Unabomber Suspect Seized
Tipped by his kin, feds find ex-prof in Montana Cabin

A former college professor who lived in a remote Rocky Mountain cabin with no running water or electricity was taken into custody yesterday, and federal authorities said he was a suspect in the Unabomber case.

They identified him as Theodore John Kaczynski, 53, a reclusive mathematician whose home near Lincoln, Mont., had been under surveillance for what authorities said was several weeks. Members of Kaczynski’s family had apparently alerted the FBI that they believed he might be the Unabomber.

About 20 agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were searching Kaczynski’s property yesterday, looking for tools and parts used in making the intricate, hand-crafted bombs Unabomber mailed and delivered in what appeared to be random acts.

Since 1978, the Unabomber’s 16 anonymous package bombs have killed three people and injured 23. The federal government formed a multi-agency task force to hunt for the bomber. Agents said they were looking for a college-educated loner who grew up in Chicago, where the first bomb was found in 1978, and had ties to Berkeley, Calif., and Utah, sites of some of the attacks.

Kaczynski, who grew up in the Chicago area, received a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University in 1962 and a master’s from the University of Michigan in 1964. He completed his doctorate in 1967, also at Michigan. His dissertation was entitled “Boundary Functions.”

He worked for one year as an assistant professor of mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley before resigning in 1969.

After leaving Berkeley, Kaczynski moved to the Salt Lake City area, where he performed menial jobs, authorities said. Kaczynski had apparently lived in the Montana cabin for at least 10 years.

“He was real shy, real quiet. His conversations were short,” said a neighbor, Butch Gehring. Berkeley was the target of two Unabomber attacks. In 1982, an electrical engineering professor was injured when he picked up a pipe bomb left in a package in a coffee-break room. In 1985, a student lost four fingers and vision in one eye when one of the bombs detonated in a computer room.

Salt Lake City was the site of two Unabomber attacks, and also where a suspect believed to be the Unabomber was spotted moving a package containing one of the bombs. It had been disguised as a road hazard.

Unabomber also sent his deadly packages through the mail. One exploded in an airplane. Others killed New Jersey advertising executive Thomas Mosser and Gilbert Murray, a California Forestry Association official.

David Gelernter, a well-known computer scientist at Yale who earned his doctorate at the State University at Stony Brook, was severely injured when a bomb exploded in his office.

Last summer, the elusive killer who seemed to target computer experts, airlines and university professors, mailed a 35,000-word treatise to authorities and newspapers.

Unabomber opposed modern technology explaining that he believed the industrial revolution had been a “disaster for the human race.” He espoused a return to a simpler society, with small settlements dependent on only the most basic machinery.

The treatise was circulated to college professors across the country in hopes that they would recognize the Una-bomber’s writing. Some provided leads that proved deadends as dozens of agents worked on the case.

The Unabomber promised to end his reign of terror if the Washington Post or The New York Times published his manifesto. After consultations with The Times, which shared the cost, the Post obliged. But after his years of silence, Unabomber's decision to publish may have been his undoing.

It was apparently the similarities between the Unabomber manifesto and writing found in his parents’ former home, that led to his arrest yesterday. A federal source said, “We liked the writings very much.”

Three years ago, Kaczynski’s father, also named Theodore, died. Earlier this year, his mother, Wanda, put a “For Sale” sign outside the home in Lombard, a suburb of Chicago, where the family had lived for 15 years. She decided to move in with her son David in Schenectady, N.Y.

It was apparently when the Kaczynskis were cleaning out their Lombard home that they found writings by the younger Theodore that appeared similar to those of the Unabomber. The family alerted a Washington lawyer, who called the authorities.

Neighbors in Lombard described the elder Kaczynskis as wonderful people. “She was the sweetest person,” said one woman, who asked not to be identified. Neighbors said the elder Theodore had worked as an engineer. Wanda Kazcynski was a teacher until her retirement.

In Schenectady, next-door neighbor Mary Ann Welch said Wanda Kazcynski sometimes talked of her son Theodore, describing him as a loner. “She [Wanda] respected his choice of lifestyle. She didn’t see him very much. They just corresponded,” Welch said. “He was cut off from his family, but I never heard anything negative about him.”

Knut Royce in Washington, Ken Mortisugu in Schenectady, and Dena Bunis in New York contributed to this story, which was supplemented with wire service reports.