Unabomber Part 1: The Biggest Manhunt in FBI History

[00:00:00] Kyle Risi: Welcome to The Compendium: An Assembly of Fascinating Things, a weekly variety podcast that gives you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering.

[00:00:09] Adam Cox: We explore strange true stories from the worlds of true crime, dark history, scandals, mysteries, and remarkable people.

[00:00:17] Kyle Risi: I'm Kyle Reeser, your ringmaster for this week's episode.

[00:00:20] Adam Cox: And I'm Adam Cox, the resident dialect coach for this week.

Not for you.

It's for the trapeze monkeys. They're from Brooklyn. Okay. Really.

[00:00:30] Kyle Risi: That's so rude.

[00:00:31] Adam Cox: And they have re- When they're all together, really thick accents, and I've gotta teach them how to speak the Queen's English.

[00:00:36] Kyle Risi: What a funny thought. Trapeze monkeys with Brooklyn accents.

[00:00:40] Adam Cox: I know, right?

[00:00:41] Kyle Risi: Go on, give me your best Brooklyn accent.

[00:00:42] Adam Cox: I, I really don't think I can do that. I

[00:00:46] Kyle Risi: don't think I can either. Hey, hey, oy. It's very Italian to me.

[00:00:50] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:00:51] Kyle Risi: You know what

[00:00:51] Adam Cox: I mean? That, that's what I was thinking every time I thought about doing it beforehand, I was like, "No, I'm just going Italian." Yeah. Or New York. That's it. That kind of New Yorker.

Want some coffee.

[00:00:58] Kyle Risi: Co- coffee. Where's my coffee, man?

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[00:01:37] Kyle Risi: Adam, that is enough of the housekeeping because today on the Compendium, we are actually diving into an assembly of the many strange things people can get up to in a shed.

[00:01:47] Adam Cox: Am I supposed to just list things?

[00:01:49] Kyle Risi: Yeah,

[00:01:50] Adam Cox: Okay. Making, moonshine.

[00:01:52] Kyle Risi: Uh-huh.

[00:01:53] Adam Cox: Making, mousetraps.

Or just getting away from the wife.

[00:01:58] Kyle Risi: Do you remember those really stupid TikToks where people asked their mom, " Can you just list everything that's in the shed?" And but really what they've said to the camera is like, "Things my mom has stuck up her bum."

And then, like, the mom is just going, "Uh, so there's a dartboard- "... um, all your baby clothes. Um, oh, there's that old rake that your dad just will not get rid of- "... um, a bunch of seeds."

I think our listeners should record their moms and then we'll just play it on the show, the funniest ones.

[00:02:26] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:02:27] Kyle Risi: Adam, Let me paint a picture for you. It is the 25th of May, 1978, and a woman has found a parcel lying unattended between two cars in the engineering building carpark at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

On the face of it, it seemed like nothing particularly alarming. It was literally just a package wrapped in brown paper, covered in about $10 worth of postage stamps.

But the strange thing was that none of these stamps had actually been canceled. So it was clear that the parcel hadn't actually passed through the postal system.

Somebody had basically prepared it, stuck a bunch of stamps on it, And then for whatever reason, it ended up sitting in the university's car park.

On the front it was addressed to E.J. Smith, an engineering professor at the Polytechnic Institute in Troy in New York City.

But on the back, the return address was for someone completely different, a guy called Buckley Crist, a material science professor just a few miles away in Evanston.

[00:03:31] Adam Cox: So none of these people are at this university?

[00:03:34] Kyle Risi: No. Strange, right?

[00:03:36] Adam Cox: Mm.

[00:03:37] Kyle Risi: Now, the woman who found it decided that the obvious thing to do was to get it back to whoever had sent it.

She contacted Northwestern University and made arrangements for the package to be returned to Buckley Crist. The following day, Buckley arrived at his desk to find the parcel waiting for him.

Immediately, Adam, something felt wrong.

Firstly, because he didn't remember sending a package at all, but also he had no idea who this Professor E.J. Smith was.

So Buckley, very nervously and cautiously, started cutting away at the brown paper.

Inside, he could see what looked like a wooden box, and then he noticed a lid. built into the box were the words " Open" etched into it.

Which I mean, if you already didn't remember sending the thing and you didn't know who it was addressed to I think at that point you'd probably be done, right?

[00:04:30] Adam Cox: Yeah. If you don't remember etching "Open" onto this lid- then you didn't send this.

[00:04:34] Kyle Risi: Exactly. Immediately Buckley called the Northwestern University's Department of Public Safety who sent an officer, Terry Marker, to take a look.

As Terry began carefully opening the package, Adam, it exploded in his face.

[00:04:49] Adam Cox: Jeez.

[00:04:50] Kyle Risi: Thankfully, because Terry approached the package really cautiously, he basically escaped with relatively minor injuries.

[00:04:56] Adam Cox: So he wasn't directly, like, over it or anything then?

[00:04:59] Kyle Risi: No, it was pointing away from him, yes.

[00:05:01] Adam Cox: Right.

[00:05:01] Kyle Risi: Now, if the package had been facing towards him when it had exploded, Adam, he could have absolutely been killed.

Now, when the investigation began, officers did manage to track down this man that the parcel was originally addressed to, this E.J. Smith in New York.

But Adam, he completely denied knowing anything about the package. He also had never heard of Buckley Crist before.

What was clear, though, was that E.J. Smith was never the intended target. It was always Buckley Crist.

[00:05:32] Adam Cox: Why? How, how does that work then?

[00:05:34] Kyle Risi: Well, despite having about $10 worth of stamps stuck on the package, there wasn't actually enough postage for it to ever make it to New York. The thinking was Whoever made the bomb knew if it entered the postal system, it would eventually be rejected and returned to sender, the bomber's actual intended target.

So, like, It's a serious game of 4D chess that this guy's playing, because this person hadn't even posted the package himself.

He just left it sitting between two cars in a university car park, relying on some good citizen to think, "Oh, let me do the right thing and either post it to them or get it to them in some way," right?

[00:06:11] Adam Cox: This is a parcel, isn't it? It's not, it's not like it fits in a letterbox

[00:06:16] Kyle Risi: or anything like that. That's right. The weird thing is, is that this parcel was actually found very close to the actual post box itself. So my only thinking is it couldn't actually fit into the actual post box itself.

[00:06:24] Adam Cox: Yeah, and to expect someone to then go or take it to a post office or wherever it is- Mm-hmm ...... for it to be delivered, that's quite a bit out of someone's way- just to do that. If it was right outside a post office, then probably, yeah, you just take it in, just go, "Yeah, I found this outside."

[00:06:38] Kyle Risi: Yeah, that's right. I can't pretend to understand why the woman did what she did. I would've just left it.

[00:06:42] Adam Cox: I mean, after this story, I'm most definitely gonna leave anything I find on the pavement.

[00:06:46] Kyle Risi: Yeah. But also listing Buckley as the sender when it arrives on his desk sparks enough curiosity for him to go, "Well, I didn't send this

And so you're gonna wanna know what's in it, right?

[00:06:56] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:06:57] Kyle Risi: Either way, Buckley ended up with a bomb sitting on his desk, and when police asked him who might have possibly wanted him dead, Buckley couldn't think of a single person.

If someone hated him that much, this was completely out of left field for him, because in the weeks and months leading up to the bomb being delivered, he hadn't received any death threats. So you would think at least that would come first.

[00:07:17] Adam Cox: Yeah, I reckon it's the mother-in-law.

[00:07:19] Kyle Risi: Yeah, they hold onto resentment.

Yeah. So basically, this bomb just appeared. Unfortunately though, Adam, the bomb itself wasn't much help either. There were almost no clues, no useful fingerprints , and no fibers or hairs left inside what was left of the bomb.

the bomb itself was also incredibly makeshift, like the builder had made it out of all sorts of ordinary materials that you can just find inside your shed.

[00:07:41] Adam Cox: I see. So this is a, I guess a bit of a novice at bomb-making

[00:07:45] Kyle Risi: you would think so. It sounds like it, right? Or- It's all- ... is this his 4D game chess play whereby he's very careful about not sourcing any materials from any known suppliers?

[00:07:56] Adam Cox: So very purposeful in terms of what he's used.

[00:07:59] Kyle Risi: Which also suggests that he must know a lot about bomb-making in order to be able to fashion components that you would need from essentially junk, right? So it might be a very experienced bomb-maker.

[00:08:08] Adam Cox: Mm.

[00:08:09] Kyle Risi: And so like I said, there were no parts that potentially pointed towards a supplier. And virtually nothing that told the cops about who had made it.

What nobody involved knew at this time though, Adam, was that this strange little package in Chicago would be the beginning of what would become the longest, most expensive manhunt in FBI history.

This is the hunt for the Unabomber.

[00:08:33] Adam Cox: Oh, I've heard of this person. I'm assuming it's a guy- I don't really know what they actually did.

[00:08:39] Kyle Risi: Exactly. It's one of those stories that is just referenced so often in certainly British pop culture. We don't really know kind of the context behind it. Americans might know a lot about it.

But what makes this story so wild to me is just how long he managed to keep going. this wasn't just a handful of attacks over a few weeks, Adam,

this series of bombings went on for 17 years. He sent 16 bombs, injured 23 people, and killed three, all while the FBI spent years trying to work out who the hell they were even looking for.

[00:09:12] Adam Cox: So this is like one a year, and I guess his success rate, if we look at it in terms of intending to harm- wasn't that good.

[00:09:20] Kyle Risi: Yeah, but I think his intention was definitely to harm as many people as he could. Remember, he is making these bombs makeshift, right? He is obviously doing that for a reason, but he's trying to affect the process so that he can strike a kill.

[00:09:34] Adam Cox: how do we land on the name Unabomber?

[00:09:36] Kyle Risi: Well, I'm gonna explain that, 'cause it is, it's very obvious when we go through it. But what we will be covering in today's episode, because actually, Adam, this is a two-parter.

[00:09:45] Adam Cox: Oh.

[00:09:45] Kyle Risi: In the story of the Unabomber, we'll be covering the story of the Unabomber as the public would have experienced it. So in effect, I will slowly lead you to our suspect, and we'll see if along the way we can work out what kind of person he is before we actually get to meet him at the end of this episode.

I will take you through how the strange packages started getting sent to various people across America, how with each bomb, the explosions got increasingly more lethal as if he was using the public in order to test and perfect his techniques.

But also, what the strange pattern and the people he was targeting tells us about the Unabomber and what he wanted, And why it takes 17 years before he finally lets the world know who he actually was.

And by the end of this episode, we will finally know who the Unabomber is, which will perfectly lay the groundwork for getting to know him in part two.

[00:10:38] Adam Cox: So there's quite a lot of build-up you've done there. Yeah.

[00:10:41] Kyle Risi: Oh, you, you're setting yourself up for, a failed expectation.

[00:10:45] Adam Cox: No, I'm just saying this better deliver because I'm intrigued, Kyle.

[00:10:48] Kyle Risi: But should we get started? Let's do it.

Adam

The first bomb was only the beginning, as we said, of his 17-year reign of terror that would see the bomber send a total of 16 bombs, injuring 23 people and killing three. At first, the attacks seemed completely random. There, of course remember, was no obvious connection between the people being targeted.

But alas, that was only the first bomb. As more bombings started happening, a pattern does eventually begin to emerge.

At this point, almost an entire year has passed without another bomb being delivered. It was a bomb that exploded in someone's face, and that was it. It died down in the news, and no one heard anything else for a, whole year.

[00:11:27] Adam Cox: Yeah, I guess no one's been seriously injured. It's a one and done thing.

Move on.

[00:11:31] Kyle Risi: So the silence was finally broken on the 9th of May, 1979 when another package appeared on the same Northwestern University campus. This time it was discovered on the desk of a graduate student called John Harris. Now, the package was smaller than the one from a year ago, but even more sinisterly

It was dressed up as a gift rather than anything threatening, which is a problem because if you walk into work, Adam, and you see a little present sitting on your desk, especially as, like, a graduate teacher, right? Your mind is not gonna go to immediately this is a bomb, right? Especially since a year has passed since the last one.

You're probably not even thinking that.

[00:12:07] Adam Cox: Yeah, because if it's got your name on, you're thinking it's a gift and maybe it's chocolates. Yeah. What is it?

[00:12:12] Kyle Risi: and so John opens it, and Adam, as he did, the gift exploded in his face. Again, thankfully, John's injuries were all relatively minor, but just like the first bomb, forensic investigators were left with almost nothing that pointed out who might have made it.

But a pattern was now starting to emerge.

[00:12:29] Adam Cox: One question, 'cause this particular bomb was on this person's desk.

[00:12:34] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:34] Adam Cox: So either the bomber's put it there or he's got someone else to put it there, right?

[00:12:39] Kyle Risi: Adam, you're right. The bomber was targeting people connected to obviously this university perhaps. Maybe it was a disgruntled academic or someone with a problem with the university itself.

They also must have been local since, as you said, the bomb had clearly been left by this person. It wasn't posted. It wasn't delivered by a postal worker or anything like that. The problem was Northwestern University was a big campus, right?

There was potentially thousands of people who could have planted it with many potentially having academic acumen to physically build a bomb, right? You're in a university of people who know crazy shit.

[00:13:13] Adam Cox: Mm.

[00:13:14] Kyle Risi: Uh, They potentially had the skill. They potentially had access to the resources to build these types of things. Pinpointing a culprit was, of course, going to be extremely hard. But the theory that the bomber was targeting the university completely falls apart when on the 15th of November 1979, American Airlines Flight 444 takes off from Chicago bound for Washington, DC.

Shortly after, an explosion is heard coming from inside the luggage compartment. A few seconds later, smoke, starts pouring into the main passenger cabin, causing mass panic across all the passengers. Luckily the pilots are able to react quickly and divert the plane towards Dulles Airport, where they conduct an emergency landing.

Everyone on board manages to survive.

[00:13:57] Adam Cox: But I guess these people, they're gonna be really scared. Like, do they know that a bomb has gone off, or do they think something's on fire?

[00:14:03] Kyle Risi: They've definitely heard the explosion.

[00:14:04] Adam Cox: Right,

[00:14:04] Kyle Risi: okay. So they don't know whether or not it is a bomb. It could just be maybe something in the luggage compartment that's exploded, but still, whatever it is, if it's, like, a plane component that's exploded, it's still an explosion.

[00:14:13] Adam Cox: Yeah, and you think, "Well, is it just gonna be one?" You'd be scared, until you're off that plane.

[00:14:17] Kyle Risi: Yeah, When the investigators examined the remains of the bomb, it became incredibly clear just how lucky everyone on board was.

There was enough explosive power in that bomb, Adam, to blast a hole through that fuselage. The only reason it didn't was because the bomb actually malfunctioned.

The bomb's trigger was like an altimeter designed to go off when the plane reached 34,000 feet in the air, but just after take-off, it somehow malfunctioned. It sparked a small fire which burned up some of the components that basically made the bomb useless.

If it hadn't malfunctioned, Adam, everyone on board would've been killed, guaranteed.

[00:14:52] Adam Cox: Jeez.

[00:14:52] Kyle Risi: But this latest bomb, as we probably have established, isn't like the others. This wasn't a university.

So initially, investigators thought that the bomb was the work of another bomber. but once the forensics team got involved, it becomes incredibly clear that even though the bomb was much more sophisticated and powerful than the previous two, it was still made using the same kind of materials and construction techniques, things that you could literally find in a junkyard.

[00:15:15] Adam Cox: Mm, okay.

[00:15:17] Kyle Risi: But it's also clear that he was learning from his past bombings and increasingly making the bombs way more powerful. So you get this feeling, especially amongst the FBI, that you are now tracking towards potentially someone who is out to kill, and he's experimenting.

[00:15:32] Adam Cox: Yeah, the fact that they've gone from two single or individual people to now a whole plane full of people. just feels like a matter of time. So far, everyone has been really lucky.

[00:15:42] Kyle Risi: That's right.

What this does do is confirm That they now had a serial bomber on their hands. And so of course, the FBI are called in.

They assemble a dedicated task force including several different agencies.

The case was code named UNABOM because by this point the bomber had targeted two universities and an airline.

[00:16:00] Adam Cox: Oh.

[00:16:01] Kyle Risi: It's not that sophisticated.

[00:16:02] Adam Cox: It's not. You always think like when they start putting together these missions like, "We're gonna need to name guys," and they like spend all morning going, "Oh, what should we call this guy?"

But actually it's pretty simple

[00:16:10] Kyle Risi: It's what it says on the tin- Yeah ... basically.

Of course, the FBI, the first thing they do is bring everything together, all the components that were left from the previous explosions to see if they told investigators anything about who had actually built them.

Again, there's almost nothing.

But his choice of materials was super interesting, and profilers were certain that it told them something about his ideology.

And that's because even though most of the components were bits of scrap metal, all three bombs seemed to contain fragments of wood and bark.

Now, I don't mean in the bomb casings, I'm talking about pieces of wood being used as part of the projectile material inside the bomb.

[00:16:44] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:45] Kyle Risi: Like, why?

[00:16:46] Adam Cox: It's cheap, or It's easy to get your hands on? I don't know.

[00:16:50] Kyle Risi: But the thing is, though, if he's building bombs to try and hopefully kill people because he's progressively making them more dangerous, surely he must know that wood is not gonna cut it.

So the wood must be there for a very specific reason, an ideological reason.

[00:17:03] Adam Cox: I don't know what that would be, though.

[00:17:05] Kyle Risi: We will find out, I promise you.

[00:17:06] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:17:08] Kyle Risi: But it also told investigators that he was clearly skilled enough to understand how to make a bomb from essentially junk, right? Remember, he isn't purchasing readily available components.

He understood how to fashion what he needed from literal junk, And this is what actually earns him the moniker The Junkyard Bomber initially. And so to be able to do this is quite something.

This had to be someone who was already versed in the mechanics of regular bombs to have the know-how to craft alternatives from literally nothing.

[00:17:33] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:33] Kyle Risi: Now, following the airline bombing, there were no new attacks, Adam, for seven months.

That was until the 10th of June, 1980, when a man named Percy Wood, the president of United Airlines, received a package at his home.

Inside was a copy of Sloan Wilson's novel Ice Brothers. When Percy opened up the book, it immediately exploded.

[00:17:54] Adam Cox: I'm just trying to piece together who these people are and why he's targeting them. Cause I, it doesn't connect for me right now.

[00:18:00] Kyle Risi: No, it doesn't connect for the FBI, and this is why I think it's important to take you through how the public and the FBI were seeing this story.

Basically, the bomber had hollowed out a book and built a bomb into it. Now thankfully, Percy Wood survived, only suffering minor cuts and burns. but man, you would never open another book in the same way ever again.

[00:18:19] Adam Cox: I know. You'd be, like, doing it at an arm's length with a stick maybe.

[00:18:22] Kyle Risi: Yeah. What if you're, like, an academic or a bibliophile, right? You own a bookstore. Every time you open a book, you're like, "Ah!"

[00:18:28] Adam Cox: I think you'd have to retire.

Where's the digital age?

[00:18:32] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:18:32] Adam Cox: also, are these bombs ... I know the, one on the plane that malfunctioned- Mm ... but it felt like that would have gone off.

[00:18:39] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:18:39] Adam Cox: But these other ones, no one's been seriously injured. Mm. So is that intentional to not seriously harm someone?

[00:18:46] Kyle Risi: I don't think so.

the bombs are definitely getting progressively more powerful.

[00:18:49] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:50] Kyle Risi: I think that he has an intention to kill someone, but he's making sure for whatever reason to use this wood as his material, right?

[00:18:58] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:58] Kyle Risi: And he clearly is understanding that it's not lethal enough. So the fact that he's using wood has to be some kind of symbolic thing.

Also remember, Adam, he's just targeted a guy called Percy Wood

[00:19:10] Adam Cox: So do we think that's the connection?

[00:19:13] Kyle Risi: Who knows? That's what the FBI certainly believe.

[00:19:15] Adam Cox: Okay, so this guy's ... He uses wood. He's targeted a guy called Wood. But then the other, bombs, wasn't related to a plane or, I don't know, was the person flying Mr. Plane?

[00:19:25] Kyle Risi: No, it wasn't. But he has now targeted two people from airlines and two people from universities.

[00:19:30] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:19:31] Kyle Risi: So that's the pattern that seems to be emerging, creating this bomb out of this book shows that the bomber is experimenting, right? He's coming up with different devices, and is, they're also becoming more and more sophisticated.

But this latest bombing does give cops a very solid clue, because stamped on one of the metal components were the letters FC.

It was possibly a mark belonging to a manufacturer, maybe some sort of, like, a part number. Hopefully something that would lead them back to a supplier, and then hopefully lead them to whoever purchased that of component.

However, investigators don't find anything.

If he was collecting materials from a junkyard, these components could be decades old, right? The supplier may have even gone out of business.

[00:20:12] Adam Cox: Mm.

[00:20:13] Kyle Risi: Adam, another year passes, and then on the 8th of October 1981, another package appears in the hallway of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. It was actually discovered by a maintenance worker, and it basically had just been left unattended.

Because it looks out of place, the worker does not take any risks, and he calls the cops. They confirm, of course, it is indeed a bomb, and so the bomb squad is called in to carry out a controlled explosion . Luckily for this bomb, nobody is hurt. The downside was that blowing up the bomb also destroyed most of the clues that might have pointed out potentially who could have built this.

[00:20:50] Adam Cox: So there's no way to disarm this bomb safely, then?

[00:20:53] Kyle Risi: I don't think they want to put anyone at risk. You would only want to do that if you really wanted to kind of keep the bomb intact, right? Yeah. It's better to just do a controlled explosion.

[00:21:02] Adam Cox: And this is before the time they had, like, robots to do this job.

[00:21:05] Kyle Risi: I mean, before I think they would, like, put, like, a metal dome over them and then carry out the explosion under that, so it keeps it contained. But they do have the remnants, and they all exhibited the same hallmarks as the others.

Scrap metal, wood, but also a single metal component with the letters FC stamped on it, and so suddenly, FC stopped looking like a manufacturer's mark and started looking like a signature

[00:21:29] Adam Cox: Oh, so he's leaving his mark. He's leaving, breadcrumbs, right?

[00:21:34] Kyle Risi: It's really interesting that before they didn't r-- really think anything of it, but now it's showed up twice, right?

[00:21:38] Adam Cox: Is that on a different piece of metal? It's not like it's on the same piece of the bomb.

[00:21:42] Kyle Risi: It looks like he's, someone has stamped it on there. And so the FBI realized that if they were ever gonna catch this guy, they needed to narrow down exactly who they were looking for.

They needed a psychological profile. And I always love this kind of stuff because it's so fascinating to see how closely these profiles eventually match the actual person, but also how much they can get spectacularly wrong sometimes.

[00:22:04] Adam Cox: Okay, so I feel like this is in that camp then.

[00:22:07] Kyle Risi: Well, we'll see. because at This point the FBI believe that the bomber was probably some sort of resentful scientist or academic based on the fact that he was targeting universities and other academics.

But still, the FBI generally believed that the inclusion of wood in his devices was still meaningful.

So it was not lost on them that one of his targeted victims was a guy called Percy Wood as well. Like, what is the significance of wood?

[00:22:32] Adam Cox: I just wonder if this is a red herring. I know you've, You've mentioned it a few times now. Mm. But I just feel like this guy is just resourceful.

[00:22:39] Kyle Risi: Do you think?

[00:22:40] Adam Cox: I don't know,

[00:22:41] Kyle Risi: well, psychologist Kathleen Puckette, she hypothesized that wood might infer his feelings of sexual inadequacy.

[00:22:49] Adam Cox: Really? From that?

[00:22:50] Kyle Risi: Yeah, wood equals erection, essentially.

[00:22:53] Adam Cox: I mean, I don't know. I just feel like if I was building a bomb-

[00:22:58] Kyle Risi: Uh-huh ...

[00:22:59] Adam Cox: and if I was, had issues like that, I'd go, "Do you know what I'm gonna put in this? I'm gonna put some wood."

[00:23:04] Kyle Risi: I don't know. It just, it feels like a stretch. It is a stretch in that sense, but the wood does have a very, very symbolic reasoning to it.

It's not this, though.

[00:23:13] Adam Cox: It's not that.

[00:23:14] Kyle Risi: It might be. Once we get to know a bit more about the bomber in the next episode, you could stretch it to it being connected to this.

[00:23:23] Adam Cox: What?

[00:23:24] Kyle Risi: I

[00:23:24] Adam Cox: don't understand.

[00:23:26] Kyle Risi: Hey, listen, the point is at this point they think perhaps that the bomber was angry because his dick didn't work. All right? I'm, I'm not joking. That's exactly what they thought. And so Adam, we don't get to meet the bomber until the next episode, as I said, so we'll have to wait and see. Spoiler alert, like I said, 70% there, but not for the reasons that we think. Semi. Semi. Semi there.

So Adam, for another six months, there are no new attacks until the 5th of May, 1982, when another package was sent, this time to Professor Patrick Fisher at Pennsylvania State University.

Here's a big clue. Turns out that Patrick Fisher hadn't worked at the university for over a year.

[00:24:02] Adam Cox: Right.

[00:24:03] Kyle Risi: So the university's postal department kind of did the right thing. They forwarded the package on to his place of work at Vanderbilt University.

When it arrived, Fisher was away on business, and so his secretary, Janet Smith, was the one who opened it. Of course, Adam, the bomb exploded in her face. We're not gonna be really that graphic unless it's absolutely necessary, but it exploded in her face. Janet, she does survive, but she's really badly injured. She sustains cuts and burns across her body, and her face- Ugh ... and her abdomen.

The bomb was also packed with more nails and more pellets this time. So it seems that the builder is like, "Well, maybe a little less wood and a bit more nails."

[00:24:39] Adam Cox: I mean, he's, he's taken a while to caught on to this.

[00:24:42] Kyle Risi: Yeah, which is my point, is that he must be really adamant to hold onto the wood as a material because it contained symbolic meaning.

[00:24:51] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:24:54] Kyle Risi: It's balanced now between him obviously wanting to use wood-

[00:24:58] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm ...

[00:24:58] Kyle Risi: but also to kill someone. And so, like, the ratio is being reduced. More, metal and a little bit less wood. Yeah. But it also has some wood in there.

[00:25:05] Adam Cox: Sounds like she has the worst injuries so far.

[00:25:08] Kyle Risi: So far, yeah. I think she severs a hand. She's a secretary. So she's opening mail all day- Yeah ... for a start, so she doesn't want to do that anymore. But also, like, I think she severs her thumb, and she can't, use that for a while.

[00:25:18] Adam Cox: Oh, God.

[00:25:19] Kyle Risi: But this is the big clue that I was hoping you would pick up on. The package arrived at Patrick Fisher's former place of work. He hadn't worked there for over a year.

So what do you think that tells us about who the bomber is?

[00:25:31] Adam Cox: He hasn't got an up-to-date address book.

[00:25:33] Kyle Risi: Yes, exactly that. Oh, really? Yes.

The cops hypothesized that the bomber wasn't choosing people because he knew them personally.

He was finding names from somewhere else, maybe some sort of out-of-date academic directory.

[00:25:46] Adam Cox: Ah.

[00:25:47] Kyle Risi: Which also strengthens the idea that the bomber might have some connection to academia, especially if he had access to such a directory.

[00:25:56] Adam Cox: Yeah, but the plane people. Yeah. That doesn't solve that.

[00:25:58] Kyle Risi: It does not.

Adam, the next attack happens very quickly after this, just two months later, when on the 2nd of July, 1982, another bomb appears, this time at the University of California, Berkeley.

This bomb was also unlike the others. It honestly just looked like a piece of engineering equipment that had been left on the faculty room floor. Bear that in mind, 'cause it might become a clue.

It was found by an engineering professor called, and I can't pronounce this, so I'm gonna butcher it. It's my thing. This is why I need the linguistic the linguistic, uh, person. What did you call it again?

[00:26:27] Adam Cox: Dialect coach. He, he doesn't-

[00:26:27] Kyle Risi: This is the, this is why I need compendium dialect coach. So it's, Diogenes Angelacos

[00:26:31] Adam Cox: I'm gonna safely say that's probably

[00:26:33] Kyle Risi: wrong Is probably wrong.

But basically, Adam, he sees what looks like a small canister of fuel on the ground, and he's like, "What the hell is this doing here?" And so he bends down, he picks it up, he hears a click. Adam, the bomb explodes in his face.

[00:26:45] Adam Cox: Hang on. So just by picking it up detonates it?

Having to put it down, it must have been the bomber that's doing that. Like, how else would you know to put that in the middle of this staff room or faculty room?

[00:26:56] Kyle Risi: Well, he had obviously planted it and then prepared it.

He set it, so that takes a considerable amount of time, right?

[00:27:01] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:27:01] Kyle Risi: But again, this latest bomb tells investigators a little bit more about him.

The bomber had managed to carry a bomb onto the university campus, get it into a room used by other members of staff, leave it there, and walk away without anybody thinking that he looked out of place.

[00:27:16] Adam Cox: Ah.

[00:27:17] Kyle Risi: Again, at the very least, does he look like someone who belonged?

[00:27:21] Adam Cox: Or was he actually part of that school?

[00:27:24] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Could he have been , another professor? Mm. Or could he have been a student?

[00:27:28] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:27:28] Kyle Risi: So Adam, this latest bomb was actually the last for almost three years.

Like, he is so incredibly patient. And that silence was really interesting because if FC really was some sort of signature, investigators thought that eventually he might want to explain himself, right? Like, why else would you put your signature on there if you didn't want to then say, " That's my signature"?

[00:27:48] Adam Cox: Yeah, so are we thinking that this three years is him just laying low, or is there a reason why he's waited this long?

[00:27:54] Kyle Risi: It's really difficult to know, and I think it'll become a little more apparent.

But, I think it just is testament to, like, this is a slow-burning guy. Mm-hmm. He's happy to wait.

But now that he's disappeared, it shows that he's incredibly patient. They were still hoping that eventually he might write to the police or contact a newspaper, but Adam, within that three years, nothing arrives.

It's not until the 15th of May, 1985, again, back at Berkeley, that someone drops off a three-ring binder onto the desk of John Hauser. He was an engineering graduate student, but also a captain in the US Air Force.

So now he's, like, straddled the two. He's an academic, and also he's part of the airline industry.

[00:28:33] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:28:34] Kyle Risi: When John arrives back at his office, he finds a binder waiting for him, which remember, you're at a university, that does not seem suspicious at all.

But when John opens the binder, it explodes in his face. this one is bad. The shrapnel shatters part of John's skull. Oh. He was also partially blinded by fragments of shrapnel. That's his career ended as a pilot.

[00:28:55] Adam Cox: God.

[00:28:55] Kyle Risi: As well as losing four fingers. So that's definitely gonna end your career.

[00:28:59] Adam Cox: Yeah, and this is a binder. It doesn't look like a bomb, right?

[00:29:02] Kyle Risi: Yeah, and weirdly, when the bomb goes off, the person who runs to help him is Diogenes Angelakos. That's the same professor who was injured by the canister bomb three years earlier.

[00:29:11] Adam Cox: Oh, right. So that's gonna bring back some PTSD.

[00:29:13] Kyle Risi: Absolutely. You've already had one of these explode in your face. Three years pass, you're back at work, and then another one goes off just meters away from where you're working.

Luckily, Diogenes was able to run and help John. Of course, John is extremely badly injured, but when investigators searched the room afterwards Embedded in the wall behind where John was standing, they find a small metal component stamped with the

[00:29:38] Adam Cox: letters FC. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Wow. So again, this guy is leaving his mark. Yeah. And he is, he's blending in, so it feels like a student, a caretaker, a professor.

[00:29:46] Kyle Risi: Yeah. This is quite strange. But

remember, these are, two different universities that he's targeted, they're not the same. So is he a student there, or does he have connections to these other universities?

[00:29:58] Adam Cox: No, but he can visit and just, like- Correct ... blend in, right?

[00:30:00] Kyle Risi: Yeah, yeah.

So he must know not just the universities, but also, , navigating these universities-

[00:30:05] Adam Cox: Sure ...

[00:30:06] Kyle Risi: knowing where the staff kind of quarters are, the faculty room, things like that.

[00:30:09] Adam Cox: That makes me think he is a caretaker.

Mm.

[00:30:12] Kyle Risi: Adam, the next bomb was found a month later, this time at a Boeing facility in Washington State.

Again, someone sees it, they think it looks suspicious, and of course the bomb squad is called in. Again, they carry out a controlled explosion, so nobody is hurt, but it's very clear it's the same bomber's handiwork. So now again, he's gone back to the aviation, right? So there's definitely a clear straddling between the two types of things.

[00:30:35] Adam Cox: And are any of these universities, are any of them connected to, like, the air industry or airplanes or flying or technology?

[00:30:43] Kyle Risi: Well, I mean, you've got John Hauser, like he was a pilot, but also he is a professor. They're clearly working across these different industries, right?

[00:30:51] Adam Cox: So is it someone that wanted to be a, a pilot or whatever like that?

[00:30:54] Kyle Risi: You, you're basically saying someone may be resentful.

[00:30:56] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:30:57] Kyle Risi: Possibly, Is it someone resentful?

Now, a few months later on the 15th of November 1985, another parcel arrives, this time for a guy called James McConnell, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, another university.

This one was clever because it came with a letter asking James to review a student's work, which if you're a university professor, that probably happens all the time, you're not thinking, "Why someone sent this to me?" You're thinking, "Oh, fine, another paper to read."

So James opens it. The bomb, of course, explodes in his face.

When it explodes, James was with his assistant, a guy called Nick Sunio. Both men obviously hit with shrapnel, and they're both badly injured.

But at this point, it's very clear to investigators that the bomber is methodically trying to make these bombs more deadly, like he wants to kill someone. And so there is this overwhelming belief that the first fatality is literally just a matter of time, right?

[00:31:50] Adam Cox: And if I was, like, trying to hunt this guy, I'd be thinking this bomber must be getting frustrated that his bombs aren't - going to plan.

[00:31:58] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

I think so.

[00:31:59] Adam Cox: And then also, like, is there still wood in these bombs?

[00:32:02] Kyle Risi: I believe that there is fragments of wood in a lot of these bombs. There seems to be a consistency, but there's sometimes also an overlap. So while there might be maybe less wood or no wood, there'll be, like, the calling card, so there's always something to at least track back to the same builder.

And Adam, the first fatality does happen just a month later in December of 1985. but also This is the first time that we see his MO change.

Because it's around lunchtime when Hugh Scrutton was preparing to leave his computer rental business in Sacramento when he noticed what looked like a paper bag lying in the car park.

Naturally, he thinks it's rubbish. Hugh, of course, bends down to pick it up, and again, Adam, as he does, the bomb inside that bag explodes

Hugh is hit with shrapnel across his abdomen, his arms, his face.

Adam, Hugh dies, and it is horrific.

By the time the ambulance arrive, it's just clear, like there's nothing they can do to help him. And so, it takes him an hour to die on the scene

[00:32:59] Adam Cox: And this is a bomb inside a bag. Mm. It's just, these objects are just not suspicious in any way, are they?

[00:33:06] Kyle Risi: They're really not. But the point is, at this point he's now finally killed someone.

But also, Hugh's targeting demonstrates a bit of a shift in who he's going after, right? Up until now, it's been mostly victims connected to universities and the aviation industry. Hugh owned a computer business.

[00:33:21] Adam Cox: But was it actually meant for Hugh? Because it's in a car park. Mm. Anyone could have picked that up.

[00:33:25] Kyle Risi: So initially the FBI wondered whether or not this bomb was the work of the bomber.

Was it maybe another copycat?

However, when forensics again analyze the remnants of the bomb, they find those iconic two letters FC. it was him.

Yeah. By now, though, investigators were convinced that those letters did mean something. They tried to look at different political groups and anarchist organizations, maybe some scientific movements that are known to be kind of like aggressive.

At one point, they even consider whether or not FC might be connected to Fidel Castro, of all people.

[00:33:58] Adam Cox: I mean, would you leave your initials? I don't know. This guy wants to be found or be-

[00:34:03] Kyle Risi: But he's not speaking. He's not coming forward with like demands.

[00:34:06] Adam Cox: No, maybe not found, but the thing is, he wants them to know it's his bombs. Mm. So it's either his initials or something that's meaningful to him, right?

[00:34:15] Kyle Risi: Yeah, yeah, But it's just so surprising that, yes, you're right, he wants people to know that it's his bomb, but also he's not ready to speak yet. Like, It's been years.

But of course, when the cops look into these infamous letters FC, nothing really credible comes up.

They needed basically the bomber to come forward and break his silence by contacting the police or contacting a newspaper, and they honestly thought that now that he'd finally killed someone, that actually maybe that's what his next step is gonna be.

But Adam, it doesn't happen because the bombings completely stop for another 14 months.

Where is he going?

Yeah. And this is something that kind of gets lost when you hear these stories it's a bit like the Zodiac killer. You hear bombing after bombing, and it sounds relentless, but you have to remember, all of this happens over a span of 17 years. There were huge stretches of time where absolutely nothing happened.

So people weren't living in constant fear waiting for the next Unabomber attack, like, a bomb would go off, public attention would spike, and then for months, sometimes even years, nothing.

[00:35:14] Adam Cox: Yeah. And I'm just trying to work out if he's doing this, one, to lay low, or two, to make people forget about it so that he can, strike again with that sort of surprise later on.

[00:35:23] Kyle Risi: Yeah. It could be, because at the same time, what he's also doing is changing up the bombs- Mm ... so people don't look at it and go, "Oh, that's definitely a bomb," right?

[00:35:31] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:35:31] Kyle Risi: So maybe he's learning from these different experiences. Enough time can pass where it fades from your mind, and then he'll strike another bomb, change it up a bit so it looks a bit different.

[00:35:40] Adam Cox: Yeah, it's either that or he's being stationed away, or I don't know. There's something else going on in his life that stops him to be able to do this.

[00:35:47] Kyle Risi: Yes, that's right. But also he's clearly able to travel, he can get from one side of the country to the other, no problem.

[00:35:53] Adam Cox: So you're saying he has legs.

[00:35:55] Kyle Risi: I'm saying he can catch a bus. Or he has a car. But yes. He probably has legs, or maybe he doesn't have legs and that's why he's resentful.

[00:36:04] Adam Cox: No, he has legs.

[00:36:06] Kyle Risi: I can hear them.

Adam, eventually on February the 20th, 1987, after 14 months of silence, the bomber does return.

This time he targets another computer store in Salt Lake City, but he leaves behind something massive.

That morning, a woman working inside the shop noticed a man walking through the car park carrying what looked like a piece of building material, like it was made of bits of wood and plaster, like literally nails were protruding out of it.

She then watched him set the thing down on the ground and watched as he started fiddling with it.

So this is him setting it, essentially. She's thinking like, "What the hell is this guy doing?"

Then a few moments later, the bomber stood up, he turned, he saw the woman looking directly at him from inside the shop, and then just like that, he casually turned and walked away.

Now, the woman does tell another colleague what she had seen, saying that she was worried that some customer might drive into it and potentially scratch their car or potentially blow out one of their tires.

They were about to go and remove it when a customer walked in and draws their attention away from the thing that's in the car park.

Now, a few minutes later, the vice president of the computer shop, a guy called Gary White, arrives at work. He gets out of his car and he notices this thing just lying on the ground in the car park.

Now, to him it looks like rubbish, but also interesting enough for him to investigate.

[00:37:23] Adam Cox: Mm.

[00:37:24] Kyle Risi: Like, it had nails and bits of metal sticking out of it, right? And so Gary gives it, like a gentle kick, and Adam, it immediately explodes.

[00:37:31] Adam Cox: Jeez.

[00:37:32] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Hundreds of nails blast out of the device.

Many of them embed themselves into Gary's body. Oh, God. Like, one of them severs a nerve in his left arm, so he doesn't have use of that.

Gary is, without a doubt, in a bad way, but he does survive.

But now that they had a witness who had actually seen the bomber, like she looked directly at him in a way that commanded her full attention, right?

[00:37:52] Adam Cox: And I guess, into his eyes. I don't know how far away she was, but, like, she held a stare with him for a full second.

[00:37:58] Kyle Risi: Yeah, exactly. And

'Cause he was doing something odd, it's not like, I'd seen a guy pass me." Mm. No, she was like, "I saw this guy come in with this weird thing, set it on the ground, and it turned out to be a bomb."

[00:38:07] Adam Cox: Yeah. "

[00:38:07] Kyle Risi: And I was really curious as to what he was doing." So she got a proper good look of him.

[00:38:11] Adam Cox: And so she's able to give a description, I guess, to the police.

[00:38:14] Kyle Risi: Yes. And so with her help, the cops pull together a police sketch. She basically described a white man with a mustache, aviator glasses, and a dark hoodie pulled up over his head.

And it's from this encounter that we get the iconic sketch of the Unabomber.

[00:38:31] Adam Cox: I don't know if I've seen this.

[00:38:32] Kyle Risi: Here's a picture. What do you think?

[00:38:34] Adam Cox: Oh.

[00:38:35] Kyle Risi: Do you recognize him?

[00:38:36] Adam Cox: He looks like either some kind of rapper or D.B. Cooper

[00:38:40] Kyle Risi: He does look like D.B. Cooper, doesn't he?

[00:38:42] Adam Cox: It, it's the glasses I think, isn't it?

I guess that's a quite good sketch 'cause sometimes you see these sketches, they, they don't look good.

[00:38:48] Kyle Risi: Adam, the sketch is dog shit. I would never have linked that sketch to the real life Unabomber.

[00:38:53] Adam Cox: Oh, so you know what he looks like?

[00:38:54] Kyle Risi: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. We do know who he is. But the thing is, though, remember, there's 17 years in the story, so a lot can change in five years, right?

[00:39:02] Adam Cox: That's true. To be fair, the person who sketched this, I really like his work.

[00:39:06] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Do you want a tattoo?

But like I said, I would never link this sketch to the real-life bomber. But the sketch is circulated everywhere, and alas, Adam, nobody ever comes forward who says they recognize him.

No one.

[00:39:18] Adam Cox: I mean, He's wearing glasses.

And he's got a h- his hood up, so you can't really see his hair or much of his face. Yeah, but you'd

[00:39:22] Kyle Risi: recognize his face shape.

[00:39:24] Adam Cox: Yeah, he's got quite a pointed chin, quite a chiseled jaw-

[00:39:27] Kyle Risi: Mm ...

[00:39:27] Adam Cox: by looking at this. So apart from that, and a guy with a fairly thin mustache, or is that a thick mustache?

[00:39:33] Kyle Risi: I'd say it's quite thin, right?

[00:39:35] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:39:35] Kyle Risi: Honestly, it doesn't look like the real bomber.

[00:39:37] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:39:38] Kyle Risi: But Adam, after this latest bombing, the bomber disappears again, this time for six years.

[00:39:43] Adam Cox: Ah, so this makes me think he is laying low a little bit.

[00:39:46] Kyle Risi: Yeah, do you think that spooks him?

[00:39:47] Adam Cox: Well, there's a sketch out, and obviously he knows that someone had seen him, so it makes me think, yeah, he probably is maybe a little bit cautious.

[00:39:54] Kyle Risi: also makes me think that back then, maybe the sketch was remarkably accurate, hence why he laid low, right? Yeah. But obviously things have changed.

[00:40:02] Adam Cox: Yeah, he shaved.

[00:40:02] Kyle Risi: or the opposite. He grew a massive beard.

But also, this guy's incredibly patient. Again, that's a recurring theme that we keep getting throughout the story.

The cops were really hoping that he was on the verge of talking, after his first confirmed kill.

[00:40:15] Adam Cox: Mm.

[00:40:15] Kyle Risi: But during those six years, public attention ended up fading, task forces that were set up were disbanded and investigators were reassigned. And throughout that time, the evidence just ended up sitting in police storage.

[00:40:26] Adam Cox: So how many years has it been now since he's started?

[00:40:28] Kyle Risi: Oh, God, Adam, years.

[00:40:31] Adam Cox: That, that, that's not a number. You just didn't want to do the math, did you?

[00:40:38] Kyle Risi: I didn't want to do the math, but a long time. Like, we've had a 14-month gap. We've had a six-month gap. We had a four-month gap. Now we've got a six-year gap.

[00:40:44] Adam Cox: It- Feels like 10 years or something.

[00:40:47] Kyle Risi: it's incredibly a long time.

[00:40:48] Adam Cox: And dare I ask how many bombs so far?

[00:40:50] Kyle Risi: lot. A lot of bombs.

[00:40:53] Adam Cox: One fatality.

[00:40:54] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:40:55] Adam Cox: And a number of bombs.

[00:40:57] Kyle Risi: And a, a bunch of bombs. A bunch of big fucking bombs. I'll be more prepared next time. I mean, I can go do the maths, but it means I've got to pause this podcast.

[00:41:05] Adam Cox: Just, I don't know, maybe next time just bring just a little fact sheet just by the side.

I want a map with some string-

[00:41:11] Kyle Risi: Yeah ...

[00:41:11] Adam Cox: some push pins.

[00:41:12] Kyle Risi: I would love to have that as a feature wall if we ever do, a video podcast. Behind you, have, like a, a pin board.

[00:41:18] Adam Cox: That means I have to dress up.

[00:41:19] Kyle Risi: Yeah, you'd have to put makeup on.

But Adam, the bomber does return in June of 1993, so we're now into the '90s, and a parcel has arrived at the home of Charles Epstein. He's a geneticist.

[00:41:33] Adam Cox: Epstein?

[00:41:33] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:41:33] Adam Cox: Any connection?

[00:41:34] Kyle Risi: No.

[00:41:35] Adam Cox: Oh, okay.

[00:41:35] Kyle Risi: Calm down.

[00:41:36] Adam Cox: I just wondered if there was.

[00:41:38] Kyle Risi: He's in California, and it's actually Charles' daughter who receives the parcel from the delivery guy. That's scary, right?

[00:41:45] Adam Cox: Mm.

[00:41:45] Kyle Risi: She basically puts the parcel on the kitchen counter. She goes upstairs to do her homework or whatever.

It's not until later that day that Charles comes home, and of course, Adam, he opens the package. Again, inside is a small wooden box, except the bomber wasn't relying on Charles deciding whether or not to open this one.

Remember, the last wooden box had the words "open" on it.

He had fitted the box with a spring-loaded lid designed to automatically pop open when the box slipped past the lip of the envelope, it springs open and essentially explodes in his face.

He does survive, but I feel so terrible for his poor daughter, like, who had to come downstairs and find that.

[00:42:20] Adam Cox: Mm.

[00:42:20] Kyle Risi: It's only two days later, Adam, that an almost identical parcel arrives at Yale University.

This one is addressed to a computer science professor called David Gelernter. Again, when David opens this parcel, again it explodes. thing about David, though, is that he was completely alone.

Nobody had heard the blast, and so with deep lacerations all over his body and losing, an enormous amount of blood, he knew that if he was going to survive, he had to go and find help physically. And so somehow, Adam, it's horrific, he manages to drag himself out of the office.

He navigates down five flights of stairs and makes his way to the university hospital, and the scene is grim when people describe it, like the thick trails of blood- Oh ... dripping all over the place, on the walls, on the railings, everything. It's horrific.

[00:43:03] Adam Cox: God, did he survive?

[00:43:05] Kyle Risi: He does survive, yes.

[00:43:06] Adam Cox: Bloody hell.

[00:43:08] Kyle Risi: Adam, after this, the bomber finally speaks

Because that same day, a letter arrives at The New York Times postmarked in Sacramento of all places, which is interesting because Sacramento was also where Hugh Scrutton was killed back in 1985, right? The first fatality.

[00:43:24] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:43:24] Kyle Risi: Is this where he lived perhaps?

I think it's a big clue.

Now, the letter claimed responsibility for the latest string of bombings, but also acknowledged that FC was actually his calling card, and he said that he was actually an anarchist group, and that the bombings were a protest against modern technology and industrial society.

[00:43:43] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:43:44] Kyle Risi: In the letter, he also included a private nine-digit number with instructions that the newspaper keep that number secret.

It's a way of basically verifying whether or not future communications are actually from him, which is incredibly smart and incredibly indicative that he wants to make sure that what he says next can be 100% accredited to him.

[00:44:06] Adam Cox: And it's not a copycat. Exactly. 'Cause I guess we've seen that before with, like, the Zodiac Killer and all that stuff in the past. Yeah, that's quite a good way to help verify essentially.

[00:44:16] Kyle Risi: Exactly. But basically it says that whatever he says next is going to be vitally important.

[00:44:21] Adam Cox: So he's against modern technology.

[00:44:23] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:44:24] Adam Cox: That's- And that's why he's been using word.

[00:44:26] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:44:27] Adam Cox: Is it?

[00:44:27] Kyle Risi: Possibly.

[00:44:28] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:44:29] Kyle Risi: But Adam, that is all this particular letter said. Still, it's clear that he is going to start answering some questions from the FBI, right? They desperately wanted to know a bit more about him.

and So Adam, after six years, the FBI rebuild their task force.

They brought in an experienced counter-terrorism agent called Terry Turchi he was gonna lead the investigation, but he decides to recruit a behavioral specialist called Kathleen Puchette.

She's a woman who initially said, "I think wood means he's impotent," basically. So she's back on the scene. Oh,

[00:44:57] Adam Cox: she's back. I wouldn't know if I'd be in a rush to bring her back. I'd be like, "Really? Really, Kathy?"

[00:45:03] Kyle Risi: At this point, Adam, I promise you, wood does have a significant, symbolic meaning. Put it that way.

[00:45:09] Adam Cox: It's, it's still so strange. .

[00:45:11] Kyle Risi: At this point, the aim is to review everything they already knew about who he was, and then stand by for what he was about to say next when he next sent in his communication.

Of course, they knew they were dealing with someone incredibly patient and had no qualms about disappearing again if he got spooked, so they had to be very careful to make sure, he just didn't disappear again, right?

But Adam, the FBI, they waited, and they waited, and the Unabomber never sent that next communication. Actually, before that happens, there's actually two more bombs, and sadly, two more deaths before he finally spoke.

Now, the first came on the 10th of December 1994, so another break of, like, 18 months, right?

This parcel is actually delivered to Thomas Moser. He's actually, Adam, an advertising executive from New Jersey.

Now, when Thomas opens the package in his kitchen, his wife is actually in the next room with her 15-month-old baby.

It's awful. Thomas is killed instantly, which must have just been horrific for his wife, right?

[00:46:09] Adam Cox: Mm.

[00:46:10] Kyle Risi: Again, investigators, they find the initials FC in the wreckage.

But Thomas is also a massive shift from who he normally targets, right?

Like, He worked in advertising and public relations. Everyone else had been academics, or a computer shop worker or someone in the aviation industry.

[00:46:25] Adam Cox: Unless he's advertising , I don't know, modern technology or something like that.

[00:46:29] Kyle Risi: You're so smart.

[00:46:31] Adam Cox: I mean, you set it up

[00:46:32] Kyle Risi: Fair enough.

Then on the 24th of April, 1995, the final bomb is sent to a guy called Gilbert Murray in Sacramento. Again, Sacramento. Gilbert Murray is actually the president of the Forestry Association.

[00:46:47] Adam Cox: Oh, so he really likes wood.

[00:46:48] Kyle Risi: He really loves a bit of wood. Again, Adam, Gilbert, he ends up being killed instantly. And so with this final bomb, the death toll is now three with a total of 23 people being injured.

It's also on the same day that communications start arriving. Weirdly, the first one is sent to David Galanter. He actually is one of the survivors from the 1993 bombings.

Now, what is odd is that he's the only surviving victim that the bomber actually sends a letter directly to, and it basically is taunting him for opening the package. Like, He's calling him an idiot for being fooled by it.

But

[00:47:21] Adam Cox: that's what he wanted to happen.

[00:47:24] Kyle Risi: Exactly. It's weird.

But remember, this package was also the spring-loaded package, right? So it's not like David even had a choice whether or not he opened it or not.

[00:47:31] Adam Cox: It kind of just happened anyway.

[00:47:33] Kyle Risi: But it also marks a massive shift in his behavior, right? Suddenly he's writing letters to victims just to goad them.

So it just feels very different. Is he getting- Feels very

[00:47:40] Adam Cox: odd ... is he getting bored now and therefore, I don't know, he, 'cause he has hurt people and killed people, is the thrill wearing off a little bit?

[00:47:48] Kyle Risi: I think something's definitely changed.

'Cause he's been so methodical and so patient before, now that he's getting ready to speak, is this where he then slips up? 'Cause he's about to hand himself over to the FBI. Right.

Now two more letters were also sent to genetics researchers Philip Sharp and Richard Roberts.

Basically this letter was warning them that it would be beneficial to their health if they stop their research.

[00:48:07] Adam Cox: So he's not gonna send them a bomb?

[00:48:09] Kyle Risi: He hasn't sent them a bomb. Maybe he hasn't built this bomb. Maybe he's going to. Maybe it's a threat to say that he will. Who knows? Mm.

But on the same day, a letter also arrives at The New York Times. The letter contains the private nine-digit number proving that it was actually him, and in it he explains why he kills Thomas Mosser, He's the advertising and public relations guy.

[00:48:30] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:48:31] Kyle Risi: He says that Thomas' company did the public relations to help repair Exxon's reputation after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. So like a massive, massive ecological disaster, and this guy's basically the guy that was in charge of, like, making it look good.

[00:48:46] Adam Cox: So not about modern technology then, but more of a cover-up or yeah, the PR of it.

[00:48:51] Kyle Risi: Yeah. He's covering up the damage to the environment.

[00:48:54] Adam Cox: I see, yeah.

[00:48:55] Kyle Risi: Now connect that with wood. Uh-huh. Maybe the significance, and obviously this oil spill that's caused this massive ecological disaster. I think maybe it gives us an understanding of maybe what his ideology is.

[00:49:07] Adam Cox: I see, but then I still don't get the whole university thing.

And then the planes.

[00:49:11] Kyle Risi: I'm about to tell you. But either way, he decides that Thomas, even though he's the one who handled all the PR- Mm ... was the one who needed to die, right? Thomas is just an executive. He isn't Exxon, who actually caused the oil spill.

That's true. Surely you would target someone from Exxon, someone responsible for the spill, rather than the person employed to clean up the mess.

It just didn't make any sense.

[00:49:30] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:49:31] Kyle Risi: Now, the bomber explained what FC actually stood for. What do you think?

[00:49:34] Adam Cox: Free something. Free camps. Free, free children. You,

[00:49:39] Kyle Risi: Adam. It stands for Freedom Club.

[00:49:41] Adam Cox: There we go. I

[00:49:42] Kyle Risi: know, you're so good.

[00:49:43] Adam Cox: I, I really should just-

[00:49:44] Kyle Risi: It is a shit name, though. Freedom Club.

[00:49:47] Adam Cox: And he said, like, he's an organization or a group- Yeah an anarchist group. Yeah. Is it just him, though? Can it be a group if it's just him?

[00:49:54] Kyle Risi: It's just him. But also at the same time, isn't every American alive part of the Freedom Club?

[00:49:58] Adam Cox: I mean, I don't know.

[00:50:01] Kyle Risi: Doesn't really whittle it down.

[00:50:02] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:50:03] Kyle Risi: So in the letter he reiterates that they were an anarchist group that wanted industrial society broken down into smaller autonomous communities.

As you said, he uses we a lot, implying that of course there's more people involved, right? Which I mean to anyone who doesn't really know the story, looking at this would make sense, right? Because h- he is setting off bombs all over the country. Do you know what I mean?

[00:50:25] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:50:25] Kyle Risi: There must be a team of people. But-

[00:50:26] Adam Cox: Yeah, and also if you're, like, an individual, like if you have your own business you always have, like, it's we, don't you? Mm. So you make it seem bigger than it actually is- Yeah ... and more imposing, I guess from his perspective.

[00:50:36] Kyle Risi: But at the same time, it's so much harder for a group to operate without being spotted or ever slipping up across 17 years. That's wild. If you've got a bunch of people, some people are gonna make mistakes. So to me it doesn't sound like it's more than one person.

[00:50:49] Adam Cox: Yeah, fair point.

[00:50:50] Kyle Risi: Now, the letter then told The New York Times that they would soon receive a manuscript explaining the group's beliefs and what they actually wanted. It said that if the newspaper published the whole thing, all of the bombings would stop. Like, I don't believe that for a second.

The bombings were going on for 17 years. It doesn't make sense that he carried out the bombings to use as leverage to get the papers to print his manifesto or his manuscript, right? Otherwise, he would've communicated way sooner.

[00:51:18] Adam Cox: Yeah. Like, why have you waited this long?

[00:51:20] Kyle Risi: Exactly. It would make sense if they were concentrated over a few months, carrying out a few bombings and then saying, "Okay, here are my demands," but he didn't do that. Mm. It's 17 years in the making.

So initially the FBI are absolutely against the idea of publishing his manuscripts or his manifesto.

Like, It went against the FBI's policy of negotiating with terrorists. Plus, if they did, it sets a terrible precedent for future terrorists, right? But at the same time, there's a lot of infighting within the FBI because not publishing this manifesto also meant that more people could potentially die.

[00:51:50] Adam Cox: And they're clearly nowhere close in finding this person, so-

[00:51:53] Kyle Risi: No. He's extraordinarily difficult to catch.

They could be risking more casualties, and so a strong argument for publishing his manifesto was that someone must know who he is, right? They might recognize his rantings. But also if he was an academic, then other professors might recognize his writing style.

But again, while that is great, publishing his manifesto will also distribute his ideology to millions of other people, potentially earning him support.

[00:52:20] Adam Cox: That's true,

[00:52:21] Kyle Risi: yeah. So it's really risky.

So like the FBI were like, "We don't know what to do."

But eventually the attorney general, Janet Reno, along with the FBI director, Louis Freeh, they're like, "We're just gonna make the decision for you." And they decide that they're gonna publish the manifesto.

[00:52:34] Adam Cox: And that's not very often that they do this with-

[00:52:36] Kyle Risi: No ...

[00:52:37] Adam Cox: these kind of terrorists, do they?

So- I

[00:52:39] Kyle Risi: think it's just, it also shows your hand as well. For them to agree to publish it tells the public, but also the terrorist that they got nothing.

[00:52:47] Adam Cox: Yeah, that's true, actually.

[00:52:48] Kyle Risi: Mm.

[00:52:49] Adam Cox: But then I guess, yeah, this backfires?

[00:52:51] Kyle Risi: They're worried that it's going to backfire.

But Adam, on the 19th of September, 1995, in a joint effort between the Washington Post and The New York Times, they publish the Unabomber's manifesto. The manifesto is 35,000 words.

[00:53:06] Adam Cox: How many pages is that?

[00:53:07] Kyle Risi: I heard some sources say eight. I could have calculated it.

[00:53:10] Adam Cox: Is it front and back?

[00:53:12] Kyle Risi: Double-spaced. it's a lot for a newspaper to kind of print, right? So it's like an insert edition to that daily's newspaper.

[00:53:19] Adam Cox: Oh, I see. Wow, like, uh, that's good promo-

[00:53:22] Kyle Risi: here's the smart thing. 'Cause the cops really wanna guide people's thinking while they read it.

They wanted people to have in mind who the cops thought that they were looking for. That way, when you're reading it, you'll be like, "Oh, hang on, that sounds like my dad," or, "That sounds like my brother," or like a colleague.

And So just before the start of the manifesto, the cops outline that the person who wrote this was likely very intelligent, highly educated, probably somewhere between late 40s and early 60s.

They also said that he was likely born and raised in Chicago before moving elsewhere for university, possibly Salt Lake City or the San Francisco Bay Area.

They also believe that he had completed an undergraduate degree and probably gone on to do a post graduate study, but they think that he might have failed this.

[00:54:05] Adam Cox: Ah, so the whole resentment thing.

[00:54:07] Kyle Risi: Possibly, yeah. I think that's what they're drawing on there.

But also that maybe he had a room that if he had a family, that nobody was allowed into, like a garage or a shed.

[00:54:18] Adam Cox: Ah, I see. Yeah. Mm.

[00:54:20] Kyle Risi: Somewhere he could basically quietly disappear and build these bombs essentially.

So that was the person the FBI were effectively asking people to think about while they're reading the manifesto.

Very clever.

The manifesto, Adam, was titled Industrial Society and Its Future. Adam, like I said, 35,000 words long, and honestly, it's quite spooky to read because when you read it through the lens of the world we live in today with AI, smartphone surveillance, huge technology companies, parts of it feel more relevant now than they probably did when he wrote it in the 1990s.

His basic argument was that modern industrial society had gradually reduced human freedom while convincing us that technological progress was somehow making our lives better.

[00:55:02] Adam Cox: Yeah, that sounds familiar.

[00:55:04] Kyle Risi: He believed that instead of technology adapting itself around human beings, increasingly human beings are being forced to adapt themselves around the technology.

And as technology became more complicated, we became more dependent on these enormous systems that now none of us were able to control, which I mean, look at smartphones. Try choosing not to own one today.

[00:55:26] Adam Cox: Mm.

[00:55:26] Kyle Risi: You can obviously do it, but suddenly there are restaurants where you can't look at the menu properly, you can't access certain tickets, banking becomes harder, parking becomes harder. Sometimes just proving who you are becomes harder without the mobile phone.

[00:55:39] Adam Cox: Yeah.

It's, it's a necessity now, isn't it?

[00:55:41] Kyle Risi: So technically you still have a choice, but increasingly the entire world around you has been designed on this assumption that you will participate, and it's very difficult for you to opt out, and that was essentially his point. He also argued that technology had this habit of creating new problems for itself and for the world, which then required even more technology to solve them

[00:56:01] Adam Cox: Okay.

Yeah

[00:56:03] Kyle Risi: So think about like climate change, right? Like technology is harming the climate. In order to solve that, what we'll use? Oh, more technology.

[00:56:10] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:56:10] Kyle Risi: Do you know what I mean? It becomes this runaway thing. So he's basically saying the solution to the problems created by one system becomes another system, and then another one after that.

And I do think that there's something in this. Like, Look at the amount of power enormous technology companies currently have today.

Look at surveillance, look at data collection, look at the erosion of privacy, AI, the way smartphones have completely changed how people interact with each other on a daily basis.

This was written, Adam, in 1995. That is a bit spooky, I find, because some of the problems he was worrying about have become considerably more obvious since he wrote this.

[00:56:44] Adam Cox: I guess he could see maybe where it was going. Maybe he couldn't predict AI or anything like that.

Mm.

But in terms of, yeah, like you said, once, people adopt a p- a piece of technology- Yeah

you can't unpick that.

[00:56:55] Kyle Risi: Sure. So you can understand how the FBI were worried about disseminating this manifesto and worried about him potentially getting more supporters because- This is very relevant, and a lot of people agree with this.

[00:57:07] Adam Cox: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:57:08] Kyle Risi: However, it gets a bit tricky when it comes to his solution, and this is where things sort of kind of go off the rails because he wasn't really interested in reforming industrial society or regulating technology itself.

He wanted the entire industrial system dismantled and replaced with much smaller, largely self-sufficient communities, which sounds lovely and romantic and idealistic. Less globalization, more localization, far less reliance on technology, and much more reliance on people doing things for themselves.

[00:57:37] Adam Cox: And he was building these bombs out of wood because they were more natural or not using technology or whatever.

[00:57:42] Kyle Risi: Well, I mean, if this is what he wants and this is his ideology, you probably get a sense that he's living in this way.

[00:57:48] Adam Cox: Yeah. So just w- these are the resources that he has available to him.

[00:57:51] Kyle Risi: yeah.

But there's a massive problem with that, right? He's romanticizing what life without a modern industrial society would actually look like because, yes, you might have less surveillance, you might have fewer giant corporations controlling everything, you might even have more human autonomy,

but you also lose modern medicine, global food distribution gets turned on its head. Sanitation, infrastructure, the systems that keep billions of people alive, you lose that straight away.

[00:58:15] Adam Cox: Mm.

[00:58:16] Kyle Risi: You can't just pull the plug on industrial civilization and assume that everyone just goes off and lives happily in some lovely little self-sufficient village somewhere, right?

Literally, millions, possibly billions, of people die.

[00:58:27] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:58:27] Kyle Risi: This is where I think the manifesto starts revealing something about the bomber himself because a lot of the criticism it gets is very clearly his own resentment that is starting to bleed through, which is fine, but it becomes more of an issue of credibility against the manifesto now.

He's presenting his manifesto as this academic argument, but really it reads very, very personally.

And as an academic paper, that doesn't really work,

[00:58:51] Adam Cox: and is this why he was targeting academics then? Because they were going against his sort of thought process here.

[00:58:57] Kyle Risi: Yeah, exactly. He saw these academics as these evil kind of pillars of progression that drive forward innovation and technology, et cetera.

Same with aviation, similar thing, but also people in the computer industry. But then, of course, you've got Thomas, who was the marketing executive, the PR guy, that, helped cover up a massive ecological disaster.

[00:59:19] Adam Cox: I see, yeah.

[00:59:19] Kyle Risi: And so, like, he is very much like, "Let's just go back to living like cavemen."

[00:59:23] Adam Cox: Fine. So the people he targeted were, yeah, very specific- Mm ... because of his motives.

[00:59:27] Kyle Risi: But you do get the sense that he is smart, but also A failed academic with ideas about how brilliant he is. I, I get that sense now that I know a bit more about him.

But also, you're reading this going, " He does make a bloody good point," only when you remind yourself that he's a fucking murderer

[00:59:44] Adam Cox: I mean, yeah, like what? He's killed people in order to draw attention to his cause.

[00:59:49] Kyle Risi: Yeah. And so that entire contradiction hangs over his entire manifesto.

[00:59:53] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:59:53] Kyle Risi: It's difficult to now take that seriously once you remind yourself that, yeah, you got so many brilliant points, and okay, maybe your solution's a bit drastic, but also, mate, you're a murderer.

[01:00:02] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:00:02] Kyle Risi: You've killed innocent people. And here's the thing, like while he's sending bombs to complete strangers he's arguing that ordinary people should have more control over the circumstances of their own lives and not be reliant on technology, and yet all the while he is sending bombs to complete strangers who had absolutely no control over whether or not opening that post was going to kill them.

[01:00:22] Adam Cox: Mm.

[01:00:22] Kyle Risi: So after the manifesto is published, the FBI basically sat back and they waited to see if anyone recognized him from his writing. Adam, almost immediately tips start pouring through, and I'm talking thousands of them, which is kind of good, but it's also a lot of work.

[01:00:37] Adam Cox: I imagine that's a lot of dead ends though, right?

[01:00:40] Kyle Risi: Yeah. People are basically convinced that the bomber was their neighbor or their partner or someone that they've fallen out with. Apparently one woman, she suggested that her dog walker was the Unabomber because they brought her Labrador back late.

[01:00:53] Adam Cox: It's just people that have got beef with someone, like, "Ugh, I can't be bothered to divorce my wife."

[01:00:57] Kyle Risi: Yeah. "

[01:00:58] Adam Cox: I'll say it's her."

[01:00:58] Kyle Risi: Yeah. We saw this with the Salem witch trials.

[01:01:00] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:01:01] Kyle Risi: Crazy.

Problem was the FBI had to still look into all of these claims, so investigators started working through criminal records, education histories, old addresses, employment records, just basically trying to work out whether or not any of these people could genuinely fit what they knew about the bomber.

Eventually, thousands of tips are narrowed down to several hundred possible leads. Almost all of them go nowhere.

Literally months pass. And then early 1996, the FBI was starting to wonder whether or not publishing the manifesto had actually achieved anything at all.

If someone had recognized him, great. Publishing it might have obviously helped catch him. But if nobody did, then basically they just handed the Unabomber a national platform.

[01:01:41] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:01:42] Kyle Risi: They allowed him to distribute his ideology to millions of people, and potentially show every future terrorist that killing people was a way of getting your manifesto published.

And like we said, remember, his manifesto is deeply persuasive.

A lot of people can agree with it. Not the solution-

[01:01:59] Adam Cox: But ...

[01:01:59] Kyle Risi: but they can recognize that that's a problem.

[01:02:01] Adam Cox: Yeah, they can get on board with the cause, right?

Mm.

[01:02:04] Kyle Risi: So the decision to publish it was probably starting to feel pretty uncomfortable until- In February of 1996, something came through the FBI tip line.

It was from an anonymous source through a lawyer, the tip was eventually reviewed, passed upwards through the investigation, and eventually landed in front of the people who realized this particular tip was different.

The FBI knew him formally as suspect 2416. But to the brother who had contacted the FBI, he was known as Ted Kaczynski.

And Adam, that is part one of the Unabomber.

[01:02:38] Adam Cox: Ah, so his brother dobbed him in.

[01:02:42] Kyle Risi: Traitor.

[01:02:43] Adam Cox: God, yeah. But so let me get this straight. So the FBI had Ted Kaczynski's details, but not enough to pin it on him- Yeah or take it any further?

[01:02:51] Kyle Risi: That's right. And it goes to show how squeaky clean he was.

[01:02:54] Adam Cox: Yeah, and so I guess with now the brother coming in, it's like, okay, we now need to dig into him a lot more.

[01:03:00] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

So we have a name, but yeah, what a wild story, huh?

[01:03:04] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:03:04] Kyle Risi: Like, I didn't really know the details of how many bombs he had actually set off

[01:03:08] Adam Cox: Yeah, and his motives really actually. I didn't know that.

[01:03:10] Kyle Risi: His motives are, yeah, really interesting. And in part two we're actually gonna go backwards, and I'm gonna introduce you properly to Ted Kaczynski.

We're going to find out, Adam, how a 16-year-old Harvard student, an extraordinarily gifted mathematician with an IQ higher than Stephen Hawkins, ended up abandoning society, disappearing into a tiny cabin in Montana, and eventually becoming the Unabomber. But more importantly, did he really have erectile dysfunction?

[01:03:43] Adam Cox: If he does, then okay, there's- I've got it wrong. There was something to that woman's obviously argument.

[01:03:48] Kyle Risi: Kathleen Pouquette.

[01:03:49] Adam Cox: Yeah, Kathleen.

But what made the brother realize it's him

[01:03:52] Kyle Risi: Well, he's read the manifesto, and he's gone, "I've heard th- this ranting before."

[01:03:57] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:03:57] Kyle Risi: He does feel terrible dobbing his brother in. That's why he wants to stay anonymous. But he does in the end, and, um, it was the right thing to do because who knows when he would give up

[01:04:07] Adam Cox: And how long was it before that his manifesto was published and his brother coming forward?

[01:04:12] Kyle Risi: I know this one. Six months.

[01:04:14] Adam Cox: Six months, okay, so he perhaps did have a bit inner turmoil then before he went through with it.

[01:04:19] Kyle Risi: Yeah,

I think his wife had something to do with it. I think wife, had found the article. I'm not sure at what point, but she was like, "I think this might be something of interest to you. What do you think?" This sounds like

[01:04:29] Adam Cox: Ted.

[01:04:30] Kyle Risi: Yeah, it sounds like Ted. I imagine there was definitely a bit of inner turmoil, for sure.

Mm-hmm. But how long, I don't know.

So um, stay tuned for next week's episode, where we will be diving into who Ted Kaczynski was and how they caught him.

[01:04:43] Adam Cox: No, very good, very good story.

[01:04:45] Kyle Risi: So should we run the outro for this week?

[01:04:46] Adam Cox: Let's do it.

[01:04:47] Kyle Risi: And that brings us to the end of another fascinating foray into the compendium, an assembly of fascinating things. We hope you enjoyed the ride as much as we did.

[01:04:55] Adam Cox: And if today's episode has sparked your curiosity, then please do us a favor and follow us on your favorite podcast app because it makes a world of difference and helps more people discover the show.

[01:05:05] Kyle Risi: And for our dedicated phreaks out there, please don't forget that next week's episode is already waiting for you on our Patreon, and as always, it is completely free to access.

[01:05:13] Adam Cox: And if you want even more, then you can join our certified freaks tier to unlock the entire archive.

You get to delve into some exclusive content and get a sneak peek at what's coming next.

[01:05:23] Kyle Risi: We drop new episodes every Tuesday, and until then, remember: anonymity gets harder the moment you start explaining yourself.

We'll see you next time.

[01:05:32] Adam Cox: See ya.