Ted Kaczynski, known as the 'Unabomber,' dies in federal prison

Notorious domestic terrorist Theodore ‘Ted’ Kaczynski – the ‘Unabomber’ – is found dead in North Carolina federal prison cell aged 81

• Notorious domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski, also known as the ‘Unabomber’, has died in federal prison aged 81
• He was found dead around 8 a.m. at a federal prison in North Carolina, and no cause of death has been released
• A Harvard educated mathematician, Kaczynski retreated to a hermit-like existence in Montana wilderness before his arrest in 1996  

Notorious domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski, also known as the ‘Unabomber’, has died aged 81 in federal prison, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons said Saturday.

Kaczynski was found dead around 8 a.m. at a federal prison in North Carolina. A cause of death was not immediately known.

After shooting to infamy by orchestrating 16 bombings over a 17-year reign of terror, Kaczynski was given life without the possibility of parole when he was finally caught in 1996. 

Kaczynski was captured after a years-long manhunt tracked him to a primitive cabin in western Montana woodland, where he built the explosives he used to kill three people and injure 23 others between 1978 and 1995. 

He had been moved to the federal prison medical facility in North Carolina after spending two decades in a federal Supermax prison in Colorado. 

Ted Kaczynski (pictured) was behind a 17-year mail bomb spree that left three people dead and wounded 23 others

The domestic terrorist had been moved to the federal prison medical facility in North Carolina after spending two decades in a federal Supermax prison in Colorado 

The 17-year manhunt for the killer was the longest in US law enforcement history. Pictured: A wanted poster for the Unabomber

Kaczynski was a Harvard educated mathematician who later retreated to the Montana wilderness after coming to believe technology would spell the end of civilization. 

He executed a sinister plan to detonate explosives in universities and airports, which he would often mail to his victims using the postal service. 

Years before the Sept. 11 attacks and the anthrax mailing, the Unabomber’s deadly homemade bombs changed the way Americans mailed packages and boarded airplanes, even virtually shutting down air travel on the West Coast in July 1995. 

He published a sprawling 35,000 word manifesto named ‘Industrial Society and Its Future’, which  claimed modern society was plagued by the increasing role of technology in everyday life. 

While the fear he spurred led The Washington Post and The New York Times to take the agonizing decision in September 1995 to publish the manifesto, it ultimately led to his undoing. 

Kaczynski’s brother David and David’s wife, Linda Patrik, recognized the bizarre belief system within the tome and tipped off the FBI. 

The tip led to the end of the nation’s longest manhunt, and in April 1996 authorities found him in a 10-by-14 foot wood cabin outside Lincoln, Montana. 

In April 1996 authorities found Kaczynski in a 10-by-14 foot wood cabin outside Lincoln, Montana

The Harvard educated mathematician is pictured being escorted by US Marshals in 1996

Seen by many as a criminal mastermind plagued by mental illness and a bitterness against society, Kaczynski shot to infamy as one of the most prolific killers in recent US history. 

A psychiatrist who interviewed Kaczynski in prison diagnosed him as a paranoid schizophrenic.

‘Mr. Kaczynski’s delusions are mostly persecutory in nature,’ Sally Johnson wrote in a 47-page report. ‘The central themes involve his belief that he is being maligned and harassed by family members and modern society.’ 

Rather than admit insanity in his murder trial, Kaczynski famously fired his own defense team and pleaded guilty rather than allow his attorneys to argue he had lost his mind. 

‘I’m confident that I’m sane,’ Kaczynski told Time magazine in 1999. ‘I don’t get delusions and so forth.’ 

The terrorist killed three and injured 23 by mailing explosives across America. Pictured: An FBI reproduction of one of Kaczynski’s bombs

Kaczynski was eventually captured living a hermit-like life in the Montana wilderness after retreating to a solitary cabin 

Before his descent into madness, Kaczynski was a brilliant mathematician and scholar who skipped two grades to attend Harvard aged 16. 

 His explosives were carefully tested and came in meticulously handcrafted wooden boxes sanded to remove possible fingerprints. Later bombs bore the signature ‘FC’ for ‘Freedom Club.’ 

He earned the moniker ‘Unabomber’ from the FBI because his early targets were often universities and airlines. 

In 1979, an altitude-triggered bomb he mailed exploded aboard an American Airlines flight, leading a dozen passengers to suffer smoke inhalation. 

While most of his victims were maimed by the bombs, Kaczynski also killed computer rental store owner Hugh Scrutton, advertising executive Thomas Mosser and timber industry lobbyist Gilbert Murray. 

California geneticist Charles Epstein and Yale University computer expert David Gelernter were maimed by bombs two days apart in June 1993.

Mosser was killed in his North Caldwell, New Jersey, home on Dec. 10, 1994, a day he was supposed to be picking out a Christmas tree with his family. His wife, Susan, found him grievously wounded by a barrage of razor blades, pipes and nails.

Kaczynski was serving a life sentence when he was found dead in his cell aged 81 

Former classmates described Kaczynski as an outcast, with one ominous incident during high school seeing him show a schoolmate how to make a mini-bomb that detonated during chemistry class. 

Harvard classmates recalled him as a lonely, thin boy with poor personal hygiene and a room that smelled of spoiled milk, rotting food and foot powder.

After teaching at the University of California at Berkeley for a short time, he bought a 4-mile parcel of land outside Lincoln, Montana in 1971. 

He learned to live without heating, plumbing or electricity, as he foraged for food and lived off only a few hundred dollars a year. 

He left his cabin in Montana in the late 1970s to work at a foam rubber products manufacturer outside Chicago with his father and brother. But when a female supervisor dumped him after two dates, he began posting insulting limericks about her and wouldn’t stop.

His brother fired him and Ted Kaczynski soon returned to the wilderness to continue plotting his vengeful killing spree.

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