[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Sign-in] [Mail] [Setup] [Help]
Status: Not Logged In; Sign In
|
Miscellaneous See other Miscellaneous Articles Title: For the love of a brother (20 years since the Unabomber) For the love of a brother David Kaczynski knows he did the right thing by turning in his brother as a serial killer. But it’s as painful today as it was 20 years ago. By Holly Bailey 17 hours ago Yahoo News (Yahoo News Photo Illustration/AP Photo) From his prison cell, Ted Kaczynski — the “Unabomber,” who terrified the nation in the 1980s and early 1990s — has carried on a remarkable correspondence with thousands of people all over the world. As the 20th anniversary of his arrest approaches, Yahoo News is publishing a series of articles based on his letters and other writings, housed in an archive at the University of Michigan. They shed unprecedented light on the mind of Kaczynski — genius, madman and murderer. IN THE DESERT SOUTHWEST, USA — We were looking for a sign in a place where there are none. David Kaczynski had told us to look for a row of mailboxes, a rare sight in this remote wilderness, 60 miles from the nearest town. And there he was waiting, to lead us along an unpaved road into the heart of the open desert where he and his wife, Linda, now live. That desire to escape into the wild was something David had shared with his brother, Ted. Though Ted is seven years older, he and David were once as close as only brothers can be. Over thirty years ago, the Kaczynskis, both Ivy League graduates, each quit their jobs and retreated into the wilderness. Ted built a cabin in the backwoods of Montana; David constructed his in the sweeping desert on the edge of Big Bend National Park in Texas. They both lived off the land, with no electricity or running water. But over time their paths diverged in dramatic ways. Alone in his cabin and fueled by what court psychiatrists say was severe mental illness, Ted had become the Unabomber, terrorizing the nation with deadly mail and package bombs meant to bring attention to his anti-technology philosophy. David, unaware of what his brother was doing, returned to society and married. Years later, he made one of the most difficult decisions imaginable: to turn in the brother he loved as a suspected killer, which would save the lives of innocent victims, and perhaps Ted’s as well. He made what he still believes is the only rational decision. “It’s like a shadow over my life, and I don’t know what to do with it,” David said as he sat on the porch of the remote cabin he and Linda recently built. (Because they still occasionally receive threats, they asked that the location not be disclosed.) “But maybe it’s time to turn the page.” To help the process, David wrote a book, “Every Last Tie: The Story of the Unabomber and His Family.” It recounts what happened from David’s point of view, and how he and his late mother, Wanda, struggled to acknowledge that a beloved brother and son was a coldblooded killer. “I still look back on the decision and know it had to be done,” David said. “He could have and probably would have killed other people. … If there was any way out of having to do what I did and still be a responsible human being, I would have. But I had a responsibility. As painful as it was. As it still is.” So David became the tortured hero of the Unabomber story, trying to save Ted from the death penalty while doing what he could to make up for his brother’s twisted crimes. He personally apologized to all the victims through letters, phone calls and, in some cases, in-person meetings, even though his brother has never apologized or expressed remorse. When David and his wife were given a $1 million reward by the Justice Department for the tip that led to his brother’s arrest after a 17-year manhunt, they gave almost all of it to the victims. As David recalls, it was Linda who first raised the possibility that Ted was the Unabomber. That was in 1995, after she read about the mysterious terrorist’s anti-technology “manifesto.” Linda had never met Ted, who had refused to come to their wedding. But she had read the letters he had sent to David over the years and was disturbed by their increasingly angry tone. She worried he might become violent toward David or others, if not himself. “People who are healthy in their minds don’t think like this,” she had told her husband. At Linda’s urging, they took Ted’s letters to a psychiatrist shortly after they were married in 1990. The doctor said the letters seemed to show signs of “serious mental illness.” Linda and David asked about getting Ted into treatment, but learned that unless Ted volunteered they would face the challenging burden of proving he was a danger to himself or others. Little did they know that Ted had already killed the first of his three victims. The doctor also warned that if David sought involuntary treatment for Ted, he risked permanently ending their already strained relationship. But five years later, as Linda read about the Unabomber’s manifesto, it set off an alarm with her. “Don’t be angry with me,” she said to David. “Has it ever occurred to you, even as a remote possibility, that your brother might be the Unabomber?” David thought his wife’s imagination had run wild. He knew his brother had emotional issues. He had known from when he was a kid growing up in Evergreen Park, Ill., just outside Chicago, that his older brother was, as his mother put it, “special.” But there was no way that Ted could be a killer, he insisted. In spite of his angry letters, he knew him also to be kind and sensitive. Yet a month later, after David agreed to read the Unabomber manifesto, he was overcome with dread. The Unabomber’s ideas — and his language — sounded ominously familiar. Poster Comment: It is about 20 years since the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, was active. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 5.
#1. To: BTP Holdings (#0)
Thank you for sharing this. The Unabomer remains very key in late 20th-c. amerikan history. They trumpet the claim that The Turner Diaries was found in Timothy McVeigh's posession (woo woo) but omit from the hoohah that Algore's 'Earth in the Balance' was among readings evidentiarily nabbed in Kaczynski's hut -- "dog- eared, underlined, marked, and well-worn". They're so discriminatory when you come right down to it!
From the link: "For others, like singer Sheryl Crow, it means using one square of toilet paper at a time -- to reduce thy carbon footprint." Gee, one square of TP at a time? That is bad. My Dad was such a cheapskate he would use only TWO squares of TP at a time. We worked Sheryl Crow at the Aragon in Chicago. I remember this because I got into a fight with an Irishman. I was at the sound board and this girl got overheated. I was getting her and her boyfriend over to the window for some air. I put my hand on this guy's shoulder and gently moved him aside. He turned and stuck his finger in my shoulder. Wrong move. You don't touch me. I turned and got in his face. We grabbed each other and started to spin in a circle. One of the guys on my crew tried to catch him but couldn't do it. He turned around and I spun him right into his arms. We all got over to the side and went down in a heap. My guy was on the bottom. I told him, "You're not supposed to be on the bottom!" ROTFLOL!
There are no replies to Comment # 5. End Trace Mode for Comment # 5.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest |
||
|
[Home]
[Headlines]
[Latest Articles]
[Latest Comments]
[Post]
[Sign-in]
[Mail]
[Setup]
[Help]
|
||