David Kaczynski shares story of turning in the "Unabomber"

David Kaczynski, brother of Theodore Kaczynski who is more commonly known as the "Unabomber," told his emotional story to an audience at Hendrix Theater in Mendenhall Student Center last night.

Sponsored by the Student Activities Board, Kaczynski felt he was invited to ECU to provide a lecture about an important and personal issue: mental illnesses' link with capital punishment.

In 1995, David Kaczynski and his wife, Linda, found themselves considering the possibility that David's brother, Ted, could be responsible for 17 years worth of placing and sending through mail 16 bombs that injured dozens and killed three.

The couple's nightmare began when Linda approached David with the question of whether or not he thought his brother could be the "Unabomber."

"I was taken aback and asked her, 'how could you ever think something like that?'" David said.

However, after Linda explained the reasons for her suspicions, the possibility began to run through David's mind as well. Linda had found articles that believed the Unabomber was born in Chicago and had a connection with the University of California at Berkeley because bombs had been sent to each. Ted also was born in Chicago and had been a professor of mathematics at UC Berkeley.

After that, evidence continued to solidify David and Linda's suspicions. After reading the "Unabomber's" Manifesto, which was a critique of modern technology and had been published in The Washington Post, David said that some parts did sound like his brother who lived alone in a cabin in Montana with no electricity, but he still only believed it was a one in one thousand chance.

David continued to weigh the possibilities, but said the turning point came to him in a dream.

"I woke up the next morning with the deepest depression I have ever felt," David said. "I was considering that my only brother is a serial murderer, the most wanted person in America."

David and Linda then realized that they had a responsibility, however, any decision they made could result in someone's death and quite possibly, the death of his only brother.

"I questioned myself, what would it be like to go through my life with my brother's blood on my hands?" David said.

David and Linda went to the police with their suspicions, and over time the FBI placed Ted at the top of their subject list. Eventually David realized he needed to tell his mother and that the FBI needed to question her.

A week later, Ted was arrested. Diaries, plans, pieces of bombs and a live bomb were all found in Ted's cabin in Montana and were used as evidence against him at his trial in Sacramento, CA.

A total of $8 million was spent on Ted's trial, and in David's eyes, that is the reason Ted is still alive.

After a two-year mission of trying to save Ted's life, which was successful, Ted is now serving a life sentence, David and Linda found themselves struggling with how they could go on with their own lives. David and his mother met with family members of a victim of Ted's who told them that, "all they ever wanted was for the violence to stop."

David believes that Ted is now living in two prisons; the one he will spend the rest of his life in and the other, mental illness.

David and his mother, who is now 91 and in increasingly poor health, have no idea of their brother or son's condition. Ted refuses to sign a release that allows the prison to disclose information of his condition to his family.

"He hasn't reached out at all," David said. "I feel his illness is why he doesn't communicate. If he hadn't gotten sick I believe he would be a professor somewhere." David stated that Ted had attended Harvard and once tested at a 165 I.Q. level.

As far as justice in the courtroom for defendants with mental illness is concerned, David feels the court's have a long way to go, stating that experts aren't finding a consensus but rather people at both extremes are arguing with each other to an uninformed jury.

David is in strong opposition of capital punishment and hopes that one-day justice will truly be applied evenly.

This writer may be contacted at News@theeastcarolinian.com.