00:47:30
it where if you were looking at it blindly not knowing who or what group wrote it maybe you would think of it a
00:47:37
little differently but one thing that I think kind of torqued me off a lot when researching this case was these
00:47:48
morons online praising Ted Kaczynski for this manuscript and saying how brilliant
00:47:55
the man is and how brilliant the manuscript is and even to the point of people going
00:48:02
you you guys are just ignorant you can't see it one day you'll realize he was right
00:48:08
he was right are you freaking kidding me well no he's not again I think a lot of
00:48:15
those individuals have to start the conversation with forget every action that he did and then
00:48:22
just look at this paper as a whole I think the the paper as a whole degrades most of us as human beings
00:48:31
it's that's what I question how many of these people posting their thoughts and opinions in an approval appraisal of
00:48:40
this document actually bothered to read it yeah but it degrades African-American
00:48:47
people it spends a good majority of the document talking about the over sociable
00:48:54
people the the left people it's grouping a whole bunch of batch of people together and then criticizing them and
00:49:03
what in the end are we losing Ted we're losing our freedoms what are our freedoms when you look at it we all are
00:49:10
slaves to something at the very core of our Essence and our being we all have to eat we all have to pay
00:49:18
taxes these things that you might perceive us to be slaves of in the future yes I get that that's a threat
00:49:25
but Freedom really is of course it's a physical thing but it's also it's also a state of mind
00:49:33
my my version of Freedom might not be the same as Ted kaczynski's no I understand that but I that it's a
00:49:41
lot easier for us as Americans to sit there and say that we are free um and you look at what's going on in
00:49:51
China with like the Muslims and and then basically in internment camps over there and ask them how free they
00:49:59
are and how free that Society is so but he's attacking my society and he's condemning my Society that's where
00:50:08
I have a problem you know what Ted I want the freedom to open up my mail without my hands being blown off
00:50:13
no I understand that but I I think what they're I think sometimes when these authors are
00:50:22
are saying look these are threats and these are things that the that Society needs to wake up to
00:50:30
and I think there's look there's a lot of times we were talking the other day I watched the Jake Paul fight
00:50:37
it it was some of the lowest form of entertainment that I've seen in my whole lifetime it was is almost
00:50:45
embarrassing and then you start wondering is this the way Society is going and uh 1.5 million views one of the highest
00:50:55
pay-per-view buy-ins for any boxing event and and so I think he I think he's questioning society as a whole and and
00:51:05
why are people spending so much time on their computer or spending so much time in front of their TVs when there's maybe
00:51:12
more important stuff to be thinking about if that makes any sense no it makes a lot of sense I think what I what
00:51:20
I see here Captain is it looks to me like somebody who did he he did in fact have these ideas he did in fact have
00:51:27
these concerns but he used them as almost a rationalization for what it probably was that he ultimately wanted
00:51:39
to do he wanted to punish the society that didn't accept him he wanted to harm those who did not accept him he could
00:51:47
not well hold on and here's the problem too is society did not reject him he actually rejected Society correct I
00:51:55
would argue on in your defense I would argue the people that are looking at this Manifesto and saying you have to
00:52:02
forget about the murders well you shouldn't you can't and and that's not that's that's not part of the equation
00:52:09
you know Ted Kaczynski likes math part of the equation is that in order to get heard you decided to attack other
00:52:19
people's freedoms so an Accenture a hypocrite on top of that you didn't write this letter
00:52:26
you use technology used a typewriter it might be a a small form of a of type of Technology but it was Tech at the time
00:52:36
it was Tech at the time and you bought a little more than an acre and then you started seeing real estate
00:52:45
being developed and and you came up with this the again to attack innocent people
00:52:51
that did nothing to you I I feel totally different about Ted Kaczynski if he attacked Henry Murray right that
00:53:01
experimented on him for three years but what happened to the kid that had empathy for the caged animals
00:53:09
what happened to that guy well and he chose terrorism to as a platform for his message to teach the rest of us to
00:53:18
educate the rest of us he was a freaking teacher at a University at a well-respected university two of them he
00:53:25
had a platform yeah he had a platform where he could teach everyone and you know what it
00:53:31
makes me think of when when he was an active teacher and all these other teachers out there
00:53:36
and then compare compare that to the crazy man living in a cabin out in the middle of Montana
00:53:44
it's like Martin Luther King Jr and James Earl Ray you had two guys that had two completely
00:53:51
different sets of ideals they chose completely different methods in the way to deliver and express their
00:54:00
thoughts and concerns to the public yeah and um but but here's where here's where I feel bad for Ted
00:54:10
Kaczynski it's because I think a lot of times we start questioning with Ted Bundy with
00:54:18
I mean look I mean it's you know it's 4 20 uh Columbine Adolf Hitler who you start questioning the chicken or
00:54:28
the egg are these people just born evil or were they created to be evil and this is one case that I could say I
00:54:38
lean towards the idea that Ted was created to be evil like maybe they didn't know that that was going to be
00:54:44
the side effect of the experiment but I think that was the outcome of the experiment
00:54:50
and that that's angers me because one I mean 50 million dollars spent by the FBI 50 million dollars of our our
00:55:01
taxpayer money spent to try to catch this psycho how much money have we spent on his uh
00:55:09
trials and his appeals and and his incarceration and his communication with the outside
00:55:16
world how much have we spent on this guy and and and he might have been created by
00:55:23
experiments at Harvard one thing that's really interesting too here Captain is you have the Kaczynski
00:55:30
family his mother and his brother who said yeah at some point in his you know when
00:55:37
he's 16 17 18 years old we started to realize that there was something wrong with Ted
00:55:44
however we didn't fully understand what it was we kind of just chalked it up to oh he's an oddball he's depressed he's a
00:55:53
genius we can't really understand him yeah some people said that Ted was like a walking computer that
00:56:01
that some people didn't even view him as human well he would say things that were
00:56:05
very uncomfortable to the people that were actually somewhat close to him as close as anybody could be to Ted
00:56:11
Kaczynski a man with very few friends if any at all but you know his brother and
00:56:17
his mother said that he would say things that you could tell were these were suicidal Expressions
00:56:23
homicidal type of expressions and ultimately the Nathan R lead that the FBI was looking for they never
00:56:33
identified a Nathan R tied to Ted Kaczynski or any other real aspect of the Unabomber case itself in fact two
00:56:43
there's two beliefs here of where that came from either the Ted Kaczynski himself did that on purpose to throw
00:56:51
them off or that it was simply something that happened in transit before the letter
00:56:58
got to the FBI that somebody else wrote a note over top of this letter so that lead really never led to
00:57:05
anything in the end captain at trial there was a lot of weird and difficulties with his trial itself and I
00:57:13
don't want to go too far into it because it it looked to me like the court system
00:57:17
basically wanted to say you're crazy but not crazy enough um it seemed a little weird on the whole
00:57:25
Insanity idea and of course as we already pointed out Ted originally did not want he was insistent that he was
00:57:33
not insane that what he stood for meant something what what his actions were stood for
00:57:39
something yeah and I don't know how heavily involved his brother was but I I do know
00:57:46
that there was talks with the FBI and his brother's lawyer about what would happen to Ted so I I want to I wonder
00:57:54
how much he uh helped steer The Narrative even during the trial well what he what happened was Ted was trying
00:58:01
to dismiss his attorneys very late in the court proceedings and the the uh judge was pretty much like no you're not
00:58:12
going to dismiss your attorneys this late we've been dealing with this forever right and if we throw them out
00:58:20
now you get a chance to start over your whole defense which could take a year or
00:58:25
two we're dealing with this now you cannot dismiss your attorneys and so ultimately Ted Kaczynski ends up
00:58:32
pleading uh giving the insanity plea to avoid the death penalty so he ends up being he ends up receiving several life
00:58:41
sentences to be served out at the adx Florence which is a United States Penitentiary administrative maximum
00:58:50
facility this is an American federal prison in Fremont County near Florence Colorado it
00:58:57
is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons so this is different than regular prisons here Captain this is a
00:59:07
division of the United States Department of Justice operates this prison this prison opened up in 1994 and is
00:59:15
classified as a super max or a control unit prison this meaning that it provides a higher more controlled level
00:59:24
of custody than even a Maximum Security Prison and if you look at the list of some of the other inmates that are
00:59:32
serving their time there as well as Ted Kaczynski it's some of the biggest names
00:59:39
out there it's a lot of terrorists to be honest with you it's a lot of foreign terrorists and domestic terrorists that
00:59:45
have been housed in there throughout the years as well as people who've committed
00:59:50
crimes of espionage on but at the end of the day no matter how smart Ted Kaczynski is I
00:59:57
mean that's what he is he's a American domestic terrorist in one of Ted's Journal passages dated sometime between
01:00:04
the Autumn of 1977 and early 1978 when the bombing campaign was just beginning and Ted Kaczynski was still an amateur
01:00:13
bomb Builder remember he's trying to become a better bomb maker a more deadly attacker
01:00:20
he wrote to himself quote I emphasize that my motivation is personal Revenge I don't pretend any kind of philosophical
01:00:27
or moralistic justification my ambition is to kill a scientist big businessman government official or the like I would
01:00:37
also like to kill a communist Ted Kaczynski wrote In 1980 that the bombings made him feel less angry quote
01:00:45
since committing these crimes reported elsewhere in my notes I feel better I am still plenty angry you have to
01:00:53
understand the blank remember these are coming from some coded journals you have
01:00:59
to understand the blank is that I am now able to blank to a degree and when his bombings were not lethal
01:01:08
when they were when they did not kill or they did not significantly injure the individual who opened up the bomb he
01:01:16
said that they were not a success that that bomb was a failure he was hoping that every bomb would blow off hands or
01:01:24
kill the person that opened up the package the only way for his work to be quote successful as Ted Kaczynski saw it
01:01:32
was to kill the person that opened up the package in July of 1999 this is an interview
01:01:40
article by David Bowman on salon.com the article is titled profiler and it's an interview with John Douglas Bowman asked
01:01:49
Douglas a follow-up to a follow-up question Bowman was asking about psycho killers in general and then asking has
01:01:58
there ever been this kind of killer that are a do-good killer angels of Justice Dexter types specifically have there
01:02:07
been any environmentalist psycho Killers who kill loggers or strip miners and Douglas gives his answer Theodore
01:02:17
Kaczynski the Unabomber thought he was doing that but when I started analyzing the case
01:02:23
Douglas said forget his hatred of Technology he don't give a [ __ ] he just wants to kill he enjoys killing and
01:02:31
wants to dominate and control there's the Oklahoma bombing that gets the front page two or three days later we have a
01:02:40
professor killed on the East Coast that's Kaczynski saying quote I'm the big guy here who's this Oklahoma City
01:02:48
bomber foreign thank you friends for joining us here back in the garage for another gripping
01:03:07
interesting story Colonel do we have any recommended reading this week this week
01:03:12
we are recommending every last tie the story of the Unabomber and his family by David Kaczynski in August 1995 David
01:03:21
kaczynski's wife Linda asked him a very difficult question do you think your brother Ted is the Unabomber he couldn't
01:03:29
be David thought but as the couple poured over the Unabomber 78-page Manifesto David couldn't rule out the
01:03:37
possibility it slowly became clear to them that Ted was likely responsible for mailing the 17 bombs that killed three
01:03:44
people and injured many more wanting to prevent further violence David made the agonizing decision to turn his brother
01:03:52
in to the FBI make sure you check out every last Tie by David Kaczynski you can find that title and many more on our
01:04:01
recommended page at True Crime garage.com and until next week be good be kind and don't let her
01:04:15
[Music]

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Episode Highlights

  • Freedom Club's Chilling Message
    A letter from the terrorist group reveals their rules and intentions.
    “The first rule of Freedom Club is to not talk about Freedom Club.”
    @ 00m 40s
    November 08, 2022
  • Welcome to True Crime Garage
    Hosts Nick and Captain introduce the show with a light-hearted banter.
    “It's good to be seen, it's good to see you.”
    @ 00m 54s
    November 08, 2022
  • The Birthday Bomb Beer
    Celebrating with a special beer, the Birthday Bomb, rated five out of five.
    “Sound the trumpets please, as birthday bomb is most definitely a five out of five.”
    @ 01m 29s
    November 08, 2022
  • The Unabomber's Deadly Craft
    Discussion on the evolution of the Unabomber's attacks and their implications for the FBI.
    “Our attacker seems to have perfected his craft, which has to be scary for the FBI.”
    @ 04m 30s
    November 08, 2022
  • The Media's Dilemma
    The debate within the media on whether to publish the Unabomber's manifesto.
    “Do we publish or do we not publish?”
    @ 14m 45s
    November 08, 2022
  • The Unabomber's Manifesto
    The manifesto reveals a blend of intelligence and anger, lacking unique insights.
    “It looks like the ramblings of an Angry Young Man.”
    @ 26m 07s
    November 08, 2022
  • David Kaczynski's Dilemma
    David struggles with the decision to report his brother Ted as the Unabomber.
    “Do I suggest that my brother could be...”
    @ 31m 44s
    November 08, 2022
  • The Complexity of Freedom
    Freedom is not just physical; it's a state of mind, shaped by our experiences.
    “Freedom really is... a state of mind.”
    @ 49m 29s
    November 08, 2022
  • Kaczynski's Dark Motivation
    Ted Kaczynski's motivations were deeply personal, rooted in revenge and anger.
    “I emphasize that my motivation is personal revenge.”
    @ 01h 00m 23s
    November 08, 2022
  • The Unabomber's Intent
    Kaczynski's writings reveal a chilling desire to kill, masked as a philosophical crusade.
    “He enjoys killing and wants to dominate and control.”
    @ 01h 02m 34s
    November 08, 2022
  • A Brother's Dilemma
    David Kaczynski faced a heartbreaking choice when he suspected his brother was the Unabomber.
    “David made the agonizing decision to turn his brother in to the FBI.”
    @ 01h 03m 52s
    November 08, 2022

Episode Quotes

  • Sound the trumpets please, as birthday bomb is most definitely a five out of five.
    The Unabomber /// Part 2 /// 483
  • Do we publish or do we not publish?
    The Unabomber /// Part 2 /// 483
  • It looks like the ramblings of an Angry Young Man.
    The Unabomber /// Part 2 /// 483
  • This is the intellectual ramblings of a Madman.
    The Unabomber /// Part 2 /// 483
  • Freedom really is... a state of mind.
    The Unabomber /// Part 2 /// 483
  • I emphasize that my motivation is personal revenge.
    The Unabomber /// Part 2 /// 483

Key Moments

  • First Bombing00:17
  • Freedom Club Rules00:40
  • Welcome00:40
  • Intelligent Ramblings26:07
  • David's Decision31:44
  • Manifesto Analysis47:02
  • Personal Revenge1:00:23
  • Brother's Decision1:03:52

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown