Unabomber Part 2: The Manifesto That Exposed Ted Kaczynski

[00:00:00] Kyle Risi: Welcome to the Compendium, an Assembly of Fascinating Things. A week Leave Writer 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 Reese, your Ring master for this week's episode.

[00:00:20] Adam Cox: And I'm Adam Cox, the compendium usher for this week.

[00:00:23] Kyle Risi: Oh. And usher. It's about time. Had an usher.

[00:00:25] Adam Cox: I have a very important role.

[00:00:27] Kyle Risi: Oh, okay. So just jumping straight into it.

[00:00:28] Adam Cox: That's right. Yeah. I, I not only help people, find their seat.

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

[00:00:32] Adam Cox: I more importantly prevent them from leaving early. I won't let them out the tent.

They have to watch the rest of the show, whether they like it or not.

[00:00:39] Kyle Risi: Why to keep the numbers up?

[00:00:41] Adam Cox: Yeah. You know, we, we, we want the hecklers and, uh,

[00:00:46] Kyle Risi: you try and encourage,

[00:00:46] Adam Cox: create the atmosphere. Right.

[00:00:48] Kyle Risi: I see. So we want them to hate the show enough

[00:00:50] Adam Cox: mm-hmm.

[00:00:50] Kyle Risi: To keep them there.

[00:00:52] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:00:52] Kyle Risi: So that they can heckle us.

[00:00:54] Adam Cox: Yeah. And it also drowns out like the chimps and all the other elephants screaming in the background.

[00:00:58] Kyle Risi: Oh, my g These job descriptions are just getting worse and worse every week, man.

[00:01:02] Adam Cox: I mean, it's been four years.

[00:01:03] Kyle Risi: Guys, just a quick bit of housekeeping to let you know that if one episode a week isn't enough for you, then remember that as a Patreon member, you get one exclusive compendium episode Every single month that you cannot hear anywhere else. Plus, on top of that, you also get to listen to all of our unreleased scheduled episodes.

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But nice, short and sweet because that is enough of the housekeeping because Adam, today on the compendium, we are diving into an assembly of isolation ideology, and a mind that mistook logic for humanity.

[00:01:52] Adam Cox: Okay, well I vaguely remember we did an episode, which was part one.

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

[00:01:57] Adam Cox: this must be part two.

[00:01:58] Kyle Risi: Adam, welcome to part two of the story of the Unabomber.

In, of course, the last episode, we spent almost the entire time going through his 17 year reign of terror of him sending bombs to various universities, airlines, computer shops, and eventually people's homes across America.

What do you remember of part one?

What was the main takeaway for you?

[00:02:22] Adam Cox: Well, he wasn't very successful at first in kind, in terms of like causing some serious damage. Mm.

But as time went on, he obviously increased the strength of his bombs. He stopped using wood for some reason.

[00:02:35] Kyle Risi: Yeah, that's right.

[00:02:36] Adam Cox: And he did kill some people.

Was it about four people

[00:02:39] Kyle Risi: he killed? Three people in total. Three. And that's the thing, like a lot of people say, well, yeah, the, the bombs weren't really that effective, but at the same time, even just one blast, regardless of whether or not it was successful, that ruined people's lives.

[00:02:52] Adam Cox: Yeah. And it was obviously over a number of years, so not like compact. It was spaced out these events.

[00:02:58] Kyle Risi: Yeah. A 17 year reign of terror.

So we followed the FBI as they tried to piece together whatever they could from the incredibly small amount of clues that he left behind. And of course there was that strange obsession with him using wood in his bombs, which at one point led the FBI into the slightly wild theory that he might be impotent.

[00:03:19] Adam Cox: Oh yeah. I mean that woman.

[00:03:22] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Who

[00:03:22] Adam Cox: kept going on about that

[00:03:24] Kyle Risi: Kathleen Pettet.

[00:03:25] Adam Cox: That's

[00:03:25] Kyle Risi: right.

[00:03:25] Adam Cox: That's right. She had a theory.

[00:03:26] Kyle Risi: And of course there were the infamous FC letters, which kept appearing on some of the components of the bombs.

And eventually they realised that this wasn't some manufacturer's Mark, it was actually his calling card, and that it stood for an anarchist organisation, meaning the bomber wasn't acting alone, or at least that is what he wanted everyone to believe.

But more fascinating was that we got to see firsthand just how meticulous and patient he was.

And that's kind of the reason why he was able to carry on for 17 years without being caught.

Like he could go dormant for years at a time, making very few mistakes and then suddenly return with another bomb.

All the FBI could do was just hope and pray that he eventually slipped up and Adam, eventually he did.

His pride and his arrogance led him to send his ideology and demands to a newspaper in the form of that 35,000 word manifesto titled:

Industrial Society and Its Future.

What do you remember about his main arguments in that manifesto?

[00:04:29] Adam Cox: That the way the world was going

[00:04:32] Kyle Risi: mm-hmm.

[00:04:32] Adam Cox: Wasn't good for the planet. We should be going back to, I dunno what the right phrase is, but going back to not using technology, being outside,

[00:04:41] Kyle Risi: less globalisation and more localization.

Yeah. I think was a good way of summing it up.

[00:04:46] Adam Cox: That's it.

[00:04:47] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Basically he believed that modern industrial society had slowly reduced human freedom by making us increasingly dependent on enormous technological systems that none of us really were able to control.

And remember like reading that in 2026, some of it is genuinely difficult to argue with, especially when we consider like the impact of smartphones and AI technology and just, just how much surveillance is around us.

[00:05:11] Adam Cox: You might say that this guy, he was ahead of his time.

[00:05:14] Kyle Risi: Yes, exactly.

And remember this was written in like 1996.

However, the problem with his manifesto was his solution, he wasn't calling for technology to be regulated. He wanted industrial society dismantle completely and replaced with much smaller, largely self-sufficient communities.

And yes, we have become incredibly dependent on technology, but remember reverting back to some sort of stone age existence, we'd literally see billions of people die.

So his diagnosis could be compelling. His prescription basically just went completely off the rails.

And so in today's episode, we'll see just how difficult it was even for the Unabomber himself to live by these exact same standards that he was trying to press. Nevermind the fact that this was coming from a man who had spent 17 years blowing people up.

So it's hard to see his ideology with any sort of degree of seriousness.

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

[00:06:06] Kyle Risi: And eventually, the FBI did take a gamble and they decided to publish the Unibomber manifesto hoping somebody would recognise his words.

And amazingly Adam, it worked because a few months later, it led to suspect 2 4 1 6, a man named Ted Kazinski.

So in part one, we mostly knew the Unabomber through the bombs that he built. Today we're actually gonna be zeroing in on the man himself.

We're gonna look at Ted Kaczynski's childhood, the problems that he had fitting in the controversial psychological experiments that he took part in at Harvard and what happened over the years that helped shape him into the Unabomber that people had come to know over that 17 year period.

But we'll also see how the FBI finally connected him to the bombings, what they found inside his tiny cabin But why even with an overwhelming amount of evidence, Adam, how putting him through trial became its own battle in itself.

[00:07:06] Adam Cox: Ah, well, yeah. I'm looking forward to find out what he's like, really, because all we know so far is really through his messages. Mm-hmm. Unlike how he's been communicating to people.

[00:07:16] Kyle Risi: Yeah, for sure. And when you've got someone as mantras as this, we've covered so many episodes on this podcast where the red flags are very clearly evident in their childhood or in their former years before they turn to evil, if you will.

But just like Lucy Lepe, this guy doesn't really fit the mould.

[00:07:36] Adam Cox: I've just got this vision of him, almost being a bit snivelling and kind of like a runny nose and like tape glasses.

[00:07:43] Kyle Risi: Like Randall from recess.

[00:07:44] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:07:46] Kyle Risi: Okay, Adam, so let me introduce you properly to the uni bomber.

Ted Kozinski was born Theodore John Kozinski on the 22nd of May, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois. Ted was the eldest of two boys alongside his younger brother. David,

[00:08:02] Adam Cox: why would you go by Ted when you could go by Theo?

[00:08:04] Kyle Risi: Honestly, I don't know.

[00:08:06] Adam Cox: That's my first thought.

[00:08:07] Kyle Risi: Okay. Good to know where your mind is at

[00:08:09] Adam Cox: already. I'm not liking his live choices.

[00:08:13] Kyle Risi: Maybe Ted wasn't his choice. You know, and honestly, Adam, there was nothing particularly remarkable about the family that he was born into.

His parents were Theodore and Wanda Kazinski. Both were working class Polish Americans.

Ted's dad worked as a sausage maker while Wanda stayed at home raising the boys.

Initially, the family were devout Catholics, but over time, Theodore and Wonder moved away from religion and towards kind of atheism.

So when it came to faith, they weren't really against it, but they'd also didn't really stop Ted and David from going to church.

But they did encourage Ted and David to make up their own minds through critical thinking which for the 1950s is quite unusual and fairly progressive, I think.

Do you know what I mean?

[00:08:54] Adam Cox: I would say so, yeah.

[00:08:55] Kyle Risi: But by most accounts, Theodore and Wonder were devoted parents. They encouraged the boys' interest. They paid attention to them in their school. And as a family, they spent a lot of time outdoors, camping, hiking, spending quality time together.

[00:09:08] Adam Cox: And they never went without a sausage.

[00:09:10] Kyle Risi: They dad is always there with sausages.

[00:09:12] Adam Cox: Directly? It's kind of like the dried stuff that you have from like little, those kind sausages. I

[00:09:16] Kyle Risi: mean, yeah. 'cause they're, they're Polish sausages, aren't they?

[00:09:18] Adam Cox: Yeah,

[00:09:18] Kyle Risi: could be. But maybe he doesn't really cater well for an American market, so maybe there has to be wet sausages.

[00:09:24] Adam Cox: Yeah, lips and buttholes.

[00:09:26] Kyle Risi: But again, what this tells us about his childhood is that it goes against the grain of some of the other episodes that we've covered.

Whenever somebody goes and does something really horrific, there's always a temptation to kind of go digging through their childhood for the obvious explanations.

We always look for an abusive father or an overbearing mother. Just anything where we can go, that's where it all started. Do you know what I mean?

[00:09:49] Adam Cox: And what we're saying so far, kind of a normal family?

[00:09:53] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

But what's interesting is that Ted's mom wonder does the same thing the public always seems to do in these stories, combing through Ted's childhood for anything that might pinpoint to that moment that led him to become like the Unabomber.

In interviews years later, she talks about how when Ted was very small, he developed a serious case of hives and was admitted to hospital for several weeks.

And she wondered whether or not that maybe caused a shift in his behaviour. Because when Ted finally came home, she picked up on a very notable change in him. He was far less responsive to her affection and also became more and more withdrawn from the family.

[00:10:25] Adam Cox: Hmm. That's quite odd. 'cause I initially, I would've thought, why would that have done that? But did something else happen there that we don't know?

[00:10:33] Kyle Risi: That's the thing that's very possible. But it could also be that maybe nothing really happened because I think maybe she was just desperately searching for an answer, and this is where she placed it.

[00:10:44] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:44] Kyle Risi: Studies have shown that maternal deprivation can lead to certain developmental effects in children who go through isolation in their childhood. But I do struggle with this one a little bit, only because he was only in hospital for a few weeks, and loads of kids have gone through way worse without becoming like serial bombers.

[00:11:00] Adam Cox: That's true. Yeah.

[00:11:01] Kyle Risi: But it is interesting that even Ted's mom has this inherent yearning to try and find an explanation for why Ted goes off and does what he does.

Wanda says this increasing withdrawal seems to become a permanent fixture in Ted's personality from that moment on, however, Ted is incredibly intelligent adam,

when his family moved to Green Park near Chicago, a family friend with experience in psychology asked if they could do some tests on Ted's intelligence. Ted's IQ comes in at 167.

Just for some context. Stephen Hawkins IQ is often estimated to be around 160.

[00:11:41] Adam Cox: Oh. So, because I was initially thinking, well, that's not like that much more than average badge. It is

[00:11:47] Kyle Risi: that, yeah. So based on that measure, it gives you a sense of just how smart Ted was as a kid. Like he's operating at genius level.

[00:11:54] Adam Cox: So in theory, he should have built better bombs.

[00:11:59] Kyle Risi: His ideology though, prevented him. Right? He's, he insisted on the wood.

And weirdly, I think this intelligence is likely the problem. Like that call seemed to become who he became.

When it becomes apparent that his current grade is no longer challenging for Ted, the school makes a decision to move him up two grades, which on paper sounds brilliant.

Like Wonder and Theodore, they're super proud of this. Mm-hmm. Except this is actually terrible for him.

It takes him ages to bond with anyone as it is. And when he does, it's fragile at best. Like even a nasty joke at his expense can set him back miles.

So by being moved up to grades, he's now suddenly lost the very few friends that he has managed to curate over the years. And also he's now in a classroom with kids who are also two years older than him.

So from the very beginning, he becomes an obvious target for bullies.

[00:12:51] Adam Cox: Yeah. That's a recipe for disaster, I would've thought.

[00:12:54] Kyle Risi: Which is what pretty much defines the rest of his schooling. And so as a result, Ted becomes even more isolated and withdrawn and just feels lost. Like he just doesn't fit in anywhere.

[00:13:04] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:05] Kyle Risi: And I understand what the school is trying to do. Like they were trying to nurture his extraordinary intelligence, but at what cost?

Right. Socially, it would've been better for Ted to just stay with his classmates who he'd already bonded with, but just given like more advanced work in that same grade.

Like here in the UK when kids go to high school, we sort of separate them by ability.

So you have the top sets and then the lowest sets. And it's probably because the UK understands the socially negative effects of bumping a kid, like literally up two grades to like year 11. Right. Who are inevitably going to be bullying you.

[00:13:38] Adam Cox: Yeah. You would think, I guess if he is a bit of a unique, sort of situation, you'd put 'em in like with a smaller class of people that are similar sort of skillset.

[00:13:47] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:13:47] Adam Cox: Or would you like do private education? It just, yeah, keeping him where he was at, he's probably gonna get bored and not fulfil what he's supposed to do, but equally, yeah, it's not great for his social standing.

[00:13:58] Kyle Risi: And so Ted didn't really get that kind of standard of education that we get here in the uk.

So he has a pretty tough time at school, especially when it comes to forming relationships and bonds. Ted's brother David later says that Ted's happiest moments were when the family were camping or exploring the wilderness together.

And I think that really matters in the story because his family were basically the one stable source of love and support in his life. He develops this affinity with nature because I think nature agreed with how Ted understood the world in a way,

Like in society, human relationships are messy and difficult for him to understand and navigate. Social kind of rules are fixed and rigid, but also they don't really follow logical rules.

And Ted is extremely logical.

So while he's in nature fundamentally it operates within a system of rules and order that Ted understands and can easily predict with a consistency that gives him a sense of stability.

So I completely understand why he started developing a much stronger affinity with wilderness than he ever did within society.

But the thing is though, Ted's parents do start to worry about this increasing withdrawal that he seems to be going through and she does do what she can to try and socialise him.

She would often arrange like these play dates with other children and get him enrolled in clubs with other kids his age.

But honestly, the more she pushed this, the more he seemed to avoid her in turn. So it sort of became this kind of catch 22 situation.

Wanda does consider taking Ted's CA psychologist, but after the first consultation meeting, she kind of felt that they were far too abrupt and cold with Ted to her.

He needed someone who was going to be patient and encouraging with him. Do you know what I mean? Like kind of edge him out of his kind of shell, if you will.

[00:15:40] Adam Cox: I see.

And so from that point she just quit and didn't bother taking him back.

[00:15:43] Kyle Risi: Exactly. Yeah. In the end she just figured it would do more damage to what was already a very sensitive child.

And I think the important thing there is that his parents were paying attention. They knew Ted was struggling socially. They saw it and within what they understood at the time, they did everything that they thought they needed to do to try and help.

[00:16:01] Adam Cox: Yeah. 'cause I guess they're not even thinking, oh, we need to try and prevent our son becoming a mass murderer.

[00:16:07] Kyle Risi: No, no one's thinking are

[00:16:08] Adam Cox: they? No. Just like we just want him to integrate into society, have a job, get a, you know, partner, that kind of thing.

[00:16:13] Kyle Risi: Now eventually Ted does find a group of friends at a local club and over time he becomes comfortable enough with them to come outta his shell a little bit.

He ends up learning how to play the trombone. He studies a little bit of German, but most importantly Adam, he discovers an awesome affinity for mathematics.

Like he sounds autistic, doesn't he?

[00:16:32] Adam Cox: Yeah, he does sound like he's on the spectrum of some kind.

[00:16:36] Kyle Risi: Now his friends typically describe him as quiet and reserved. But they say that once he trusted you, you can't shut him up. He would become way more talkative and animated.

So again, he wasn't incapable of forming relationships, he just seemed to take a long time to decide who he was comfortable with.

And so when Ted turns 15, he eventually graduates from high school. And because of how brilliant he is, he earns himself a scholarship to attend Harvard University. Adam, he's 15 years old.

[00:17:03] Adam Cox: That's how normal is that then

[00:17:05] Kyle Risi: I don't think that's normal at all. And again, it sounds incredible, but socially, I think it only makes things harder for him. Again, he was still younger than everyone around him, still physically smaller, and now he's been dropped into one of the most competitive universities in the world.

Once again, he stands out. If you are already socially awkward, being this 15-year-old smart ass surrounded by older students who are themselves used to being the cleverest person in the room probably isn't going to make your life easier, is it?

[00:17:35] Adam Cox: Yeah. They're gonna feel insecure.

[00:17:38] Kyle Risi: However, Ted does make a few friends, but those who knew him describe him as very socially selective. Again, he needed time away to kind of sort of retreat .

Back in Chicago. That was with his family, but being all the way in Harvard, his retreat often meant isolating himself in his room for long periods of time.

[00:17:54] Adam Cox: So he's away at Harvard at like 15 years old. Mm-hmm. Like he's left home. So I feel like leaving home too early. You don't get those kind of final few years of just, I dunno, forming your identity and just being around sort of loving, parents and stuff like that.

[00:18:10] Kyle Risi: Yeah, exactly. I think over generations we have gotten the, childhood kind of experience, timed well.

Do you know what I mean? There's a reason why people go to school up until 16 and then graduate onto maybe college and things like that. I think naturally over time that the, the timings have worked themselves out. He's well ahead, but then also he's also very socially behind.

[00:18:32] Adam Cox: Yeah.

Because it is, when you are 16 to 18 is when you do, I dunno, you hone your social skills. You go out, you meet new people. It's kind of an important time, but you're still got like a family around you as well.

[00:18:44] Kyle Risi: Yeah. That's it. And I think someone who's quite behind socially, I think some people can adapt really well. Mm-hmm. But because he's quite behind socially, I think maybe he, he definitely struggled.

[00:18:53] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:18:53] Kyle Risi: Now Adam, it's actually during Ted's second year at Harvard that something happens, which people will later point to potentially the one major turning point that leads Ted to becoming the Unabomber.

Because Ted was brilliant, his approach by a Dr. Henry Murray to volunteer for a psychological experiment.

The purpose of the study was to measure how people reacted under extreme stress.

Participants were asked to write detailed essays explaining their personal beliefs, their philosophies, and their ambitions in life.

Now, I'm not talking about general opinions or abstract topics. These essays got them to explore deeply personal beliefs, the sort of ideas that form the foundation of who these participants understood themselves to be, but also understood the world around them.

Things like your stance on corporal punishment, euthanasia, abortion, religion, all of it.

[00:19:46] Adam Cox: Wow. That he's supposed to give a honest opinion on that at that point.

[00:19:50] Kyle Risi: Yeah, and remember Ted is brilliant anyway, so he will already have a lot of these things formed in his brain.

[00:19:57] Adam Cox: And that's not to say that he couldn't have a conversation about these topics, but it just feels quite, I dunno, he still feels very young and he felt like he needs to be protected a little bit.

[00:20:05] Kyle Risi: That's right. And again, we must remember that he is pretty much two years younger than a lot of the college students that are there that maybe would've had that, those kind of beliefs and thoughts more well-rounded out.

[00:20:16] Adam Cox: Yeah. And like your body is still growing, isn't it? Up until 21 and it just makes me think, yes, he's obviously very smart, but is there other kind of maturity that still needs to happen for him to kind of Yeah. Be fully rounded, I think

[00:20:29] Kyle Risi: yeah.

The important thing is that Dr. Murray would take those essays along with psychological information gathered about each participant. He would hand those to another person whose whole job was to basically rip those arguments apart.

Ted would be called into these gruelling three hour sessions where they would challenged literally every single line that he had written.

Ted is basically forced to then defend the ideas that he's formed his entire density and belief structure around all while somebody was deliberately attacking him from every possible angle, the point was to cause stress and frustration so that they could study its effects.

Murray describes these confrontations as vehement, sweeping, and personally abusive. So he's an asshole.

[00:21:11] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:12] Kyle Risi: Apparently Ted ended up spending 200 hours taking part in this study the entire time he's fitted with electrodes to monitor his physical responses while cameras are basically recording his face.

[00:21:23] Adam Cox: Wow.

[00:21:24] Kyle Risi: Adam get this. Dr. Murray's experiments were being funded by this CIA under a project called

MK Ultra.

[00:21:33] Adam Cox: No way.

[00:21:34] Kyle Risi: Yep. It's not clear whether Dr. Murray himself knew that his work was being funded by their CIA, but this was definitely one of the 149 projects that were listed under the initiative to master brainwashing and mind control.

[00:21:46] Adam Cox: Wow.

[00:21:47] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So another casualty, the CIA essentially made the Unabomber,

[00:21:53] Adam Cox: well, I mean, maybe a stretch, maybe, but perhaps they had a hand in it.

[00:21:57] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

And so like knowing what we already know about Ted, particularly how sensitive he could be to confrontation and humiliation. Psychologists have suggested that this is when the uni bomber was created. Ted himself though, does deny the experiment, had any lasting effect on him, but I also struggle to completely trust Ted's own assessment of his mental state because what we'll see later in his trial, he becomes adamant about proving that there is nothing wrong with his mental state, even when psychological assessments suggest otherwise.

[00:22:26] Adam Cox: I mean, you're trying to blow people up. So I think there's something wrong with

[00:22:29] Kyle Risi: your mental there.

There's something there, right? Yeah.

he's smart. He knows how to land a point and an arguments. Cause he argues that his diagnosis was based on them already knowing what he had done and then working backwards to try and explain why.

[00:22:40] Adam Cox: Fair point. Yeah.

[00:22:42] Kyle Risi: Fair point is exactly right because judges actually do stop and pause and go, okay, maybe he's got a point.

[00:22:47] Adam Cox: This guy is smart.

[00:22:51] Kyle Risi: So eventually when Ted is 20, he graduates from Harvard in 1962 and from there he enrols in the University of Michigan where he completes both his master's degree and a PhD in mathematics.

But there's one detail here that I think is really interesting considering what happens later. Michigan wasn't actually Ted's first choice.

He also applied to Berkeley and the University of Chicago. But neither of them offered financial support that he needed in order to attend.

So I wonder whether or not he was holding onto any degree of resentment for that. Because we know that Berkeley and the University of Chicago were two of the universities that he targeted.

[00:23:29] Adam Cox: Yeah. 'cause I would've thought he could have targeted any universities in the country. And there would've been professors or teachers there that would've had, opposing ideas to him, I would've thought. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. It does make sense. There's a little bit of resentment there.

[00:23:41] Kyle Risi: Yeah. I mean, he's a massive patchwork when it comes to understanding who he is of different personality disorders and different belief systems and different kind of bits of resentment that all form him becoming the Unabomber.

But at Michigan, Ted again stands out as an exceptionally gifted mathematician. His work, apparently Adam is so advanced that his professors believe that only a handful of people in the country could properly understand what he has submitted.

Which makes me wonder, how do they know he was brilliant? How do they know he wasn't just bamboozling them?

[00:24:11] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:24:12] Kyle Risi: His mathematical jargon.

[00:24:13] Adam Cox: Maybe that's all there is to being smart.

[00:24:16] Kyle Risi: It's just being sounding so clever.

[00:24:18] Adam Cox: And people aren't gonna know otherwise.

[00:24:20] Kyle Risi: No. Yeah. Just because they're dumb. Yeah.

You, you're too dumb to understand me. He's right.

But here's the thing,

Ted is now in his early twenties and of course he's now starting to get interested in the opposite sex.

Oh, spoiler alert, he's not a gay.

He's interested in women. Of course, his social struggles never seem to materialise in any romantic relationships. He often writes in his journals about a girl he meets who he describes as his girlfriend.

Although that is not the reality at all.

I don't get the impression that girls ever actually knew that he liked them at all. And it's because he never makes that known.

[00:24:58] Adam Cox: So he's he's just friends with her then.

[00:25:00] Kyle Risi: Yeah, he thinks he's like throwing some of his best moves, but he's not, basically, the girls don't typically know that they like him or that he's interested

[00:25:07] Adam Cox: Uhhuh. I see.

[00:25:08] Kyle Risi: These girls, they're like, well, he just asked me what the answer was to question 18 and that was it.

He's like roster from friends when he's trying to flirt with a piece of delivery lady and he's talking about gas and she's like, that was blurting.

[00:25:22] Adam Cox: But then is he like going around like speaking to his mom and saying, yeah, my girlfriend, and actually, it's just this one conversation he had with a going class.

[00:25:28] Kyle Risi: This is the problem that you've just highlighted. Ted doesn't speak to anyone. So he's not having these conversations with other people going, I had this situation happen. What do you make of it? He's not getting that feedback from people in society, which is very important, where if you already struggle socially, you need that feedback from other people to help you rationalise.

[00:25:49] Adam Cox: So he doesn't have many friends then, is that right?

[00:25:52] Kyle Risi: No, and he definitely does not confide in other people about ideas and ways of thinking and how he rationalises the world because he experiences the world very differently to other people.

So he definitely needs those people to go, that's a bit wrong.

[00:26:04] Adam Cox: Yeah. Keep you in check.

[00:26:06] Kyle Risi: And so when he experiences rejection, he just cannot handle it.

In his journal, he writes about how when he was 19, a woman had told him that he was actually very handsome. Now ted treats this as objective universal fact. So when he is repeatedly rejected, he just can't understand why.

Eventually he asked one of his neighbours how attractive she thinks he is, and she tells him that she thinks that he is completely average looking.

And so now he's dealing with this contradiction in a system which is really now starting to fuck with his head.

[00:26:35] Adam Cox: Yeah, he definitely, does sound like he is on the spectrum of sorts I'm getting the sense that he doesn't quite get other social cues.

Mm-hmm. Or reads between the lines or understand empathy in any way.

[00:26:47] Kyle Risi: That's right. Yeah. It all begins to solidify itself as resentment and distrust, not just in women, but again in the entire system. Like the whole world is operating not logically in his mind.

[00:27:00] Adam Cox: Mm.

[00:27:00] Kyle Risi: And it's because he understands things from a very broad vantage point.

Things work as a single system to him, like in maths and in nature. Everything is perfectly attuned and symbiotic.

So when he experiences something bad, the rationale doesn't stay contained in just that one area.

Like in his romantical relationships, it ends up spilling and becoming an explanation for everything.

The problem is he can't understand nuance and that's the thing, right? Mm-hmm. So, yeah, he's struggling in his romantical relationships. He thinks the system is broken. Mm-hmm. The system being himself.

Which actually brings us Adam to probably the clearest example of this pattern one that at least on the surface, echoes what we saw with Ed Geen.

[00:27:42] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:42] Kyle Risi: of the years of rejection and sexual frustration, largely on his own, as we said, there's very little indication that he was talking any of this through with somebody who might help him understand what he was feeling or challenge the conclusions that he was reaching.

And so it was during this period that he began experiencing intense fantasies about becoming a woman.

[00:28:00] Adam Cox: Oh, wow.

[00:28:01] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. And I say sexual deliberately because that is how Ted describes him himself. Like in his journal, he connects his fantasies with what he called his uncontrollable sexual cravings.

Now, we can't retrospectively say exactly what these feelings represented. Was this gender dysphoria? Was it sexual fantasy or was it some complicated mixture of different feelings?

[00:28:25] Adam Cox: So he would dress as a woman.

[00:28:27] Kyle Risi: I don't know what he was partaking in, in terms of how he was presenting himself to the world.

[00:28:32] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:33] Kyle Risi: All I know from researching this is that he was having these feelings that he wanted to undergo sexual reassignment.

[00:28:40] Adam Cox: Wow.

[00:28:41] Kyle Risi: So I don't know how he was living his life.

[00:28:43] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:28:44] Kyle Risi: We don't know this. And remember, Ted already seems to struggle with understanding and communicating complicated emotions.

What matters here is how he processes them. Because he becomes convinced that undergoing sexual reassignment surgery might somehow provide him with a release.

He does not, however, say that he wants to live more authentically as a woman. He describes it as exclusively erotic and a solution to a wider problem.

[00:29:07] Adam Cox: Hmm.

[00:29:08] Kyle Risi: It's not very clear. He's not processing things in his mind properly again, because he is doing it all on his own.

[00:29:15] Adam Cox: Yeah. It's, , obviously there's a lot going on with this guy, isn't it?

[00:29:18] Kyle Risi: A huge amount, and I can't pretend to know exactly what the problem he believed the surgery would solve, but one theory is that he saw it almost like a radical engineering solution, a way of bypassing the social and sexual difficulties that he was experiencing.

[00:29:33] Adam Cox: But having said that, ' cause it sounds like he was actively looking at this quite seriously at one point. Mm-hmm.

That kind of goes against his whole ethos, I would've thought. Because, it's

[00:29:43] Kyle Risi: technology and progression.

[00:29:45] Adam Cox: Yeah, exactly.

[00:29:45] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Who knows? It's very interesting. At this point, he hasn't picked up the book yet that's going to transform that. So this is, this predates that.

But basically he was applying rigid logic to an intensely human problem. It's reasoning that worked in mathematics where if X and Y are true, then Z follows. But people in relationships don't operate according to kind of those fixed rules.

So he's trying to work out, well, i'm having bad luck with other women. Maybe there's a logical solution if I fix the system and he somehow thinks that undergoing sexual reassignment surgery might be that answer

[00:30:22] Adam Cox: Wow. To kind of draw that conclusion is e.

[00:30:24] Kyle Risi: Exactly.

So what makes this interpretation more convincing is what Ted does next, because he books an appointment with a psychiatrist in the hope of getting approved for treatment. But he writes in his journal that he intended to misrepresent what he was experiencing because if he explains his feelings, honestly, the psychiatrist wouldn't approve the surgery, which suggests that in his own mind, he was attempting to use sexual assignments to fix an entirely different set of problems.

[00:30:52] Adam Cox: And to kind of even go down this path, you have to have lived as a woman, wouldn't you? For some time?

[00:30:58] Kyle Risi: I think so. And he may not necessarily know this again, because he is not talking to people. He's made a massive step at coming to the psychiatrist's office.

[00:31:07] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:31:07] Kyle Risi: But while he's sitting in the waiting room to see the psychiatrist, he changes his mind.

He becomes worried that he wouldn't be able to fool the psychiatrist, and instead she would see the hidden sexual element behind his reasoning.

[00:31:20] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:21] Kyle Risi: So instead, Ted tells a psychiatrist that actually he was just depressed and that he was actually worried about being drafted into the military. And so he leaves and Adam, it is on the walk home from that appointment that everything changes

this experience leaves him feeling so humiliated and disgusted by how close he came to revealing his desires, saying in his journal,

I felt disgusted by what my uncontrolled sexual cravings had almost led me to do, and I felt humiliated and I hated the psychiatrist.

He then wrote, just then came a major turning point in my life like a phoenix. I burst from the ashes of my despair to a glorious new hope.

It's like, all right, Ted, calm down.

Basically, he's decided that if his own future left him feeling empty, then he no longer cared whether or not he lived or died, is essentially the gist of what he was saying in his journal.

And if he no longer cared about the consequences for himself, this meant that he was now free to act against people that he hated.

He then wrote,

I will kill, but I will make at least some effort to avoid detection so I can kill again.

[00:32:29] Adam Cox: I make some effort.

[00:32:32] Kyle Risi: Dark, eh?

[00:32:33] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:32:33] Kyle Risi: He's going through something wild and again, he's not engaging with other people, so he can't get their, their take on it.

They can't, there's no one there to say, mate. You need to take a chill pill. Like this is not, this is, this

[00:32:47] Adam Cox: is not okay. You're about to become a woman over your sexual fantasy. You then start

[00:32:51] Kyle Risi: for the wrong reasons.

[00:32:51] Adam Cox: For the wrong reasons. Yeah. And then you are basically now wanna kill people.

[00:32:57] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:32:57] Adam Cox: And you don't like the psychiatrist.

What's the psychiatrist done to him?

[00:33:00] Kyle Risi: I think it's because he just felt humiliated by potentially what he was going to expose to her.

[00:33:06] Adam Cox: That's not her fault.

[00:33:09] Kyle Risi: No, I know. Again, it's difficult to understand, but what the most important thing is how he's processing things.

[00:33:14] Adam Cox: Wow. Yeah. I, I can't understand it. I have sympathy for him.

[00:33:19] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:33:19] Adam Cox: But I just don't understand it.

[00:33:21] Kyle Risi: And again, that's a tricky thing, right? We typically write our stories where we really try to connect with the bad guy in a way.

And sometimes you do feel this overwhelming sense of sympathy for them considering what they have done. But again, it just goes to highlight how nuanced people are.

[00:33:36] Adam Cox: I think so, because generally when we do sympathise with a murderer or whatever, it's because they've been wronged or whatever in that their past.

Mm-hmm.

But to this guy, I'm like, you haven't been wronged. You've clearly had a supportive family mm-hmm. Who tried to do, well, I, I'm struggling to go, where did this go wrong?

[00:33:54] Kyle Risi: Again, it's how he processes things. That's the key, right? Yeah. And it's done in isolation.

And so everything he goes through across his entire life has compounded and led to this moment where he's decided that he's gonna become the Unabomber.

But Adam, as you know, he's a very slow burner at this point. Nothing visibly changes in Ted's everyday life. These ideas are just kind of bubbling beneath the surface.

While he carries on as normal,

remember, he's only 25 years old. At this point. He becomes the youngest assistant professor in the university's history. Academically, everything is going incredibly well for him at this point.

However, socially, nothing much has changed. Like his students don't really find him particularly engaging.

He continues to become increasingly withdrawn and isolated. He's not having much luck with women.

It's around this period that he picks up a book called the Technological Society by Jack Elu.

It's significant because Ted likes things boil down into unified theories that explain everything. He can't understand, that things can be nuanced. Even when nuance is presented, he often skips over those and doesn't really try to process the nuance in things.

But the book argues that technology is no longer simply a collection of useful tools controlled by people. It has become an ENT entire system that society is gradually reorganising around itself, adapting to its, rather than it adapting to us.

So this really echoes some of the things that we talked about in his manifesto. Mm-hmm. This is the foundation of where he gets a lot of his ideas from.

The book goes on to conclude that as a result, society is now prioritising efficiency while reducing individual freedom. To Ted. It makes sense. X plus y therefore equals Z. Mm-hmm.

And so this book becomes almost like his holy grail. To him, it explains why everyone else is a problem and not him.

[00:35:38] Adam Cox: Do you think if he didn't find the book, would he have done the thing that he's about to do?

Or would've found something else, or he would've acted out in another way.

You know, he could have just become a, a regular murderer.

[00:35:51] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Jesus. I dunno why I giggled there. Yeah,

[00:35:55] Adam Cox: just I, there's something, it clearly was building, right? It's, he would've found something that I think would've steered him on the path. Unless he had a support network around him to try and make him understand and think differently.

[00:36:06] Kyle Risi: Yeah, for sure. Either way, it's this book that he's increasingly building his worldview around.

But remember, Ted has a tendency towards resentment. And so this also ends up driving anger because in 1969, Ted unexpectedly resigns from Berkeley, which looks so bizarre to the people at Berkeley itself.

Like he's a brilliant mathematician and he's on a career path that would lead to professional and financial security for the rest of his life.

And he just walks away. But of course, knowing what we know about Ted, this decision isn't as sudden as it looks in real life.

Ted decides that he's gonna move back to Chicago to live with his parents, and then alongside his brother David, they buy a piece of small land near Lincoln in Montana.

And it's here that Ted begins building a cabin for himself.

And true to his ideology that he's now building Ted tries to make the cabin as completely self-sufficient as humanly possible. Adam, there's no electricity, there's no running water.

He has to collect all his water from like a nearby, well he grows all his own food and he hunts for local game with a shotgun on his land.

So he's living completely off the grid.

But it doesn't take long for him to realise that the theory is very different from reality because living completely outside technological society is practically impossible.

Like he needs a bunch of tools, he needs material, he needs food, especially during the winter when he can't grow his own food.

[00:37:33] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:33] Kyle Risi: And so Ted is forced to keep travelling between Montana and Chicago for supplies. And of course to pay for all of these supplies, he needs money, which means that he periodically takes up part-time work. So in theory his ideology makes sense to him, but in practise it doesn't really work.

[00:37:49] Adam Cox: What are his parents thinking right now? 'cause they're like, you are one of the most intelligent people and you are going off to live in a wood.

[00:37:56] Kyle Risi: I think at this point they've probably just come to accept that he's a bit of a recluse.

Mm-hmm. I don't think that they're seeing kind of the, the major red flags that are forming. He doesn't share anything with anyone. Do you know what I mean? Other than sometimes his political and ideological views, like living off the grid. But they just see that as someone who wants to be self-sufficient, who wants to go off and live in the wilderness, they don't see that as a major red flag.

Why would you?

[00:38:20] Adam Cox: Yeah, if he's not revealing, I dunno, some if it's darker thoughts, then yeah, perhaps they're looking at it innocently. Yeah. I dunno, maybe I'm just seeing this as a telltale sign. Now if you know anyone that's living in a wood off the grid, just check in with him.

[00:38:33] Kyle Risi: Just check occasionally.

But this is the thing, like we said, in theory, this ideology makes sense to him in practise doesn't really work.

And yet this is the system that he wants to inflict on the entire world when it doesn't even work for him.

[00:38:48] Adam Cox: Yeah. And he is like, I can't do winter, so I will go get a job and get some supplies, but in the summer I'm self-sufficient. That's not how it works.

[00:38:55] Kyle Risi: No, it's not. Is it?

And again, living in isolation only makes the problems worse for him because he doesn't have anyone around him to challenge his thinking. Like we talked about how incredibly smart he is, but his way of thinking applies to mathematics and nature, not human nature.

So his warp reasoning just ends up reinforcing himself. Honestly. I think it gets to the point where even if he did have people around him, he gets so steeped in this ideology that even if he did have someone to challenge him, he wouldn't have listened.

Mm-hmm. Because I think it just becomes so ingrained in him.

'Cause by this point, he's developed an enormous amount of distrust towards people in his journals. He writes about how like he would be out at a bar with colleagues and they'll just be having a normal chat and then a few minutes later the conversation would end. He would then see them across the room talking to someone else and they'd be completely convinced that they were talking and laughing about whatever they were just discussing.

[00:39:43] Adam Cox: Oh, right. Yeah. This is like schizophrenia or something. Right?

[00:39:47] Kyle Risi: 100%. This is actually what psychiatrists list as a precursor to being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

Yeah. So you're good, like he is starting to show clear signs of this so you can sort of understand how important his cabin is to him. It's his entire sense of safety and security away from these people that he thinks are ridiculing him.

[00:40:08] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:40:09] Kyle Risi: So when roads are proposed nearby and logger moves into the area, Ted sees these as direct attacks and he starts going out of his way at night to set fire to the various sites and damaging the equipment in the area.

So it's just as vicious loop that he's tracked in making him more and more extreme and possibly causing him to lose touch with reality.

This is him now falling off the cliff, if you will.

[00:40:31] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:40:32] Kyle Risi: Like we saw towards the end of his bombing campaign that he was starting to do some very unhinged things that potentially indicated that he might have been going mad. Like remember he started sending like goading letters to some of the survivors that it survived his bombings.

That was so against the grain of what he normally did. And I'm wondering whether or not all of the isolation was now potentially now all coming to a head

[00:40:57] Adam Cox: it seems that way. If he's not speaking to anyone, this is how he communicates. A bit of an outlet I guess. Then, it just feels like he's gonna deteriorate and I'm interested when we get to like what kind of state he's in when they find him.

[00:41:10] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. So he ends up living in his cabin isolated for around seven years. It's in 1978 during a trip back to Chicago to collect more supplies and pick us some part-time work that he gets a job in the same foam rubber factory that his brother David works in as a supervisor.

It's here that Ted becomes friendly with one of the female shift managers.

They actually end up hitting it off and eventually he asks her out on a date and she says yes.

They go on a couple dates and Ted thinks that everything is going really well, but then suddenly she completely friend zones him outta nowhere and at this point he has a massive distrust of people that has been brewing over like now a couple decades.

And so in response, Ted decides that he's gonna cover the entire factory with insulting limericks about her.

[00:41:57] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:41:58] Kyle Risi: So it's not great. She's also his manager.

In the end, David, his brother is forced to sit him down where he then has to fire him in the end, which probably wasn't easy for him to do, probably because like he is his older brother. Right. And when you're the younger brother, you kind of sort of idolise your older brother. Mm-hmm. And when they don't have their life in order, when you do, like David at this point, he's married, just got a good job. Probably a really difficult thing for him to have to do.

[00:42:25] Adam Cox: Yeah. And I just, I'm, there must be some concern for his wellbeing. Because this is a guy that I don't know, he went to Harvard at 15. Fair enough. He wants an easier or simpler life maybe, but just knowing that this is how he's behaving around people, treating other women,

[00:42:41] Kyle Risi: yeah.

[00:42:41] Adam Cox: I don't know. I appreciate, he doesn't have a lot of friends, but this is an opportunity for his brother to go, I think you need help.

[00:42:48] Kyle Risi: It's so interesting. I can understand if this was over a course of, let's say six months and all of these things were happening in a concentrated way, that you would go, something's up.

But this is such a slow burner and these troubling bits of behaviour are so sporadic over his entire life that you lose the ability to be able to go, this is a warning sign that something's up versus this is just what Ted is like.

[00:43:13] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Maybe it's easy for me to say that looking in, but when you're in it, yeah. That's not what you're thinking. We are privy to all the moments in his life at this point in time

[00:43:23] Kyle Risi: because we're telling it in such a concentrated way.

[00:43:25] Adam Cox: Yeah. Where his, his brother wouldn't have known that he went to a counsellor about

[00:43:29] Kyle Risi: Sure.

[00:43:29] Adam Cox: Exactly. Sex assignment or whatever.

[00:43:30] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

Adam, it's actually at this point that Ted places his first bomb outside the Northwestern University in Chicago, which eventually makes it over to Buckley Christ, which is the first bombing that we opened up the series with.

And this is where knowing Ted's backstory really starts to change the way we look at his bombings.

As you know, in part one, we experienced the attacks roughly in the same way that the public and the FBI did at the time. And the attacks really did seem random and odd. At first. It was really difficult to know what the connections were between the different victims. Like why academics, why people connected to the aviation industry, or the Forestry Association. Why did he target Thomas Mosser, the PR executive that worked with Exxon, for example?

[00:44:15] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:44:16] Kyle Risi: But now that we understand Ted and his ideology, his victims are now starting to make sense, right? He wasn't targeting people. He knew personally, he was targeting people because of what they represented.

So people associated with technological progress, industrialization, or in the case of Thomas Mossa, people involved in environmental destruction.

So it's this lack of personal vendetta against these individuals that made it such a struggle for the FBI to actually catch him.

Like normally the first thing investigators want to know is what connects the victims to the person who did this, right? With Ted. The connection is there, but it's not there in the way that the FBI are expecting.

But that's not the only thing that makes him difficult to catch. Remember, he was also living by his ideology off grid when he travelled. He generally travelled by bus.

When he bought anything, it was always with cash and when he has to give a name, it was always a fake one, also his bomb components, they were all scavenge from junkyards, so it was impossible to trace any of those components back to any particular supplier because he was living off the grid.

[00:45:19] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:45:19] Kyle Risi: Another thing that people usually cite as a reason why he was able to evade capture is his intelligence. Remember his IQ is 167, right?

That's the main thing that gets cited as to why it was so hard to catch him, but I actually think that there's an important distinction to make here. Like Ted was obviously incredibly intelligent, particularly when it came to mathematics, logic and thinking grey area, right?

I'll put that into inverter commas.

These are the things that allowed him to operate as the uni bomber, but while he's intelligent in that aspect, he has a massive blind spot when it comes to understanding people.

I think this bread frustration that became resentments, which then pushed him into isolation, which then pushed him towards processing everything through this very resentful, mathematical way of thinking.

So it's interesting that this blind spot, which is a form of unintelligence in one aspect, is what helps him become the Una bomber

[00:46:15] Adam Cox: yeah. Yeah. No, that makes sense. I guess. And with the police saying, oh, he was so smart. That's why we didn't catch him. Is that just the police going? We didn't have a clue.

[00:46:24] Kyle Risi: Yeah, probably. But also remember they threw everything at this case, right? It was the way he was operating that made it so difficult to catch him, how patient and methodical he was.

Mm-hmm. And yeah, it's a combination of things that allowed him to evade capture.

[00:46:38] Adam Cox: Do you think that was a conscious effort? Like he knew if he remained isolated and he waited? No,

[00:46:44] Kyle Risi: I don't think so. I think it was just purely how the, the sticks fell.

[00:46:50] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:46:50] Kyle Risi: I think it was just a perfect recipe.

You gotta also remember when the cops are profiling people, right? They're looking at all the evidence and they're basing that on, well, let's look at all the serial killers that we've had in the past.

[00:47:01] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:47:01] Kyle Risi: How do they fit the mould? And he just didn't fit the mould

[00:47:05] Adam Cox: statistically. This is what we're looking for this kind of person.

[00:47:08] Kyle Risi: Exactly. And while they got a lot of things correct in their profile, I think the way he was operating and how patient and methodically he was, just made it very difficult.

[00:47:16] Adam Cox: Basically what you're saying is if we wanted to be a criminal

[00:47:19] Kyle Risi: mm-hmm.

[00:47:20] Adam Cox: Just don't be predictable.

[00:47:21] Kyle Risi: Yes. 100%. I think that might be it.

But the thing that eventually gets him caught is actually something that is very intact in Ted's psychology. And that is pride.

After 17 years of staying completely anonymous, he eventually wanted people to know why he was doing this and decided to remember, send his 35,000 word manifesto to the press.

That was, in a sense, his biggest mistake that he could possibly make.

I'm not sure if at this point, because there was also some other questionable behaviour that he was going through at this point that he decided to send the manifesto. Remember goading some of the victims by sending these letters.

Mm-hmm. So maybe he was also going off the cliff psychologically as well.

But at the time, the FBI remembered they didn't want to actually publish the manifesto largely because it fundamentally went against their philosophy of never negotiating with terrorists. But in his letter to the press, he did say that if they published the manifesto, he would eventually stop the bombings. So they really had no choice. Right. They kind of like, well, we don't really have anything. And yeah, we don't negotiate with terrorists, but we're no closer to finding him. We might as well just give this a crack.

[00:48:28] Adam Cox: Yeah.

Like what's the worst that could happen?

[00:48:31] Kyle Risi: So eventually the decision was made to publish it in order to protect more innocent people from being targeted,

but they also begin to realise that publishing it might actually be the best chance of catching it because somebody might recognise his writing.

So along with publishing the manifesto, the FB also decide to include their profile of who they thought that they were looking for.

Things like, we think he's very intelligent, he's likely living in isolation. He perhaps has a secret room in a house We can go off and make his bombs if he is living with a family. All sorts of things. Their thinking was that this way people while, reading the manifesto, they can have in their mind a picture of who the FBI think it could be. So they can say, oh, that sounds like my dad, or Oh, that sounds like my brother.

[00:49:13] Adam Cox: Yeah. Connect the dots. And that's obviously what happened in the end.

[00:49:17] Kyle Risi: Exactly. It works, it takes about four months eventually a lawyer representing an anonymous source contacts the FBI saying that the manifesto sounds very similar to their client's estranged brother.

And as you know, his client was David Kozinski, Ted's brother.

When David's lawyer contacts the FBI, he also sends copies of some of the letters that Ted has sent David over the years.

It's quite an accurate match in terms of his writing style, but also as the FBI look further into him, he also starts to fit the profile pretty damn closely.

And so it's at that point that Ted becomes suspect 2 4 1 6, he is their final suspect added to their list. So it is wild that up until this point across 17 years, he wasn't ever really on their radar at all,

[00:50:07] Adam Cox: as only at this point.

[00:50:08] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:50:09] Adam Cox: Interesting that you said estranged brother.

[00:50:11] Kyle Risi: Mm.

[00:50:12] Adam Cox: So they're not really talking

[00:50:13] Kyle Risi: No. After the incident at the factory where he had to fire him, Ted is pretty sore about it. Yeah. Which he would be

[00:50:19] Adam Cox: understandably. But you did this yourself.

[00:50:22] Kyle Risi: I mean, they did continue to write for a while, but I think Ted just went back to Montana to his cabin with his tail between his legs and just stayed in isolation, but they continued to converse with each other.

[00:50:32] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:33] Kyle Risi: So from here, the FBI then interviewed David and his mother. They speak to former professors, old acquaintances and people that knew him socially.

Adam, with every interview, Ted fits that profile just a little bit more, and eventually the cops decide this might be our guy.

They travel to Montana and they begin surveilling humanity's cabin, which I imagine must be really odd. Like here is the mastermind behind all these terrifying bombings across America over the 17 year period.

And yet they see an almost home-like guy tending to vegetables and hunting game in the woods. Like in my mind, I'm picturing Lex Luther when I think about the uni bomb. Do you know what I mean?

Not this homelike guy, just Ted in his shed.

It's really strange.

[00:51:18] Adam Cox: Yeah. Lex Luther wouldn't use word there.

[00:51:20] Kyle Risi: No, he wouldn't.

[00:51:21] Adam Cox: Could use like nuclear bomb.

[00:51:23] Kyle Risi: Yes. eventually, the FBI believed that they might have enough evidence to arrest him, but arresting him is tricky because for all they knew they could bust down the door and he might have rigged up the cabin with a bunch of explosives.

[00:51:34] Adam Cox: True. Yeah.

[00:51:35] Kyle Risi: So instead they come up with this ruse where they can get a local forestry service employee to pretend that he's confused about Ted's property boundary. So on the 3rd of April, 1996, there's a knock at Ted's door.

He doesn't answer. And so the forestry worker tries again all the while the FBI are hiding around the side of the shed.

Ted eventually does open the door, just a crack to peep out. And of course, the forestry worker asked Ted to show him the exact boundary along the east and side of his property.

Ted is immediately suspicious because he knows that his property is already very clearly marked, so Ted finally steps outside to explain, and that's when the FBI nab him. And finally, after two decades of bombings, false leads, dead ends, and thousands of tips, the FBI finally had the UNA bomber, and it was over.

[00:52:23] Adam Cox: Did he think he was ever gonna get caught?

[00:52:25] Kyle Risi: It's a very good question. I don't know, 17 years is a long time to not be caught.

[00:52:30] Adam Cox: Yeah. And I just wondered whether a, he obviously was very careful, maybe in the beginning, then got complacent, then was a bit arrogant. Like, oh, they're never gonna find me now.

[00:52:39] Kyle Risi: Or went a bit mentally off the rails.

[00:52:42] Adam Cox: Mm.

So they surrounded him, they've caught him, they take him in. What happens next?

[00:52:47] Kyle Risi: Well, the next step is to gather literally everything they can from the cabin, right?

[00:52:50] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:52:50] Kyle Risi: Adam, this thing is tiny. It's basically a one room. Containing his head's entire life, including hundreds of books, chemicals, tools, materials, everything that he needed to physically make these bombs.

In fact, under his bed, he already had another fully assembled bomb.

So remember he promised that if they published the manifesto, he would stop the bombings. So it looks like that was a lie,

they also find all his academic works that he has written over the years, as well as draughts of his manifesto, but also his personal journals.

These basically give the FBIA lot of information, not only about what he was doing, but also about how much of the thinking that led to him becoming the uni bomber.

[00:53:29] Adam Cox: Yeah. It feels like they've been really lucky to find all this evidence.

[00:53:33] Kyle Risi: Yeah. A psychologist's, absolute like wet dream,

[00:53:37] Adam Cox: is it?

[00:53:38] Kyle Risi: Yeah. I mean if you are into kind of criminal psychology,

[00:53:41] Adam Cox: yeah. I guess this

[00:53:42] Kyle Risi: would be a goldmine,

[00:53:43] Adam Cox: a great case to work on. I just wouldn't necessarily said wet dream.

[00:53:47] Kyle Risi: Okay, fair enough.

The bomb under his bed is the thing that lets the FBI arrest him in that moment. Like if it wasn't for that, they'd have very limited amount of time to kind of question him in prison,

[00:53:59] Adam Cox: yeah.

[00:54:00] Kyle Risi: So while they've got him holed up in a prison cell, he is indicted for the bombings, including the murders.

What's really interesting, Adam, is that they also take his cabin as evidence, like the whole thing, which still exists to this day in the FBI headquarters in Washington dc and you can go and visit it.

[00:54:19] Adam Cox: In their headquarters.

[00:54:20] Kyle Risi: Yeah. If you Google it, there's these images of it, like in this big old warehouse, this like hanger,

[00:54:25] Adam Cox: that seems weird. It's like having it in the lobby.

[00:54:27] Kyle Risi: Yeah. I'm just like, oh yes. Where it just feels like that could potentially become a shrine.

[00:54:32] Adam Cox: Yeah. I mean, instead of a warehouse, it's not like it's, I guess you have to get an invitation or booking to go in there.

[00:54:37] Kyle Risi: I think you can book to go see it.

[00:54:39] Adam Cox: That is weird

[00:54:40] Kyle Risi: and it's so strange. So the FBI hatted all the bombing making materials, including obvious Stevie Assemble bomb that they found under his bed that had all these journals and his notes, which were essentially confessions.

So from the outside, this feels like there should have been an absolute open and shut case, right? Mm-hmm. In terms of the evidence they had the man. but there is one major problem.

They might not be able to use any, anything that they found in his cabin as actual evidence. Why.

because it comes down to Ted questioning the actual search warrant itself, which means that if they can't use any of this evidence, what case do they have against Ted? 'cause they had nothing else. Right? All they had was what they found in the cabin.

[00:55:18] Adam Cox: Wow. That's, this is what happens when you're smart.

[00:55:22] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:55:22] Adam Cox: You can outsmart the police.

[00:55:24] Kyle Risi: That's the thing though Ted is amazingly involved in his own defence. He seems to understand the law surprisingly well and he definitely did try to call the shots, even when his lawyers were saying like, we do not advise this at his pretrial hearings. It's when Ted points his lawyers towards arguing that the FBI did not have enough evidence to justify searching the property in the first place, saying that the initial application used false and misleading statements.

Basically, if his lawyers could prove that, then all the evidence found inside their cabin would not be able to be used in his trial.

[00:55:57] Adam Cox: Isn't that ridiculous? Yeah. Let's just say they weren't able to use that evidence. Mm-hmm. Are we saying he would've gotten away Scott through it on a

[00:56:04] Kyle Risi: technicality?

Yeah.

[00:56:05] Adam Cox: Or like they would've had him for something else, but it'd been like a minor offence. I dunno.

[00:56:08] Kyle Risi: Well, let me explain a couple things to you and see if you still think it's ridiculous legally Ted does have a point. They were essentially arguing that the police had searched his cabin, found a bunch of stuff, and then used that stuff to justify why they should have been allowed to search the cabin in the first place.

So in US law, it can't work like that.

It's designed to protect people from unlawful searches from the police going in and saying, oh, we found this, we're gonna use this against you.

But you didn't have any lawful kind of reason to search that anyway.

So they're kind of working backwards.

[00:56:39] Adam Cox: I see. Yeah.

[00:56:40] Kyle Risi: So the law enforcement needed sufficient probable cause before they went into the cabin. The argument was that the FBI didn't have that.

The first thing that they point to was that the DNA from the UNA bomber's letters didn't actually match Ted's DNA at all.

So how does that give you sufficient grounds for a warrant?

[00:56:58] Adam Cox: So are they only just going off, his brother's sort of confession or whatever?

[00:57:03] Kyle Risi: Exactly. Next. They're arguing that the brothers suspecting that he was the Unabomber also was not grounds for a search.

That's just someone saying, I think this is the Unabomber.

[00:57:13] Adam Cox: Yeah. And they must have had loads of people that said that.

[00:57:15] Kyle Risi: Remember we had people saying, uh, I think the Unabomber is my dog walker.

[00:57:19] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:57:19] Kyle Risi: Does that give you probable cause to go and arrest that dog walker?

It shouldn't. And it's the same parallel here.

They also argue that similarities between Ted's private letters to David and the manifesto does not prove that he was a Unabomber, saying that you could point to plenty of other academic writings that use the exact same, similar language that he was using.

[00:57:41] Adam Cox: Okay, fine.

[00:57:42] Kyle Risi: This Adam is something that the court takes very seriously so have you changed your mind? Do you understand how the police should have done things properly?

[00:57:52] Adam Cox: I do. But then equally, how else look at

everything

[00:57:55] Kyle Risi: they found in his cabin.

[00:57:56] Adam Cox: Yeah. Like how can you explain like the bomb, the manifesto and all these other things? It's like, well this still adds up

[00:58:02] Kyle Risi: Uhhuh.

[00:58:02] Adam Cox: It doesn't matter how we got here.

[00:58:04] Kyle Risi: Well get this. Ultimately the argument is completely rejected by the judge.

[00:58:07] Adam Cox: Good.

[00:58:08] Kyle Risi: The judge says that despite some of the issues with the FBI's warrant application, when you read it realistically and apply a bit of common sense, there was still enough probable cause to search that cabin.

[00:58:20] Adam Cox: Well, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like this is the thing. If you do everything by the letter, then you know.

[00:58:25] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Adam, this is a massive blow to test defence.

Remember the trial hasn't even started yet. This is all kind of the pre-hearing, but it means that what they found in his cabin is now admissible in court.

When the search warrant is upheld the case, then of course moves to trial. By this point, Ted's lawyers know that the evidence against him is completely overwhelming. If he's found guilty, he will likely face a death penalty.

So their strategy now revolves around purely just saving his life, which they plan to do by arguing that he's mentally ill.

[00:58:58] Adam Cox: I mean, that's a fair point. I think he probably is to some level.

[00:59:01] Kyle Risi: He refuses to undergo any mental health assessment and he rejects the strategy completely.

And it's because Ted's entire manifesto depends on people seeing him as sane. Otherwise they are just the ramblings of someone who's insane, right?

[00:59:18] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:59:19] Kyle Risi: He cannot accept that. His lawyers refuse to listen to him. Their view is that they are now acting in his best interest, and that means helping him avoid execution. And so there's this constant busting of heads between him and his lawyers up until the point that the trial starts, he refuses any mental health assessment. And so his lawyers think that when the trial starts, they're just gonna order the judge to have him take one.

[00:59:42] Adam Cox: I see.

[00:59:42] Kyle Risi: So in January, 1998, at the start of his trial, Ted unexpectedly stands up and he requests that the judge allow him to change his lawyer because they were planning on pursuing a defence that he didn't want.

The judge refused to saying that at this point, it's far too late. If you want a different counsel, you should have sorted that out ages ago.

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

[01:00:00] Kyle Risi: And so, because he's so intense on protecting the credibility of his manifesto, he tries to hang himself in his cell that night.

[01:00:08] Adam Cox: Oh, really?

[01:00:09] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[01:00:10] Adam Cox: Oh my God.

[01:00:10] Kyle Risi: Luckily a guard finds him he's put into seclusion. They take away his shoe laces, take away his underwear, and yeah, he is going through trial.

But he's not giving up because backer court, Ted then stands up and asks the judge if he can instead represent himself. The judge agrees to consider it, but he says that he must first undergo a psychiatric evaluation to determine whether or not he is immensely competent to do so.

And so Ted is like, I've been trying to avoid any mental health assessment this entire time, and now I have no choice for fuck's sake.

[01:00:41] Adam Cox: So he agrees to it then?

[01:00:43] Kyle Risi: Yeah. He's jumping through all these hoops to avoid any psychiatric assessment, but now he's cornered and so he agrees.

When the psychiatric assessment comes back, they conclude that Ted is legally competent enough to represent himself, but he's also a paranoid schizophrenic.

[01:01:00] Adam Cox: Yeah, that makes sense. Albeit, how can he represent himself if he's, you know, competently, if he's got schizophrenia?

[01:01:08] Kyle Risi: It sounds contradictory, doesn't it?

But legally it isn't. Somebody can be mentally ill, but still understand the charges against him.

[01:01:14] Adam Cox: Yeah. 'cause he does sound like he knows what's going on.

[01:01:17] Kyle Risi: Yeah, for sure. But it also means that Ted's efforts to protect the credibility of his manifesto will offer nothing because now he has technically been diagnosed as mentally ill.

[01:01:27] Adam Cox: Mm.

[01:01:28] Kyle Risi: So what is that gonna do for his. His manifesto. Right. And it's credibility.

[01:01:31] Adam Cox: I mean, is anyone even looking at his manifesto? Let's be honest.

[01:01:35] Kyle Risi: I a lot of people do. A lot of people are very interested in it.

[01:01:38] Adam Cox: I get that. But at this moment in time, it's like, hmm, no, you killed some people, you made some bombs.

[01:01:43] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[01:01:44] Adam Cox: You're, you need, you know,

[01:01:45] Kyle Risi: That is the important thing, right? Um, is that people need to remember that this is a vicious murderer.

[01:01:50] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:01:50] Kyle Risi: But even though the psychiatrist says that he's clear to represent himself, the judge refuses and says that the requests came too late in the process.

Which makes me sound like he's being tricked a little bit.

[01:02:01] Adam Cox: Uh, yeah, probably.

[01:02:03] Kyle Risi: I mean, that's questionable on the ethics,

[01:02:04] Adam Cox: but actually, is that still in his best interest?

[01:02:07] Kyle Risi: I don't know.

[01:02:09] Adam Cox: Because if they use that for a more lenient sentence, then it has saved his life whether he wants it or not.

[01:02:15] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Well, I mean, Ted only has two options now. He can either continue with his current lawyers and pursue a mental health strategy, or he plead guilty.

What he thinks Ted does

[01:02:24] Adam Cox: pleads guilty.

[01:02:25] Kyle Risi: He pleads guilty.

Yeah. He thinks doing this preserves the credibility of that manifesto. Because even though an assessment found him mentally ill, it's not associated with the outcome of the trial, but it is still on the record.

[01:02:37] Adam Cox: Yeah. And also I feel like if I was him, or I can imagine his state of mind rather he doesn't want what he's done to go to waste, like he's done this for 17 years. Yeah,

[01:02:47] Kyle Risi: it's

[01:02:47] Adam Cox: true. There's a reason he's been doing this. There's a cause sun cost

[01:02:49] Kyle Risi: fallacy, I think they call it.

[01:02:50] Adam Cox: Yeah, exactly. So if he just gives up now, people will just go, oh yeah, he's the uni poly that killed some people. He's now in prison.

[01:02:56] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[01:02:56] Adam Cox: And forget everything, the reason why he'd done it.

[01:02:59] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. So, Adam, on the 4th of May, 1998, Ted is sentenced to multiple consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole

At sentencing, prosecutors knew that one of Ted's biggest concerns was protecting the credibility of his manifesto, and they were hell, Ben, on destroying that during the trial. But now that he's pleaded guilty, they didn't get the chance to actually do that and dismantle that.

So they wanted to make sure that the judge sentenced him to serve in a maximum security prison where they knew that he would at least be locked down for 20 to 23 hours a day with as little freedom as possible.

So the way that they were gonna do this was by reading out some of his journal entries to show what a monster he was and to show that his manifesto was just completely and totally unhinged in one entry Ted wrote. About the 1982 bomb that he planted at Berkeley. That's the fuel bomb that exploded in professor dese Anglia CASA's face.

[01:03:50] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:03:50] Kyle Risi: In the journal, Ted complained that part of the device had failed to ignite. Do you remember it? It was only the, the bomb that exploded, but it didn't, it didn't ignite the actual fuel canister. Yes. Had it ignite the fuel caner would've been way worse.

Basically Ted talks at length about how he just didn't understand why it didn't ignite it, how frustrating it was that it had cost him so much money in bus fair travelling to the university in order to plant the bomb.

It shows the judge how much less concern he was about the innocent person that he just brutalised than he was about the, the fair of a bus ticket.

[01:04:24] Adam Cox: I mean, clearly he was never gonna be like looking out for people's best interests No. When he sent a bomb, but yeah, like the fact that, he spent $10 rather than five,

[01:04:33] Kyle Risi: but that in itself shows that a, he's not concerned about humanity.

[01:04:37] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:04:37] Kyle Risi: At all. He is. He's unhinged, basically.

[01:04:40] Adam Cox: Yeah, he's petty. He's a bit of Betty.

[01:04:42] Kyle Risi: He's a bit of Betty.

[01:04:44] Adam Cox: It shows like there's no humanity. It's very cold.

[01:04:46] Kyle Risi: So, of course reading this out at his sentencing demolishes, the public pretence that he was trying to preserve, that he was this noble, philosophical kind of crusader, trying to do the right thing by humanity.

Mm-hmm. Instead, it shows that he was just petty, hateful, and a vengeful monster, as you said. A petty Betty.

[01:05:05] Adam Cox: A bit of Betty.

[01:05:06] Kyle Risi: Oh, a bit of Betty. I think Petty Betty's better.

so following his sentence, Ted spent most of his sentence inside a federal supermax prison in Colorado, and he continued to write these academic papers. Apparently he wrote to thousands of people, mostly from radical environmentalist groups and other kind of anti civilization. He also wrote prolifically, to other professors and academics, debating like sociology and discussing things like nine 11, but also asking people like at length about the rise of the internet, which of course he wasn't allowed to use.

He apparently kept carbon copies of every single letter that he sent, which by the time that he died amassed to 90 boxes in total. And today. They all live in the Labadi collection at the University of Michigan Library. So you can go and read them if you wanted to.

[01:05:55] Adam Cox: Oh, wow.

[01:05:55] Kyle Risi: Which, I don't know how I feel about that. I don't like the idea that people are keeping hold of these un understand that they're part of a significant period of history. But I think keeping them around is not good.

[01:06:08] Adam Cox: Is there any different to, you think back to World War II and the crimes and some of the letters from the people that I dunno, used to run the Nazi camps, we've kept hold of them to remember how horrific that is.

So I

[01:06:20] Kyle Risi: would Yeah, but look what happened to those, the Americans took those and they ended up progressing some of that science which led to MK Ultra, which then in theory has led to the rise of social media and the algorithm.

[01:06:33] Adam Cox: Yeah. I guess I was just thinking like it's to remember not to do this again, it is a part of history, but I do agree we're not trying to treat it as a shrine. I think it's just, I dunno, there's just, this is some quite a unique piece of history. This is,

[01:06:46] Kyle Risi: yeah. I'm wondering like what measures are being put in place to make sure

[01:06:50] Adam Cox: to safeguard.

[01:06:51] Kyle Risi: Yeah. It doesn't become a shrine. Do you know what I mean?

[01:06:54] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[01:06:54] Kyle Risi: Adam, Ted lives to the age of 81. By then he was suffering from late stage rectal cancer and so he knew that he was dying.

But in June, 2023, rather than waiting for the cancer to take its course, Ted chose to end his own life on his own terms by hanging himself in his cell with his shoelaces, which of course was not a choice he ever afforded to the people that he killed.

And Adam, that is the story of Ted Kozinski, the Unabomber.

[01:07:23] Adam Cox: So he was imprisoned the rest of his life then.

[01:07:26] Kyle Risi: Yeah. No chance of parole, but yeah. Wild story. Hey, and it's, not who you expected to be the Unabomber.

[01:07:34] Adam Cox: No. And I appreciate he had mental health struggles, but it's still someone I, I find hard to sympathise with.

[01:07:41] Kyle Risi: I don't think anyone sympathises with him now, but while we're going through his backstory. Yeah. Yes. I definitely sympathise with him because I understand their feeling of isolation and like not fitting in,

[01:07:50] Adam Cox: early on, I think. Yes, absolutely. But towards the end of his, you know, before he got arrested, yeah. No sympathy whatsoever.

[01:07:58] Kyle Risi: I don't think anyone's questioning whether or not they sympathise with him. I don't think anyone does. Wow.

[01:08:04] Adam Cox: Yeah. Okay.

[01:08:06] Kyle Risi: But did you, know any of that about the Unabomber before we actually covered this?

[01:08:10] Adam Cox: I think what we said before, like I'd heard of the Unabomber being spoken about, didn't know who he was, how many times he strip struck, how long, who he targeted. It was just, I dunno, it's just a bomber.

[01:08:22] Kyle Risi: Yeah. You just think it's just a bomber who like tugs at a couple of people. But the fact that it went on for 17 years, I think that was the biggest thing for me.

But also how incredibly intelligent he was with an IQ of 167. That is wild to me. He's smarter than Stephen Hawkins.

[01:08:37] Adam Cox: Yeah.

And it was his family that kind of helped bring him down.

[01:08:41] Kyle Risi: Mm. Anyway, should we, uh, run the outro for this week?

[01:08:44] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:08:44] Kyle Risi: And so that brings us to the end of another fascinating foray into the compendium and assembly of fascinating things.

We hope you enjoyed the ride as much as we did.

[01:08:51] Adam Cox: And if today's episode has sparked your curiosity, then please do us a favour and follow us on your favourite podcast app.

It truly makes a world of difference and helps more people discover the show.

[01:09:02] Kyle Risi: And for our dedicated freaks out there, don't forget, the next week's episode is already waiting for you on our Patreon.

And as always, it is completely free to access.

[01:09:10] Adam Cox: And of course, if you want even more, then you can join our certified Freaks tier. To unlock the entire archive, you get to delve into exclusive content and get a sneak peek at what's coming next.

[01:09:20] Kyle Risi: We drop new episodes every Tuesday, and until then, remember,

the words we leave behind can reveal more than we intended.

See you next time.