Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: MIKE NELSON / AFP 20:38 p.m., June 10, 2023

He frightened the United States for 18 years before being sentenced to life in prison in 1998. Ted Kaczynski, aka "Unabomber," died at the age of 81 behind bars, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The man had sent a total of sixteen bombs killing three and wounding 23.

Ted Kaczynski, nicknamed "Unabomber" and whose parcel bomb attacks traumatized America between 1978 and 1995, was found dead in his cell at age 81, US media reported Saturday, citing the Federal Bureau of Prisons. From 1978 and for 18 years, this Harvard-educated mathematician had sent sixteen bombs, concealed in postal packages, to various people and companies, causing a total of three deaths and 23 wounded.

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Found unconscious in his cell

After a long hunt, he was arrested in 1996 and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1998. According to the New York Times, citing the Federal Bureau of Prisons, he was found unconscious in his cell early Saturday morning and the cause of his death was not yet known.

Long held in the maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado, known for housing famous prisoners like drug lord El Chapo, he was transferred in 2021 to a correctional health facility in North Carolina. A brilliant mathematician turned hermit, Theodore Kaczynski had embarked on a crusade against progress and technology, making his bombs in a cabin in the mountains of Montana (northwest) without running water or electricity.

His first targets were academics and airlines, earning the assassin the nickname "Unabomber" (for "University and Airline Bomber"). In September 1995, promising to stop his bomb shipments, he got the New York Times and the Washington Post to publish a long manifesto in which he expressed a hatred of technology and the modern world.

Reading it, a resident of the east coast of the United States, David Kaczynski, sees a similarity with old writings of his brother Theodore, cut off from his family for years. He then alerted the FBI and allowed his arrest in April 1996. A diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia did not prevent him from being tried and sentenced in 1998 to life in prison after pleading guilty.