Ted Kaczynski, known widely as the Unabomber, was found dead in his prison cell Saturday morning, according to the Associated Press, which cited a spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons. The 81-year-old, who was serving a life sentence in Colorado, had been moved to a North Carolina medical facility due to poor health. The cause of death was not immediately known.
Across nearly two decades of terror starting in 1978, Kaczynski fashioned 16 “increasingly sophisticated” bombs, which he then mailed or hand-delivered, killing three people and injuring scores more. The name, “Unabomber” derived from a six-letter acronym used by the FBI’s taskforce investigating the cases, UNABOM, the “UNA” being a reference to some of his targets, university campuses and airliners.
Kaczynski was finally captured in 1996, a year after he sent the FBI a 35,000-word manifesto that was published by the Washington Post and the New York Times, causing family members to tip off authorities. He pleaded guilty in 1998, and was sentenced to a Supermax facility in Colorado.
