Theodore Kaczynski (born May 22nd 1942. Died June 10th 2023), widely known as The Unabomber, was also considered a suspect in the Zodiac killings due to his interest in ciphers and his penchant for engaging with authorities, media outlets and victims of his crimes in the form of letters and manifestos. He contacted authorities in 1995 demanding that a 50-page article he had drafted called the Industrial Society and its Future be published in a leading newspaper or journal, stating his murderous bombing campaign would cease if this criteria was met. His reign of terror, killing three and injuring a further twenty-three others, ended on April 3rd 1996 when he was arrested in his cabin near Lincoln, Montana, where Kaczynski was living in remote isolation.
He was captured thanks to his brother's wife, Linda Patrik, who after reading excerpts from the 50-page Unabomber Manifesto while on holiday in France, drew parallels to letters she had been shown by David Kaczynski, that had been written by Ted to newspapers twenty years previously using similar phrases and ideas. David Kaczynski checked the manifesto and instantly recognised the term "cool headed logicians" previously used by his brother. He contacted the FBI and submitted some writings of Theodore Kaczynski for comparison.  Theodore Kaczynski
His early bomb making was less sophisticated, inflicting injury rather than death. His first device in May 1978 was placed in the parking lot at Chicago's University of Illinois, return addressed to a university professor Buckley Crist. But the professor, obviously realizing he had never sent any package, contacted the campus security and it was eventually opened by police officer Terry Marker. Fortunately for Mr. Marker the bomb was designed, in part, using wood, which decreased the pressure the device could generate and he would ultimately survive the explosion, sustaining only injuries to his left hand.
His next attacks focused on airlines, when in 1979 a bomb was discovered on an outbound flight from Chicago to Washington. The passengers and crew were extremely lucky to survive - but for a faulty timer - the device had enough energy to destroy the plane. A task force was set up and in 1980 John Douglas and the FBI Behavioral Science Unit would initially evaluate the suspect's profile as an extremely intelligent individual with an academic degree in hard sciences. Meanwhile, Theodore Kaczynski was honing his skills, until finally his art of handcrafted bombs eventually turned deadly. Theodore Kaczynski claimed his first casualty when John Hauser, a Captain in the Air Force was partially blinded in one eye and lost four fingers when receiving a mailed bomb in 1985. Hugh Scrutton, who owned a California computer store, in 1985, became the first fatality of the bombing campaign, followed by Thomas J. Mosser (an advertising executive) in 1994 and Gilbert P. Murray in 1995, who was the president of a lobbyist timber industry group. 
Earlier in Ted Kaczynski's bombing campaign on June 10th 1980, the president of American Airlines, Percy Wood, opened a package containing a book entitled Ice Brothers which was packed with explosives, from which he narrowly cheated death. The device was constructed using wood - the victim's last name was Wood and the return address was from a street named Ravenswood. Was Ted Kaczynski playing a game of words with investigators in his attempted murder of Percy Wood? Inside the chiseled out section of the book Ted Kaczynski had inserted a small piece of metal in which the letters "FC" had been punched into its face.
These two alphabetical letters would be used throughout his bombing campaign to identify his work to authorities. "In all, 16 bombs—which injured 23 people and killed 3—were attributed to Kaczynski. While the devices varied widely through the years, all but the first few contained the initials "FC." Inside his bombs, certain parts carried the inscription "FC," which Kaczynski later asserted stood for "Freedom Club". 
FBI agents arrested Kaczynski on April 3, 1996
The Zodiac link is based around his high intelligence, acquiring a PhD in mathematics from the University of Michigan, having excelled in geometry and calculus, and taught courses at the University of California, Berkeley in 1967, where he was an Assistant Professor of Mathematics. Therefore, the concept of radians and map coordinates used in the Zodiac letters would be well within the capability of Theodore Kaczynski.
Theodore Kaczynski lived in Berkeley during the time of the Lake Herman Road murders on December 20th 1968. Then, in June 1969 he resigned his position and moved closer to his brother David. In the summer of 1969 David experienced the troubled side of Theodore Kaczynski when camping in British Columbia, where an application to purchase government land was rejected by the Canadian government. This seemed only to accelerate the already antisocial behavior exhibited by Theodore Kaczynski. In 1971, he finally purchased some land on the outskirts of Lincoln, Montana, building himself a remote one room cabin, where he would ultimately spend the remainder of his freedom living as a recluse. 
The coding of Theodore Kaczynski
His interest in coding and knowledge of bomb making equipment are two of the main reasons people look into Theodore Kaczynski as a possible Zodiac suspect. Some of Theodore Kaczynski's documentation retrieved from his remote cabin were written in mathematical code, designed to disguise his confessions and retellings of crimes. He would use a series of numbers to represent letters, such that any unwanted visitors to his hideaway would fail to unearth his dastardly deeds. However, he has never been linked through DNA, fingerprinting or handwriting analysis, plus he was living in Lombard, Illinois during key Zodiac timelines. In addition, he or his copious quantities of literature have never referred to any of the known Zodiac crimes, despite the fact he has little to lose after receiving a heavy prison sentence, from which he undoubtedly will never see the light of day again.
Theodore Kaczynski was arrested on April 3rd 1996 and ultimately given eight life sentences on January 22nd 1998 after pleading guilty to avoid the death penalty. After serving the bulk of his sentence at ADX Florence in Colorado, he was found dead (aged 81) in his prison cell at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina on June 10th 2023. Ted Kaczynski has been cleared as a suspect in the Zodiac murders by most people, including the FBI and San Francisco Police Department. On September 27th 2018, the third installment of Dr. Mark Hewitt's trilogy of Zodiac books was released, entitled 'EXPOSED: The Zodiac Revealed. He has outlined the focus of 'Exposed', naming Theodore Kaczynski as the most likely candidate for the Zodiac Killer in a blogtalkradio edition of True Murder, hosted by Dan Zupansky (see below). Dr. Mark Hewitt has dedicated many years to the Zodiac field from the standpoint of neutrality, and his first two books 'Hunted' and 'Profiled' are well researched using sourced material, police reports and FBI files, to name but a few. That impartiality has now changed with the release of his latest book 'Exposed'.  Dr. Mark Hewitt
Zodiac researcher, Dr. Mark Hewitt, goes into extensive detail in his third book Exposed:The Zodiac Revealed, naming Theodore Kaczynski as the Zodiac Killer. Below is a 90 minute podcast interview with Dr. Mark Hewitt, outlining some of his reasons for suspecting the Unabomber as the Zodiac Killer.
When asked by the host Dan Zupansky the reaction he expects from the Zodiac community upon the release of his book, Dr. Mark Hewitt replied "I expect there will be a certain contingent of people who will be so wedded to their ideas that they won't take a serious look at my work, which they're free to do that. Some people are convinced that it is their father, their birth father or stepfather, other people are very convinced of this suspect or that suspect debated online. So, if you want to do research that contradicts my research - go for it - show me your evidence and explain to me how my arguments are wrong. I think I've been very reasoned and very careful about laying out facts using reason to come to the conclusions that I do. If my reasoning is faulty, or my conclusions are wrong, by all means point them out to me. There may be a contingent who say wow Mark you've been very thorough in your research and make a very compelling case". |
1963 June 4th-The Domingos/Edwards Murders
1966 October 30th-The Cheri Jo Bates Murder 1966 November 29th-The Confession Letter 1966 December- The Riverside Desktop Poem 1967 April 30th- The Three Bates Letters 1968 December 20th-The Lake Herman Murders 1969 July 4th-The Blue Rock Springs Attack 1969 July 31st- Vallejo Times-Herald Letter and 408 Cipher Page1 (solved) 1969 July 31st- Examiner Letter and 408 Cipher Page 2 (solved) 1969 July 31st- Chronicle Letter and 408 Cipher Page 3 (87% solved) 1969 July 31st- The Complete 408 Cipher 1969 August 3rd- The Snoozy & Furlong Murders 1969 August 4th- Debut of Zodiac Letter 1969 August 10th- Concerned Citizen Card 1969 September 27th- The Lake Berryessa Attack 1969 October 7th- The Good Citizen Letter 1969 October 11th- The Presidio Heights Murder 1969 October 13th-The Paul Stine Letters 1969 October 14/15th- Zodiac Call to Santa Rosa 1969 October 21st- The Phone Call to Palo Alto 1969 October 22nd- Call to Chat Show 1969 November 2nd- Daniel Williams Poisoning 1969 November 8th-The Dripping Pen Card and 340 Cipher (solved in 2020) 1969 November 9th-The Bus Bomb Letter 1969 November 19th-The Riddler Notes 1969 November 21st-The San Jose Code Letter 1969 November 28th-The Betsy Aardsma Murder 1969 December 7th- Oklahoma Radio Call 1969 December 7th-The 1st Fairfield Letter 1969 December 10th- Forecast for Cancer 1969 December 11th- Forecast for Leo 1969 December 16th-The 2nd Fairfield Letter 1969 December 19th- Zodiac Call to San Jose 1969 December 20th-The Melvin Belli Letter 1970 January 4th- Phone Call to Peggy Trainer 1970 Feb 21st- The Hood and Garcia Murders 1970 March 22nd-The Modesto Attack 1970 April 15th-The Robert Salem Murder 1970 April 20th-"My Name is" Letter, Cipher 3 and Bus Bomb Diagram 1970 April 28th-The Dragon Card 1970 June 18th- Oakland A's Letter 1970 June 26th-The Button Letter Cipher 4 and Map 1970 July 4th-The Sleeping Bag Murders 1970 July 24th-The Kathleen Johns Letter 1970 July 26th-The Little List Letter 1970 Sept 6th-The Donna Lass Disappearance 1970 October 5th-13 Hole Postcard 1970 October 17th- "You Are Next" Postcard 1970 October 27th-The Halloween Card 1971 March 13th-The Los Angeles Letter 1971 March 22nd-The Pines Card 1971 Possibly May- The 148 Character Cipher 1971 July 13th-The Monticello Card 1972 June 29th- The Novato Letter 1973 August 1st- The Albany Letter 1974 January 29th-The Exorcist Letter 1974 February 3rd-The SLA Letter 1974 May 8th-The Citizen Card 1974 July 8th-The Red Phantom Letter 1974 December 27th- Christmas Card 1975 November 3rd- The Belmont Letter 1976 August 26th-The Deep Real Estate Ad 1978 March 13th- The "I Am Back" Phone Call 1978 April 24th-The 1978 Letter 1978 May 2nd- The Channel Nine Letter 1978 July 19th- The Scotch Tape Letter 1981 March 8th- The Atlanta Letter 1982 January (?) - The Santa Claus Card 1986 May 6th- The Freeway Letter 1987 October 28th- The 1987 Letter 1988 February 1st- The McDonald's Letter 1988 February 8th- The McDonald's Letter [2] 1990 September 25th- The Celebrity Cypher 1990 December-American Greetings Card 1991-The Scorpion Ciphers to John Walsh 2001 January 10th- Happy New Year Card Unknown DMV Letter (possibly November 1971) 
Ted Kaczynski-Crimes of the Century
Unabomber Code Cracked The Hunt for the Unabomber Unabomber Special Unabomber Tylenol Killings 
Sketch of Unabomber suspect
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