Disclaimer: This article contains mentions of bombings and deaths. Readers are advised to exercise caution.
How They Got Caught: The Unabomber
American serial bomber Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber, was one of the most feared figures in the history of the country. The end of the terror came after his thought-provoking manifesto was published in one of the largest news organizations in the world. The tactful arrest of the Unabomber by the FBI continues to attract attention years after his arrest. Born Theodore Kaczynski, he was a math prodigy who dropped out of college and terrorized the country for years.
In 1979, the FBI formed a task force, including the ATF and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, to investigate the "UNABOM" case, a code name derived from "the targets involved in university and airline bombings." The year before, Kaczynski had detonated his first homemade bomb at a Chicago university. Over the next 17 years, he had mailed or delivered "increasingly sophisticated bombs." He even threatened to blow up airliners in midair.
Meanwhile, Kaczynski kept his identity a secret. As fear and panic gripped the public, the task force grew to more than 150 full-time analysts, investigators and others to find the anonymous killer.
