Geneva, Illinois
November 15, 1996
Mary Kay is the daughter of George and Loretta Foley. The Foley family rented the upstairs apartment from the Kaczynski family at 5234 South Carpenter Street. Mary Kay is one year older than Ted Jr.
Mary Kay remembers the South Carpenter Street neighborhood and the house where she lived extremely well. The neighborhood was very family oriented and there were always kids playing in the street. Mary Kay played marbles, soft ball, and hide-and-seek with all the kids in the neighborhood.
Mary Kay only saw Wanda about once a month when Mary Kay went downstairs to drop off the rent check. Wanda opened the back door to accept the check, but never said anything to Mary Kay and never invited Mary Kay into the Kaczynski home. Mary Kay did not think that Wanda was very friendly. All of the other mothers in the neighborhood had kids running in and out of their homes. All of the other mothers invited Mary Kay over to eat and to play. Mary Kay was never invited into the Kaczynski home. Mary Kay thought that maybe Ted Sr. and Wanda were a very ethnic Polish Family who did not speak much English. All of the other families in the neighborhood socialized with each other. The Kaczynskis never socialized. They were a very closed and private family.
In all the years that Mary Kay lived above the Kaczynskis she did not know that Ted Sr. and Wanda had any children, much less a boy her own age. She does not remember ever seeing Ted Jr. She is sure that Ted Jr. did not play outside with the other kids on the block because she clearly remembers the Burkes, the Landers, the McGoverns, and Johnny Krolak, but has no recollection of Ted Jr. Mary Kay was shocked to learn that there was a kid her age living in the apartment below her all those years whom she had never seen or met.
Ted Jr.’s mother must not have let him come outside and play with the other kids, because Mary Kay and her friends played with every kid on the block. They were not a very selective group. Every few weeks, the neighborhood organized a potato roast. All the neighborhood kids built an open fire in the street and roasted potatoes. The only requirement to participating was that you bring a potato. All the kids were allowed to stay out late under Mrs. McGovern’s supervision. Every family on South Carpenter Street attended except Ted Jr. and his parents.
Most of the kids in the neighborhood, and all of Mary Kay’s friends, went to Catholic school. There was a French church, Irish church, and a Polish church. Kids went to school at the same church they attended so all of the Irish kids went to school together, all of the Polish kids went to school together, and all of the French kids went to school together. Mary Kay walked home after school with the Irish kids--the Burkes, the McGoverns, and the Landers. The Polish kids--like Johnny Krolak-went to school at Saint John of God, which was the closest Catholic church to South Carpenter Street. After school all the kids, whether Irish or Polish, played together. There were few barriers between the Irish and the Polish communities.
However, none of the kids who went to private school were friends with the kids who went to Sherman Elementary School, the public school. Mary Kay and her friends called the kids who went to Sherman Elementary, “the Publics.” The term “the Publics” was derogatory in nature, but not because the kids who went to Sherman Elementary were any poorer than Mary Kay and her fiends; they were all poor. Mary Kay and her friends simply could not understand why anyone went to public school. Sherman Elementary was not a good school and the Catholic schools were practically free. Mary Kay and her friends thought that the kids who went to Sherman Elementary were strange and they were not friends with any of them. If Ted Jr. did have any friends, they must have been kids who went to public school and who lived in a different neighborhood.
Mary Kay thinks that her father, George Foley, may have occasionally had intellectual discussions with Wanda, because they were both well educated. Loretta, Mary Kay’s mother, told Mary Kay that Ted Jr. never went outside. Loretta rarely saw Ted Jr. Once she saw Ted Jr. sitting on the back porch eating beans directly out of the can, and once she saw Wanda and Ted Jr. sitting on the front porch. Ted Jr. was about four years old and Wanda was reading to him from LIFE magazine. Loretta thought LIFE magazine was a strange thing to read a 4-year-old. These are the only two times Loretta remembers seeing Ted Jr. outside.
George and Loretta Foley had little contact with the Kaczynskis other than being their tenants. They did not socialize or babysit each other’s children. Once when Mary Kay was about six, Loretta had an appendectomy and was hospitalized for one week. Mary Kay went to stay with her grandmother. Wanda offered to watch Loretta’s infant son, Bill, during the day while George was at work..
The Back of the Yards was a working class, immigrant community. George Foley worked with most of the other men in the stock yards. The yards gave out a strong stench, but most people who lived in Back of the Yards grew used to it after time.
Lisbon, Iowa
June 6–7, 1997.
Tim was a student of Dave’s when Dave taught English at Lisbon High School from 1974–1976. Dave taught Tim’s sophomore English class. Tim knew Dave before he had Dave as a teacher. Tim’s mother, Juanita Bennett, worked for Ted Sr. when he managed the Cushion Pak plant from 1966 — 1968. Juanita and her husband, Wayne, lived down the street from Ted Sr. and Wanda. Ted Sr. was always very nice to Tim and his brothers and sisters when they were young. He and Wanda once took Tim and his siblings to a museum in Des Moines. Tim first met Dave when Dave visited his parents.
Dave was a trusting and naive teacher who behaved erratically. On one hand, Dave was a lax teacher who gave his students freedom believing that they would not take advantage of his trust, which they did. He did not convey authority and therefore he was incapable of controlling his class. On the other hand, Dave occasionally disciplined students harshly for a minor infraction. For instance, Dave once set Tim to the principal’s office for putting his feet up on the chair in front of him. Being sent to the principal’s office was a punishment reserved for serious offenses, such as beating up a fellow student. It was not the appropriate punishment for what Tim did. Tim and Dave have since joked about this incident and Dave agrees that he overreacted.
Tim saw how Dave struggled as a teacher. When the principal came into the class to evaluate Dave’s teaching, Dave became nervous and his students did not cooperate. They talked over each other and over Dave. Dave seemed frustrated and overwhelmed. Dave also did not like the administrative bureaucracy that came with teaching. He did not like having to modify his curriculum and his teaching style so that it complied with the school’s rigid guidelines. He quit teaching after two years, when Tim was a junior.
Dave tried to be an innovative teacher. He tried to motivate his students to read literature and talk about ideas, but very few kids responded. For example, Dave picked a student to lead book discussion with the hope that the responsibility might stimulate the student. The student gave a synopsis of the book and prepared an outline of topics to discuss. The student was also responsible for answering any questions that his or her classmate’s asked. The student was graded based on their ability to answer questions and stimulate dialogue. When it was Tim’s turn, he and his friend developed a series of questions to which Tim knew the answers. His friend then asked those questions during class. Neither Tim nor his classmates took the assignment very seriously.
The first year Dave taught, he wore the same brown suit almost everyday. None of the other teachers wore a suit. Dave stood out as odd wearing a suit and wearing it regularly. The next year, Dave wore the same striped sweater almost everyday. Dave lived in an apartment approximately 11/4 miles from the high school. Dave walked to work everyday, even in winter. Winters are brutally cold in Iowa with temperature routinely dipping below zero, but Dave still walked to work.
Tim became friends with Dave during Tim’s junior year. He and Dave hung out socially in the afternoons when school finished. They played basketball or baseball or hunted for morel mushrooms when they were in season. During the summer following Tim’s junior year of high school, Dave invited Tim to accompany Dave on a road trip to New Mexico and Texas where Dave was going to look for land. Tim’s parents gave him permission to go with Dave and they toured New Mexico and Texas for two weeks. They only had $180.00 between the two of them so they were forced to eat cheaply and infrequently and to sleep at free or cheap campgrounds. Much of their money went towards gas and Dave’s cigarettes. Dave was a chain smoker in those days. Dave smoked cigarettes one after another, going through a few packs a day. They were in Texas with just enough money to purchase gas for the drive back to Iowa, but they could not eat. They drove over sixteen hours without eating.
Dave continued to live in Mt. Vernon after he quit teaching. This was during Tim’s senior year. Dave kept very odd hours. He stayed up until 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. reading or writing and then he slept all day. Tim and his friends went over to Dave’s house after school, around 3:00 p.m., and almost inevitably awakened Dave. Dave’s apartment was a mess. Clothes and books were strewn all over. Old food containers and papers were all over the floor. Dave had a couch, a desk and a waterbed. He did not have pictures on his wall. He barely had any cooking appliances. One time, Tim and Dave wanted to cook a whole bunch of morel mushrooms they had gathered at Dave’s house, but Dave did not have a frying pan or a pot. They tried frying the mushrooms in a tinfoil pie pan. The oil leaked and caused a fire. Dave tried putting the fire out with a dish towel which caught on fire. By the time Tim and Dave finally doused the flame, Dave’s kitchen was partially burned.
Tim knew that Dave had an older brother, Ted. Tim never met Ted, but Dave talked about him. Dave was very proud of Ted and aspired to be like him. He wanted to purchase land in the wilderness, in part, because that was what Ted had done. Dave felt inferior to Ted. Dave recently told Tim’s son, Jay, that he cried when he had to bring his parents his grades as a youngster because they compared him to Ted and routinely found him lacking. When Dave was living in Mt. Vernon, he spoke admiringly of Ted, but in the late 1980’s, when Tim visited Dave, Dave occasionally spoke about his difficulties with Ted. Dave told Tim that Ted was rigid and difficult to deal with at times. For instance, Tim had to rearrange his plans to visit Dave in Texas because Ted was planning to visit Dave and did not want anyone else there. For months, Dave and Ted negotiated Ted’s trip and at the last moment Ted decided not to come. Dave was very disappointed.
When Dave left Mt. Vernon, Tim kept in touch with him. It was not until Tim’s brother was killed in a car accident, however, that Tim and Dave became good friends. Tim was distraught and aimless after his brother’s death, so he went to visit Dave in Terlingua. Dave’s concern for Tim helped Tim cope with his brother’s death. He and Dave talked and walked until Tim felt better. They went on long hikes through the desert around Dave’s property. Since then, Tim has tried to visit Dave at Terlingua whenever he can. He usually goes for two weeks. When Dave lived in the hole, Tim and Dave stayed at Mary Ann’s ranch near Dave’s property. When Dave finally built his cabin, Tim stayed there. Tim has even taken his family down to Dave’s house when Dave is not there. There is no bathroom on Dave’s property. Dave calls the tall grass down a slight hill from his cabin his bathroom.
When Tim is with Dave at Terlingua, Dave insists that Tim walk on the man made pathways even though Dave’s property is mostly brush land and desert. Dave wants to disturb the land as little as possible. Nevertheless, Tim thinks Dave is a bit too rigid in insisting all visitors walk only on paths. Dave once tried growing a garden in Terlingua, but he was unsuccessful.
Tim was shocked to learn that Dave was getting married. Dave never talked about women or girls. He had never heard Dave talk about Linda. Tim went to the wedding.
Through Dave, Tim met Wanda and Ted Sr. When Tim’s children, Jay and Ty were younger and Ted Sr. was still alive, Tim and his wife, Kathy, stayed with Ted Sr. and Wanda in Lombard when they visited Chicago. Tim and Kathy slept in Ted’s room. Ted’s room was very neat and orderly with no decorations. Tim and Kathy missed meeting Ted on a few occasions, arriving just after Ted had left. Ted Sr. and Wanda’s house was sparsely furnished. Wanda and Ted Sr. babysat Jay and Ty when Tim and Kathy were out sight seeing in Chicago. Ted Sr. produced board games and played with Jay and Ty. Tim feels sad that Wanda and Ted Sr. never had the opportunity to be grandparents because they were so good with young children. Wanda and Ted Sr. did not talk about Ted. Tim knew he was still living off the land in Montana, but Ted Sr. and Wanda never said anything more about Ted.
Although Tim feels that Dave is his intellectual superior, he counts Dave as one of his very good friends. He respects Dave and will always feel grateful for Dave’s support after his brother died.
Tim married his high school sweetheart, Kathy. He operates his own dry wall construction company. Tim has two children, a son, Jay, who is 15 years old, and a daughter, Ty. Jay is very good friends with Dave. He was going to visit Dave in August alone. Dave and Jay planned on visiting the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
Tim believes Dave’s high moral standard required him to report Ted despite how much it hurt him to turn in the brother he so admired.
Chicago, Illinois
October 6, 1996
Donna graduated from Evergreen Park High School in 1958. She helped organize the Class of ‘58’s 25th high school reunion. Donna went to the University of Illinois and received a masters in history from Purdue. She now teaches history at a local junior college.
Evergreen Park in the 1950’s was just like the television show Happy Days. There was a blend of both white collar and working class families living together. It was a small, politically and socially conservative community. Evergreen Park is known as the Village of Churches and Donna did not know anyone who did not belong to a church. Donna belonged to the Methodist Church. All the families in Evergreen Park knew each other. Donna grew up five blocks from Ted’s house on Lawndale and she did not know the Kaczynski family.
Evergreen Park was made up mainly of Dutch, Poles and other ethnic whites. The Poles began to move into Evergreen Park from Chicago in the early 1950’s. There was no racial tension in Evergreen Park because they did not allow black people to move into the community.
The students in the Class of 1958 were very close to each other. Most of them had gone to school together since kindergarten and they were the first class to graduate from Evergreen Park High School. Their first year of high school, the building that houses Evergreen Park High was still under construction so they attended classes held in various church basements. Ted did not join the Class of 1958 until his senior year. No one in the class knew Ted very well.
Ted was noticeably younger than his classmates. He was socially immature. He was very quiet and very intelligent. Ted was awkward both physically and socially. He seemed unable to interact with his classmates on a social level. Ted never went out on dates. It was considered socially unacceptable to date someone like Ted.
In high school, life revolved around going to sock hops and football games. Ted never attended school social functions. Ted did belong to the band, but the band was not very good. All the students at Evergreen Park High School joined some type of club. The band was an activity for the misfits and the nerds.
Everyone knew that Ted was bright since he had been promoted twice in school, but when Ted became a National Merit Finalist his senior year, everyone realized how incredibly bright he really was. There were only five National Merit Finalists from Evergreen Park that year. Donna thinks that it is strange that people did not make a bigger deal out of Ted going to Harvard. At the end of the year, the school published a newspaper that said what all the seniors would be doing the following year. The 1958 newspaper had nothing in it about Ted.
Sarasota, Florida
April 28, 1997
Bill lived next door to the Kaczynski family in Evergreen Park from 1955 to 1958. He graduated from Evergreen Park High in 1958, the same year Ted graduated. Bill owns an iron work shop in Sarasota where he makes fire irons and other decorative iron work. He lives in Sarasota, Florida with his wife and two kids.
Although Ted and Bill graduated from Evergreen Park High School in the same year, they were only in the same class for one year. Bill remembers when a teacher, whose name he does not recollect, first introduced Ted to his new classmates. In the introduction, the teacher explained that Ted had skipped a grade and was going to go to Harvard on a scholarship. Bill thinks this exemplifies the type of treatment that isolated Ted from his peers. He was treated as a protégée and a golden boy either to be admired or scorned but either way isolated and always alone.
Bill, on the other hand, was not in the same classes as Ted. Bill was in the vocational track at Evergreen Park High. They were not on the same wave length. Bill was into his car and did not socialize with Ted at all.
In 1958, Bill graduated from Evergreen Park High School and joined the Army. While in the Army, Bill worked for the quartermaster in Germany. He was in Berlin during the Berlin Crisis. After serving in the Army for four years, Bill returned to Chicago and considered attending a university. While over at the Kaczynski home, he asked Ted for advice about applying to college. Bill also asked Ted if he should apply to Harvard. Ted suggested that Bill apply to a university and see what happens. As for Harvard, Ted explained that it was very difficult to gain admission but that Bill should apply anyways and see what happens. Through this interaction, Ted impressed Bill as a very earnest and kind person. This conversation occurred around 1962 and it was the last time Bill saw Ted.
Bill was flabbergasted when he read in the paper that Ted was arrested and charged with the Unabomber crimes. Bill admires Ted for his academic abilities and intelligence and thinks he is a nice person.
Ted was interested in astrophysics and was always watching the stars. There was a lot of pressure on young men to pursue careers in the sciences. Boys idolized Einstein and science was a popular pursuit.
Even though Ted suffered from isolation while at Evergreen Park High, he was happier than when he returned from Harvard. After graduating from Harvard, Ted’s youthful spirit had dissipated and he seemed even more isolated and alone.
Lincoln, MT
June 13, 1996
Don moved to Lincoln in 1982, after his aunt and uncle, Gene and Lester Bickel, moved there. He saw Ted in passing, going in and out of the store or the post office, or on his bicycle, a few times a year. The first time he ever heard of Ted was when he first moved to Lincoln. He had a conversation with his aunt and uncle about strange old guys who live out in the hills around Lincoln. He assumed Ted was a miner or a war veteran. He said that he never really noticed Ted because in Lincoln people pretty much keep to themselves and there are other guys who live out in the hills by themselves. He said that Ted never bothered anybody, was polite, and never caused any trouble with the law.
“He was just a part of Lincoln. Every little town has guys like that.” Last October, Don ran into Ted leaving the post office. He said “hi” and Ted nodded and held the door open for him. Don never said more than hi to Ted. He said that Ted always looked about the same; “unkempt,” clothes unwashed, “scraggly”, “goofy”, “can’t really define his character, maybe sober.” Don said that he never saw Ted laugh or smile.
He was very surprised when Ted was arrested and when he saw his picture in the paper, dressed “normally” and with a haircut. Don said that he almost didn’t recognize him. He thought Ted was older than was reported in the news. Don said it is not surprising that you wouldn’t know that much about someone in Lincoln, “Lincoln is like that.” He said Ted was neither an asset or deficit to the community. Ted was a hermit, private and quiet. Don assumed Ted was a loner because he didn’t know him to have a wife and kids. He never thought bad about Ted, only that Ted was “a little strange.” He only saw Ted riding his bicycle on Stemple Pass, from the blinking light in Lincoln toward Ted’s cabin. He would see Ted riding his bicycle, or walking to town, in the middle of winter. He never saw Ted try to hitch a ride, but some people may have given Ted rides when it was very cold out.
About 10 years ago, Don lived out at the Blowers’ place, very near Ted’s cabin, with his wife, daughter and son. Don remembers telling his daughter once to be careful around Ted, because Ted lived by himself, but now he thinks that his fears were unfounded.
Frankfort, Illinois
October 5, 1996
Kenneth Biel graduated from Evergreen Park High School in 1959. He attended Hope College in Michigan and is now a dentist.
Kenneth went to Central Junior High School, but he does not remember meeting Ted until he was at Evergreen Park High School. Kenneth had biology and gym with Ted. Ted only attended about half of the classes. The rest of the time Ted had special tutoring because he was so far ahead of the rest of the students. One time Ted came into class and Kelly Douglas expressed her surprise that Ted decided to join the class that day. The class laughed and Ted shrugged off the comment.
In gym class, Ted was always a little different from the other students. Something about Ted was a little strange. Ted’s gym uniform was never quite right; Either Ted’s socks didn’t match or he forgot his gym shoes. When the kids chose teams in gym, Ted was always one of the last ones picked. None of the kids wanted to be on Ted’s team, because it seemed like Ted didn’t want to play sports. Ted sometimes tried to get out of gym and sat on the bleachers reading a book during the class period.
Ted never fit in with the rest of the students at Evergreen Park High School. Unlike any of the other students, Ted carried a big brown brief case and wore a pocket protector. Ted always walked around school with his trombone case, which identified him as a member of the band. The band at Evergreen Park High School was not very good and being in the band was an activity that popular kids shunned.
Ted was noticeably small and immature. Ted was never aggressive or angry. When kids teased him, Ted never fought back. Kenneth recalls that Ted was once stuffed into a locker. Many students, even those in the advanced classes, assumed that Ted was so smart that they didn’t try to compete with him academically. Ted seemed to get along well with his teachers.
The class of 1959 knew Ted better than the class of 1958, because Ted was not pushed ahead until his senior year of high school. Ted didn’t have any close friends. Kenneth did see Ted hanging around with some of the other smart students.
The chemistry explosion was exaggerated by the media. At the time the incident occurred, it was not a big deal.
Lincoln, Montana
June 14, 1996
Carol and George own Dallas Land Company, located off Highway 200, near the Lincoln Inn in Lincoln. They are Ted’s neighbors who live below Butch and Wendy. Their home is a modern and comfortable log cabin.
Carol hunts frequently and is not a liberal. She has several game heads and skins on her walls.
Carol attended business college and was born and raised in Missoula. She met her husband, who is originally from Pennsylvania, when she sold him the house they now live in around 1986 — 87. They married in 1988 and moved to their present home. Their home is within voice distance of the Gerhing’s.
Ted was a nice neighbor, quiet and polite, and never looked as dirty as he did on TV. She never noticed a smell or bad hygiene on Ted. When she saw Ted after he was arrested, he looked like he had a hard winter. She felt badly that she didn’t offer him meat through the winter but she assumed he could get his own meat. They saw elk prints and bear prints around Ted’s cabin. They never saw him with a gun and she never saw him in the woods. Everyone up that way hunts and if game is plentiful, you’d have enough meat. It was clear when she saw him that the winter had taken its toll on him, and she repeated that she would have helped him out had she known he was in bad straits.
Ted brought vegetables from his garden to her over the years: carrots, lettuce, beets. Ted left them at her doorstep or carried them to her office in town. She thought it was nice of him and she enjoyed them. She learned he used his own waste to fertilize the garden when she had a meeting with him at her office to discuss the value of his land in the fall of 1995. She asked him for the details of his cabin’s structure, including plumbing, and learned that he used the toilet in a bucket that he carried directly to the garden. From that time on she didn’t eat the vegetables, even though she appreciated them. She thought more than once about eating the carrots he brought her after she hadn’t scrubbed all the mud off. She did not harbor ill will towards him.
She thought he was in good physical shape and was surprised to see how he looked on tv. She and her husband ride bikes (hers is an 18 speed) and she knows how hard it would be for Ted to ride his single speed. She and her husband go walking a lot and passed Ted’s cabin frequently. If Ted was outside he always waved and exchanged greetings. He was afraid of dogs, and once stood in fright with his hands extended over his head when her dog bounded up on him. Seeing that Ted was afraid of dogs, she began to carry a piece of twine to use as a leash when they approached Ted’s cabin to keep her dogs from bothering him. Ted never complained about her dogs to her.
In the fall of 1995, he came to her office without an appointment and asked her how much his land was worth. He said he was desperate for money and that he couldn’t stay up there unless he got some money. The meeting lasted 30 minutes and was the longest conversation she ever had with him. It was the first time she knew he had no electricity or plumbing. Her market analysis gave the land and cabin a $20 — 25 thousand dollar value, which amazed him. Ted did not discuss whether he planned securing a loan or selling the property.
Ted asked her if she knew of any jobs and she suggested he ask Sherri to increase his hours at the library. She knew Ted was at the library frequently and thought he had a paying job there. Ted explained that he had no phone or car and could not handle flexible hours because there was no way for Sherri to contact him.
She never felt any fear from being around Ted. Ted was quiet and kept to himself. She feels a lot of compassion for him. She tried to bring him out by going very slowly with him and was pleased that he trusted her enough to talk with her.
Ted parked his bike at her office, the Dallas Land Co., 4 to 5 times a year when he left town. He parked his bike in the hallway or in the lean to outside. Sometimes they saw his bike parked in the lean to for a few days. Sometimes, he stuck his head in the office door and asked permission. Sometimes they saw him retrieve the bike, and sometimes they didn’t. A lot of people in Lincoln leave town.
Lincoln, MT
June 18, 1996
Linda lives in Lincoln with her husband, a truck driver. She works at the 7 Up Ranch during rush times like Easter and Mothers’ Day.
Linda first met Ted when she worked part time at the Lincoln public library from June to December, 1985. Ted would come into the library sporadically, but always during the day. Some weeks he would come in twice a week and then she would not see him again for weeks. Ted would stay at the library for anywhere from 20 minutes to one hour. He was always quiet, but very polite. She remarked that he had a dry sense of humor, at times smiling after a joke, but never laughing. When they would talk he would always look directly at her. They would share light conversation, discussing the weather. Ted would come into the library and head to the back where the “hard books” were kept. When he would check out books she would say, “you can understand these things?” He answered, “yes.” She replied, “I like reading the trashy books myself.” Once she teased him that he would not be able to ride up Stemple Pass Road without chains on his bike. He replied, “Oh yes I will.”
Four years ago this June or July, she saw Ted while she was driving down Stemple Pass Road. His bike had broken down in front of the gas tanks near the Gehring Ranch. She offered him a ride to town and he said that he was going to walk. She yelled, “get in the car Ted I’m driving you to town.” They went to the hardware store where he bought parts for his bike. She then drove Ted back to his bike and offered him the use of her tools that were in her car. He declined the offer saying, “I have tools.”
Two years ago, She saw him coming out of the bank in Lincoln. She asked how he was doing and he replied, “oh, pretty good.” She told him she was going in to get a loan for her property taxes to which he replied, “they get you coming and going.”
She last saw him riding his bike just before Thanksgiving 1995. He looked as thin as she had ever seen him .
She resented people calling him a hermit. She thought this was derogatory name for Ted. He was not a hermit but a nice fellow who was not talkative. The other men who live in the mountains were not looked down upon like Ted was because they were more outgoing. Nobody would talk to him when he came to town. She always thought of him as that nice, lonely guy. She identified with him because when she was a child she was quiet. He evoked very protective feelings from her. She felt like taking him under her wing and telling him everything was ok. She said Ted seemed like a boy in a man’s body.
Before she knew him well, she would see him on the street and say hello to him. He would answer, “oh, hi.” It seemed to her that Ted did not want to be bothered. Although he was shy he was more receptive towards her after they had been introduced by Sherry Woods at the library.
He generally looked unkempt. He had a little body odor, but his hair and beard were always combed. When he came to the library he was always “put together” as opposed to how he appeared when he was arrested.
When she first met Ted, he looked heavier with a fuller face. She noticed that his weight fluctuated gaining and losing 10 to 15 pounds over the years she knew him. She thought this might be due to the winter clothing he was wearing which makes one look heavier.
Danny Woods and Sherry Woods, his mother, adopted Ted as their friend. Danny and Ted identified with each other because both are smart, quiet people. Danny is a very sensitive, quiet, brainy kid who was ridiculed by his peers much in the same way Ted was ridiculed by the town folks for being different. Danny was very upset when Ted was arrested. Danny came into the church and wanted to speak to the pastor after Ted was arrested. Linda asked the pastor how Danny was and the pastor said he was not doing well. She found Danny and put her arm around him and he cried.
To: TK File
From: Paul Kaplan
Re: Impressions of interview with Phillip Bradley
Date: 12/31/97
Phillip Bradley
2700 Ewing Avenue, South
Minneapolis, MN. 55416
(612) 927–4638
On December 30, 1997, I interviewed Mr. Bradley at his office near Minneapolis. What follows are my impressions of the interview.
Mr. Bradley lives with his wife in Minneapolis and works as the Vice President of Marketing for Kwik-File, LLC, a furniture company. They have two grown daughters.
Mr. Bradley grew up in the Boston area and attended a prep school in New England. His father attended Harvard and that was why Mr. Bradley went himself. While he was a student at Harvard, Mr. Bradley was mostly interested in girls and the sports car club. He didn’t worry too much about classwork, although he enjoyed his classes. He had a wonderful groups of friends, most of whom were fellow ‘preppies,’ and thoroughly enjoyed the social aspect of being at college. The student body, compared to most colleges, seemed quite diverse to Mr. Bradley. There were people from the west, the south, the midwest, and people from public schools and families that were not wealthy. He lived in Dunster House.
Mr. Bradley remembers that the professors at Harvard were fantastic. He took an excellent course from Henry Kissinger and thought that Kissinger was a brilliant professor. Still, despite being generally polite and clearly brilliant, Harvard professors were not very approachable. If a student wanted individual attention from a professor, he would definitely have to make the first move.
Mr. Bradley does not remember exactly how he came to be a participant in the Murray Study, but he thinks it was in response to an advertisement he saw posted up offering money to participate in a psychological experiment. He thinks he got $1.50 per session, or per hour. There was no other incentive to participate beyond the monetary compensation. Mr. Bradley was curious about psychology but knew almost nothing about it. Mr. Bradley feels that the 1950’s were a totally different world, and that he was a pretty shallow person back then. Participating in the Murray Study was an interesting departure from the regular life at Harvard.
Henry Murray was a brilliant, fabulous man. He was one of the most charismatic people Mr. Bradley has ever met. He was the sort person who makes an immediate impression of integrity and excellence. Mr. Bradley feels he’s only met a half dozen people of this caliber in his life. Kenneth Keniston also seemed very bright and charismatic. Mr. Bradley doesn’t remember much about the other researchers. He did not take Klyde Klukholn’s Social Relations 4 class.
The researchers told Mr. Bradley that the objective of the study was to see how emotion affected people’s memory. Further, he understood that it was supposed to provide a database that researchers could use for various purposes. Mr. Bradley’s group was one of several Henry Murray convened over the years. In addition to the written exams and the TATs, he was asked to record his dreams, and was taught techniques to help him do this.
Mr. Bradley clearly remembers an exercise where he had to defend his philosophy against a very smart lawyer. He had electrodes attached to his body during this exercise. During the discussion, Mr. Bradley remembers feeling that his own arguments were terribly inadequate and that his adversary was very good. It was clear to Mr. Bradley that the adversary’s argument had substance—it was more than just an instigation. The session was filmed by some researchers, and Mr. Bradley remembers having to pause for what seemed like a very long time while technicians changed the film reels. Mr. Bradley feels that he was very naive at this time. The philosophy discussion made him angry because he felt inadequate. Still, Mr. Bradley realized the argument was a part of the study and not a real threat.
Mr. Bradley remembers another occasion when he had to put his bare foot in a bucket of cold water while a man who claimed to be an assistant in the study made lewd jokes to him. The man, who Mr. Bradley was told later was a researcher, was doing a ‘nudge-nudge-wink-wink’ sort of thing while Mr. Bradley kept his bare foot in the bucket of cold water. He was also strapped with wires during this session. This session made Mr. Bradley uncomfortable, but it was clear the researchers were trying to make him uncomfortable. He thinks it was the only slightly underhanded thing the researchers ever did. After the foot-in-the-bucket exercise, the researchers apologized to Mr. Bradley for any discomfort and told him they had to do it for the study. He doesn’t remember if he had to answer questions while his foot was in the bucket, or what this exercise seemed to be about.
Mr. Bradley feels the Murray Study was conducted with complete integrity. Everything about it was entirely ethical. His sense is that the initial screening—the autobiography and other measures they did in the beginning—were sufficient to weed out anybody who might be mentally unstable. Mr. Bradley feels that the researchers would have screened out anyone unstable because it would ruin their data.
Once he was in the Murray Study group, Mr. Bradley was contacted by other researchers doing psychological studies. He made quite a living participating in a variety of research studies.
All the Murray Study sessions were held at the Annex on Francis street.
Mr. Bradley does not remember any of the other participants, although he has a vague memory of Ted, or at least of remembering his name when he heard about Ted’s arrest.
During the last year of the study, Mr. Bradley was told about a dinner being held for the participants in the Murray Study to be held at Henry Murray’s house. Mr. Bradley remembers attending a very pleasant dinner in a beautiful banquet hall at presided over by Henry Murray. One of the other students at the dinner was from a very prominent family—perhaps the Roosevelts-and was extremely charismatic and friendly.
Mr. Bradley vaguely remembers being contacted by someone writing a biography or paper about Murray, but he never talked to the person.
Mr. Bradley has a vague memory of being hypnotized or engaging in deep relaxation as a part of the Murray Study, although he does not remember anything specific. He specifically remembers being hypnotized in a different study at Harvard.
Mr. Bradley is certain that no one associated with the study observed him outside of the sessions at the Annex, and he is certain that no one ever gave him drugs or offered him drugs.
After graduating college, Mr. Bradley began to practice transcendental meditation and corresponded once with Henry Murray about it.
Addendum:
After our meeting, Mr. Bradley contacted me in Sacramento and indicated that the name of student from the prominent family was Jonathon Roosevelt, who lived in Cambridge.
Evergreen Park, Illinois
June 30, 1997
Jean Budding was the school nurse at Evergreen Park High from 1955 until she retired in 1982. Ms. Budding taught nursing classes at the Little Hospital of Mary in Evergreen Park when Dr. Bathos, the superintendent of Evergreen Park High, offered her the position of school nurse. Ms. Budding asked Dr. Bathos what exactly it was that a school nurse did, but he did not seem to know. After doing some research she found that she was interested in the job and decided to accept his offer.
In addition to taking care of the student’s and teacher’s aches and pains, Ms. Budding made house calls. She was pleased that she had the time to be involved in the community. Ms. Budding checked up on students when they were ill and spoke with parents if their child was having a discipline problem. As school nurse, Ms. Budding also administered hearing and vision tests. Before the school became too big, Ms. Budding worked in the administration office and taught health classes as well. Ms. Budding kept a 4 x 6 index card with each of the student’s names and when they were in to see her. Ms. Budding treated the students with respect and in return they confided in her. She felt she had a special rapport with many of the students.
Ted was an incredibly bright student, probably the brightest student who ever graduated from Evergreen Park High. Although Ms. Budding did not have direct contact with Ted she heard the other teachers talking about Ted in the lunch room. Calvin McCaleb, the chemistry teacher, constantly talked of Ted. Mr. McCaleb said all he had to do was to give Ted a problem and let him go with it. Ted was a quiet student who kept to himself most of the time. He was involved in the chess club and played in the band. Ted associated with other highly academic students.
About half way through Ted’s freshman year the teachers and Ted’s parents decided that Ted should graduate in three years. Ted was such a challenge for teachers to deal with because he was beyond the teaching of the classes. The teachers held many formal and informal meetings discussing how to keep Ted busy. Ted was the first student at Evergreen Park High to graduate in just three years. Ms. Budding feels that graduating from high school at such a young age does severe social damage. It was important for Ted, or anyone for that matter, to be around people his own age especially at such a crucial time of development. Ms. Budding feels there were better ways of dealing with a bright student like Ted.
High school can be a very rough atmosphere for someone who doesn’t quite fit in. The jocks in the school were extremely cruel to the meeker kids, constantly teasing and hurting them. Ms. Budding heard that there were many problems in the locker room after P.E. class. The jocks used to hit the nerds with wet towels. Tommy Knudson once went to Ms. Budding’s office after being hit by some of the jocks with wet towels. Ms. Budding does not recall a specific incident where Ted was hit but she is sure it must have happened to him.
Evergreen Park High had some wonderful teachers teaching at the school. Among them were, the counselor, Lois Skillen, Ardith Inman, and Calvin McCaleb. The school quickly developed a great reputation for its education and people started to move into the area just so their kids could attend the school. During the late 50’s and early 60’s inner city Chicago schools had a dropout rate of 40% whereas Evergreen Park High only had a 2% dropout rate.
An influx of people into Evergreen Park was also the result of “white flight” that was occurring in Chicago during the 1950’s. After VWVII blacks from the south started moving to Chicago in search of work. Real estate agencies began using scare tactics to get families to sell their homes and move to suburban areas. Ms. Budding is saddened by the racism that has surrounded Evergreen Park over the years.
Once a black teacher from another school came to take a tour of the school with Ms. Budding. During the tour, students made rude racist comments to her like, “who let this monkey in?” Ms. Budding was very embarrassed and apologized for the students’ behavior. Over the years the school brought speakers in to talk to the students about racism but it never seemed to do much good. Jessie Owens has spoken at the school. Racism is still quite alive in Evergreen Park although Ms. Budding feels it is much better than it used to be.
Over the years Evergreen Park High instituted many programs to help students with learning and behavioral problems but it wasn’t always that way. During the 1950’s, students with learning disabilities were separated from the other students at the school. They were put into three or four classrooms with one teacher in each of them for the entire day. The Oasis program was one of the first programs instituted for kids who had serious behavior problems or learning disabilities. Evergreen Park High did everything it could to keep students in school.
Great things had been expected from Ted and Ms. Budding was not at all surprised when she heard that Ted had been accepted to Harvard. Ted was so bright it seemed only natural that he attend an Ivy League school. Harvard must have been a very difficult place for Ted to adjust to because he was so young and could not have been emotionally prepared to deal with the rich socialites who made up the majority of Harvard’s campus. The atmosphere at Harvard must have severely hurt Ted.
After Ted graduated from Evergreen Park some of the teachers kept track of what he did over the years. Ms. Budding does not recall who she heard it from, but she knew when Ted was working on his Ph.D. in Michigan and when he was teaching at Berkeley. Ms. Budding was very surprised when she heard that Ted was teaching at Berkeley. She envisioned Berkeley as a crazy place full of young radicals. This did not seem at all like Ted’s speed. Ted was a quiet, conservative boy who could not have possibly fit in among such radicals.
Ms. Budding has done mission work for the Methodist church ever since she retired from Evergreen Park High in 1982. She has lived in Niger and Alaska and is now on her way to Redburgh, Kentucky, to continue her work. She finds her work very fulfilling and is looking forward to returning in September.
Chicago, Illinois
November 2, 1996
Ted Sr. was among Meyer’s oldest friends. The two were canoeing buddies and used to spend two to three days at a time together on the river. The Kaczynskis were highly moral people who were generally concerned about others. Ted Sr. always had a fascination with nature. It was especially interesting to go hiking in the woods with Ted Sr. because of his vast knowledge of nature. Ted Sr. was quite intellectual and philosophical. He had peasant roots.
Meyer and his family immigrated from the Russian Ukraine. He lived in the Pale as did all Jews at that time. His father did all sorts of odd jobs that peasant immigrants did during those times.
The Burakoffs had minimal contact with Ted Jr. He was reclusive. Once the Kaczynskis came to visit the Burakoffs while they were living in Michigan. They did not see each other often and so when they did it was quite special. Ethel had gone through many preparations to make the Kaczynskis stay an enjoyable one. On Saturday the two families had gone to the beach. They had planned to do the same on Sunday until Wanda told Ethel they would be leaving that day because of Ted Jr. Wanda did not give more details. The Burakoffs were surprised and disappointed by their sudden departure.
The Burakoffs visited the Kaczynskis while they were living in Lombard. Ted Jr. was present during one of their visits. Ethel recalls Wanda telling Ted Jr. to come and say hello to the Burakoffs. Ted Jr. came out of his room and greeted the Burakoffs with a quick hello and then retreated back to his room.
Ted Sr. and Wanda never spoke of Ted Jr.’s behavior and the Burakoffs never asked. They did not ask about Ted Jr. out of respect to Ted Sr. and Wanda.
Ted Sr. was influenced by his two children living an isolated life and decided he wanted to try and see if he could do it. He went into the woods and spent a week by himself. After a week he concluded that he was a social person who needed to be around people.
Wanda’s concern for Ted Jr. was that he receive the best education possible. When Ted Jr. was small Wanda sat him on her lap and read intellectual materials to her son instead of fairy tales.
After the Burakoffs said their goodbyes to Wanda before she moved to New York, Ethel thought to herself she forgot to ask about Ted Jr. This was not uncommon because they all seemed to avoid the subject of Ted Jr.
Ted Sr. was the first generation born in the U.S. in his family. He was poor, intellectual and liberally moral. He had a wonderful sense of humor. Their group of friends liked to picnic, listen to music, and most of all converse.
At one time the Burakoffs lived on the south side of Chicago. While Dr. Meister was earning his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago he stayed at the Burakoffs during the week and went home to his wife Stella on the weekends.
Ted Sr. made the best smoked Polish sausage in the country. The Burakoffs feel that it was a great shame that Ted Sr. never received a college education. Wanda did obtain a college degree and though the Burakoffs thought Wanda was bright, they believed it should have been Ted Sr. who went to college.
Hank Dabs was another friend of Meyers. He was a naturalist who liked to collect bugs, explore nature, and play the french horn. Hank’s wife was a concert pianist who had been a child prodigy. She was very good humored. Another friend, Roy Dubash, obtained his doctorate in mathematics from the University of Chicago. He now is a professor.
Meyer recalls the group of friends having many political discussions. They were all concerned with people in general. For some time the group belonged to a record club. Wanda is a very nice and concerned person. She is moral. The whole group focused on education and informing themselves on the world. This deep focus may have stemmed from the fact that they were immigrants. Whenever the families obtained a little bit of money they used it to further the education of their children.
Ted Sr. was disappointed when Dave decided to live in a hole in Texas. Ted Jr. broke away from the family but kept a relationship with Dave.
The Burakoffs were not surprised when Ted Sr. committed suicide. They understood that he did not want to depend on the other family members to take care of him. Meyer actually gave Ted Sr. the rifle Ted Sr. used many years earlier. Meyer applauds Ted Sr.’s decision and said he would do the same under the circumstances.
Ted Jr. was in many ways an adolescent even in his adult years. They were quite surprised that Ted Jr. was for the Vietnam War; they opposed the war.
Ellensburg, Washington
April 19, 1997
Dr. Burkholder grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. Harvard offered him a scholarship and he accepted. Yale College also offered him a scholarship but he chose Harvard because he felt it was a better school. His freshman year he was housed in 8 Prescott house. Dr. Burkholder came from a low income family and 8 Prescott had the cheapest rooms. He enjoyed the house because he had his own room and was right across from the freshman dining hall. All the rooms in 8 Prescott house were single rooms. 8 Prescott house was removed from Harvard yard where the rest of the freshman class lived. This did not bother Dr. Burkholder.
Francis E. X. Murphy was the dorm proctor at 8 Prescott House. He was a dignified man who was studying English. He did not have much contact with the students at the house so he must have been quite busy with his own work. Dr. Burkholder believes Francis was about ten years older than he was.
Dr. Burkholder had friends but was typically too busy to socialize. Dr Burkholder was a quiet and reserved man who was mainly interested in his studies. He studied philosophy at Harvard.
Dr. Burkholder feels that one of the reasons Harvard offered him a scholarship was because he played the violin. He believes that Harvard was hoping that he might play in the orchestra. Dr. Burkholder never did play in the orchestra; he did not have time. Dr. Burkholder recalls that Ted played his trombone at the same time every afternoon for precisely one hour. It was like clock work and Dr. Burkholder did not enjoy it much but never complained. He does not recall anyone complaining about Ted’s trombone. Many nights the men at 8 Prescott held late night discussions. They talked about anything they were interested in but mainly about philosophy. These discussions were usually held in Gerald Burns’ room. Dr. Burkholder does not recall Ted ever participating in any of these discussions.
Dr. Burkholder does not have a clear picture of Ted and finds it difficult to think of him as a moving human being. It was as if Ted wasn’t really there. He finds this quite strange as he has no difficulty picturing the other men in the house. He knew all of the men on his floor except Ted.
Dr. Burkholder’s hobby during college was learning more about his family history. In his spare time, he took trips to Boston to learn more about his ancestors. He found out that he was a descendant of Richard Williams.
Dr. Burkholder worked in the kitchen of Elliot house his first year at Harvard. He worked with many high school students. He enjoyed his work in the kitchen and enjoyed the conversations with his co-workers. He had many friends who lived at Elliot house and did not find it as pretentious as most. He lived in Lowell house for the last three years at Harvard. Lowell house was quite big with over 400 students. During his last three years at Harvard he worked at the library. He absolutely loved being surrounded by all the books. Harvard’s greatest asset was its library.
Dr. Burkholder does not recall that there were any counseling services available at Harvard. He is sure there must have been something available but wasn’t aware of any. During the entrance physical examination he recalls being asked some psychological questions and assumed that is how they assessed if you needed help or not.
Harvard made it easy for a student to take time off if the pressure was becoming too great. The practice was encouraged and you were not penalized for taking time off. Most of the students who did take time off came back and graduated. Dr. Burkholder could not recall knowing anyone who actually did this. It seemed like an odd thing to do. Harvard men were supposed to be able to handle the pressures. If you could not handle it then maybe you did not belong there in the first place.
Dr. Burkholder did not feel any competitiveness between students. He believes the one student from his class who has contributed the most to human knowledge was Saul Kripke. Saul was also from Omaha, Nebraska and their parents knew each other. Dr. Burkholder did not meet Saul until Harvard. He recalls having a conversation with him about mathematics. Saul stated that he just come up with a great new theory but did not want to talk about it because it had not yet been published. Dr. Burkholder found Saul’s attitude strange. He felt that Saul was afraid that he might steal his theory.
After Harvard Dr. Burkholder went to Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was awarded a fellowship from the National Defense Act which paid for everything at Tulane. He earned his doctorate in philosophy in three years.
Dr. Burkholder is chair of the department of philosophy at Central Washington University. He has been teaching at this university for the past thirty-two years.
Dr. Burkholder was very surprised to hear that Ted was accused of being the Unabomber. He immediately recognized him but had not thought of him since his freshman year.
Portland, Oregon
April 18, 1997
Gerald was born in 1940 in Detroit, Michigan, to a Polish father and a Butch mother. His parents were working-class immigrants who have always been very encouraging to Gerald. They introduced Gerald to the world of art. Gerald, at a young age, became interested in poetry and writing. He considers himself an exceptional writer. At age 18, Gerald received a scholarship from Harvard.
Gerald went to Harvard a week before school started to get a feel for where he was about to spend his next four years. Harvard was extremely intimidating and lonely. Gerald was housed at 8 Prescott his freshman year because it was low-income housing. 8 Prescott House was the place Harvard housed students who did not quite fit in with the rest of Harvard’s student body. All the students on the floor came from low-income families and various ethnic backgrounds. It did not take long to figure out that they were among Harvard’s most undesirables. The house was even set away from Harvard Yard where the rest of the freshman class lived. Gerald found this quite unsettling. It was as if Harvard had formally declassed the students of 8 Prescott House.
Ted lived in the room across the hall from Gerald’s. Gerald only has a hazy memory of Ted. Until recently, he had forgotten that there was even a room across the hall. Ted was that invisible. He recalls that he spoke to Ted on at least one occasion but never at any length. Ted appeared to be sweet natured and very quiet. Gerald was never in Ted’s room nor was Ted in Gerald’s. He often saw Ted in the dining hall sitting by himself. Gerald has since wished that he had reached out to Ted.
Francis E. X. Murphy, the dorm proctor at 8 Prescott House in 1958, was an extremely feminine man. Gerald had never met a man that feminine before. Francis was about ten years older the Gerald and was probably working on his dissertation in English. He studied Wallace Stevens and occasionally popped his head into Gerald’s room and asked him what he thought of elm trees. Gerald thought that Francis was a little strange and tended to avoid him simply because he was the dorm proctor.
Gerald entered Harvard an emotionally wounded and very vulnerable young man. Harvard was not a school equipped to deal with students who had problems. Gerald feels that his vulnerability was similar to Ted’s. Gerald did have one advantage over Ted in that he was social. He quickly made friends among the other undesirables at Harvard which helped him get through the experience. There was nothing he could do to prepare himself for the harsh atmosphere that surrounded Harvard. Gerald feels that he could not have defended himself from Harvard any better than he did.
Harvard was an enormous responsibility to live up to. Grades were sent directly to your parents and Gerald did not want to disappoint the ones who had worked so hard to help him get where he was. Gerald also felt pressure to live up to his Harvard degree. Harvard was a hostile environment to students with problems. Gerald never felt free to discuss academic problems with anyone. You simply did not have problems at Harvard. When you were not doing well in a class, the instructor called you in and simply told you to work harder. There was no room for problems among Harvard men.
Gerald worked during his four years at Harvard on the Dorm Crew. Gerald did not mind cleaning bathrooms. To this day, Gerald prides himself on how quick he can clean a bathroom. At times, it was difficult to clean the rooms that were so much nicer than his, but he tried not to fixate on it.
Gerald was aware that there were counseling services available at the Health center but only because a friend of his had utilized them. His friend went to the counseling center seeking psychological help and returned with a prescription for a version of Valium. It was a joke among students that Harvard did nothing but hand out drugs for students with psychological problems. They did not take the time to assess the problem truly. Gerald despised the field of psychology for many years. At that time, psychologists seemed to think they were terribly important. Harvard constantly did experimental testing and asked for student participants. It was known that the test administrators never disclosed what the study was truly for. Students were compensated for their participation with money, so many students were lured into these studies. Gerald participated in one study for the money. He does not recall the Murray study or Kenneth Kenniston.
Gerald had a great affection for mathematics students. Mathematics students were typically the brightest and the poorest of the class. At the time, he attended Harvard, mathematics students were as respected as pre-law students. The mathematics students and the philosophy students were the stars of their class because it was the poor students who made up their audience.
After his freshman year, Gerald lived in Adams House. He chose Adams because it had the best food on campus. Gerald recalls Eliot House as being very off-putting for someone like him. Eliot House was not just snobbish. It went out of its way to be pretentious. The men of Eliot House were known to have more expensive jackets than any other house. The men who lived there were very aware of their money and made a point to show it off. They were quite aware of how much their jackets cost. Gerald feels it is very unfortunate that Ted was placed there. He cannot imagine how Ted could possibly have fit in at Eliot House when he did not even fit in at Prescott House. The men of Eliot House typically resembled a young George Bush. T. S. Eliot actually stayed there when he visited Harvard.
After Gerald graduated from Harvard with a degree in Philosophy, he went to Ireland and studied at Trinity. He earned his Masters in Philosophy and returned to the United States to teach at Southern Methodist University. During this time, he met his first wife with whom he fell madly in love. She wanted to live in New York, so Gerald got a job teaching at New York University. Eventually, he left NYU and began teaching at a small community college back East, where he received tenure. He taught until 1974 when he suffered a nervous breakdown due to the demise of his marriage.
After Gerald began feeling better, he went to Texas where his friend, David Fowler, was teaching at a prep school. He got a job in Dallas working for a computer firm. He worked in the Quality Control Department and enjoyed the work, although it was very hard. He met his second wife, Clio, in Texas. The two moved around constantly from city to city and job to job. Eventually, his second marriage also failed.
Three years ago, Gerald wound up in Portland. He says it resembles England closer than any other city he has been in. He has taught off and on in Oregon, but nothing has ever been long term. He taught a couple of extension courses at Portland Community College where he met the second great love of his life. She was a student of his and they dated for a couple of months. When she called the relationship off, Gerald was left once again in complete anguish. He did not get out of bed for months and consequently, was unable to work.
Now Gerald continues to try and find seminars that will pay him for speaking about writing. Occasionally, he does. He works the noon shift at Arby’s and struggles daily with poverty. Many times, he goes without food. Friends occasionally help him out by sending him money. He is very grateful for this. He does not make enough money to cover his rent, but he luckily has a landlord who is very kind and lets him slide. He has published a few books of poems as well as a few prose books. Gerald says that most people do not want to publish his poetry because his lines are too long.
Gerald constantly wonders what happened to him. He occupies a tiny room in a house shared by many. He sleeps on a couch and is surrounded by just a few possessions. He says that everything he owns he uses. He cannot handle distractions. He has a small radio in the corner which plays classical music on occasion. Typically, he prefers silence. He lives this way to survive. He calls this his suicide alternative.
Lincoln, MT
June 18, 1996
The Butlers have lived on Stemple Pass Road for the past 10 years. They remember noticing Ted for the past 3 years. They would see Ted about 2 times a month on his bicycle riding up Stemple Pass Road toward Helena. Larry first heard of Ted from his neighbor who told him that Ted was an “old crazy guy who lived in the mountains.” Betty said that Ted looked like, “a sad old man. I felt sorry for him and wondered if he had enough food. He was a sad little guy and he never had much in his backpack.” They called Ted “the hermit.” Last Thanksgiving they thought about inviting Ted and another “old bachelor” over for dinner, but they decided not to because “there was something about Ted that told you that he wanted to keep his distance.”
Larry described Ted as “very different and unfriendly.” He said that his dog didn’t like Ted and usually his dog likes everybody. But Larry and Betty never felt uncomfortable around Ted and they would offer him rides when they saw him riding his bicycle or walking up Stemple Pass from town, but he never accepted their offer. Larry had seen Ted a few times at garage sales and once offered him a few of his old coats, because “he looked like he needed them.” Ted said “no thanks.” Ted once told him that he lived on less than a dollar a day. Sometimes Ted would say hi and stop to talk and other times he wouldn’t say anything at all. He used to think that Ted was a Korean War veteran and was removed because he had experienced trauma: “like he had gone into a village and seen a bunch of children being killed. I felt like I shouldn’t ask him any questions about his past.” Larry once was using a nail gun to work on his barn when Ted stopped and started asking him questions. Ted was startled by the noise and curious about how the gun worked because he had never seen one before. Larry dropped out of high school. Larry and Betty heard a story about Ted yelling at some people on snow mobiles who rode near his cabin.
Frankfort, Illinois
October 5, 1996
Steve graduated from Evergreen Park High School in 1958. He played the clarinet in the band with Ted. Steve attended the University of Illinois and became an engineer. He now manages a group of engineers and has a son, Steve Carter Jr., who is a Cook County public defender.
Steve was a peripheral member of all the different social groups in high school. At Evergreen Park High there were the jocks who played sports, the hard guys who picked fights and the smart kids who studied all the time. Steve used to ride motorcycles and go up to 87th Street to fight with black kids from Chicago. However, he also knew the smart kids because he played in the school band and was in many of the college preparatory classes.
Evergreen Park was a working class community. Most students’ parents did not go to college and for many parents, sending their children to college became the ultimate, and only, goal. Parents made sure their children were in college preparatory classes. Lois Skillen, the school counselor, really pushed the students to go to the best college they could get into. Steve remembers taking the SATs as a monumental event in high school because it was when all the students found out who was really smart and who wasn’t.
Steve remembers Ted in a very general way. Ted was not the kind of guy you remember. Ted looked and acted like a little kid. He was quiet and shy, but not antisocial. He knew the answer when he was called on in class, but he never volunteered it. Ted was not the smartest student at Evergreen Park High School, but he seemed to create an intellectual image for himself. There were many students who were better at math and science than Ted.
Steve was in Ted’s chemistry class and does not remember any type of explosion ever happening. The Chicago Tribune called Steve to ask him about Ted, but Steve did not have anything sensational to tell the reporter so he was not quoted. Steve was happy and willing to talk with me. Steve thinks that Ted is obviously disturbed.
Helena, MT
November 23, 1997,
Dr. Cey works in the emergency room at St. Peter’s Hospital in Helena, Montana. Dr. Cey treated Ted for a laceration on his foot on June 5, 1993 and again on June 15, 1993.
Ted came in with a laceration on his foot that was quite deep and required stitches. When Dr. Cey injected Ted’s foot with lidocaine Ted did not flinch. Ted never once moved his foot or leg while Dr. Cey was stitching him up.
Ted was an unusually quiet man who never asked any questions. Dr. Cey found this strange as there is typically more of an exchange between the patient and the doctors. Patients tend to be more curious about what the doctor is doing. Dr. Cey recalls that Ted had a big, bushy beard but was unable to recall anything else about his appearance.
Chicago, Illinois
October 6, 1996
John Chesta was one of Ted’s high school classmates. John lives in Chicago with his wife and two children. He is a pharmacist. John was another member of the Briefcase Boys. Within the group, John, Roger Podewell, Russell Mosney, and Patrick Morris were the closest friends. George Duba and Bob Pettis were also in the group. The Briefcase Boys were the top of their class. They were extremely interested in science and math and were highly motivated to achieve in their high school academic careers. Ted shared these goals and interests.
At the same time, the Briefcase Boys also tried to be normal teenage students. They attended dances and pep rallies. They went riding around in cars. They had parties. During their later years of high school, they also dated girls from a Catholic School in Evergreen Park. Though Ted was frequently invited to join the group in social activities outside of school, he almost never did. On the one or two occasions that he did go out driving with the group, Ted appeared very awkward and out of place. He seemed very immature at these times, and looking back on it, his behavior reminds John of a Charlie Chaplin character frantically running around in circles. Ted had a childish sense of humor that often seemed inappropriate.
Ted did, however, seem to fit right in with the group during lunchtime or classroom conversations in school. On these occasions, they discussed their hobbies, science, math, chemistry, or school work. The Briefcase Boys ate lunch together every day. Ted joined them sometimes. When he didn’t join them, he must have eaten alone. The Briefcase Boys were the only group in the school who accepted Ted.
Though Ted spent time with the group in school, he never did come into the group. He was a classmate, but not a close friend. Ted socialized with the Briefcase Boys only in school, and since he didn’t socialize at all with any of the other kids in school, the Briefcase Boys knew him better than anyone else in the school. But his association with the group was only in school, and John considers him a high school classmate rather than a friend. Neither John nor Ted ever went to each other’s houses. Since high school, John has seen all the other Briefcase Boys a number of times, but he has not seen Ted even once.
The Briefcase Boys were interested in science-related hobbies, which were not unusual at the time. Parents, teachers, and society in general strongly encouraged youngsters like the Briefcase Boys to pursue careers in science during these Cold War years. All of the Briefcase Boys performed chemistry experiments, built model rockets, and also dabbled in explosives. They never developed an extensive knowledge of explosives, however. Any novice firecracker maker could have outdone them. John recalls that a neighbor of his blew off his arm with fireworks.
Ted shared all of these interests with the Briefcase Boys, but never engaged in any of these activities with the group. He conducted his own experiments alone and then told the group about them at school.
When he was in high school, John did not notice that the more popular group was mocking him by calling him and his friends the Briefcase Boys, but he did realize that words like egghead were intended as insults. John has in his mind an image of Ted becoming very flustered by such teasing. In this image, Ted is flailing his arms around and tossing his books up in the air in reaction to an insult like egghead.
John remembers an explosion coming from the chemistry lab. He does not recall any specifics about it, however. He thinks there was some smoke and that the teacher might have evacuated the room. John recalls that the gym teacher once arranged a fight between Russell Mosney and another student. Though he was at his after school job when the fight took place, he heard a great deal about it.
John is still in contact with Ellen Arl. Ellen, in fact, is the one who introduced him to his current wife. He last spoke to her about a month ago. Ellen and John were neighbors since early childhood. She was his first girlfriend and he introduced Ellen to the other Briefcase Boys, who frequently went out with each other’s girlfriends. Ellen did go out with Ted a few times, and recalls that he was awkward and very strange.
Lincoln, Montana
June 18, 1996
Mrs. and Mr. Christensen have lived in Lincoln for the past 4 years. She used to see Ted on the road to town or at the library. She had no impression of him other than he was very quiet. Once she saw him on the road riding his bike, she waved to him and he waved back, lost his balance and nearly fell off his bike. After that, she decided she would not wave to him again.
Helena, Montana
November 21, 1997
Dr. Coen saw Ted on two occasions, once in 1984 and again in 1991. Records confirm this. Ted walked in off the street and made his appointment. Ted looked like a homeless man. Ted was reserved but very polite. When Ted was first seen in 1984, he requested a glaucoma test specifically and nothing else. Ted said that his grandmother had glaucoma and he was very concerned about it. To ask specifically for a glaucoma test is very strange. Typically, patients are given a general exam which includes the glaucoma test.
On Ted’s second visit to the Vision Center he had a complete eye exam. Dr. Coen gave Ted a prescription for glasses but did not make glasses for him. Dr. Coen’s encounters with Ted were quite brief, and he did not recall him until he pulled his chart after a request from the Federal Defenders. Ted was a man of little words, so there was very little conversation between the two men. Dr. Coen knew that Ted lived outside of Lincoln in a secluded area.
Lincoln, MT
June 19, 1996
Beverly has lived in Lincoln for her whole life (52 years) and her family lived in Lincoln long before that. Her father wrote the book on Lincoln’s history that Ted was supposedly interested in. She worked as volunteer at the library starting in the late 80’s, but stopped about 3 or 4 years ago. At the library, they would save the newspapers (Missoula, Great Falls, Helena) for Ted. Ted always brought back the books he checked out in good condition, although she says that Sherri Woods says that he brought them back dirty.
She described Ted as “gentle, quiet, soft-spoken, pleasant, nice.” “He was not a radical wild person.” “He was not well groomed, but not like when he was arrested either. He looked like he had been camping.” Ted did not have a bad odor. When the weather was bad you wouldn’t see Ted for a long time. Ted was the kind of person that you didn’t notice you hadn’t seen him for awhile until you saw him again. Ted’s conversations were “short and to the point. Some days Ted had something to say and some days he didn’t.” Ted always waved to her. The thing about him that caused more talk than anything was the fact that he rode his bicycle 12 months a year.” She remembers that Ted had a streak up his back from the mud.
She did not know Ted’s last name. She only knew him as Ted (from his library card) or as “bicycle Ted” because you always saw Ted on his bike. She assumed Ted was a Vietnam Vet who wanted to get away from it all. She knew Ted had an education because of what he read. The stuff he read was off the wall or out of print. Beverly went on the Jenny Jones Show and met one of Ted’s college roommates (she can’t remember his name) who told her that all Harvard graduates read stuff like that. On the Jenny Jones Show, she also met one of the victims (she can’t remember his name) who had his fingers blown off by a bomb. He had no animosity, no grudges and no ill feelings.
Sarasota, Florida
April 26, 1997
Joyce attended Evergreen Park High School with Ted Kaczynski and graduated in 1959, one year after Ted graduated. She also lived next door to the Kaczynskis on Lawndale Avenue from 1955 until 1960.
Joyce’s mother, Ann Berta, was good friends with Wanda and Ted Kaczynski Sr. The Bertas sometimes had the Kaczynskis over for dinner, though neither family was extremely social. The Kaczynskis and Bertas remained friends after the Bertas left Evergreen Park and moved to Sarasota, Florida. Wanda and Ted Sr. visited Ann and Bill Berta Sr. in Florida. The last contact between the Bertas and the Kaczynskis was a Christmas card the Kaczynskis sent around 1990, before Ted Sr. killed himself. After that Christmas card they lost contact and did not know Ted Sr. had died until after Ted Jr. was arrested. They learned of Ted Sr.’s suicide from the newspaper. Ann Berta wants to write Wanda a card telling her that she is in Ann’s prayers.
Although Joyce was classmates with Ted Jr., she was primarily friends with Wanda. On occasion, Joyce and her mother went to the Kaczynski home to have tea and cookies with Wanda. Joyce was impressed by the books that filled the Kaczynski home although they were not her types of books. Once Wanda took Ann and Joyce up to Ted’s room to show them one of his projects. Joyce does not remember exactly what the project was but she does remember that Wanda was particularly proud of his work. When they saw his room, Joyce was shocked at how messy it was. Clothing and books were all over the floor.
Bill Berta Sr. worked as an executive for Griffiths Laboratories, a spice company in Chicago. He moved his family from Joliet, Illinois to Evergreen Park in order to be closer to his job. During the summers, Joyce also worked at Griffiths laboratories. One summer, Bill Sr. got Ted a job with Griffiths Laboratories.
When Joyce lived next door to the Kaczynskis, she often noticed that the light was on in Ted’s room past midnight. One time, she remembers hearing Wanda yelling up to Ted asking him to turn his light off and go to sleep. He yelled something very unflattering back to Wanda. Joyce does not remember exactly what the comment was. She also remembers Wanda and Ted Sr. forcing Ted to go into the backyard and play catch with David and Ted Sr. Ted just wanted to stay in his room and his parents had to force him out of the house.
Ted always seemed depressed and withdrawn. Often, Ann Berta gave Ted a ride to high school. He rarely talked during the rides and if he did talk it was never more than a few words. When they arrived at school he sometimes said thank you. Other times, he just left the car without saying a word.
It seemed as if Ted did not have any real friends. Sometimes a friend came over after school, but it was probably to work on a project and not to socialize with Ted. Wanda was always supportive of Ted’s academic achievements, but she was not too happy about his social shortcomings. In later years, she was always respectful of his choice to move to Montana though she described it as a sabbatical during which he was working on a manuscript.
Joyce recalls that once during high school Ted had made an explosion in the Kaczynski’s basement. Ted had come home earlier than the rest of the family and was messing around with his chemistry set in the basement. Ted Sr. was very upset with Ted and said that Ted was driving him crazy.
Joyce does not remember Ted ever dating or attending school dances. He always seemed sullen and withdrawn. He participated in several clubs such as the German club and the Band but that was all. Joyce, on the other hand, was very social. She believes that it must have been difficult not to have many friends but she also thinks that Evergreen Park High was a friendly place. Wanda and Ann used to joke that Wanda wished Ted was more social and Ann wished Joyce was more academically inclined.
Ted was different from other students from Evergreen Park High. He dressed Ivy League, wearing khakis and a dress shirt instead of jeans and a tee shirt, like the other students. He had short, conservative hair instead of a duck’s tail or a flat top like other students.
Ted graduated high school in Joyce’s junior year at Evergreen Park High School. Joyce does not remember anyone talking about him after he left.
Wanda was also an intellectual but she was friendly, unlike Ted. Joyce realizes that this could be a defense mechanism he used to cover up his own insecurity and unhappiness.
Joyce grew up as a Presbyterian. She does not remember learning that the Kaczynskis were atheists until reading it in the press after Ted’s arrest.
Lincoln, Montana
June, 1996
Aaron works for Rick Knight, one of Ted’s neighbors. He works for the telephone company.
Aaron explained that Ted was not like the Sauerkraut men. They drank a lot while Ted was a nice person who kept to himself. Aaron, who is probably in his 30’s now, knew of Ted from when he was in high school in Lincoln. They used to call Ted a hermit but it wasn’t unusual for people to live like he lived. Once the Sauerkraut men came into town, a couple of years ago, people pretty much lost interest in Ted. Shawna (who grew up in Great Falls) was Aaron’s girlfriend/wife.
San Jose, California
April 30, 1997
Loren De Young went to high school with Ted. He competed with Ted at Evergreen Park High School for the first trombone chair in the school band. He is Jim De Young’s son. Jo-Ann Vincent De Young also attended Evergreen High School and graduated with Loren and Ted. Both Loren and Jo-Ann remember Ted.
Loren was born in 1940. He graduated from Evergreen High School in 1958. Loren and Ted sat next to each other in band. They were not friends. Ted and Loren never socialized outside of band.
Loren and Ted began playing together in the band when Loren was a junior and Ted was a sophomore. Mr. O’Berto, the band teacher and a trombonist, encouraged Loren to switch to the trombone. He did. Loren liked playing in the band, but he did not take it very seriously. Mr. O’Berto noticed this. He routinely talked to Loren about putting more time and effort into his trombone playing. Loren feels Mr. O’Berto did this because although Ted was an exact player, he lacked creativity. Mr. O’Berto, as a trombone enthusiast, wanted someone, like Loren, to play with more emotion than Ted did. Ted was a very mechanical trombone player who did not exhibit any flair in his playing. He was unimpassioned. Loren believes that Ted did not care whether he was chosen as the first chair because he seemed so unenthusiastic. Ted was never mean towards Loren even though they competed.
Loren does not recall any conversations he had with Ted. Loren believes that if they spoke, they only spoke of band related issues. Ted seemed to be one dimensional in that all he did, as far as Loren knew, was read books.
Ted was socially awkward and inept. Loren’s perception is not based on any specific events that he can recall, but rather on the general impression Ted made. Ted did not appear to have any friends. Loren never saw him talking to other students or hanging around with a group of people. Loren never saw Ted out on weekends, socializing with other high school students. He never saw Ted at a party. Although Loren’s father and mother, Jim De Young and Láveme Schoer, were friends with Ted Sr. and Wanda, they never socialized together as a family.
Jo-Ann recalls Ted with more clarity. She first met Ted when she was babysitting for the O’Connells, the Kaczynski’s next-door neighbor. She was in 8th or 9th grade. Although she did not live near Ted (on Oak Lawn) she had met Ms. O’Connell, who was her teacher, when she attended Holy Redeemer Grammar School. She babysat for the O’Connells, the Tealanders, and the Weinbergs all of whom lived near Ted. On the day she met Ted, one of the O’Connell children was playing with a kitten or puppy. He or she picked up and held the animal awkwardly. Ted saw this, got off his front porch where he was sitting and came over to the house. He carefully and patiently showed the young child how to hold the animal properly. Ted’s gentleness and kindness impressed Jo-Ann.
After meeting him, Jo-Ann periodically saw Ted sitting on his front steps. He rarely played in the yard and she never saw him play with other children his age. He was, however, always very nice to the young children in the neighborhood. Young children were the only people with whom she saw Ted socialize. Ted talked to them when they came by his house or left his front step to chat with them when they were playing in other yards.
Jo-Ann remembers Ted eating a bowl of ice cream on his porch one day. A young child from the neighborhood came up to Ted and said the ice cream looked tasty. Ted said it was and asked the child if he wanted a bowl of his own. The child said yes, so Ted walked inside to get him some. Jo-Ann heard him arguing with his mother, Wanda. Ted came out of the house with a bowl for the child, but he did not have a bowl for himself. The child asked Ted where his ice cream was and Ted said he had eaten all he wanted to eat. It was obvious to Jo-Ann that Ted had given the child his ice cream because Wanda angrily refused to give out ice cream to the child. To Jo-Ann this anecdote epitomizes how nice Ted was to young children. There was nothing kinky or disturbing about the attention Ted gave young children, rather Jo-Ann believed they were the only people with whom Ted felt comfortable.
When Jo-Ann first met Ted, she went to a Catholic girls school, Maria. It was not located in Evergreen Park. Jo-Ann came from a large Catholic family. They were poor. The only reason Jo-Ann went to Maria was because she had criticized the Catholic church and her mother felt she needed more exposure to the Catholic faith. Jo-Ann probably would not have gone despite her mother’s insistence if an anonymous friend had not paid her tuition. Jo-Ann hated Maria. She found the atmosphere oppressively classist and unkind. Jo-Ann’s classmates looked down on her because her family was poor. She had few friends. She felt left out and shunned. Jo-Ann was ready to drop out of Maria after two years and told her mother. Her mother begged her not to and agreed to let Jo-Ann attend a public summer school. Jo-Ann loved it. Without talking to her mother, she enrolled in Evergreen Park High School for the following fall. Jo-Ann’s mother was so thrilled that Jo-Ann had decided to stay in high school that she did not realize Jo-Ann was not going to Maria. Eight weeks passed before Jo-Ann finally told her mother.
Jo-Ann entered Evergreen Park High School as a junior. She does not remember seeing Ted in high school until she was a senior. Ted was in Mr. Rippey’s chemistry class with her. Ted talked about school and chemistry, but Jo-Ann does not recall talking to him about anything personal. They never exchanged pleasantries. Ted never initiated a conversation and seemed shy and inhibited. Jo-Ann does not recall him speaking in class. He always came into the classroom alone. He seemed tense and moved quickly. When class ended, he quickly left the classroom alone. Jo-Ann never saw him in the halls talking with other classmates. Jo-Ann remembers Ted, at age 15, being unable to put his chain back on his bike when it fell off. A classmate, who, like Jo-Ann, had seen Ted on his bike struggling, stopped and helped Ted. Jo-Ann thought Ted was mechanically disinclined.
The only person Jo-Ann saw Ted with was Dale Eickelman. They regularly ate lunch together. She believes they sat alone, not completely separated from the rest of the students, but not a part of a group of people either. Ted always sat with his back to the window. She does not know why. Dale is the only friend Ted seemed to have. Ted never attended social parties outside of school. She never saw him at football games or other school functions. One of Ted’s neighbor’s, Elaine Martz, had huge parties to which she invited most of the school. Jo-Ann never saw Ted there. Ted stuck to himself.
Ted was, however, very helpful in chemistry. When Jo-Ann and her lab partner, had trouble with an experiment, Ted turned around and assisted them. He told them what he was doing while he did it and then went back to his own work once the experiment seemed to be working. Ted also helped Jo-Ann out in another class. One day, she belatedly realized that she had to complete a book report. She said out loud that there was no way she could complete the report because she had to work everyday after school from 3:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. Ted responded, A Long Day’s Journey into Night. Jo-Ann, not knowing Ted was referring to an Eugene O’Neill book, thought Ted was commenting on her working schedule. In response, she said something like, yes, it is a long day. Ted then told her that A Long Day’s Journey into Night was the name of a book she could read. The next day, A Long Day’s Journey into Night was on Jo-Ann’s desk. She believes Ted left it there for her. She read it and turned in a timely book report.
Despite his quiet nature, Ted played pranks. One time, Ted put brown liquid on a few girls’, including Jo-Ann’s, chairs. When Jo-Ann and the other girls stood up, it looked as if they had gotten their periods. Jo-Ann knew it was Ted who had committed the prank because he was grinning slyly, as he always did when he played a prank on someone. Ted never said anything, but he usually lingered to see a reaction to his prank. He grinned a silly grin.
Jo-Ann had to go home because she could not walk around school looking like she had gotten her period. Despite the trouble Ted’s prank caused Jo-Ann, she did not think he was being cruel. None of the girls thought Ted was being mean. His prank was inappropriate and childish, but to Jo-Ann it symbolized how socially awkward and inept Ted was. She believed Ted sought attention and acknowledgment that he was alive and he just did not know how to go about doing it.
On another occasion, in chemistry class, Ted gave her a rolled up piece of paper. He told her to unravel the paper, shake it a bit and then re-roll it. When she did this, whatever Ted had put in the paper created a tiny explosion. Jo-Ann was not scared or angry, but again thought Ted was strange.
Jo-Ann also believes Ted hung a cat skin in her locker as a joke. She believes Ted did it because he knew she was having trouble dissecting a cat in Mr. Rippey’s class. Ted also knew her locker combination, although most of the students in the hall knew her locker combination. She had relied on neighboring students to help her open her locker because she could never remember her locker combination (she has difficulty remembering numerical sequences). It was an ongoing joke that everyone but Jo-Ann knew the combination of her locker. On the day she found the skin, however, only Ted was standing there in the hall and he was grinning his sly grin. Even though Jo-Ann believed Ted was responsible, she was not mad at him. She did not think it was a cruel prank, just a stupid and immature one. In front of Ted she said she wanted the cat skin out of her locker and the next time she opened her locker, the skin was gone.
Ted played word games as well. He inverted metaphors and aphorisms on purpose. For instance if someone said, well so-and-so is around here somewhere, Ted replied something like, no, he is a tall thin guy. Jo-Ann often did not understand Ted’s plays-on-words.
Jo-Ann knew of Ted’s reputation as an academically gifted student. Everybody did. The teachers did not single Ted out as gifted, but Jo-Ann could tell the school had a vested interest in Ted. Ted’s acceptance at Harvard was a feather in the school’s cap. Jo-Ann did not like this. She believes the school treated Ted like a brain, not a person. Jo-Ann believed Ted was defined by his mind and mental prowess and not by his personality. Jo-Ann finds this sad. She believes Ted’s family also treated him this way.
One instance in particular stands out in Jo-Ann’s mind. Jo-Ann, Loren and Ted were graduating. Jo-Ann and Loren were at a graduation party in someone’s back yard. Ted and his mother were also there. Someone asked Ted if he was excited about going to Harvard. Wanda immediately answered for him, saying that of course he was. The person then asked if Ted felt honored having been accepted by Harvard. Wanda again (before Ted could answer) responded that Ted was very honored and thrilled. Another person then asked if Ted had a date for the prom. Once more, Wanda spoke for Ted, saying Ted did not have a date. Ted walked away, visibly tense and upset. Jo-Ann thought it was wrong for Wanda to answer for Ted. To Jo-Ann, it seemed like Ted did not even have a voice in his life.
Ted might have perceived that people only saw him as a brain, given a conversation she had with Mr. Rippey that Ted interrupted. Jo-Ann and Mr. Rippey were talking about the possibility of Jo-Ann dropping chemistry because she was failing it. Mr. Rippey suggested she do so in order to preserve a high grade point average. She wanted to stay in the class and told Mr. Rippey that grades were not everything. At that point, Ted piped in and told her she was right — grades were not everything.
Jo-Ann will always remember Ted as a quiet, kind, socially inept child. She remembers thinking, as she watched Ted play with the younger children, something is not right with him. Since Ted’s arrest, she has seen the picture of Ted playing with his brother and a young girl in a sand box. She sees something terribly wrong with the fact that Ted is playing with children so much younger. She has asked other people what is wrong with the picture, because to her, it represents how disconnected Ted was from people his own age. If the picture is of Ted’s birthday party (which she believes it is), then she wonders what kind of mother would invite her friend’s children and not her child’s friends. She also wonders why it was O.K. for Wanda that Ted had no friends.
In 1976, during a visit to Chicago, Jo-Ann and Loren accompanied Loren’s mother, Láveme Schoer, to Ted Sr. and Wanda’s house in Lombard. Ted Sr. and Wanda talked about Ted. Ted Sr. expressed frustration and disappointment that all the money and time they spent on educating Ted was going to waste because Ted had decided to live in the woods alone. Láveme then asked whether Ted was involved with a woman as she had heard. Wanda quickly and adamantly said something like, oh, there was nothing to that. Ted Sr. responded and said something like, well, there was something, but not any longer. Wanda and Ted Sr. continued to quibble about Ted’s supposed infatuation with a girl (whose name was never mentioned) until Ted Sr. put an end to the conversation. Jo-Ann walked away thinking that the subject of Ted and women triggered strong feelings in Ted Sr. and Wanda regarding Ted’s welfare.
Paradise, California
April 22, 1997
Jim DeYoung was Ted Sr.‘s friend. He and his first wife, Láveme DeYoung Schoer, lived in Evergreen park when the Kaczynskis did. Jim and Laverne’s two children, Loren and Janice, went to school with Teddy. Loren graduated with Ted and Janice was a few years younger. Loren competed with Teddy for the first trombone seat in the high school band. Jim is 83 years old. He is a retired teacher who lives with his second wife, Lou.
Jim and Láveme moved to Evergreen Park in 1940 soon after their eldest child, Loren was born. Evergreen Park at that time was an agricultural community surrounded on three sides by metropolitan Chicago. Jim worked as a carpenter consultant for a construction company. Jim first met Ted Sr. in approximately 1954. They both joined Citizens for Education, an Evergreen park community organization that monitored the local schools and the school board. In response to a concern that the school board was composed of people more interested in the three Evergreen Park parochial schools than the public school, Jim and Ted Sr., along with some other members, formed a small caucus within Citizens for Education in order to interview and choose candidates for the school board. Jim and Ted Sr. were interested in promoting school board candidates who represented the interests of the public schools.
Jim liked and respected Ted Sr. Ted Sr.‘s commitment to civic matters particularly impressed Jim. Ted Sr. was concerned about education and worked hard to ensure that qualified, community minded people were elected to the school board. Ted Sr., however, never wanted to be on the school board. Ted Sr. told Jim that he had such a hot temper, he worried about losing it during a meeting. Jim did not know what Ted Sr. was talking about because he had never seen Ted Sr. lose his tempter. To Jim, Ted Sr. seemed affable and gregarious.
Jim recalls how easily Ted Sr. mingled with university professors whom the caucus consulted about education or interviewed for the school board. Ted Sr. engaged in intellectual discourse with them even though he had never graduated from college. Jim believes the professors respected Ted Sr. and his opinions.
Jim ran for the school board at Ted Sr.‘s suggestion. He was elected and served for one year. He did not like it. Looking back, he believes he should have been more aggressive and vocal about expenditures he thought were useless.
Jim first learned that Teddy was Ted Sr.‘s son through his son, Loren. Soon after Jim met Ted Sr., Loren came home from school grumbling about another trombone player who was competing with Loren for the first chair. Loren told Jim that the other trombone player’s name was Teddy Kaczynski. The next time Jim saw Ted Sr., he asked him if he had a son who played trombone. Ted Sr. said yes and they laughed about their sons competing.
Throughout high school, Loren and Teddy competed for the first chair. Jim recalls Loren receiving the honor more often than Teddy. Loren told Jim that Teddy lacked creativity and flair in his performances. Loren described Teddy as a mechanical player. Ted Sr. and Jim supported their son’s band experiences. They helped raise money for the band by joining the band boosters.
Ted Sr. occasionally spoke about Teddy. He told Jim that he wanted Teddy to join Little League. Ted Sr. was concerned that Teddy was not well-rounded and did not seem to have many friends. He hoped Little League might encourage Teddy to develop friendships. Teddy did not join, however, so Ted Sr. encouraged Dave to join. Dave did. Jim believes Ted Sr. thought Dave was a normal boy and Teddy was strange. Teddy puzzled Ted Sr. and Ted Sr. seemed perplexed about how to relate to Teddy. Ted Sr. told Jim that Teddy’s bedroom, the attic, was off limits to everyone.
Although Jim was better friends with Ted Sr., he knew and liked Wanda. She joined the parent’s education committee, a precursor of the PTA. In those days, the parent’s education committee presented an opportunity for parents to discuss their children’s academic problems. Wanda sheepishly said at one meeting that she had nothing to complain about because her son, Teddy, was doing very well academically.
Jim knew that Teddy had a reputation as being intellectually gifted. Although Ted Sr. never bragged about his son, he sometimes mentioned that Teddy was an academic success. When Harvard accepted Teddy, Ted Sr. barely commented on the news. To Jim, Ted Sr.‘s ambivalence towards Teddy’s accomplishments symbolized the lack of a relationship between the two. Jim mostly learned of Ted’s success through Lois Skillen.
Ms. Skillen was also very interested in Teddy. She thought he was very smart and gifted. One day, in passing, Jim mentioned to Lois that Teddy was strange. He told her she might want to take a closer look at Teddy because he did not mix well with the other students. Ms. Skillen replied that Teddy was gifted.
Since retiring, Jim has become an active member of the Prime Timers. The Primer Timers is an organization for people 50 years old or older who desire to keep learning. Jim regularly attends classes in Chico with fellow Prime Timers. His wife, Lou, is also an active member.
The last time Jim saw Ted Sr. was at O’Hare airport in approximately 1972. Jim, who was returning to the Midwest for a reunion, had a long layover at O’Hare Airport. Ted Sr. was living in Lombard at the time. Jim called him and suggested they meet at the airport. Ted Sr. agreed and they met. They caught up on each other’s lives and reminisced about old times in Evergreen Park.
When Jim heard the circumstances under which Ted Sr. committed suicide, it struck him that Ted Sr. was being pragmatic by killing himself. Jim thought it was consistent with Ted Sr.‘s straight forward approach to a problem. Jim did not attend the funeral.
When Jim heard that Teddy was arrested, he became very depressed. He found it difficult to cope with the idea that Ted Sr.‘s son could commit the acts he is accused of committing. He recalls Ted Sr. as being such a civically minded individual that he is at a loss to understand Teddy’s alleged actions. He is very sad for Wanda and David.
Lynnwood, WA
January 29 & 30, 1997
Fred Dombek Jr. is the eldest child of Fred Dombek Sr. and Lois Rosencrans Dombek. He was born on December 15, 1937, in Ottawa, Illinois. His mother was born and raised in Ottawa, Illinois. He has two surviving siblings. His only sister, Wanda Dombek Hockaday, was born on March 12, 1941, also in Ottawa, Illinois. His brother Edward was born on 8/24/43 in Chicago. Fred’s other brother, Steve, died in an accident in Washington sometime in the 1960s. Like Edward, Steve was born in Chicago.
When Fred was young and still living in Illinois, he recalls Wanda and her family visiting on a few occasions. They did not visit often as neither family owned a car and Fred Sr.’s family lived on the west side of Chicago, on Congress St., north of Van Burén St.
Fred Jr.’s family moved to California in 1950, when he was approximately 12 years old. Fred Sr. did not have a job, so the family lived in a trailer park in El Monte, near Los Angeles while he looked for work. As soon as Fred found work as a machinist, a few months after arriving in California, they moved to a small house in Baldwin Park, near Covina. They lived there for a few years before permanently settling in Azusa. Fred Sr. and Lois lived in Azusa until they left California in the 1970’s. When the family moved to Azusa, Fred Sr. opened up a printing shop called Dombek’s in Irwindale, CA. This was in approximately 1955.
Fred Jr.’s family never had much money. Fred Jr. ultimately dropped out of Covina High School to work so that he could help support his parents and buy himself a car. He bought a car for $10.00, fixed it up and cruised around with his friends. Fred Jr. lived at home and worked until 1966, when he was 22 years old. He then tried to enlist in the Navy believing he should do so before he was drafted. Unfortunately, he had burst an ear drum scuba diving which rendered him ineligible for the Navy. He walked out of the office not knowing what to do next and saw a Coast Guard office across the hall. Curious, he walked in to find out more about the Coast Guard and found himself enrolling.
Early in his Coast Guard career, while stationed in the San Francisco area, Fred Jr. met his wife Jackie. Jackie lived in the same apartment building with her two sons. They married soon after meeting in 1968.
Fred Jr. relocated his family many times while working in the Coast Guard. They lived in Hawaii, New York, San Diego and San Francisco. The Coast Guard frequently stationed Fred to overseas posts thus requiring him to be absent from his home for long stretches of time. He was usually gone six months to a year. Fred Jr. stayed with the Coast Guard for 22 years.
Fred Sr., Fred Jr.’s father, died in July, 1988, in Washington of a cerebral vascular accident caused by arteosilerole vascular disease. At his death, Fred Sr. was a double leg amputee. A severe stroke Fred Sr. suffered in the early 1970s irreparably damaged the arterial circulation in one of his legs, forcing doctors to amputate. The stroke also resulted in damage to the blood vessels in Fred’s second leg, but not as severely. Over the years, however, Fred’s immobility prevented proper circulation in Fred’s second leg and he lost that leg in the early 1980’s.
Fred Sr. ran Dombek’s printing store for over 8–12 years until his legs began to bother him. He and Lois closed the shop and moved in with their son, Edward, who was living in Denver. Fred suffered his stroke in Denver.
Edward’s job required him to move frequently. Fred Sr. and Lois went with Edward and his family to Missouri, near the Ozark mountains, and upstate New York. The loss of Fred Sr.’s second leg, however, made traveling impossible so Fred and Lois moved to Seneca, IL, where some of Lois’s relatives lived.
Fred Jr. visited Fred Sr. and Lois in approximately 1985. He found his parents struggling. Fred Sr was incapacitated and Lois was suffering under the burden of being Fred Sr.’s sole caretaker. She nursed him, fed him and did all of the household chores. The cold winters exacerbated her difficulties, making trips to the stores impossible at times. Seeing his parents’ difficulties, Fred Jr. decided to move his parents to Washington where he could ensure that his mother received help caring for his father. He returned to Washington, called the Department of Housing and found a retirement home near his house in Lynnwood, WA. Fred Sr. died there.
Fred Sr.’s inability to move made him grouchy, crotchety and difficult to live with. Now that Fred Sr. is dead, Fred Jr. believes his mother is happier than she has been for a long time.
Fred Jr. liked his father, but he never talked about politics with him. Fred Sr. was a dyed-in-the-wool democrat whereas Fred Jr. is a staunch republican. During the Nixon Administration, Fred Jr. received a position at the Western White House as a Coast Guard Senior Enlisted Man. Fred Sr. hated Nixon, but he and Lois came to visit Fred Jr. Upon his arrival, Fred Sr. became convinced that people recorded his telephone conversations. Paranoid that his phone was bugged, he unscrewed it. Sure enough, he found something in the phone that convinced him that his phone was indeed tapped. Fred Jr. laughs about the incident now. He does not know whether the phone was really bugged, but if it was, he believes that Fred’s open and vocal condemnation of the Nixon Administration while he was staying at the Western White House caused it.
Fred’s sister, Wanda, was also born in Ottawa, Illinois, in 1941. She is 56 years old and her married name is Wanda Dombek Hockaday.
Ed Dombek is Fred Jr.’s only living brother. He lives in Boise, ID. Before moving to Boise, Ed stayed with Fred Jr. He was going through a divorce and was having monetary problems related to that.
Fred Jr. remembers his grandfather John Dombek. Fred Sr. had just moved the family to a house in Baldwin Park, CA, when John came to live with the family in the early 1950’s. Fred Jr. was approximately 14 years old at the time. Although Fred Jr. liked his grandfather, he did not know him very well. John was difficult to understand because he rarely spoke English. He spoke only Polish. He did not talk to Fred Jr. or Fred Jr.’s siblings although they were living in a small house.
He shared a bunk bed, sleeping on the lower bunk, in a tiny alcove. Ed or Steve slept on the top. One day, when John had been living with the family for close to a year, he tried to commit suicide by slitting his wrists. Fred Jr. discovered him when he arrived home from school. He was fourteen years old and the only person home at the time. His mother was next door at a neighbor’s house and his brothers and sister were still at school. He walked back to his bedroom, which he shared with his brother, and found his grandfather, bleeding all over the bunk beds in the alcove. John was awake, but he did not say anything, nor did he write a note. Not really knowing what to do, Fred Jr. began to clean up the blood. His mother came home almost immediately and they called an ambulance. The ambulance took John to a hospital.
Fred Jr.’s first reaction on seeing his grandfather was fear. It scared him to see all the blood all over John and the beds. The next day, however, Fred Jr.’s fear turned to anger at his grandfather for forcing Fred Jr. to witness his suicide attempt. He did not want to have any more contact with his grandfather. Fred Sr. was also extremely angry. He wanted his father out of his house. Fred Jr. believes his father called Wanda, Ted’s mother, and told her that he was sending their father back to Illinois to her care. Wanda did not want their father back, but Fred Sr. sent him back to Illinois anyway and never again spoke to Wanda or any of his other siblings. Fred Jr. does not know what his father said to Wanda or vice versa, but he does know that whatever was said regarding his grandfather caused a permanent rift between his father and the rest of his family. Fred never saw or heard of his grandfather after he left.
Lois is Fred Jr.’s mother, Fred Sr.’s widow. She still lives in the retirement home she and her husband moved into when they relocated to Washington. She is 78 years old, in good health and actively involved in projects at the retirement home.
Lynnwood, WA
January 30, 1997
Lois Dombek is Fred Dombek Sr.’s widow. Fred Dombek Sr. was Wanda Kaczynski’s eldest sibling. Fred Sr. died in 1988 of a grand mal seizure. He died in a retirement home where she and Fred Dombek Sr. resided. Their son Fred Jr. helped them find it in Lynnwood, WA.
Lois met Fred Dombek in 1936, when she was 17 years old. He was 27 years old. He was a solicitor with an Illinois newspaper. In the course of his work, he and three other men stayed at the hotel her parents owned in Ottawa, Illinois. Although Lois liked all the men, she liked Fred the best because he seemed the most mature and reliable of the four. Fred and his co-workers left, but Fred came back to see her. She was dating another young man at the time, but she chose Fred. They married soon after she turned 18 on August 29, 1936, in Ottawa, IL.
Fred did not like to speak of his childhood or his family often, but when he did, he told her horrific stories of abuse. Fred’s mother, Mary Dombek, drank all the time and beat her children. Her husband, John, worked long hours in the steel mills near Zanesville, OH, where the family lived. Fred rarely saw him. While he was gone, Mary brought other men home and had sex with them openly while the children were home. Even when John was home, he too drank excessively. Fred hated his life. He tried to run away from home when he was 10 years old and Wanda was 6 years old believing life on the streets had to be less painful and dangerous than living at home. Unfortunately, the police found him and returned him to John and Mary. Fred waited two years, until he was 12 years old, before again trying to run away. This time he was successful. He did not return to his parent’s house until he was 22 years old, 10 years after he ran away.
At first, he went to the local golf course. He learned where to hide and how to make money so as to avoid the police. He caddied and shined shoes and did odd jobs around the golf course. Eventually, he started jumping box cars, traveling from state to state in search of work. Fred downplayed the perils of riding the box cars as a 12 year old, but occasionally he told Lois that he could not trust anyone, even if they offered help, for fear they might take advantage of him.
For many years, he worked on the railroad lines. He also worked building a tunnel in Washington. At one point, he passed through California. He remained a hobo, riding the box cars until he decided it was time to go back to his parent’s house. Mary was still living when he returned home. Mary died approximately one year before Lois met and married Fred.
Fred and Lois stayed in Ottawa after marrying and Fred began working as a machinist. Occasionally, Fred brother’s, Ben, and Fred’s sisters, Wanda and Freda, visited them. They came more often soon after Lois and Fred married which Lois attributes to Fred’s family being curious about their new sister-in-law.
Wanda is one year older than Lois. Lois first met Wanda soon after she married. Wanda was 19 years old. Lois liked Wanda and thought she treated Freda and Ben as if they were her children. Lois liked Freda more than Wanda. Whereas Wanda acted like a parent even though she was only 19 years old, Freda acted her age. She laughed and joked with Lois and treated her like a friend.
Wanda and Fred never got along. Their conversations often disintegrated into accusatory arguments. Wanda resented Fred for leaving her, Freda and Ben. Wanda believed he should have stayed and helped his brothers and sisters instead of, as Wanda saw it, abandoning them. Fred, on the other hand, could not take living with Mary anymore and felt that he had to leave. He resented Wanda for making him feel guilty about what happened to them as if he should have been there to stop it.
Fred Jr., Lois and Fred’s first child, was born on December 15, 1937, in Ottawa, IL, 15 months after they were married. Their second child, Wanda, was born nearly four years later, on March 12, 1941. Despite Fred’s troubled relationship with Wanda, he named his daughter after her. Lois and Fred moved to west Chicago after Wanda’s birth where Lois gave birth to two more children, Steve and Ed.
Even though Lois and Fred lived in the Chicago area, they rarely visited Fred’s family and vice versa. Since neither family owned a car, the difficulties associated with traveling by public transportation with small children prevented either family from making regular trips. Lois and Fred never went to Wanda’s home although they did visit Freda, Ben and John Dombek. Wanda and Ted, however, came to visit Lois and Fred occasionally. Lois remembers one visit in particular when Ted was approximately 3 years old.
It was during this visit that Lois realized that Ted Sr. and Wanda treated Ted like he were a little man even though he was only 3 years old. They talked to him as if he was an adult. For instance, they asked Ted sternly if he had to relieve his bladder as opposed to using language a child might understand. Ted sheepishly replied that he did.
Lois recalls thinking that children in school must have harassed and humiliated Ted because he did not speak and behave like other children.
Lois and Fred moved their family to California in 1950. Fred chose California thinking, based on his prior visit there, he could easily find work. They moved to a trailer park in El Puente, near Los Angeles while Fred Sr. looked for a job. Fred had just found work as a machinist and moved the family to a small home in Baldwin Park, CA, when John Dombek, his father, arrived.
Wanda had been caring for John in Chicago, but once Fred was semi-settled in California, Wanda sent their father to him. She told Fred she could not care for him anymore. His arrival shocked Fred and Lois and they scrambled to accommodate him in their small, unfinished house. They transformed the dining room into a bedroom for Wanda and moved a bunk bed into a small alcove for Ed and John. Fred Jr. and Steve slept in the second bedroom.
Fred Sr. and Lois struggled to support John and their four children on Fred’s salary. Lois did not have a job. John did nothing. He either sat around inside the house or he sat outside in a lawn chair on the lawn. He could speak a little English, but he refused to speak English unless he had no choice. John and Lois rarely spoke to each other. Lois did not speak Polish. John and Fred Sr., however, chatted away in Polish in the evenings. Neither Fred Jr., Wanda, Steve nor Ed spoke Polish so they too did not speak with their grandfather.
Lois felt sorry for John. He always looked sad and he had no friends. Lois hoped he might befriend their next door neighbor, an elderly man who harvested the fruit off his fruit trees, but John never made the effort to speak to him in English. John never left the house unless he traveled with the family on family outings. Although John was always at home, Lois did not leave the children alone with him.
John had been living with the family for close to a year when he tried to commit suicide. Lois believes it was his way of getting back at her for leaving him alone. She told John she was going to a neighbor’s house and would return in 20 minutes to be home when the children returned from school. After she left, John went to the alcove and slit his wrists. Fred Jr. found him and Lois came home soon after to find Fred Jr. trying to clean up the mess. She asked one of the neighbors to watch Wanda, Steve and Ed while she and Fred Jr. called an ambulance and cleaned up the room.
Fred Sr. was furious at his father for trying to commit suicide in front of his family. Lois, on the other hand, was petrified. She refused to leave the house for fear of what John might do to himself. She started to feel as if she was losing her mind. She believed she was about to have a nervous breakdown.
Fred Sr. sent John back to Chicago. Fred Sr. and Lois never knew when or how John died.
The family moved to Azusa after John left. Fred Sr. opened a printing shop called Dombeks, in El Monte. Lois worked for Aerojet doing clerical work. They stayed in Azusa for 17 years until the early 1970’s, when Fred Sr. had a massive stroke, which, the doctors told Lois, Fred was lucky to have survived. Unfortunately, one leg suffered irreparable blood vessel damage and had to be amputated.
As a printer, Fred had spent most of his day standing. Thus, when he suffered the stroke and subsequent amputation, he could no longer work. Fred Sr. and Lois closed down Dombek’s and moved in with Ed. They moved to the Ozarks, New York and ultimately settled in Seneca, IL., in the early 1980’s after Fred’s second leg was amputated due to lack of circulation. Some of Lois’s relatives resided in Seneca.
Oak Brook, Illinois
October 5, 1996
George owns a steel manufacturing business which he inherited from his father. George, Russell Mosney, Roger Podewell, John Chesta, and Pat Morris (collectively known as the Briefcase Boys) all set up make-shift chemistry laboratories in their basements and conducted experiments. George himself conducted a number of what he soon realized were ill-advised experiments with chemicals and explosives. He considers himself lucky to be alive.
George’s experience as a member of the Briefcase Boys at Evergreen Park High School is still an acutely painful memory. He remembers being teased and called an egghead and Briefcase Boy by a group in high school that was known as the Hard Guys. The Hard Guys were into fast cars, racing, driving without mufflers, playing sports, and making fun of the Briefcase Boys. The Hard Guys wore letter jackets, dark sunglasses, and slicked back hair. The Briefcase Boys certainly didn’t have letter jackets. Instead, they wore whatever clothes their mothers bought them. Looking back on it, George thinks the Briefcase Boys could have all used some help with their clothing.
To be accepted by the rank and file in Evergreen Park High School you had to do poorly in class. Carrying books, studying, and reading in your spare time were not socially acceptable activities, and those who participated in them were subject to the open scorn of the Hard Guys.
The Hard Guys were highly malicious and seemed to take pleasure in reducing the Briefcase Boys’ already-low social standing. Even the average students who did not ridicule the Boys, avoided contact with them. None of the Briefcase Boys ever dated the girls in their school. For girls, any social entanglement with the Briefcase Boys would have been a disaster for their reputations. For the Hard Guys, simple mockery of the Briefcase Boys was not enough. They had to humiliate them. The Boys would frequently open their lockers to find their gym shoes missing, snatched right out of their hands, or thrown up into a tree. Sometimes the lock was taken from their lockers or a different lock was placed on theirs, keeping them out of their own lockers. George also remembers hearing that one boy once stuffed Ted in a locker.
The Hard Guys, though no geniuses, were smart enough to know how far they could push their bullying. They were physically larger and more aggressive than most of the Briefcase Boys, and knew that they could perpetuate their reign of terror by minor acts of daily intimidation that were not severe enough to qualify for a call to the police, such as pushing one against a wall or slapping him around. Occasionally they pushed things further, like when they rolled a small kid up in a wrestling mat, nearly suffocating him, and pushed him down a hall on a cart.
This left George frequently anxious about going to school, but he knew he didn’t really have to fear for his safety. The Hard Guys hated the Briefcase Boys for being different and their aggression made it clear that they were trying to bait the Boys into fighting back. They were looking for any kind of response that would give them an excuse to deck a Briefcase Boy. George figured that if the Hard Guys ever did beat him up, it would happen only once and he might suffer a broken arm or lose some teeth. He just hoped that nothing more serious happened to him, like losing an eye. As it turned out, he was never beaten up. In fact, the only fight he recalls was between Russell Mosney and a Hard Guy, an Irish kid named Pat. The fight was a boxing match organized by the gym teacher, and it ended after Russell landed a few good blows and the other kid backed off.
The constant aggression that the Briefcase Boys faced in school made George question his academic priorities. He went to school to learn, but realized that almost none of his peers shared this goal. He considered trying out for sports and purposely getting bad grades but felt his image was already cast, and nothing he could do would make his peers accept him. The best strategy he could think of was to do well on tests and homework but not answer questions in class or otherwise draw attention to his scholastic priorities. Gym class was another daily exercise in torture. George and most of the other Briefcase Boys had no interest in sports. George never even learned the rules. When students were choosing teams in class, they always chose the Briefcase Boys last.
In short, there was a strict and rigidly stratified pecking order at Evergreen Park High School and the Briefcase Boys were at the bottom of it. It was four years in an academic penitentiary, and the only solution was to serve one’s sentence and move on.
George notes that Ted was never really a part of the Briefcase Boys’ group.
Many students outside the group assumed Ted was a part of the group. He was intelligent, studious and shared the outward appearance of the Briefcase Boys. He even carried a slide rule around with him and pens in his shirt pocket. Despite his attributes and appearance, Ted remained an outsider to the Briefcase Boys.
Academically and intellectually, Ted was head and shoulders above the rest of students at Evergreen Park High. His exceptional intelligence set him apart, even from a group of bright young men like the Briefcase Boys. In terms of intelligence, George places himself at the bottom tier of the group. He estimates his IQ at around 100. He guesses that John Chesta’s is around 120, and that Russell Mosney’s and Roger Podewell’s IQ’s are around 130. He ventures that Ted’s IQ might be around 170 or higher.
School was no challenge for Ted at all. He seemed bored with his classes and already knew the material covered in class each day. He answered questions when called upon, but never volunteered. He often used his classroom time as an opportunity to read about more advanced subjects.
Another thing that made Ted stand out to George was his sense of humor. It was highly juvenile and immature, even for high school. He found a great deal of humor in childish pranks and would laugh out loud at watching someone getting their shoelaces tied together. Ted’s sense of humor really stands out in George’s mind. Ted once played a strange prank on Bob Pettis. Bob had a car and lived close to Ted, so he gave Ted a ride to school one day. When they pulled into the parking lot at the school, Ted, without warning, reached over, grabbed Bob’s keys out of the ignition and took off running. Bob chased Ted all the way out of the parking lot and half way across the football field, where he had to tackle Ted in order to retrieve his keys. This is a typical example of the pranks Ted played in high school.
Ted’s introverted personality kept him apart from the other members of the Briefcase Boys. Ted was a likeable young man, but he was shy and very soft-spoken most of the time. His words trailed off and often became inaudible at the end of his sentences. Ted was not easy to get close to. He didn’t socialize with anyone, including the Briefcase Boys. Ted spent more time with them because they shared many interests and because they accepted him. For these same reasons, Ted felt more comfortable with the Briefcase Boys. Still, Ted kept himself outside the group.
Because the Briefcase Boys were socially unacceptable to most others, they formed a very close, tight-knit group. They socialized and hung out with one another both in and outside of school. They had parties with each other, went out driving together, and spent a great deal of their time together as a group. Ted was invited, but never joined them. The only time George remembers seeing Ted outside of school is the yellow phosphorous incident that occurred in his basement. George never went to Ted’s house. In school, the Briefcase Boys ate lunch together nearly everyday. Ted only joined them occasionally. When he didn’t eat with the group, he must have eaten alone; there was no one else Ted would have been accepted by.
When Ted talked to George at lunch or during classes, it was usually about homework, science, chemistry, physics, math, or astronomy. When he attended club meetings, he discussed the club’s topic, e.g. chess, math, etc. Ted never dated or talked about girls. Ted never initiated and rarely engaged in more spontaneous conversations. The one time George and Ted discussed anything outside the usual science and math-related topics, they argued about theology. George argued the agnostic point of view and Ted took the atheistic side. The argument lasted about twenty minutes. When he saw that Ted refused to consider his side of the argument, George saw no point in continuing the discussion and gave up. Ted was convinced his point of view was absolutely correct, and he could not be persuaded.
Ted graduated a year ahead of the Briefcase Boys. No one, not even the Boys, was aware that Ted had plans to do so. George believes that Ted may have graduated at mid-year or over the summer. In either case, he remembers that after Ted had been gone for a while, someone in the group asked where he was. Finally, they learned that Ted graduated early and went to Harvard. He never saw nor heard from Ted again.
Ann Arbor, Michigan
April 16, 1997
Professor Duren grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana. He attended a private college preparatory high school and then went on to study math at Harvard. He graduated from Harvard in 1956 and earned his Ph.D. in math from M.l.T. in 1960. Professor Duren worked in the math department at Stanford for two years. In 1962 he came to teach at the University of Michigan where in his first semester he had Ted as a student in Real Analysis. He is married.
Professor Duren remembers Ted clearly, not only because Ted was in the first class Professor Duren taught at the University of Michigan, but because Ted was an annoying student to teach. Ted was one of the best students in the math department. Professor Duren learned that Ted was getting articles published in math journals. Ted did not boast about having published in math journals. One of Professor Duren’s other students, Joel Shapiro, told Professor Duren recently that none of the graduate students knew Ted had published his work. Most other students boasted about their accomplishments to their peers.
When it came to math, Ted insisted that everything had to be meticulous and precise. In class Ted was constantly forcing Professor Duren to clarify insignificant points. Ted often stayed after class asking Professor Duren to work out various parts of a math problem to a ridiculous degree. Often when mathematicians are solving a complex problem, smaller problems are generated. Usually it is not necessary to solve these smaller problems in order to solve the larger, more important problem. In fact, many mathematicians purposefully don’t solve the smaller problems that arise so that the person trying to understand the crux of a problem is not distracted. The smaller unanswered problems also leave something to the readers’ imagination.
Ted was obsessed with figuring out every problem to every possible end. He refused to leave any aspect of any problem unsolved. Ted often kept Professor Duren after class asking him to work out insignificant details that had been left unanswered during class. Ted often succeeded in making an interesting problem boring by being overly thorough and leaving nothing for the reader to think about. Professor Duren, who was admittedly a bit insecure in his first semester of teaching at Michigan, found Ted to be a pain.
Professor Duren taught Ted for two terms. The first term Ted took Real Analysis from Professor Duren and the second semester he took Final Analysis. There were about 25 students on the Real Analysis course and 15 students in the Final Analysis course. During class, Ted asked thoughtful questions, but he tended to work entirely on his own. The first term Ted rarely did the homework that Professor Duren assigned and the second term Ted did not do any homework at all. Professor Duren still has his grade book from those courses, and although Ted scored among the highest in the class on the midterms and finals, he did none of the course work. It was very unusual for a doctoral student not to do any of their homework. Ted’s behavior was not that of a normal student. He stood out as particularly bright, and he received an ‘A’ in the course, but Ted worked completely independently from the class and the instructor.
Unlike other students, Ted usually wore a jacket and tie. He was very quiet and very serious. He had a shuffling walk. Professor Duren cannot picture Ted ever laughing.
Ted’s second year at the University of Michigan, he took a course in complex analysis with Professor George Piranian. Professor Piranian liked to throw out unsolved math problems for his students to think about and grapple with. Unknown to professor Piranian, Ted began to work on a couple of the problems. Eventually, Ted went to Professor Piranian with the solution to two of the problems. Professor Piranian was astounded. Not only were the poblems extremely difficult, but Professor Piranian did not know Ted was even working on them, much less asking him for guidance. After Ted impressed Professor Piranian to such a degree, Professor Duren began wondering if Ted was not in fact a better mathematician than he had previously thought.
During Ted’s third year at the University of Michigan he became Allen Shields’ student, meaning that Allen Shields was going to be Ted’s thesis advisor. Professor Shields was one of the best teachers in the department. Ted took a course from Professor Shields in which Professor Shields gave a problem that the students were supposed to use in the course. Apparently, Ted saw the solution to this problem in a new light and began to do some independent work on the subject. Ted went to Professor Shields and presented him with 100 pages of work and asked if the work was a basis for a good thesis. This was an extremely unusual way for a student to find a thesis advisor. Usually a student presents his ideas to a professor for approval before the student completes 100 pages of work on a problem. Ted did not want any faculty help or interference. He wanted absolute independence.
Professor Duren heard more about Ted from Professor Shields, who was impressed by Ted’s abilities. Professor Duren read a confidential report on Ted’s thesis proposal to the math department written by Professor Shields explaining how Ted became his student. Professor Shields read Ted’s 100 pages and agreed to be Ted’s advisor.
Ted was as isolated socially as he was scholastically. Ted did not socialize with the other students or professors in the math department. The math department frequently had parties. It was very easy for students to make friends in the math department, but Ted did not seem to have any. Ted did not often attend social gatherings. He liked to hole up on his own and do his work. Ted was very shy and he avoided having to talk with people about anything other than math.
There was also a math club that met every Tuesday night. Usually someone gave a talk and then people took turns improvising on math for 3 minutes. The math club was popular among the graduate students. This seemed like an activity that Ted might enjoy, but Professor Duren does not remember Ted ever attending.
Professor Duren and Ted potentially had things to talk about besides math. They both attended Harvard and probably had some of the same professors. In addition, Professor Duren loved the outdoors and often went hiking and camping with his wife. Professor Duren never knew that Ted had any interests besides math because math seemed to be the sole focus of Ted’s life. Professor Duren wanted to talk with Ted about other things, but Ted was obsessed with math. When Ted came to Professor Duren’s office, he only wanted to discuss math.
After Ted had done a substantial amount of work on his thesis, Ted discovered that the problem he was working on had already been solved. A student named J. Stone, who was working under a mathematician named Carl DeLeeuw at Stanford had already developed the same results as Ted. [Several years later, Carl DeLeeuw was killed by a mentally ill student who hit him over the head with a hammer.] Most students who put a tremendous amount of time into their thesis projects are devastated when something like this happens. Professor Shields called Stanford and discovered that J. Stone’s results were not going to be published. Professor Shields obtained permission to publish Ted’s thesis anyway. However, Ted had high standards for himself and he decided to drop the entire project.
Professor Shields was also a man of principle. He fought during World War II in Germany and was vocal in his opposition to the war effort in Vietnam. Professor Shields saw nothing wrong with Ted publishing his thesis although some of the work had been done previously by another individual.
Since Ted now did not have a thesis, he fell back on some of the earlier work he had done with Professor Piranian. Unfortunately the problems that Ted and Professor Piranian were working on were very basic questions that did not lead anywhere. Boundary functions is back water mathematics. It is not a good thesis project because it is such a narrow field. Professor Shields suggested a new problem for Ted that was in the center of an important field of mathematics, but Ted stuck with boundary functions. Ted’s thesis was independent and original. However, the main reason Ted was awarded the best thesis prize in 1967 was because the math department knew Ted had great promise. Professor Shields hoped that Ted would broaden out and work on more significant problems once at Berkeley.
Professor Shields was very upset when he learned that Ted had quit his teaching position. Professor Shields considered Ted to be his best student, and he wanted Ted to continue with mathematics. Unlike most of Professor Shield’s students, Ted did not maintain any contact with Professor Shields or Professor Duren after he left the University of Michigan. Ted did not tell Professor Shields that he was quitting Berkeley or why. Apparently Ted did not do any significant work during the two years he was at Berkeley, and probably would not have received tenure even if he had stayed. If Ted had lived his life differently, he could have had an excellent career as a research mathematician.
Although there were mathematicians, like Professor Shields, who were concerned with how math and science were being used, there was not much tension in the math department between the applied and the pure mathematicians. Ted was the ultimate pure mathematician. He could have moved into a more applied area of math, which would have been better for his career, but Ted seemed only interested in pure math. Ted may have liked pure math because it is verifiable. Unlike other areas of science, pure math cannot be challenged. There is a certain assured quality in pure math that is not found elsewhere.
After Ted’s arrest, Professor Duren looked through Ted’s records in the math department. Although Ted did prove to be an excellent mathematician, looking back on Ted’s application to the University of Michigan, Professor Duren is surprised that he was accepted at all. Ted’s grades from Harvard were spotty and the faculty did not seem to know Ted very well. Ted’s faculty advisor, Andy Gleasen, wrote a letter of recommendation for Ted, but he had never taught Ted in a course and he did not seem to know much about Ted as a person. The only reason Ted was accepted the University of Michigan was because one of his recommenders, John Thompson, who taught Ted algebra, recognized Ted’s independent and creative ability.
Ted also seems to have slipped through the University of Michigan without anyone really remembering him. Al Taylor and Maxwell Reade were both on Ted’s thesis committee and neither of them remembers Ted at all. Professor Reade usually takes great interest in the students and remembers many of them, but not Ted. Ted’s social discomfort made him invisible to most people. He slipped through the program at the University of Michigan and earned his degree, without most people even noticing him.
Professor Duren was also on Ted’s thesis committee. At first Professor Shields tried to get Professor Piranian to be on Ted’s committee, since Ted had worked with Professor Piranian and Ted’s thesis was in Professor Piranian’s area of expertise. Professor Piranian said that he was too busy, so Professor Shields asked professor Duren to be on Ted’s committee instead.
Ted gave Professor Duren large amounts of his work to review. Ted then showed up the next day and asked Professor Duren for his comments. Professor Duren had a lot of other work and could not stop to help Ted exactly when Ted wanted him to. When Professor Duren had not reviewed Ted’s work in the timely fashion that Ted expected, Ted was obviously upset. Ted was impatient with Professor Duren for not reading his thesis instantly, and he made a sharp comment that he hoped Professor Duren would read it soon.
Professor Duren cannot remember Ted’s thesis defense, when Ted presented his paper to his thesis committee. Traditionally the thesis defense is more of a ceremony than an exam. By the time a student reaches the stage of defending his or her thesis, all of the problems have been worked out and answered and there is no doubt he or she will receive his or her Ph. D. The student usually gives a 45 minute presentation to the committee as well as friends, family, and anyone else who wishes to attend. The defense is meant to be an enjoyable rather than a grilling experience.
Usually students give bound copies of their theses to the professors on their committees. Ted never gave Professor Duren a bound copy of his thesis. In fact, Ted never even gave his advisor, Allen Shields, a bound copy of his thesis, which was not very respectful or kind. The professors put a lot of work into helping a student and it is nice for them to have something in return. Professor Duren’s office has an entire shelf of bound theses. Professor Duren kept a copy of Ted’s hand written thesis for himself, but he threw it out only a few weeks before Ted’s arrest.
Professor Duren attended Harvard from 1952 to 1956. Professor Duren had attended a college preparatory high school, but even so, he found Harvard to be very difficult academically. Professor Duren was valedictorian of his high school class and adjusting to Harvard, where so many of the students were bright and talented, was hard. During the time that Professor Duren attended Harvard, there were not many students from public high schools. For Professor Duren, Harvard was survivable because he found a group of close friends who provided support. In his second year at Harvard, professor Duren lived with all of his friends in Adams House. After their first year, most students chose who they wanted to live with the next year.
At Harvard, Professor Duren majored in math, but his friends were from all different academic areas. An intensely intellectual atmosphere existed at Harvard and the students often had interesting discussions on a variety of subjects. The students at the University of Michigan also had interesting discussions, but they were not on the same intellectual level as the discussions at Harvard. Professor Duren is still close to his Harvard friends and is married to a Radcliff student named Gay.
The last time that Professor Duren ever saw Ted was at the annual meeting of the American Math Society in San Francisco in 1968. Ted did not give a talk which was strange since professionally it was the right thing to do. Professor Duren saw Ted standing near the escalator. He went over to talk to Ted, and they had a very stiff, very brief conversation. The conversation consisted of Professor Duren asking questions that Ted did not feel like answering. Ted did not seem comfortable or happy.
After 1968, Professor Duren and the University of Michigan math department had no contact with Ted. Ted was one of the best students that Professor Duren ever taught, and Allen Shields regarded Ted as his best student. For a student to stop contact completely with his or her advisor was unusual. Professor Shields would have loved to keep in contact with Ted, and was hurt when Ted left Berkeley without even telling him. Professor Shields found out that Ted had quit from Tom Sarason, another professor at Berkeley.
Galesburg, Illinois
November 16, 1996
Linda is a professor of biology at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. She has been a professor at Knox for the past nineteen years and is now the biology department chair. Her husband is a professor at a college in Indiana some three hundred miles away. The couple has an eight year old daughter named Emma. Linda and her husband are currently in the process of refurbishing an historic house close to the college in Galesburg. Knox College is the site of one of the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates.
Linda’s father, Hank, and Ted Sr. were very close friends. Hank grew up in Back of the Yards close to Ted Sr. The two were in boy scouts together. Even after both men were married and had families of their own they remained quite close. The Dybas family lived in Homewood, a southern suburb of Chicago.
Linda’s father, Hank, was a curator at the Field Museum. He died of cancer in 1981. Her mother, Milada, was a concert pianist. She taught piano lessons in her home.
Linda played the cello and Ted Jr. played the trombone. She and Ted Jr. played duets when they were teenagers.
Ted Jr. was always an exceptionally bright kid. Wanda always put Ted Jr.’s intelligence on display. Linda recalls one incident when Wanda told Ted Jr. to share with everyone what he had just learned about dinosaurs. Upon request, Ted Jr. recited the scientific names for all the dinosaurs. Ted Jr. was only about five years old at the time. Linda recalls that Ted Jr. was not arrogant about his intelligence and showed off only at his mother’s insistence. Ted Jr. was a very shy and quiet boy. He was introverted and only involved himself in things that he could do alone.
&&&Ted Sr. always had a great interest in the outdoors. Hank and Ted Sr., whom Linda refers to as Turk, went on canoe trips together. They spent days on the river canoeing and camping. The two men also shared an interest in music and loved attending the opera. Both Hank and Ted Sr. surrounded themselves with an intellectual group of friends. Ted Sr. was a very gentle and kind man. Wanda had more of an edge to her personality. She was extremely invested in her children’s education. She did not have much of a life outside of raising her children.
The Kaczynski house was full of books. Most of the books were about science.
Ted Jr. had a brain like a sponge. Linda got the sense that Ted Sr. and Wanda constantly fed Ted Jr. as much information as they possibly could. They took advantage of the wonderful culture in Chicago and always took Ted Jr. to the art institute and to the museum.
Stella Meister and Ted Jr. were very close through the years. They used to play recorder duets together. Ted Jr. composed music for Stella. Stella was a strange woman who was extremely artistic. She and Ted Jr. really connected.
For some time Ted Sr. worked at the Kaczynski sausage factory. Linda’s grandfather was a professional violinist who also worked in the Stockyards and owned a little cigar shop in Back of the Yards. During the Depression everyone seemed to have more than one job. Linda’s father Hank worked in the Stockyards before he went back to school.
Linda’s last contact with Ted Jr. was when they were around sixteen years old. She and Ted Jr. were having a conversation when Linda noticed how strange he had become. He seemed incredibly uncomfortable while he was talking to her. While he spoke, he began systematically pulling hairs out of his leg. He pulled the hair out in a pattern straight up his leg. Linda knew this was not normal behavior. She told her mother about how strange Ted Jr. had become and how she did not think he had any friends. She knew that he must of been teased quite a bit in high school because he was such a nerd.
Ted Sr and Wanda were very tolerant when it came to Ted Jr. and his behavior. They tried to understand what he was doing and never said anything bad about him. Ted Jr. was so principled in his thinking that there wasn’t anything about society that he was able to tolerate.
Somewhere along the line, Ted lost his checks and balances. Because of his intelligence, Ted Jr. was out of synch with his peer group. It is extremely hard for kids with that level of genius to connect with their peer groups. When someone is constantly rewarded for one thing, that person tends to focus on just that one thing. Ted Jr. just focused on academics.
Homewood, Illinois
November 17, 1996
Hank (Milada’s husband) and Ted Sr. were best friends as children and as adults, Milada and Hank were close friends with Wanda and Ted Sr. The two families socialized a few times a year along with the Burakoffs and the Miesters. The four couples had common interests: classical music, theater, books, and politics. They generally agreed on most political issues, but argued over the quality of certain musical compositions. Ted Sr. and Hank both liked the outdoors and went on canoeing trips with each other. Wanda drove the two of them up to Michigan and returned a week later to pick them up.
When they were children, Ted Sr. and Hank were in the boy scouts together. Hank and Ted Sr. were much closer friends than Milady and Wanda. Milada and Wanda were never very close. After their husband’s deaths, Wanda and Milada drifted apart.
Everyone in their group of friends-the Kaczynskis, the Dybases, the Miesters, and the Burakoffs—was educated, except Wanda. Ted Sr. was not formally educated but he was extremely smart and well read. Hank said that Ted Sr. was the best educated man who never went to college. The others all had some formal education. Wanda felt inferior and was always trying to learn as much as she could to catch up with her friends. Wanda was an avid learner and pursued education for her entire life. &&&She felt that she had to prove herself, because she came from an ignorant Polish family. Poles were discriminated against and looked down upon. They were at the bottom of the totem pole—like blacks are today. A Pollack was the worst thing you could be, and Wanda came from a family that was among the most looked down upon in the Polish community. Wanda was constantly trying to dig herself out of this humiliating position.
As a result of Wanda’s upbringing and her efforts to prove her intelligence to her friends, Wanda became hell-bent that her children—at least Ted Jr.—learn everything on the face of the earth. Wanda wanted Ted Jr. to absorb everything. She read to him from Scientific America and made him memorize facts. Wanda wanted Ted Jr. to be constantly learning and to know more than his peers. Wanda often showed off Ted Jr.’s intelligence to her friends.
Milada chose to educate her own children through exposure. She took them to the museum and the theater. She did not make Linda memorize facts. Linda became an educated person because she had educated parents and grew up in an intellectual household.
Milada calls Ted Sr., “Turk,” and Ted Jr., “Teddy John.” As a child, Ted Jr. loved music. Ted Jr. composed songs for the recorder and played duets on his trombone with Linda who played the cello. Once when Ted Jr. and Linda were teenagers they tortured their parents for five hours with their duets. Ted Jr. was shy and avoided talking with adults. He was polite, but he rarely talked directly to Milada. Ted Jr. was closer to Ralph Miester’s wife Stella. Ted Jr. used to write musical compositions for Stella.
Ted Jr. never fit in with his own age group. He was much smarter than other children his age. As Ted Jr. grew older he became stranger. He just wasn’t like other kids. Linda was also extremely smart and her teachers wanted to double promote Linda in school. Milada said no even though Linda complained that she was bored with kids her own age. Linda was small for her age and Milada felt that Linda might have a difficult time relating with kids who were two years older.
Ted Jr. grew up in a climate of fear. People were concerned about war and the development of nuclear weapons powerful enough to destroy the world. Young people, particularly children, were scared there would be no world to live in. When they socialized, the Dybases and the Kaczynskis discussed the possibility of nuclear war along with other issues of the time. They talked about environmental issues, particularly the problem of population growth. Both couples worried that the world’s population was growing too rapidly. They feared that soon there would be too many people for the earth’s limited resources to support. Ted Sr. and Hank thought that the government should tax families who had more than two children. If each family had only two children, like Ted Sr. and Hank’s families, parents replaced themselves, but avoided increasing the population as a whole.
The Dybases and the Kaczynskis were also concerned over the development of technology. Automation was just beginning and people were losing their jobs to machines that were more efficient and cost-effective than men. People worried that technology was going to cause massive lay-offs. Ted Sr. worked as a laborer and laborers were rapidly being replaced by machines and robots. Four hundred men could be fired because one machine could do all of their jobs for much less cost to the company.
During the McCarthy era, the Dybases, the Kaczynskis and their friends feared they were going to be accused of being communists. It was a nutty time. Milada and Hank did not belong to the communist party, but Hank was spotted and labeled, because he was friends with Roy Dubush, who was a communist. Hank and Roy had to defend themselves. Roy was a childhood friend of Hank and Ted Sr.’s. Roy eventually became a mathematics professor in Washington state. He now lives near Wigby Island in Washington. Milada was not a member of the communist party, but she was politically active. At the University of Chicago she participated in many rallies and marches. As a mother, she strolled around the neighborhood campaigning for FDR and gathering signatures in support of social security.
Wanda and Ted Sr. were incredibly proud of Ted Jr. and his intelligence. Wanda and Milada sometimes exchanged information about their children. When Ted Jr. was about 16, Wanda and Ted Sr. told Milada that Ted Jr. was very upset over the research being done on atom bombs. Ted Jr. was distraught over the idea that mathematicians and physicists were building nuclear weapons. Ted Jr. was worried and scared that scientists were using their knowledge to destroy the world.
When Ted Jr. first moved to Montana, Ted Sr. and Wanda praised his decision. They thought it was wonderful that Ted Jr. didn’t want any material possessions. Perhaps they were hiding their underlying concern for Ted Jr. David tried to emulate Ted Jr. by going to Texas. David admired Ted Jr. very much.
Felix Kaczynski and Sons made the best Polish sausage in Chicago. It was marvelous. Milada was always disappointed if Wanda served anything other than sausage when they came to visit. Ted Sr. said that the secret to making good sausage was to trim the fat and use the best meat you could find. Ted Sr. called himself the sausage excruciater. He had a great sense of humor. Ted Sr. didn’t have time to go to college, because he was too busy making sausage.
Hank died a very slow and painful death from bone cancer. Hank suffered for almost 15 years and Ted Sr. stood by him until the very end. Ted Sr. witnessed Hank’s pain and when he was diagnosed with cancer himself, Ted Sr. did not want to experience what Hank had. Ted Sr. was a brave man to kill himself and Wanda is a brave woman to withstand his death. Ted Sr. was a very good husband and father. Milada thought it peculiar that Ted Jr. did not come to his father’s wake.
Hank grew up in Back of the Yards. Back of the Yards was made up of immigrants who worked in the stock yards. Chicago was the hog butcher capítol of the world. Before he went back to school, Hank had a job salting and icing the freight cars. His skin was rubbed so raw each day that he was losing large areas of it on his hands and legs. Milada made Hank quit his job, married him, and put him through school with money she earned as a concert pianist. Hank’s mother hated Milada because she felt that Milada had stolen her son. Like many Polish mothers, Hank’s mother felt that her son should be working in the Yards to support her.
Milada’s own mother worked at the Mary McDowell settlement house, where Ted Sr. and Wanda met. The settlement house did a variety of things to help the Back of the Yards community. They had a nursery and held classes to teach women to sew. Milada’s mother taught English to immigrants and helped them obtain citizenship. As a little girl, Milada often played the piano at the settlement house. Once when she was six, she played for the president of Czechoslovakia. The Mary McDowell settlement house became a cultural community center for the Back of Yards neighborhood.
Ted Jr. is a very sensitive and intelligent person. Ted Jr.’s intelligence allowed him to become aware of the social structures and problems that are destroying the earth, and his sensitivity toward those problems made Ted Jr. lose his mind. Ted Jr. could not take technology and society anymore. Society was making Ted Jr. crazy. Ted Jr. tried to escape, but he could not. Milada’s heart bleeds for Ted Jr. Ted Jr. went emotionally berserk. There must be a quirk in the way Ted Jr.’s brain works. Ted Jr. did not mean to take peoples lives, he only meant to destroy the awful things those people stood for-the things that Ted Jr. believed were destroying the earth and invading his life.
June 25,1997
Ames, IA
Dale Edwards is Dave’s friend. Dale was born and raised in Ames, Iowa. He and his brother, Dean, live in the house their mother left for them when she died two years ago. Dale received his undergraduate and master’s degree in English from the University of Iowa. Dale began teaching English at Evergreen High School in 1963. He stopped teaching in 1980, moved to Wisconsin and purchased a cabin. He still owns the cabin and goes up there a few times a year.
Dale does not currently work. He thinks about teaching again, but he knows that he will never have the freedom he enjoyed at Evergreen Park High School. During his last six or seven years at Evergreen Park High School, Dale was the chair of the English department. He designed the curriculum with little interference from the administration. He created classes he wanted to teach, such as American Intellectual History, and taught them. If Dale teaches again, he fears he will be forced to teach boring unproductive classes that he will hate. Dave periodically encourages Dale to teach again, but Dale has so far ignored him.
Dale had been teaching at Evergreen Park High School for about a year when Lois Skillen asked him to tutor Dave. Dave was in Dale’s study hall and Lois thought Dave might benefit intellectually from Dale’s personalized teaching. Dale agreed to do it.
Dave first impressed Dale as being an intellectually superior kid who was confident and assured about his ideas. Physically, however, Dave was much smaller than his classmates. He was also socially awkward. Dave was shy and quiet and tended to keep to himself. Dale never saw Dave hanging out with friends. Dave may have been intellectually ahead of his classmates, but socially and physically, he was behind them.
Almost immediately upon meeting Dale, Dave began talking about Ted and Ted’s ideas. Dave was in awe of Ted. Dave thought Ted was brilliant and boasted about Ted’s acceptance at Harvard. Ted was an enigma, whose genius Dave tried to understand and approximate. Dave has never stopped talking about Ted in the years Dale has known him. Dave put Ted on a pedestal and left him there. When Dale tutored Dave, he sometimes felt as if he were tutoring Ted given Dave’s adherence to Ted’s beliefs.
Dale decided, in part because Dave seemed so sure of his ideas (and Ted’s), that Dave needed to be intellectually challenged and forced to question his system of beliefs. Dale’s first task, as he saw it, was to make Dave understand how much he did not know. Dale wanted to pierce Dave’s intellectual veil. Dale likes to challenge people’s ideas. He believes people develop strong critical thinking skills when they are forced to re-examine their belief system. Dale did this to Dave. He did not think challenging Dave’s intellectual ego would destroy Dave even though Dave seemed socially and physically awkward. Among other works, they read _The Responsible Man,_ and essay book on Thoreau and other modem philosophers. Dave gave his impressions of the reading and Dale challenged him. Dale tutored Dave for one year.
Occasionally, Dale told his fellow teachers that he was tutoring Dave Kaczynski. All the teachers reacted the same way. They acknowledged that Dave was bright, but then told Dale that he should have met Ted because he was much smarter. Their description of Ted bothered Dale. The only talked of Ted in terms of his intellectual ability. Ted was remembered solely for his brain as if his personality or his behavior did not matter. Dale does not think any of Ted’s teachers ever confronted Dave with their comparisons of his ability to Ted’s.
Dale did not keep in touch with Dave while Dave was in college. Dave later told Dale that he did not like college. Dave thought the teachers were too intellectually pompous and conceited. He thought they postured too much. Dave complained similarly about the students. Dave developed few friendships and did not get involved in many school activities. Dave spent his time alone, walking the streets of New York, thinking. On many occasions, Dave became so immersed in his thoughts that he was oblivious to where he was walking. He often walked deep into unsafe neighborhoods before he realized where he was. Dave has only spoken of about two friends from college, Joel Schwartz and Dennis Dubois.
Dave and Linda Patrik, who had been in one of Dale’s classes, came to visit Dale at his office while Dale was still in college. Dale remembered Dave, but they were not friends at this point. It was only when Dave came back to Evergreen Park in the early 1970’s that Dave and Dale’s friendship developed.
Dave showed up at Dale’s office at Evergreen Park High School in the early 1970’s confused about what he wanted to do with his life. Dave told Dale he had been living in Montana, attending graduate English classes at Missoula. Dave quit and came back to Evergreen Park after deciding he did not want to get a graduate degree in English. Dave was lost and asked for Dale’s help. Dale got him a job doing community tutoring work for Evergreen Park High School.
Dave was still socially awkward and inept. He had hardly developed socially in the six or seven years since Dale had had regular contact with him. For example, when Dale and Dave went for walks in the Morton arboretum, Dave made Dale walk ahead of him so that Dave did not have to speak to any people they passed. He told Dale he did not want to have to say hello to people.
Dave like to camp. Being surrounded by nature gave Dave an uninterrupted opportunity to talk about ideas. Dave loves to talk about ideas and philosophies to the point where it sometimes becomes annoying. On the one hand, Dale loves the fact that Dave will talk about Heidegger at the breakfast table where most people do not want to speak, let alone talk about a subject as complicated and dense as Heidegger. Dave, with his bottomless enthusiasm for ideas, is the only true philosopher Dale knows. On the other hand, Dave can be tiresome in his desire to talk about ideas when Dale is not in the mood. Dave never knows when to stop.
Dave tutored at Evergreen Park High School for approximately nine months. He lived on Dale’s couch during the week and went home to Wanda and Ted’s house in Lombard on the weekends. Dave was a complete slob. The living room floor and all of the furniture were completely cowered with clothes, old food containers, paper and garbage. It looked as if Dave came into the room and dropped whatever he was holding. It was a rat’s nest. Dave did not care. He never cleaned up even though he knew that Dale occasionally entered the room to look for books. Dave did not care what Dale thought. Dave never did his own wash. Wanda did his wash for him when he came home on weekends. Dave never showered either. Dale told Dave that when he was welcome to use the shower whenever he wished, but Dave declined. Instead, on the weekends he took a two-hour bath at Wanda and Ted’s house. He told Dale he liked to sit in the tub and think. Dale thought it was strange that Dave did not shower at his house, but took such a lengthy bath at his parents. He also thought it was strange for Dave to have engaged in something as sensual as taking a bath. Dave did not exude any sexuality. He was asexual.
In approximately 1974, Dave moved to Lisbon, Iowa, to teach at the Lisbon High School. Dave wrote and phoned Dale. He told Dale that he felt uncomfortable around the teachers and students. Dale never visited Dave in Lisbon.
In the late 1970’s, Dave told Dale that he wanted to purchase property and go live alone in the wilderness. Dale helped him scout out locations. They drove in Dave’s junky old green Dodge. It was a mess. Papers and food wrappers strewn everywhere. Clothes littered the floor and back seat. Dave never bothered to clean his car just as he never bothered to clean Dale’s living room. They started in New Mexico and drove into Texas. They looked at property near Big Bend. Dave found the property in Terlingua, which was very cheap, and purchased it. He dug a hole and lived in it for 6 months of the year. Dave drove buses up north the remaining six months and did odd jobs. Sometimes, he lived with his parents in Lombard, IL.
It was driving buses that turned Dave around socially. Every day, Dave was forced to communicate with people. Unavoidable contact with other people required Dave to develop the social skills he lacked. He became less ill at ease around people and more tolerant of them. Dave once loaned a Spanish woman, whom he did not know very well, $500.00. Wanda told Dave he was foolish to trust her, but Dave assured Wanda that she would repay him. Sure enough, a few months later, she paid Dave the $500.00 back. Most of Dave’s social growth took place in the mid 1980’s.
Dale visited Dave’s property in Texas once in the late 1980’s. Dave was no longer living in the hole, having erected a metal shed. Dale loved the idea of Dave living in a hole. Dave wrote his book in the hole. Dale believes Dave has failed to get it published. Dave’s shed was very clean, which surprised Dale. Dave told Dale that he did not like people coming onto his property. When Dale visited Dave, they went canoeing and talked about ideas.
Dale described Dave’s relationship with Linda as the only true love story he knows. Dave told Dale that he realized in high school that he wanted to marry Linda. When Dave moved in with Dale, he told Dale that he was going to wait for Linda for his entire life. Dave began communicating regularly with Linda when he was living in Terlingua. They began to see each other again until Dave finally convinced her to marry him. Dale believes that Dave’s complete devotion to Linda and his certainty that she was the only one for him, speaks of true love.
Dale thinks, however, that adjusting to married life may have been difficult for Dave. Dave had to give up his independence and luxury of thinking more about ideas than reality. As a married man, Dave cannot make all the decisions himself. He must listen to Linda’s input.
In all the years Dale has known Dave, Dave frequently talked about the family’s difficulty with Ted. Dave began confiding his concerns for Ted in the late 1970’s, when both Dave and Ted were living at home. Dave was working at Foam Cutting Inc. with Ted Sr. and Ted. Dave fired Ted when Ted posted the limerick about Ellen Tarmichael. Dave told Dale that he did not understand Ted’s actions. Part of Dave thought Ted’s limerick was clever, but Dave
Dave was not ashamed of Ted. Ted Sr. was deeply ashamed, but Dave was not. He was angry that Ted had left him no choice, but he did not care what other people thought about Ted. This was typical of Dave.
Dale met Ted on two occasions soon after Dave fired Ted. Dale was visiting Dave, Wanda and Ted Sr. at their house in Lombard. Dale did this often, having become friends with Wanda and Ted Sr. through Dave. They had formed a book club. Once a month, Dale, Dave, Wanda, Ted Sr. and David and Shirley Hockbecker, two of Dale’s friends, got together usually at Dale’s house, to discuss a book they had all read. Dave usually spoke the most. He generally steered the conversation.
On the first occasion Dale met Ted, Wanda and Ted Sr., Dave and he were discussing Plato, in connection with something they had read in their book club. Ted came out of his room and said that there was no reason to read any early Greek philosophers like Plato because they had all been proven wrong. That was all Ted said before returning to his room or leaving the house. No one said anything.
On Dale’s second encounter with Ted, Dale, Wanda, Ted Sr. and Dave were sitting out in the living room at approximately 8:30 p.m., laughing about something. Ted came out of his room, which was located on the first floor near the living room, and told them that they were far too loud. He told them to be quiet because he had to work the next morning. He then immediately returned to his room. Again, no one said anything. No one apologized for Ted’s rude and bizarre behavior even though Wanda and Ted Sr. were obviously embarrassed. They all quieted down and Dale left shortly afterward.
Those two encounters were enough to convince Dale that Ted was mentally handicapped. On both occasions, Ted seemed severely disturbed. He never made eye contact, but just looked off blindly while he spoke. Even though he was lashing out at others, it was obvious to Dale that he was deeply troubled and depressed. Ted seemed truly unhappy. Dale saw in Ted’s eyes, and heard in his voice, an echo that suggested that Ted really wanted to participate in the social conversations but could not do it. Some part of Ted’s brain refused to allow him to live a normal life even though Ted wanted to. He was crippled, with no apparent inner resources. Dale thought that Ted was caught between wanting to live a normal life he was mentally ill-equipped to live, and wanting to live without society, which he could not do because he could not control society.
Dave told Dale that Ted had fits or spells during which he totally shut sown from his environment and did not speak.
Although Dale never met Ted again, he sent him a copy of an article at Dave’s request. Ted promptly sent a thank-you letter back informing Dale that he enclosed a check for the amount that he had calculated Dale spent reproducing the article for him. On another occasion, Dale gave Dave a map of Canada to give to Ted for a trip Ted was contemplating. Dave told Dale that Ted had been surprised by Dale’s warm gesture. Ted told Dave that no one had ever done anything like that for him.
Dale has seen behavior similar to Ted’s. Dale has an uncle who was an adult autistic. His uncle had no social ability to listen or direct questions. Ted’s inability to connect with his family or even have a conversation during those two encounters reminds Dale of his uncle. Dale had also read about schizophrenics, which reminds him of Ted.
Dale believes there is a concert of physiological, psychological and familial factors contributing to Ted’s mental illness.
Dale became friends with Ted Sr. and Wanda through Dave. He thought they were wonderful parents for having encouraged their children’s intellect. He credits Ted Sr. and especially Wanda for raising two intellectually gifted boys. Unlike Dale’s mother and father, Wanda and Ted Sr. hungered for more knowledge. They welcomed new ideas and thought deeply about politics and social issues.
Wanda and Ted Sr. were extremely frugal. Wanda and Ted Sr. agonized about making major purchases. It took them about two years to decide to buy the two recliners. The heat strongly affected Wanda, yet she never turned on the air conditioning unless someone else asked for it. It used to irritate Dave. He told her to turn it on , but she always insisted that it remain off if everyone else was comfortable. Dale had to tell her when he wanted to take a shower so that she could turn on the hot water. Every summer, Ted Sr. painted only one side of the house instead of painting all the sides, presumably because he did not want to spend one big lump sum of money. Their frugality was almost absurd. When they camped, instead of paying to pitch a tent or stay in a cheap motel, Wanda and Ted Sr. pulled over at a rest stop, put a mattress in the back of their wagon and slept there. They were in their 60’s and financially comfortable, yet they stubbornly refused to spend money on accommodations.
Dale admired Wanda and Ted Sr. for being so uninterested in frivolity or extravagance. They did not care about making a lot of money or having the nicest things. Dave inherited their disdain for wealth which is one of the qualities Dale admires most about Dave.
Wanda and Ted Sr. rarely talked about Ted when Dale first became friends with them, yet he always felt Ted’s absence. He was palpably not present as if Wanda and Ted Sr. wanted to ignore the fact that he was not there and in doing so, drew more attention to his absence. Dale offered an analogy. Wanda and Ted Sr., despite their neatness and organization, did not fix broken things. Instead of taking a broken chair to be fixed or throw it out, they let it sit in the spot it occupied while they adjusted their lives around or without it. It was the same way with Ted. They lived around Ted and without him, realizing he was broken but being unable to do anything to help or fix him except ignore him and hope he would fix himself.
Ted Sr. and Wanda ignored the warning bells that Ted’s sudden departure from Berkeley and his return to the family home should have raised. Wanda, Ted Sr. and Dave worried about Ted; later, Ted’s relationship with his family deteriorated. Ted Sr. visited Dale at his cabin in Wisconsin in the late 1980’s. He wanted to see if he could camp without Wanda. He confided to Dale about a wonderful relief it was to Ted Sr. and Wanda that Dave was born normal. He told Dale that Dave was such a light in the family compared to Ted.
When Wanda talked about how Ted wanted to cut off contact with the family, Dale saw the sorrow in her eyes and heard it in her voice. She worried about Ted’s health. She worried he might die and she would not know it. She worried that he might injure himself while backpacking and no one would know to look for him.
Dave also began to worry a great deal about Ted. He told Dale about Ted’s rigidity and his tendency to dismiss Dave. He asked for Dale’s advice as to how to reach out to Ted when Ted seemed to be pulling away from his family. Dale told him to keep writing Ted and to visit him if Ted allowed it. Dave told Dale of Ted’s decision to cut off contact with the family. Dave was distraught about how to reconcile his family.
Dale never told Dave that he thought Ted was crazy because Dale did not think Dave could hear it. Even if Dave had specifically asked Dale whether he thought Ted was crazy, Dale would have avoided the question and characterized Ted in the terms Dave had employed.
Dave’s family, Dale believes, was like the shelves Ted Sr. constructed. Neatly cut, square blocks of wood were stacked with one piece, resting perpendicular on another piece, holding up another piece, parallel to the bottom piece. It looked like a book shelf, but it was never nailed. The books balanced precariously on the shelves. From a distance, the shelves looked sturdy, but up close, the shelves were barely standing. All it would take to send the shelves tumbling was a simple push. Dave’s family was like that. On the surface, everything seened to be normal and well adjusted, but all it would take to expose the fragile and insufficient structure of Dave’s family was a little something out of the ordinary like Ted.
Fulton, TX
December 7–10, 1996
Hokan and Dave met in Great Falls, Montana around 1969. Hokan had been attending the University of Montana in Missoula and was contemplating changing his major from philosophy to a more marketable course of study like English or literature. Since this change required a number of additional courses and costs, he decided to stop attending school for a semester or two to earn some money, and he moved to Great Falls. He never returned to finish his degree.
Around the time that Hokan moved to Great Falls to find work, Dave began studying at a college also in Great Falls in pursuit of a teaching credential. At the time, Dave was highly excited, motivated, and idealistic about teaching literature to young children.
Hokan and Dave were introduced by Cosgrove, who was a friend of Hokan’s from the University of Montana and a classmate of Dave’s at the college in Great Falls. When Hokan met Dave, he knew immediately that he had met someone who was more than the average, well-educated young man. Dave was an exceptionally intellectual person. He talked constantly about philosophy, literature, his goal of becoming a teacher and what that meant to him.
Since Hokan was also a bright, young intellectual with a passion for discussing philosophy and literature, he and Dave became friends immediately. These intellectual interests formed the basis of their friendship. Dave’s intense passion for things intellectual was extremely rare, and Hokan felt fortunate to have met another bright young person who loved to engage in intellectual discourse. Dave was, and still is, the most intellectual, educated and well-read person Hokan has ever met. Dave really shined when he was engaged in intellectual discourse. The more he talked, the bigger his mind got. It was like you could see it expanding right in front of you. However, Hokan noticed that when discussions turned from intellectual to social, Dave became more reserved.
During the first few years of their friendship, Hokan and Dave saw one another almost every other day. They also spent a lot of time together with Albert Nicolucci. They usually talked at home, went fishing or went out for coffee and discussed philosophy and literature. At the time, Dave’s thoughts were consumed by the literary works of Joseph Conrad and the philosophy of Heidiger. Nearly every point in his intellectual and personal discussions with Hokan somehow related to Conrad or Heidiger. For as long as Hokan has known him, Dave has had extreme enthusiasms like this for a variety of subjects.
Hokan and Dave often carried these intellectual discussions on into the early hours of the morning. They frequently disagreed over matters of intellectual taste. For example Hokan was never able to swallow Heidiger’s philosophy, but Dave remained a devout student of Heidiger’s writings. Still, they were always able to respect one another’s points of view, and their disagreements usually provided opportunities for thought-provoking conversation.
Dave’s participation in these conversations and his fascination with Conrad and Heidiger show how he becomes completely captivated by certain thoughts and ideas. Hokan has a number of examples of this. The clearest is Dave’s fascination with living in the desert. When he first went to the desert, Dave described how important his life there was to him. He explained that in a city, the essence of life was corrupted by such a great degree of distraction and complication that it left him unable to continue intellectual pursuits.
Around the same time, Dave came across a Lionel Trilling story called _Of This Place, of That Time_. One specific phrase from the story, an existence without alloys, really resonated with Dave. Again, he found a way to relate nearly any topic of conversation to that phrase. It became another of his buzzwords. To Dave, an existence without alloys meant a pure existence. It was the ability to experience the very essence of life without any distraction or unnecessary addition. He clung to intellectual ideas and concepts like this to the point of obsession where he lived and breathed in the terms of the concepts.
Another example of one of Dave’s intellectual obsessions is baseball. He used to discuss baseball at length in almost poetic terms. He loved to talk about the struggles, the drama, the conflicts, the language and the artistry associated with baseball. He intellectualized baseball and tried to make Hokan and Jeanne see that it was much more than just a game. Dave took these conversations about baseball so seriously that both Hokan and Jeanne, neither of whom were baseball fans before knowing Dave, began to watch baseball in an attempt to see the art in it. Though they were unable to reach this level of appreciation, they did begin to root for the Braves, since that was Dave’s favorite team.
Another of Dave’s fascinations was spirituality. During the early years of his friendship with Hokan, he found spirituality in nearly everything he liked. Heidiger was spiritual. Conrad was spiritual, as was his book _Lord Jim_. The desert was spiritual. Phil Niekro, a major league pitcher, was spiritual. Dave also described to Hokan the experience of digging the hole in which he lived in the desert. The process of penetrating the earth and revealing its dark interior to the light of the sun had a spiritual significance to Dave.
Hokan thinks Dave is the most moralistic person he has ever known. He can recall very few times when he has seen Dave angry or upset, but each time involved a question of morality. For example, when Hokan and Jeanne went to Terlingua to visit Dave, they took a trip across the border to Mexico. Seeing the economic abuses of poor Mexicans in the border towns always upset Dave, and he told Hokan how the Americans who crossed the border to get half-priced Kahlua were exploiting the Mexicans. He also recalls having a conversation where Dave expressed the thought that we all have a moral obligation to help the starving, whether they are on our doorstep or on the other side of the world. Hokan thinks there is a highly moralistic strain to Dave’s intellectualism.
Hokan has never seen Dave angrier than when he and Dave both lived in Montana and a woman named Linda Erickson accused Hokan of getting her pregnant. Dave confronted Hokan and told him how angry he was at him for not living up to his responsibilities. Dave finally calmed down when Hokan explained that since it was possible that he was the father of the child, he intended to take responsibility for it. Linda later lost the baby in a miscarriage.
Dave never had any girlfriends during the early years of his friendship with Hokan. In fact he rarely even associated with women. He was generally shy and soft-spoken with everyone he met, especially with women. Hokan and some of his friends used to go out occasionally to bars, and they often tried to get Dave to come with them. Dave usually refused, saying that none of the girls at the bar would talk to him. Hokan does not remember Dave ever having a date with a woman, though Dave did mention a few times that he still had feelings for his high school sweetheart, Linda. Years later, Hokan and Jeanne received a wedding invitation from Dave, and they were both completely shocked.
Hokan recalls that Dave once had a rotting fish in his refrigerator for a period that lasted for over a month and possibly two months. Intending to cook and eat the fish, Dave kept it in the refrigerator, but he never got around to cooking it. At some point it became clear that the fish was rotting, so Dave completely stopped using the refrigerator. Hokan was not aware of this until one day when he was at Dave’s apartment and he was about to open the refrigerator, and Dave, in a frightened voice, told him not to open the door because there was a rotting fish inside. At first, Hokan thought that Dave was kidding, but he soon realized that Dave was serious. It was as if a monster lived in the refrigerator, and Dave was afraid to open it. This went on for a few weeks until Hokan finally announced that they would meet the next day and remove the fish together. When they finally did, the smell was horrible and the fish was being eaten by maggots. In a strange way, it was as if Dave liked having the fish there because there was something poetic about it. Living with a rotting fish seemed to take on a symbolic, literary significance to Dave.
In or around the Summer of 1970, Hokan met Ted. This was when Dave was still living in Great Falls, and Ted visited Dave there. Hokan had already heard a great deal about Ted from Dave. Dave deeply admired Ted and had told Hokan all about Ted’s academic accomplishments and about how he had once wanted to follow in Ted’s footsteps. Dave had even planned to study math until late in high school when he had a change of heart and fell in love with literature. Dave also told Hokan that Ted had been searching for land in the wilderness where he could live independent from society.
Before Ted and Hokan met, Dave made a point to explain to Hokan that Ted was very unusual. He thought it was important for Hokan to bare in mind that Ted did not know how to socialize. Dave’s warning put Hokan on the alert. When he finally met Ted, Hokan was prepared to meet an angry and aggressive individual, and he was pleasantly surprised when he found him to be the opposite. Ted was polite, and though he was never friendly or warm, he did engage in conversation. At times, he even smiled and laughed.
Still, Hokan could tell immediately that there was, in fact, something very unusual about Ted. Though Ted did talk and laugh, he also seemed to be deeply sad. As soon as they met, it was clear to Hokan that Ted was not a happy camper. There was something unaccountable about Ted that was very difficult to describe or understand. He could feel a strange sort of tension coming from within Ted. He seemed very uncomfortable in social situations, and he had a nervousness that made Hokan feel uneasy.
During the years Dave lived in Great Falls, Hokan saw Ted between seven and ten times. As always, Dave and Hokan discussed philosophy and literature, and Ted participated in these conversations when he was around. It was during these discussions that Hokan began to see how impaired Ted was.
Hokan liked the philosophies of Hegel and Kant, but Ted preferred a more scientific, materialist approach to philosophy. Hokan brought up Hegel’s concept of history as a growth of spirit, but Ted was unable to hear him out. Ted refused to talk about a vague, ethereal concept like spirit. He responded that there is no such thing as spirit. There is only truth and reality, and they are made of atoms, and if you look at them from a different point of view, they are still made of the same atoms. Unable to see beyond empirical terms, Ted insisted on discussing only things that you could see and touch. His perspective was purely scientific, and he wanted to eliminate the humanistic side from any philosophical discussion.
Ted became visibly upset whenever Hokan or Dave raised a point that acknowledged any kind of non-material reality. He became agitated, paced, got up, and even walked out, but he never presented an argument against the non-material points that bothered him.
This was surprising to Hokan because he was accustomed to disagreeing with Dave and exploring the issue of their disagreement. With Ted, this was impossible. His mind was rigidly categorical, and he could see things only in terms of black and white. When Hokan brought up Kant’s philosophy, Ted refused to hear about it, saying that he wanted to discuss the issue from a logical positivist, materialist perspective. This steadfast refusal to acknowledge opposing viewpoints seemed irrational to Hokan, especially from someone Ted’s age. He was much too young to be such a cantankerous guy.
When discussions arrived at this point, Ted became very abrupt and impatient. After they had their first philosophical conversation, Hokan realized that Ted was oblivious to other people’s feelings. Ted dismissed other people’s opinions abruptly without giving their ideas any consideration. Often, it seemed that there was no point in having a conversation with Ted. If anyone tried to bring idealism or a non-empirical perspective into a discussion, Ted became upset. Though he never got angry or verbally abusive during these discussions, Ted did become obviously distressed and paced around upon hearing opinions he did not agree with. It was more than just the discussion that bothered Ted. He seemed agitated when people held opinions that differed from his own.
Hokan knew that he had to treat Ted differently than others. He knew not to bring up issues that would upset Ted. Hokan was willing to give Ted this kind of leeway because he knew that when Ted was inconsiderate or dismissive, he did not act that way to be mean, spiteful, or hateful. This was clear to Hokan because Ted did not become violent, angry or verbally abusive. In fact, Ted was never aggressive or menacing at all, and Hokan was not afraid of him. Ted just refused to listen to whatever point upset him, and he left the conversation, or he became nervous and paced. He knew Ted couldn’t control this.
Because Hokan found it so difficult to predict how Ted would react, he felt as if he had to walk on eggs around Ted. He was forced to make extraordinary social concessions to accommodate Ted’s impairments. When talking with Ted, Hokan completely avoided any non-material subjects, even in the letters that he wrote to Ted several years later. Hokan also refrained from expressing views that differed from Ted’s, and he continually excused Ted’s unintended impoliteness.
Hokan felt that there was something profoundly irrational about Ted and about the way he routinely dismissed opinions different from his own. He found this very unusual, and after he had met Ted, Dave tried to tell Hokan why Ted was this way. Dave explained that, at a very young age, Ted suffered a traumatic experience in the hospital where he was separated from his parents. Dave said Ted still felt a deep sense of rejection from his experience in the hospital.
Still, Hokan was not sure if this explanation really accounted for Ted’s personality. Even bearing in mind this understanding of Ted’s past, Hokan felt that there was still something completely unaccountable in Ted’s behavior. There was a frightened, pained, and irrational element to his personality. It was impossible to predict how he would react to anything.
Hokan and Jeanne compared Ted to Jeanne’s brother Dan who was severely mentally ill and killed himself in 1984. In fact, Dave also knew Dan and saw a clear parallel between Dan and Ted. Dan had extremely rigid opinions and was often intolerant and impatient of divergent views. As Ted later did, Dan attempted to break off all contact with his parents. Dan was also very well-read, a bright student, and studied math before becoming disgusted with it and abandoning the subject. Dan had very strong political views and exhibited the same kind of unpredictable and irrational intolerance as Ted. Like Ted, Dan often seemed to be unaware of other people’s feelings. Dave, in fact, found Dan and Ted so similar that when Dan finally killed himself in 1984, he began to worry that Ted might do the same.
Jeanne found the similarities between Ted and Dan disturbing. Dan’s mental illness had caused a great deal of pain for him, for Jeanne, and for their family. She felt uncomfortable around Ted, since he reminded her of Dan. She felt that she already had one person with mental problems in her life, and she did not want another. Jeanne felt so strongly about this that she asked Hokan not to associate with Ted or even write to him, but she decided it was wrong for her to impose her views on Hokan. Instead she decided that she would have nothing to with Ted, and that Hokan could do whatever he wished.
The better he got to know Ted, the less Hokan was surprised that Ted lived alone at the edge of the Montana wilderness. Though it was common in the 1960’s and 70’s to drop out of society, Hokan never heard of anyone who stayed out of society for as long as Ted did. Ted’s lifestyle in Montana was not an attempt to be part of any movement.
During their conversations, Ted made it clear that he found modern society repellent. He once spoke of the problems associated with technology and also talked about the writings of Jacques Ellul, a French author who opposed technology. Ted also opposed a great deal of the social ideology of the 1960’s as well as the partying and indulgences that were part of the movements of those years.
It seemed to Hokan that Ted was making the right decision for himself because he did seem happy in Montana. He and Dave once stopped by to see him at his cabin in Lincoln and when they drove up, he was sitting by a fire outside the cabin. They approached and chatted, and Ted seemed very pleased. This is the most content that Hokan ever saw Ted. He told them very proudly that he was now able to live on sixteen cents a day.
On another occasion the three of them were talking about nature and Ted shared an account that he had just written in his journals. He told them about how he was out on a walk and he came across an elk that was caught between two trees. He was able to walk up to the elk and touch it. As Ted told them about this, it sounded almost mystical, and it was really touching since it came from Ted. Hokan felt that Ted was really sharing something important with him and Dave, and this was unusual for Ted.
Ted also once told Hokan about a philosophy course he took at Harvard from a famous professor named Quine. During one of the classes, Ted raised a point, and Quine dismissed it in a way that tried to belittle Ted and the point he was trying to make. When Ted was telling Hokan the story years later, he still seemed hurt.
Jeanne did not meet Ted until 1976, when she and Hokan moved to the Chicago area. When they first moved to the area, Ted was in Montana, so she and Hokan stayed in Ted’s room at Wanda and Ted Sr’s house in Lombard. After a couple of weeks, they found their own apartment and remained in Chicago for about six or seven months.
Ted’s room was very small and sparse with barely enough room for a bed. It had one painting that was just a blend of black and gray shades. The rest of the house was exceptionally spartan. According to Hokan this was common for people of Ted Sr and Wanda’s generation, since they had lived through the Depression. Frugality was important to them. Later, when Ted Sr. and Wanda went down to Texas to see Dave, they drove down, sleeping every night on a sheet of plywood they had lain across the back of their station wagon.
Both Hokan and Jeanne have fond memories of Ted Sr. and Wanda and the time they spent with them in Lombard. The Kaczynskis were very kind to Hokan and Jeanne when they were trying to start their lives together. Ted Sr. and Wanda gave them a place to live and eat and even found jobs for them at the foam cutting company where Ted Sr. was working. Jeanne still feels a deep gratitude to the Kaczynskis.
Jeanne recalls that, like Dave, Wanda and Ted Sr. truly valued intellectual thought and discourse. While she and Hokan lived in Chicago, they frequently discussed philosophy and also participated in a number of colloquies with Wanda, Ted Sr., Dave, and Dale Edwards. In the colloquies, the group selected ideas and topics in advance, and then met to discuss them. The subjects ranged from literature, poetry and art to philosophy, architecture and landscaping. Later, after Dave moved to the desert, the entire group met in Texas and continued the colloquies during their visits. Jeanne was thrilled to meet intelligent people who enjoyed discussing such thought provoking subjects. She still misses these colloquies today.
Hokan remembers Ted Sr. as a very intelligent, well-read, and self educated man, who was a supporter of liberal politics. He and Ted Sr. had a number of conversations about philosophy, and like Ted Jr., Ted Sr. was a strong proponent of empiricist views. He was very hesitant to acknowledge any sort of non-material reality. Hokan recalls a discussion they had where he struggled to make Ted Sr. see that there is more to a chair than just the physical pieces of which it is composed. There is also the concept of a chair, its role, its purpose and its utility which, though non-material, are an inextricable part of any chair. Unlike Ted Jr., Ted Sr. was able to participate in this conversation, and by its end, he actually agreed that Hokan’s point had merit.
Both Jeanne and Hokan considered themselves fortunate to have met such a remarkably intellectual family that enjoyed these engaging discussions. They truly valued learning, reading, and thinking. In this respect, the Kaczynskis were very completely different than Jeanne’s and Hokan’s own families. The Kaczynskis were the most intellectual family Hokan and Jeanne have ever known.
During the last month or two that Hokan and Jeanne were in the Chicago area, Ted Jr. came to stay with his family because he needed to make some money and was looking for work. (This was after Hokan and Jeanne found their own apartment and moved out of the Kaczynskis’ home in Lombard.) Before Ted came out from Montana, Jeanne had heard little about him. The family rarely spoke of him, and when they did, they only mentioned him in passing and referred to his academic achievements, papers and jobs.
Though Jeanne had heard very little about Ted, she was excited to meet him since the rest of his family was so interesting and had been so kind to her. She finally did meet him one night when she and Hokan were back at the Kaczynskis’ house for another colloquy. When he was introduced to her, Ted made a disparaging comment about her and about women in general. She was completely shocked, but the nature of Ted’s comment made her feel that there was no point in trying to get to know Ted. Later, when the group began the colloquy Ted participated at first, but Jeanne recalls that he soon disagreed with something in the discussion. He then became nervous and fidgety and kept getting up, walking out, and coming back to the conversation.
Later, Dave came to Jeanne and apologized to her for Ted’s comment. He also told her the story of Ted’s hospitalization.
Soon after he arrived in Lombard, Ted Sr. and Dave also got Ted Jr. a job at Foam Cutting Engineers. The company had about ten workers on each of three shifts, and Ted Jr. normally worked a different shift than Hokan and Jeanne. Occasionally though, Ted Jr. worked during Hokan and Jeanne’s shift.
Hokan knew that Ted did not have any friends at Foam Cutting. People saw his social deficits and viewed him as sort of an oddball. On the other occasions when Ted worked the same shift as Hokan and Jeanne, he went somewhere else for his lunch. A couple times, Hokan saw Ted out on the floor during his lunch, and he was climbing up tall columns by wrapping his arms and legs around the columns and pulling himself up. No one else ever did this.
Washington, D.C.
March 4, 1997
Dale is a tenured anthropology professor at Dartmouth. He is currently on sabbatical from Dartmouth having accepted a Woodrow Wilson Institute Fellowship. The Woodrow Wilson Institute gives fellowships to academics, policy makers and news writers to pursue their interests in an area of international relationships. Dale has written extensively about the Middle East, particularly Omar and the Arab Emirates. He will return to Dartmouth in June. Harvard is currently recruiting him but he does not know whether he will accept the offer.
Dale has worked with the CIA on a discreet project related to their organizational approach to negotiations with Arab countries. He speaks Arabic and French fluently and is proficient in Spanish.
Dale remembers Teddie quite well. Dale first met Teddie when they were in the same 5th or 6th grade class. They gravitated towards one another because they shared similar intellectual interests. In particular, they liked listening to Tom Lehrer records. Teddie and Dale rode their bikes over to each others’ houses to listen to records and play chess. Teddie usually beat Dale at chess. The worst thing that Dale could say about Teddie is that he moved chess pieces around while Dale was in the bathroom. Dale did not trust Teddie when it came to chess. Teddie also liked to let go of the rope during tug of war so that Dale ended up on his backside.
Dale liked Mrs. Kaczynski, Wanda, because she tried to encourage Teddie and Dale, when he was at Ted’s house, to think about a broad range of topics. Dale had never seen Scientific American on a coffee table until he visited the Kaczynski’s. Wanda took Dale and Teddie on outings to the Nature Preserves, the Chicago Art Museum and the library. Occasionally, Teddie got frustrated and angry with his mother. He did not say things like, shut-up Mom, or get out of my room, but rather said things like, I know you are speaking about me when you speak in Polish.
One incident in particular stands out in Dale’s mind. Teddie, Wanda and he were at the Little Red Playhouse in the Preserves. Wanda was pointing out different plant species and identifying them for the boys. Suddenly, Teddie whipped down his pants and said, about his penis, here Mom, here is another plant for you to identify. Teddie was 13 or 14 years old at the time, and post-pubescent because Dale saw his pubic hairs. Wanda responded by deflecting the issue. She said something like, It’s time to go home. Teddie never talked about the incident with Dale. Dale thought it was funny, but strange for Teddie to have done that. He does not know why Teddie did it, but he believes it was because Teddie was bored and frustrated with the lesson. Dale believes this because he felt bored and frustrated. Dale recognizes that Teddie’s behavior at the Little Red School House was out of the ordinary. This was the only time, however, that Ted’s behavior could be characterized as such. Teddie did not engage in any other inexplicable behavior in front of Dale.
When Dale stayed over for dinner, Ted Sr. and Wanda conversed in Polish when topics were of a personal nature, like talking about Teddie. They spoke in English when they engaged the boys in intellectual conversation. Teddie became frustrated when his parents spoke Polish in front of him and thought they were talking about him. Dale believes Teddie felt as if he were being cut out of the conversation, although Teddie never said that to Dale. Dale does not know what motivated Wanda and Ted Sr. to speak in Polish but when he and his wife want to anger their 13-year old daughter, they speak in Arabic.
Dale liked that Wanda and Ted Sr. never asked insipid questions adults routinely asked children, like, did you have a nice day at school? Instead, they asked questions designed to encourage intellectual discourse. Dale never saw Wanda and Ted Sr. fight with each other or yell at Teddie. Even when Teddie said something to his parents about speaking in Polish, they did not say, now that’s enough Teddie. Dale described Teddie’s home as not a house where tempers flared.
Dale went on to 6th grade while Teddie skipped it. One of the teachers, whose name he can not recall, later told Dale that the teachers debated whether to accelerate Dale as well. They decided that Dale should not be accelerated because he was physically too small. On the other hand, they felt Teddie appeared more physically mature and thus better equipped to handle a class of older children. Dale equates the rationale for the decision to accelerate or not as being one basically left to the gym teacher.
Despite no longer being in Ted’s class, Dale and Teddie continued to be friends. Dale believes that at some point in high school, he and Teddie were in the same class but he does not specifically remember being aware of Teddie in a class. Dale and Teddie were in the band together. Dale played the trumpet and then the french horn and Teddie played the trombone. They occasionally practiced together. No other children played with Dale and Teddie when they played together. In the 5th grade another boy, Dale Johnson, occasionally accompanied Dale to Teddie’s house, but after 5th grade no other children came with Dale or were present at Teddie’s house when Dale went there. Teddie did not have other friends during the time that Dale knew Teddie from 5th grade until Teddie’s sophomore year.
The basis of Dale’s and Ted’s friendship lay in their mutual appreciation for language and subjects not discussed in school. Dale believes he and Teddie enjoyed listening to Tom Lehrer records because they provided an escape from the boring and dreary life of Evergreen Park.
Dale did not like high school and imagines Teddie felt the same way. Although some teachers encouraged students and stimulated thought, most did not. Dale had an English teacher who knit during class and told the class she was only there because she did not want to teach Niggers in the suburbs closer to Chicago.
Teddie never told Dale his dreams, anxieties or aspirations. Teddie was not that type of friend. He did not emote or share feelings of fear, happiness or depression. As a youngster, Dale did not think Teddie’s failure to express his emotions was unusual, but he describes Teddie as being either without affect or having a flat affect. Teddie was the least emotive and expressive of Dale’s other friends.
Similarly, Teddie did not seem to relate to other people. He did not appear to have any friends other than Dale and he was shy around fellow classmates. Dale said Teddie was not the type of person one wanted in a human relations position. Similarly, Teddie never spoke about 1$ c girls, which was unusual in grade school, but not so unusual in high school. Dale has no idea why Teddie was this way, but he does speculate, having read more about Teddie since his arrest, that Teddie never had a close relationship in his life. Dale does not know, though, whether Ted’s failure to form intimate relationships stemmed from an inability to develop interpersonal skills or from a choice to disengage.
Teddie, however, was not destructive. Dale and Teddie did play with ammunition and explosives, but every kid did. It was common for young boys to experiment. Dale created an explosion in one of his classes. Ammunition, explosives and other materials were readily available to young boys. For instance, the ammunition factories in Chicago handed out ammunition to visiting boy scouts. Teddie was no different than any other boy in this respect. Teddie did not torture animals.
Dale saw less of Teddie in high school. At one point, they stopped seeing each other altogether, not because they had a fight, but rather because they were developing different interests. Dale became very involved in the Debating Club.
The last time Dale saw Teddie was after Teddie’s first year at Harvard. Dale was standing on 95th Street when Teddie and his father drove up to say hello. Dale invited Teddie over to his house. He was eager to hear Teddie describe Harvard because he was in the process of applying to Dartmouth. The thought of college both petrified and excited Dale. Teddie came over and Dale asked him almost immediately what Harvard was like. Teddie responded, Okay. Dale questioned him for over a half hour about college and Teddie never said a word. He remained non-responsive as if he had tuned out. Dale believes that Teddie felt slightly superior having experienced events Dale could not relate to and thus did not want to bother explaining. Finally, Dale got tired of asking questions and said that he had to run an errand. Teddie left and ^ Dale never again saw him.
Looking back, Dale is unwilling to say Teddie was out of the ordinary when Dale knew him. He acknowledges that Teddie had a flat affect, had no friends and never socialized but he does not want to speculate as to what that means. He wonders what happened to Teddie. He wants Teddie to know that he has thought about him over the years and that he wishes Ted well. He wants Wanda to know that his thoughts are with her and he remembers her warmly.
He was interviewed the day after Teddie was arrested by FBI agent Eglehof(sp?). An attorney hired by Dartmouth represented him. Agent Egelhof asked many questions about Dale and Teddie’s experiments with explosives and Teddie’s behavior. He also asked Dale if Teddie ever talked about girls or tortured animals. That is the only time the FBI interviewed him. Dale is no longer represented by the attorney, having made the decision not to retain his services. He understands that he could be subpoenaed and is amenable to that.
Dale has given one interview to the media, to the Illinois Southport Times, soon after Teddie was arrested. He feels that interview reflects his most honest recollection of Ted before his memories may (or may not have) been polluted by Ted’s media image. The media has since besieged him with requests for interviews, but he refused and will continue to do so. If he writes anything about Teddie it will be one of two things and not until the case is over. He might write about the politics of memory. Specifically, how both Teddie’s and the media’s desire to find a causal connection between behavior and events, invariably alters one’s memories of the past. He might also write about FBI profiles and how abused they are. He is more likely to write about the former than the latter given his inexperience with FBI profiles.
Lincoln, Montana
June 17, 1996
Terri has lived in Lincoln for about 20 years. She never talked to Ted but saw him in town all the time. He was almost always riding his bike (even in the winter) but was on foot occasionally as well. She thinks she saw him several times a month but less often during the winter. She remembers seeing Ted the first time shortly after she moved to Lincoln. He always looked scraggly, like a mountain man. People called him “the hermit up on the hill”. When she saw him in the grocery store she would try to avoid him because he smelled bad (like old clothes or someone who has been outdoors without a shower for a long time). There was nothing noticeable about him otherwise and she never paid attention to him. He always wore old clothes and an old coat in the winter. He looked the same throughout the years. She never saw him hitching a ride but people would pick him up occasionally when they saw him walking. He didn’t try to make conversation with her and didn’t seem to talk to other people either.
Chicago, IL
October 14, 1996
Bill lived upstairs from the Kaczynskis at 5234 South Carpenter Street.
The Foleys rented their apartment from the Kaczynskis. George Foley worked in the Stock Yards. The area around South Carpenter Street was a blue collar community. It was a very tight neighborhood and all the kids were very close. They all played softball together in the street. Bill does not remember Ted playing.
Sherman Elementary School was not a very good school. Children only went to Sherman if their parents could not afford to send them to Catholic school. Bill went to Catholic school. The community was mostly Polish and Irish and 99% of the families went to one of the three Catholic churches in the area. Activities for children, such as Little League and basketball was sponsored by the churches.
Lincoln, MT
June 15, 1996
Becky is the co-owner of Garland’s Town and Country on Highway 200 in Lincoln. She works in Helena at Hydro Tech. Her husband has a natural resources consultation and stream restoration firm. Becky is an environmentalist and activist. She’s a member of Trout Unlimited. Her father in Utah is also an active environmentalist.
Becky and a male friend were suspects when the FBI thought there was a conspiracy in the Unabomber case. She was born and raised in her current home, a log cabin behind Garland’s; she left to go to college.
She first noticed Ted in the late 70’s or early 80’s. She thought he was a goofball on a bike. Ted was unkempt. She never had a sense of being afraid of him or that he was dangerous or scary. She didn’t know enough to talk to Ted until about the last three years or so. She saw Ted in her store where he purchased necessities, and that’s when she first noticed he had an odor about him. Ted may have been as clean as he could get given his resources. She and the other clerks in her store tried to serve Ted as quickly as possible so he wouldn’t make other customers uncomfortable because of his odor. The first time she talked to Ted she teased him about having a mud streak up his back from riding his bike because it had no fender. Ted smiled and had a twinkle in his eye, and that started their half ass friendship. Becky was always the type to bring home the stray dog or the bird with a broken wing.
She always knew there was a lot more to Ted. She didn’t know how educated Ted was but she could tell he was not an idiot. There was some speculation he was the outcast from a wealthy family or a Howard Hughes kind of individual. Some people said he was B.J. Cooper, the fellow who jumped from an airplane a few years back with a bundle of money he had received. Rumors were fueled by the fact that he would leave town several times a year.
She first noticed how intelligent he was when he wrote a letter to the local newspaper, criticizing the editors’ punctuation and grammar. She could tell it was better than anything an English teacher could have done. She also saw a letter written by him a few years ago in the Helena paper about weed spraying that was very critical of it. Sometimes he talked in the store and sometimes he did not. He always seemed to be in a hurry. He bought paper, pens and sewing supplies.
4 or 5 years ago, he came in and asked her if she was married. It almost broke her heart when he asked her if she was married. She has a strong mother instinct. She told Ted she was married even though she wasn’t, and he responded, “you don’t know unless you ask.” Later within a month or so, he returned to the store and asked her if he could have some time to talk with her about something. She agreed, he eventually returned to town and they sat on her porch and had half an hour conversation. He handed her something between a letter and a resume that explained himself in his eyes. She skimmed it quickly. It talked about his schooling, his family, and his trouble fitting in, and asked specific questions about how to present himself so that he could find a companion. He was in his fifties. It was a very vulnerable letter and exposed himself a lot. He was asking her for advice on how to find a girlfriend. She gave him a few pointers. She no longer has the letter; the FBI asked her for it, but she couldn’t find it for them either.
She thought Ted came to talk to her about ways of finding a companion because she always tried to be friendly to him and make him smile and because she was known as an activist in environmental causes. He thanked her once for her environmental work, but she’s not sure when or what he was specifically referring to. Ted mentioned his need for a job, and she thought he’d be perfect as a researcher for the non profit groups she knew.
In the spring of 1993 or shortly after she opened a laundromat behind the store, she saw him in the laundromat the one and only time she saw him in the laundromat. He seemed uneasy and she thought that was a lot of money for him to spend. The entire event never set well with her. It was uncharacteristic of him to be washing his clothes because of the expense.
Lincoln, Montana
June 15, 1996
Teresa is co-owner of Garlands.
Her sister Becky came running in and told her right after Ted brought the letter, and they laughed about it. When you saw Ted, you thought, “ there was Ted”, and when you didn’t see him, you never thought of him in a gazillion years.
She tried hard to make Ted talk with her whenever he came to the store, but he just asked for what he wanted, paid for it, and left. She was not afraid to leave him in the store.
The only thing that was offensive was his smell; it was musky and dirty. All the clerks waited on him quickly if there might be someone else in the store. He was intolerable to the rest of the world. He came in the summer time. He never missed going to the library when in town. In the summer time, he came one time a week or once a month; it’s hard to say.
He sometimes paid with a check. He carried his check book in a bean bag buried in his backpack. His pen was nice. He took everything out meticulously. He bought necessities, like needles and thread. She does not sell soap or personal hygiene items.
She had eye contact with him. She once discussed current events with Ted. She was surprised he got into conversation and used complete sentences. She could tell Ted was well educated. She assumed he had a trust fund of some kind and was an old hippie who chose to fall off the face of the earth. Lincoln has a patch of Viet Nam vets who need to get their heads out of the bottle. Residents in Lincoln are used to seeing strange people in town, like the vets. Teresa can’t imagine Ted going near a bar.
He gave her seeds for his Wild Carrots, Big Yellow, 1992. He gave Teresa the seeds in 94.
Some say all the dogs wanted to bite him because of his smell.
*** &&& &&&Christina Gehring
Lincoln, Montana
June, 1996
Chris is Butch’s sister and lives on the ranch. According to her, Ted bought his property in 1971 from her father. Ted’s brother David was on the deed with Ted, so Chris knew that Ted had a brother. Chris used to come to Lincoln only in the summers but in 1979 she moved to Lincoln for good. Until 1979, she lived with her mother in Helena.
Chris said she saw Ted around, either on his bike or on foot (before he had his bike). She gave him a ride once because it was raining very hard. She said that he wouldn’t take a ride unless the weather was bad and that they did not talk all that much. Chris said that she rode horses by his cabin and that Ted would sometimes stand outside and wave. Other times he would scurry away from her so as to not be seen.
Lincoln, MT
June 14, 1996
Butch is Ted’s closest neighbor on the south side of the road and key FBI link that preceded Ted’s arrest.
Butch’s dad sold Ted land in 70 or 71, but Butch never met Ted until Butch moved up to Stemple’s Pass in the early 80’s.
Butch said Ted was not a molester although he had worried a couple of times about leaving his wife alone on the mountain years ago. Once he met Ted he was no longer worried. Butch and his wfie described Ted as unkempt, smelly, and dirty. Butch said Ted was eccentric and an introvert. He admired Ted’s physical condition, his strong legs, and his stamina. Ted was polite.
Ted used to go into town rarely, but in the last couple of years it was more frequent. Butch kept good track of Ted’s activities because he watched for his tracks in the snow. Butch and his wife occasionally stopped and asked Ted if he wanted a ride. He always had a backpack with him. Once when it rained, the couple saw Ted riding to town on his old bike. Ted wore a plastic rain hat made from an inverted grocery bag rolled up around the edges that made him look like an Arab, according to Wendy. He also had his back pack on. Ted did not have a chain guard so he always had one pants leg rolled up. He made quite a sight, and as they pulled up in their car next to Ted, Wendy wanted to say, “Nice hat, Ted.”
Ted became angry when he saw Butch and Lloyd spraying for knap weed (flowering thistle plant that takes over ground cover) up off the logging road. Ted said that it caused cancer, that he ate roots and berries and that he did not want them spraying around there. Ted was riled up. It was the only time he ever saw Ted angry.
One time Ted heard the daughter of Glen Williams and some of her friends in Glen’s and the Miller’s cabins down below his place, tearing them up and vandalizing. The youngsters were drinking, smoking marijuana, and shooting a gun. Ted came down to Butch’s cabin and used Butch’s phone to call Glen. Glen came out immediately.
Ted once asked Butch not to bum brush piles, but to leave them for Ted to use as firewood. Ted said that if they burned the piles, he’d have to leave because he wouldn’t be able to breathe. Ted promised to clean up after he used the bmsh piles. Butch and Wendy agreed that Ted had done a dam good job cleaning up the debris after he used as much as he could for firewood.
They never guessed that Ted was educated. Their 16 year old is having problems with math and they would have asked Ted to help had they known.
Butch gave Ted a job stripping posts, but Ted could not keep up and quit after a few days. He was very slow and would not take instructions from Linda Menard or Wendy, both of whom worked much faster than Ted. Ted stripped one pole to their five. Even though it was a warm day,Ted wore his green padded jacket; he must have been burning up in it.
Years ago, Ted gave Jamie painted rocks. Ted had a knack for kids and liked them.
Ted was a good neighbor and was never a problem.
Lincoln, MT
June 1996
Susie is Butch’s sister and lives on the ranch. She knew that Ted bought his property in 1971. She knew that Ted had a brother because once a book which came from David and was addressed to Ted accidentally ended up in her mailbox. Susie gave it back to the post office (or John Lundberg, who does the mail route) to have it sent to Ted.
Ted kept to himself. She would ride by his cabin on her horse and he just waved to her.
Tinley Park, IL
October 5, 1996
Jim graduated from Evergreen Park High School in 1959.
Jim was in Ted’s chemistry class at Evergreen Park High School. He was not a friend of Ted’s. They were acquaintances. Ted signed Jim’s yearbook in 10th grade. George Duba was Jim’s lab partner in chemistry. Jim does remember an incident in chemistry, but it was much smaller than the media made it out to be.
Ted was by himself a lot of the time, but he was not a loner. Jim sometimes saw Ted with the other smart kids. Many students called Ted the Brain. People talked about how intelligent Ted was and Jim had heard that Ted was trying to graduate high school in three years. Jim was impressed his senior year when he found out that Ted had in fact graduated early.
The majority of the families in Evergreen Park were working class. Jim was not pushed to go to college. Ted had more direction than most of the other students. School was easy for Ted.
Ted was different from everyone else at Evergreen Park High School. Most of the other students dated, but Ted did not. Most of the other students went to the prom and other social functions, but Ted did not. Ted was also in the band, and the band at Evergreen Park High School was made up of the kids that didn’t fit in. The kids in the band were considered nerds and geeks.
Ted was considered a geek by the other students. Ted looked different. He was smaller than the other students and he carried a brief case.
Ted was always polite. When Jim asked Ted a question or greeted Ted in the halls, Ted would respond. Ted did not initiate conversation. The only conversations that Jim ever had with Ted were about the subject matter of their classes.
Helena, MT
June 19, 1996
Anna Haire has been the manager of the used book store that Ted frequented for 15 years. Ted came into the store 6 or 7 times in the last year. She can’t recall whether he ever came in for two days in a row. The store keeps cards for frequent or regular customers which are marked off each time there is a purchase or a trade in. She doesn’t think that she ever bought books from Ted. Ted was considered a regular but not a frequent customer. There was no interaction between her and Ted when he was in the store. They never had a conversation and she didn’t get the feeling that Ted wanted to engage in conversation but she remembers him being polite. She thinks that he bought books on sociology and political science and never bought novels or &&& &&& &&& fiction.
He did not smell bad and she noticed no changes in him over the years. He wore old clothes, not really dirty, and a grey windbreaker and khaki old trousers. He did not ever look as &&& wild and unkempt as he did in the media pictures. She said that Ted in no way stood out.
Oak Lawn, Illinois
December 7, 1996
Matt Hansen was the principal of Central Junior High School from 1949 until 1957. After leaving Central, he went to work at schools with more troubled students. He first worked at Blue Island High School and then at Calamut High School. Eventfully the violence in the schools got to be too much for him and he retired in 1971. He has been retired for 26 years. He lives alone, his wife having passed away a number of years ago.
Mr. Hansen taught some science and mathematics classes, but he does not remember Ted. Nor does he remember Ted as a student whom he saw in his administrative capacity.
Mr. Hansen, however, only remembers the rambunctious students, the troublemakers. He did not see the good students, ones who abided by the rules, did their work and came to school. He did not have time to get to know the bright, eager students because he was so busy punishing the bad ones.
Students primarily got in trouble for being tardy and truant. On some occasions, Mr. Hansen had to hold students back because they skipped too many days of school. Sometimes, students got in trouble for beating on other students and for being bullies. The bullies harassed and stole things from the quiet, meek students. They threatened to beat up meek students if they did not give them their lunch money. They also broke into students lockers and stole their coats and other personal items.
When Mr. Hansen was principal, Central School did not have any programs for intellectually gifted students. They were placed in the same classes as the rest of the students. Mr. Hansen tried to provide more individualized teaching for gifted students by placing them with a teacher who he believed could inspire the children. For instance, he often assigned gifted students to Ms. Audia’s classroom. He did not give the teachers a curriculum for the gifted students. Rather, he left it up to the teachers to provide stimulating work.
Although accelerating a student — skipping the student a grade — was done more in those days precisely because there were no programs for the gifted students, Mr. Hansen was against the practice. He believes that students suffered by being placed in an entirely different social group they were too young to understand. Mr. Hansen believed that the school had a duty to educate the students socially. If the school accelerated a student, the school did a disservice to the student in failing to accommodate the child’s social needs.
He remembers many disagreements with Ms. Frye regarding students she wanted to accelerate and he did not. Ms. Frye was the curriculum director. She walked around from class to class observing students and teachers. When she saw a particularly bright student, she pushed to have him or her advanced. A child could skip a grade if the committee, of which both Ms. Frye and Mr. Hansen were members, decided it was appropriate for the student. If the child skipped a grade, there was no program to monitor the child’s progress. Nor was Ms. Frye responsible for checking up on the students or evaluating the student’s behavior.
Rockville, Maryland
December 12, 1996
Larry grew up in Schenectady, New York. He went to the public high school in Schenectady along with Keith Martin, who eventually became one of Ted’s Eliot House suite mates. Larry came from a working class family and paid for his Harvard education through a scholarship and an exhausting part-time job working in the Harvard Law School dining hall. He now lives alone in an apartment in Maryland and is employed by a computer business in Virginia doing software design and management development.
Larry was a math major at Harvard. He graduated from Harvard in 1963, one year behind Ted in school. He was one year older in age. During his freshman year, Larry lived with all of the other students in his class in Harvard Yard. Sophomore year he lived in Eliot House. Larry lived in H-44 and E-13, both of which are located far away from Ted’s suite. Junior and Senior year Larry lived in Claverly, a dormitory put to use to help house an overflow of students.
Larry remembers who Ted was at Harvard, although he can not remember ever having a conversation with Ted. In Ted’s autobiography, Ted describes Larry as one of his best friends. Even though Larry and Ted both majored in mathematics, Larry does not think that he had any classes with Ted. They may not have had classes together because Larry was one year behind Ted, but it is possible that Larry simply does not remember who was in his classes. Despite his major, Larry did not particularly like math and preferred to study English. In addition to the courses required for his major, Larry took mostly literature classes and earned a minor in English. During his freshman year, Larry bought a complete set of all Joseph Conrad’s books, which he still owns. In college, Larry was a devoted Conrad fan. He and Ted may have discussed Conrad, but Larry does not remember specifically.
During the time that Ted and Larry attended Harvard, there was a strict division between the students who came from public high schools and the students who came from private high schools, the Preppies. About half of the students were public school kids, and half were private school kids. The public school students came from working class neighborhoods, and were often the first in their families to attend college. They tended to be the brighter students, who had earned their own way to Harvard through their intelligence, but were paying for Harvard through scholarships and part-time jobs. The public school students did not dress as well as or possess the social skills that their private school classmates did. The Preppies tended to come from wealthy New England families. Their fathers had gone to Harvard, and they had all attended elite boarding schools. The Preppies were not as smart as most of the public school students, but they had a lot of money, nice clothes and social skills. One student, Eliot Scull, typified the ultimate private school Preppie. The Preppies either ignored or teased the public school students.
A low level of hostility existed between Preppies and the public school students. Taunting and teasing were generally considered childish by both sides, but the Preppies still liked to make an occasional cruel comment to a public school student. One student, David Newton, was not as smart as most of the other students at Harvard. He became easily confused and some people enjoyed toying with his confusion and insulting him publicly. The Preppies were also vicious toward students who lacked social skills. The Preppies enjoyed making catty comments about public school students’ lack of money. Their insults were very cutting. Ted was most likely at the wrong end of many of the Preppies’ rude comments. Larry bets that Ted must have suffered at Harvard.
Larry remembers one time a Preppie and a public school kid were dating the same woman. Larry overheard the Preppie say that he did not have to worry about any competition from the public school student because the public school student did not own a car. The Preppie then went on to call the public school student overly intellectual, unattractive, ugly, and socially inept.
Among public school students, athletics were frowned upon. Working out was viewed as a waste of time. Most public school students took more pride in their intellect than their physique. The students generally did not exercise, and those who did never discussed it, because working out brought scorn from the public school intellectuals. A few students owned weights that they kept in their rooms, but this was uncommon. Larry remembers one student, Lloyd Davis, who had weights, but he later flunked out of Harvard.
The public school students were made up of a variety of different ethnic groups. They generally got along with each other well, and one’s cultural or ethnic heritage was rarely an issue. Asian students and Jewish students did tend to separate themselves. Asians were friends mostly with other Asians, and Jews were friends mostly with other Jews. Larry is not sure who caused this separation. He suspects that Asians and Jews may not have felt completely accepted by their classmates. However, the separation was not exclusive. Most of Larry’s friends were Jewish, although Larry is not. The Preppies were all WASP’s, excluding anyone who was not a WASP from their inner circle.
The Harvard administration knew that the economic and social division between students was a problem. Larry heard from professors and a senior tutor that Harvard was trying to find a way to get the Preppies and the public school students together. But the division between the rich and the poor, between those who came from the social elite and those who came from the working class, was too rigid and too severe for the administration to break.
Each of the different dormitories, or Houses, at Harvard was like a small college in and of itself. They each had their own dinning hall and library. Eliot House was not Larry’s first choice for housing. In fact, he did not want to live there at all, because Eliot House was a place for Preppies and athletes, and Larry was neither.
John Finley, the House Master at Eliot House, was a famous character. He was a scholar of classical Greek literature, and preferred literature and art over the hard sciences. He had been the master of Eliot House for many years and his reputation tended to exceed reality. Finley had an upper-class way of speaking and he liked to use colorful phrases. For example, most of the Preppies went into money making fields that did not require much intellect, such as investment banking. Finley used to say about these students: “This is evidence of a C minus-ness of soul.”
Finley, unlike the rest of Harvard, did at least take notice of the students. He talked with students during dinner, acted in the House play each year, and made a great effort to write letters of recommendation for his students that proved helpful in their chosen careers. However, Larry felt that Finley was a bit too theatrical for students to be able to relate to. He had more style than actual intellect, and he was always very vague and theoretical in areas where facts were wanted. Larry does not imagine that Ted liked Finley, because Finley was all about image and impression, with little substance to his own soul. However, people at Harvard still talk about Finley, as though he is a legend.
During his last three years at Harvard, Larry ate all of his meals in Eliot House. Larry saw Ted most frequently at meal time. Dinner was a social center for a lot of students, a time to eat and chat with friends before studying. Each table in the Eliot House dining hall sat six people and there were two different types. At one type of table, everyone who sat together was part of a group. Either all six people had come to dinner together, or they had met in the dining hall, but were all close friends. The other type of table was made up of stragglers, people who were not really associated with each other and did not have any close friends who had come to that meal to eat with. A student who came to the dining hall alone was generally welcome to sit at a table of stragglers. It was odd for a single student to join people who were eating at a table as a group. Usually, Ted ate at a table by himself, but on occasion, Ted joined a table where other people were already sitting, but Ted did not participate in the conversation. Larry vaguely remembers sitting a few times at the same table as Ted. The times that they ate at the same table, Ted did not speak a word.
Dinner time conversation in Eliot House was usually very interesting. The students talked about their classes and debated the various concepts and ideas they had learned in class. Although Ted rarely participated, Larry thinks that Ted might have found many of their dinner time discussions interesting. However, many times the debates became the intellectual equivalent to a hard core slugging match. Those students with delicate egos did not last long. Many times, when students disagreed, the conversations grew fierce. No one cared about other peoples’ feelings when it came to the argument, and anyone who put forth an opinion was subject to attack. The more timid students often just sat at the table and listened. If a person did not understand the nature of the argument, or took some of the criticisms people offered personally, it was devastating to that person’s self esteem. Someone might yell, “you idiot,” meaning that a person’s statement was foolish, not that the person was foolish. A student who could not understand the nature of this type of social interaction, might have had their feelings easily hurt.
In addition to their more serious debates, the Harvard students covered a variety of conversation topics over dinner. They discussed politics (the public school students were Democrats and the Preppies were Republicans), literature, school, classes, gossip, Finley, and problems people had with dating or their families. The only thing that the students tended not to discuss at dinner was their more technical academic subjects. They never discussed their math and science courses. These topics were considered too difficult and too confusing. If a student only took math and science classes, or math and science were a student’s only interest, that student did not have anyone to talk with or listen to him.
Larry remembers Ted as being a friendly-looking guy. Ted was handsome and could have even looked like one of the Preppies, if he had tried to. He was, in actuality, less handsome than he appears in photographs, because of his expressions. Larry frequently saw Ted sitting at a table by himself with a peculiar expression of his face. Sometimes Ted looked normal, and then his expression changed and Ted looked strange.
Ted never seemed hostile. He was an inoffensive guy who dressed in a traditionally nerdy fashion. Ted’s clothes were old, tattered, and wrinkled. He wore the same thing day after day. Ted always seemed very quiet and withdrawn. He made small movements and minimal gestures. Ted was restrained. Ted was not a part of Larry’s, or anyone’s, circle of friends.
There were some activities in which everyone, except for Ted, participated. The winters at Harvard were nasty and frigidly cold. When spring arrived, after being cooped up inside all winter, all of the students, Preppies and public school types included, went into an enclosed courtyard area of Eliot House to played frisbee. Ted was the only one who never participated in this spring time ritual.
In theory, Ted should have been able to find a niche at Harvard. He should have been able to befriend some of the other public school students. There were lots of other nerdy students and plenty of nerd tables in the dining hall. Being a math major had a stigma attached to it. Math majors were nerds. But even Bill Waterhouse, another math student, who was a classic, socially graceless nerd, fit in easily. There was just something about Ted, something odd that was going on within him, that prevented Ted from being accepted by his peers.
Harvard was very hard if you were not adequately prepared. In the lecture courses, which included most math and science classes, the students were completely passive. All of the grades were based solely on exams, and the students never participated in class or had any interaction with the professors. The Harvard administration also ignored the students and their needs. At Harvard, each student was on his own. On the positive side, you had a tremendous amount of personal freedom. On the negative side, there was no one to help you, worry about you, or even take notice of you. The isolation that was accompanied a Harvard education made life difficult, especially for a sixteen-year-old kid.
Harvard was not a nurturing environment. It was a very remote place, where it was easy to become isolated and lonely. The students felt as if they were in their separate world of academia. Each student was on his own, and a sink or swim attitude prevailed with the administration and the other students on campus. There may have been a psychologist on duty in the infirmary, but psychological help or counseling was never offered forthright to the students. Larry does not know any student who took advantage of whatever minimal psychological help Harvard may have offered to its students. Harvard assumed that their students knew what they were doing and expected them to take the initiative in seeking help, but very few did. No one ever came to the students to ask if they were having problems, or to see if anyone was in need of assistance. Students like Ted did not receive help from anyone.
Many of the students who flunked out were not stupid. Most had personal problems or simply could not take the pressure that Harvard generated. There were times during his years at Harvard that Larry was extremely lonely and felt as though he had no avenue by which to improve his life. Even now, Larry regrets the lack of support Harvard provided.
Many students also felt pressure because Harvard sent their grades directly home to their parents. Parents typically drove their child to Harvard in the fall and then had little contact or feedback from the school until the grades arrived at the end of the semester. The public school parents were left out even further, because Harvard spent most of their time and effort tying to please the Harvard alumni whose private school children were now attending Harvard.
Even the professors did not care much about actually teaching their students. The professors presented their knowledge during lectures, and it was up to the students to learn it on their own. The math and science courses involved more independent work than most of the courses in other areas. In math classes, a small number of hours were spent in the actual classroom. Most of the work was done on your own, outside of class, or with a study group of other students. One problem set might require up to eighteen hours of work. Most math students studied together in a group, but Ted most likely worked alone. Larry had a friend, Peter Bearse, who he studied with because they were having trouble in the same course. Math and science courses also functioned on a rigorous grading curve, meaning that a large percentage of the students in each class failed or did poorly.
Academically, Harvard was extremely competitive. A high percentage of Harvard students were valedictorians of their high schools. Most students had big egos. They were used to being the smartest and the best and competed viciously with each other for this honor at Harvard. It damaged students’ pride to ask for help, and since they were in direct competition with each other, students rarely offered help to their classmates. Larry felt that he was as bright as most of his classmates, but he, unlike the other students, did not feel the need to try and beat everyone else academically.
Larry remembers one typical incident. Radcliffe students and Harvard students shared the same classes. One day, during one of Larry’s science classes, a Radcliffe student had a complete disaster. Throughout the semester the students were required to do an experiment that required a series of steps. The experiment required that you wait a certain period of time, days or weeks, between each step. In one of the final stages of her experiment, the Radcliffe woman dropped her experiment, breaking the test tubes and splattering her results all over the floor. She most likely failed the course because there was no possible way she had time to repeat the experiment. The other students in Larry’s class laughed because they were happy that she would be bringing down the curve.
In order to survive, Larry focused on activities outside of his studies which made the academic pressure more bearable. He was a member of the chess team, and was very involved in writing his own musical scores. Larry does not remember Ted participating in any activities outside of class. Ted usually seemed as though he was off stage, isolating himself from the normal, daily activities that comprise college life.
Another outlet from the pressure at Harvard was dating. However, money was a huge factor in the dating game, and if you didn’t have any, like Larry, Ted and many other public school students, you did not participate. Harvard students dated women who were studying at either Radcliffe or Wellesley. Radcliffe women were known as “Cliffies” and were considered dull and bookish. Wellesley women were considered good looking and socially adjusted. Dating Wellesley women required that you possess nice clothing, social graces, and a car. The public school students had none of these things, but many of the Preppies kept separate apartments in Cambridge where they parked their cars and entertained their dates. The public school types dated Cliffies, but it is doubtful that any of the Cliffies, who had plenty of misfits of their own, ever considered dating Ted. Ted was just too weird.
At Harvard, it was considered rude and obnoxious to brag about your grades. Students generally only complained that they were doing poorly, and rarely boasted about doing well. Larry never volunteered his own grades, but generally, all of the students knew what type of grades everyone else earned. Ted struck Larry as a quiet, hard worker, but Ted was by no means a star in the math department. Most of the students in math knew who the true mathematical geniuses in their classes were and Ted was not one of them. For example, Bill Waterhouse, who is now a math professor in Pennsylvania, and Paul Chernoff, were mathematical stars. Ted was obviously bright, but if he was a genius, Larry would have heard much more about Ted within the math department at Harvard.
Larry has no recollection of any Harvard students he knew being involved in research projects at Harvard. Larry vaguely remembers Kenneth Kenniston, a sociology professor, although he did not take any of his courses. Larry remembers that Kenniston was known for his left wing political views.
Missoula, MT 59803
November 22, 1997
Dr. Heitz is a dentist who travels to Lincoln once a week from Missoula to offer his services. Ted first came to Dr. Heitz’s office in 1984. Ted was missing a front tooth so Dr. Heitz made a removable tooth for him. Ted was an extremely quiet person, so quiet that Ted appeared odd. Ted was a kooky man. He was obviously a hermit who made a conscious effort to avoid society. Dr. Heitz was unable to pinpoint what specifically gave him this feeling; it was just a general feeling he got from him. Dr. Heitz knew that Ted lived outside of town but had no idea where. Ted looked like he spent a lot of time outdoors. Dr. Heitz pictured Ted living in a log cabin surrounding himself with books.
Dr. Heitz saw Ted around three to five times over the years. During one visit Dr. Heitz noticed that Ted was not wearing his front tooth. When Dr. Heitz asked him why he was not wearing the tooth, Ted responded that he only wore it when he traveled.
Ted must not have had much money because his mother usually paid his dental bills.
Ted always rode his bike into town, even in the winter months. Dr. Heitz did not have many conversations with Ted as Ted did not talk much.
Hill Williston, North Dakota
April 14, 1997
Sandra Hill was a co-worker of Ted’s at the Kibby Korner Truck Stop.
Sandra is 42 years old. She has worked for the past 10 years at the Williams County Social Service Office in Willison, North Dakota, as an Eligibility Worker, determining how much money the county can provide to poor people who need money in emergency situations. She moved to North Dakota from Billings, Montana, 13 years ago to study drafting and interior design. She has been married three times and has a 16 year old daughter named Heidi with her second husband, Michael Young. Sandra’s first two husbands, Ronald Kerouac and Michael Young physically abused her and her third husband, Stacey Hill, is an alcoholic. Sandra and Stacey divorced last fall. Sandra currently lives on a ranch about 10 miles out of town with her new boyfriend, a truck driver named Dave Smithberg.
Sandra Hill worked with Ted for approximately two weeks at the Kibby Korner Truck Stop in Raynesford, Montana, during the summer of 1974. Sandra was 19 years old and a student at the University of Montana in Missoula. She had not yet married and she used her birth name, Boughton. Sandra grew up in Raynesford, Montana.
That summer Sandra worked at Kibby Korner Truck Stop pumping gas and working on trucks. Sandra was skinny and she had a short butch-style haircut. She was a tomboy and frequently people came into Kibby Korner and asked her if she was Joe Visocan’s (the owner of Kibby Korner) son. Joe Visocan always hired one girl during the summer, because he thought that a girl’s presence made the boys he hired work harder. In the 1970’s, Kibby Korner was a booming business. Sandra worked at Kibby Korner for the entire summer in 1974. She lived with her parents, Harry and Vivian Boughton, in their home about 7 miles away from the truck stop.
Ted was very strange and he expressed opinions with which Sandra disagreed. Ted always wore a mechanic’s uniform, whereas all of the other employees wore jeans and t-shirts. The mechanic’s uniform Ted wore was not supplied by Joe Visocan or Kibby Korner Truck Stop. Ted had short hair and was always clean shaven. Ted never laughed or joked around like most of the other employees did. Sandra never even saw Ted smile. Ted was very serious. He always stood very erect, like he was a soldier, and when Ted walked he held the upper half of his body very straight. Ted usually looked extremely tense.
Raynesford was a small town and Sandra had limited experience in the world. Ted was in his early thirties, 11 years older than Sandra, when Sandra met him. To Sandra, Ted seemed like an old man. All of the other workers were teenage country kids like Sandra. Ted sometimes made little mumbling comments about things under his breath. Sandra cannot remember specifically what Ted said.
Ted slept in the bunk house behind Kibby Korner. He did not have a car and on his days off, he rode his bicycle along the highway. Sandra did not know where Ted was from, or anything about his past.
One day Sandra and Ted were standing outside when an airplane flew overhead. Ted pointed at the plane and remarked that it was the worst thing ever invented, because it polluted the air and made people move too fast. Sandra knew about the environmental movement so she did not find this comment too strange. However, Ted’s comment did annoy her. Sandra felt that there needed to be a balance between the environment and human needs. When Sandra expressed her feelings, Ted seemed to stick with his opinion rigidly. Ted did not listen to Sandra’s ideas. He was completely inflexible. Sandra does not remember any other specific conversations she had with Ted. She only remembers that contact with Ted usually left her feeling annoyed.
At the end of the summer, Sandra left Kibby Korner to return to Missoula and resume her studies at the University of Montana. Sandra did not know when or why Ted stopped working. About a month and half after school started, Sandra received a letter from Ted. Sandra had no idea that Ted had any interest in her and she was surprised to receive mail from him. The return address on the letter was Ted’s address on Stemple Pass in Lincoln. In the letter Ted asked Sandra if she wanted to move to Northern Canada with Ted to live in the wilderness and be his squaw. Ted wrote that because of the environment, he wanted to get as far away from civilization as possible. Ted thought that Sandra would make a suitable companion for him. He said that marriage was optional. Sandra was not in any way scared or insulted by the letter. When Ted asked Sandra to be his squaw, Sandra assumed that Ted was asking Sandra to be his partner or spouse. Sandra did think that Ted’s letter was very strange. Ted had never indicated any interest in Sandra in the past, and because she was so boyish looking, Sandra was surprised that Ted showed interest in her now. Sandra also found Ted’s approach both amusing and disturbing. Ted’s letter had no romantic aspect to it at all. Ted seemed to think that Sandra was a suitable mate because she was physically fit and liked the outdoors. Ted’s letter was polite and civil, but completely emotionless. The letter was more of a business proposition than a love letter. Sandra did not respond.
A few weeks later, Sandra received a second letter from Ted. The second letter was somewhat of a resume. Ted described his physical attributes and told Sandra about his academic degrees. Ted wrote to Sandra that he might not appear flashy, but he was actually quite physically fit. Ted wrote that he had gone to Harvard and been a successful mathematician. Sandra, having grown up on a ranch, was not impressed that Ted had gone to Harvard and did not think his education was all that impressive or important. She remembers thinking, so what, stupid city boy? Once again Ted’s approach seemed completely scientific and rational. Sandra did not feel that Ted had put any emotion into what he was writing. Sandra did not respond to Ted’s second letter. Sandra thought about writing Ted, but she felt that Ted might misunderstand anything she wrote back to him. Sandra did not know what to say to Ted. Ted did not seem to understand normal social interactions, and Sandra worried that if she wrote Ted saying that she was not interested in him, Ted would think that the simple fact that Sandra had written to him, meant that she was leading him on. Sandra thought that if she ignored Ted, he should understand she was not interested in his proposal.
A few weeks later, Sandra received a third letter from Ted. In the third letter, Ted seemed hurt that Sandra had not responded to his first two letters. Sandra was not frightened by the third letter, but she did think it was very strange and she became concerned. Sandra was so concerned about the third letter that she went to her dorm mother at the university, an older woman who has since died, and showed her Ted’s letters. The dorm mother felt extremely sorry for Ted. She told Sandra that Ted obviously cared deeply for her, and that Sandra must respond to his letters. Sandra sat down and wrote Ted a response. She told Ted that she had not responded to his proposal because she liked civilization and wanted to remain living in society. Sandra knows that she wrote Ted a letter, but she cannot say for certain that she ever mailed the letter.
Sandra read Ted’s letters out loud to many of the women in her dorm, although she cannot remember specifically who. They all thought that the letters were weird and odd. In one of the letters, Ted wrote that perhaps Sandra was laughing about him with all of her friends. When Sandra read this passage she was laughing about Ted with her friends, and sadly, Ted’s recognition of this fact, only made them laugh harder.
Ted’s letters worried Sandra, but Sandra never felt in danger. She was upset because she thought that Ted had found her address in her employment records at Kibby Korner. She did not think it was right for Ted to look at her employment records, but nonetheless, she never felt afraid or threatened by Ted. In fact, if Ted were to walk into Sandra’s office today, she would not be afraid of him. Ted was not a threatening person. He always seemed harmless.
A few years ago Sandra was going through some of her old books and papers from college. She found Ted’s letters in the front of one of her old history books and threw them out.
Sandra now feels a great deal of sympathy for Ted. Through her job in social services, Sandra has met many people who have various psychological, emotional, and financial problems. Sandra has read that Ted suffered a lot of rejection at Harvard, and she thinks that Ted must have had a very difficult time adjusting to such an elite school since he was so young and he came from a working class family. Sandra’s family is one of only two families in Raynesford that are not Catholic, so Sandra knows how difficult it is to feel isolated. Sandra thinks that Ted’s extreme intelligence, coupled with his inability to socialize normally, drove him crazy. Several people have suggested to Sandra that perhaps her rejection of Ted pushed him over the edge. Sandra does not know what effect she might have had on Ted’s behavior.
Hauppatuag, NY May 7 & 8, 1997
Wanda Lois Dombek Hockaday is the second child and only daughter of Fred Dombek and Lois Rosencrans. Wanda H.’s older brother is Fred Dombek Jr. Only one of Wanda H.’s younger brothers, Ed, is still alive. Steve, her other brother, died in 1968, at the age of 17. He was run over by a car at 3:00 a.m. while walking back to the navy base at Oso, WA. He was stationed there.
Wanda H. was born in Chicago, Illinois, on March 12, 1941. She remembers they lived near Congress Street. The neighborhood was primarily Italian Catholic. Most of the children attended private Catholic schools located in the neighborhood. Wanda H. and her brothers attended public school located far from their neighborhood. The majority of Wanda H.’s classmates were black.
Wanda H. remembers talking about going on a boat trip with Ted Sr. and Wanda. She stayed over at Ted Sr. and Wanda’s house once. Wanda put a heavy feather comforter on top of Wanda H. Wanda H. thought this was strange and she told her mother, Lois, that her aunt Wanda had put a mattress on her.
Fred worked in the tool and dye industry. At one point when Wanda H. was fairly young, Fred worked two full time jobs. She suspects he worked over 40 hours in each job because she hardly saw him at all. Fred worked so hard that he developed a double ulcer. The whole family had to move temporarily to Colorado, where members &&& &&& of Lois’s family lived, so Fred could convalesce. After Fred had recovered the family returned to the Chicago area. She hiked in the forest preserve with her father and her brothers.
Wanda H.’s family moved to California so her father could find work when she was approximately 8 years old, around 1950. Fred Jr. was 12 years old , Ed was 5 years old and Steve was 3 years old. The family drove. When they arrived in California, they moved into a trailer park in El Monte. Once Fred found work, they moved to a small house on the border between Covina and Baldwin Park. That is when John Dombek, Fred’s father and her grandfather, moved in with the family. John did not speak English and only spoke Polish. He sat on the front lawn, in a lawn chair not saying anything. Occasionally he asked Wanda H. for some “soupa,” which meant soup. The only person he spoke to was Fred, who also spoke Polish. Fred never translated for the family.
John tried to commit suicide when he lived with Wanda H. and her family. She was approximately 9 years old. John slit his wrists in the afternoon, around the time Wanda H. and her brothers were coming home from school. Fred Jr. discovered him. By the time Wanda H. got home, John had already been taken to the hospital. Fred Sr. immediately put John on a plane for Chicago after he was released from the hospital. She never saw John or heard about him again.
After John left, in approximately 1952, Fred uprooted the family again to move to Ohio for a job in the tool and dye industry. They did not stay long in Ohio before returning to California when Wanda H. was approximately 10 years old.
Fred cut off all contact with his family after John tried to commit suicide. Fred never said anything bad about his brothers and sisters in front of her, but he did not speak about his family. This was normal for Fred. Fred did not communicate his feelings. He was a quiet man who did not speak about his emotions. He was around the house so infrequently, it was like he was not even there. He worked so much, both in Chicago and in California, that he was not involved in his children’s lives. Fred drank beer.
Fred was the disciplinarian. When Wanda H. was young, he used to spank her hard with a belt. Lois saw the bad things Wanda H. and her brother had done, but it was Fred’s role to hit the kids. Wanda H. spanked her children, but she never took a belt to them. She thinks that is wrong. She realizes that it was common for parents to discipline their children with a belt, but she thinks it was wrong for her father to have done that. If any of Wanda H.’s children beat their children with a belt, Wanda H. would be extremely angry and upset.
Fred never talked about his past when Wanda was young. As she got older, he started telling his family more about his background. His mother beat her children. She also drank and ran around with men even though she was married. Fred left home at 14 years old so that there would be one less mouth to feed. He roamed the country, taking odd jobs when ever he could talk his way into one. He worked in the tool and dye industry. He also got jobs as a sheepherder and a fireman on a train.
Fred was a democrat, but he was not politically active. He voted democrat because working men were democrats and rich people were republicans. Wanda H. is a registered democrat, but she does not follow party lines. Fred was not religious. He never went to church. He never forced the children to go to church. Wanda H. and her brothers were not raised Catholic. They were raised without religion. Fred and Lois told the children to choose their own religion. Wanda is not religious.
Wanda H.’s family settled in Azusa when they returned to California in the mid-1950’s. Fred continued to work in the tool and dye industry and Lois began working. Wanda H. became like a second mother to her brothers, Ed and Steve. She was responsible for looking after them when they came home from school.
Wanda H. liked living in California more than Chicago. The weather was better and people were more friendly. There was also less fear of nuclear war in Southern California than in Chicago. In Chicago, Wanda H. had to dive under her desk at school when an alarm went off signaling a mock air raid. There were no such drills in California. Wanda H. never saw a fallout shelter in California.
Wanda H. graduated from Azusa High School as did her brothers Ed and Steve. Fred Jr. went to Covina High School. He dropped out around his junior year. He worked for two years before returning to night school to get his GED. When Wanda H. was in high school, in approximately 1958, Fred opened up his own print shop, called “Dombek’s.” It was located in Irwindale, CA. Fred printed up business cards, placards, letterhead and pamphlets. He worked mostly alone. Occasionally, Lois assisted him.
Wanda H. married in 1959, when she was 18 years old and still in high school. Her husband, Bob Greer, was 6 years older than Wanda H. She had her first daughter, Nanette, almost immediately. Her second daughter, Rhonda, came a year later and her third daughter, Shelley, a year after that. Bob was an alcoholic. He barely worked and was often out of the house for long periods. When he was home, he lay on the couch and called to his daughters to bring him a beer. He was emotionally abusive and mean.
Wanda H. was pregnant with her fourth child, when Steve was killed. Navy personnel called Lois and told her that Steve had been run over by a car in a hit and run accident. The family was devastated. Wanda H. was so distraught, she miscarried. Lois went into a deep depression. She might never have recovered had Wanda H. not started hemorrhaging after a botched D & C. Wanda H. did not know she was hemorrhaging. She came home from the hospital and felt weak, but did not think anything of it. One day later, she passed out while taking a shower. Her daughters called Fred and Lois and they rushed her to the hospital. She lost a great deal of blood. The crisis brought Lois out of her deep depression by making her realize she had other children.
Wanda H. and Bob were extremely poor. They lived hand to mouth and moved constantly because Bob kept skipping out on the rent. Wanda H. occasionally worked at her father, Fred’s, print shop, Dombek’s, so that her girls could eat. Fred and Lois were unable to help Wanda H. because they did not have enough money themselves.
Wanda H. became depressed. She developed hives and cried at the drop of a hat. She did not know what to do. Around that time, Helen Reddy’s song “I am Woman,” became popular as did another song, “One Day at a Time.” Wanda H. began singing “One Day at a Time” to herself over and over, everyday. Eventually the hives disappeared and she stopped crying. She credits the songs for helping her persevere. Wanda H. does not dwell on the past or think about it at all which is why she has so few memories of her youth. She lives only for today and the future. She lives her life one day at a time with no regrets about past events.
Wanda H. was thirty years old when she learned to drive and got her license. It liberated her. She found work and began supporting herself and her daughters without Bob’s help. She left him in approximately 1978. She was 37 years old. Wanda H. married Stacy in 1982. They just celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary.
After Wanda H. and Stacey married, Wanda H. continued to work at Baxter Industries. In the course of nine years, she worked her way up from machine operator to assistant purchaser of parts. She quit when Stacey was transferred to Upland, IL. Stacey was an operations manager for Baxter. He was sent to various plants around the country to help the manufacturing plants reorganize. While Stacey was working in Upland, Wanda H. got her real estate license in California. She visited Stacey for two weeks of every month. Wanda H. tried selling houses for awhile, but she did not like it so she quit. She has not worked since approximately 1988. Stacey was sent to work at a plant in Mexicali, Mexico, after finishing the job in Upland. He and Wanda H. lived in El Centro, near the border.
From Mexicali, Stacey went to work in Riverside, CA. Wanda H. and he bought a house in Moreno Valley, thinking that they would be in Riverside for awhile. Unfortunately, Baxter refused to promote Stacey any further because he did not have a masters degree in management. Stacey quit and took a job in Sunnyvale. That job quickly fell through, but he was able to find another job with Trim Industries. Wanda H. and Stacey lived in Beaver Creek, in the hills near Santa Cruz. Wanda H. loved living there. Both she and Stacey love hiking and camping. Their house in Beaver Creek was surrounded by trees and wilderness. Wanda H. and Stacey were there for a few years before Stacey’s company folded. They moved down to southern California and lived with Wanda H.’s daughter, Rhonda, until Stacey found the job he currently has as a plant manager for a medical manufacturing company.
Wanda H. and Stacey have just found a house they want to buy in Long Island. The house is large enough to accommodate Wanda H.’s youngest daughter, Shelley, and her three children should they decide to move east. Shelley is divorced and can not afford to live in a nice neighborhood in Los Angeles. Her two youngest children are small and she does not want to raise them in a crime ridden environment.
Wanda H.’s second daughter, Rhonda, has two children. Wanda H.’s eldest grandchild, Annette, Rhonda’s daughter, is going to graduate from high school this spring. Wanda H.’s eldest daughter, Nannette, has never married.
Stacey’s brother is manic-depressive. A few years ago, he began shooting a gun wildly in the air in the midst of an episode. Stacey had to face the fact that his brother was radically different than Stacey even though they both grew up in the same environment. Stacey’s experiences with his brother helped Wanda H. see that Ted may be ill in a way that has very little to do with who she is.
Mokena, Illinois
January 14, 1996
Keith graduated from Evergreen Park High in 1959. Keith barely remembers anything about Ted. Keith associated with the more popular crowd at Evergreen Park High and did not take much notice of Ted.
All the students at Evergreen Park were aware that Ted was brilliant. Ted had been double promoted and was in all the accelerated classes. Ted was an egghead who must have associated with other eggheads. The eggheads must have been teased quite a bit in high school but Keith cannot remember what exactly was done to them.
Keith was in Ted’s chemistry class in 1957. One day in chemistry lab class, Keith put a mixture of ingredients together which caused a small explosion. Someone in the class must have told him which ingredients made this explosion but he cannot remember who it was. The explosion was small, no windows were blown out, and no one was hurt. Keith does not remember much more of the incident except that it was not a big deal like the media stories made it out to be.
Oakland, California
June 4, 1997
Harriet Hungate was a graduate student of Ted’s at U.C. Berkeley. Harriet received a masters in mathematics from U.C. Berkeley in 1969. Harriet received her bachelor of arts degree from U.C. Berkeley and then began a Ph.D. in philosophy. She dropped out of the Ph.D. program after two years. She went to work in the computer science field and eventually ended up teaching classes for IBM. She enjoyed teaching, so she decided to go back to school and earn a masters. She decided to get a masters in math because it was the only subject that interested her. In order to be enrolled in the graduate program at U.C. Berkeley, however, Harriet had to complete a masters in science. It took her four quarters of undergraduate math before she was accepted into the masters program.
The study of mathematical principles can be broken down into two main fields: applied math and pure math. Applied math refers to the study of mathematical principles that are concretely related to technological and economic development. Pure math refers to the study of abstract mathematical principles that generally do not have any practical application. Harriet received a masters in pure math which was unusual. A student who studied applied math needed only a masters to apply for and receive good high paying industrial and technological jobs. A masters in pure math, on the other hand, was considered useless. Harriet’s fellow students did not understand why she wanted to teach high school when she could get a Ph.D. and teach in a university or college.
Harriet took Ted’s Topology Spaces, 202B, in 1969. Ted was a rigid teacher who taught by the books. He came into class and immediately started writing on the chalk board. He rarely made eye contact with the students. He did not make jokes or reveal anything personal about himself nor did he invite students to share personal details. Ted was remote and distant from the students. Ted was not mean or intimidating; he was just reserved and disengaged. Harriet never saw him speak to a student before or after class. She never saw him speak to another professor.
Ted dressed conservatively. He wore a suit and tie. Harriet only saw him wear one, light colored suit. He wore it every time he taught. There were two camps of math professors at U.C. Berkeley at that time. There were professors who had long hair, dressed casually and were very politically active in protests and then there were the professors who wore more traditional clothes and who were not politically active. Ted belonged to the latter camp.
Ted’s class was the only class Harriet had difficulty with in her entire graduate career. She could not understand the basic principles. No matter how many times she went over the theorems and proofs in her notebook, she could not grasp the concepts. She went to see Ted privately. Harriet introduced herself to Ted and told him a little bit about herself. Ted seemed ill-at-ease and anxious to get the conversation over with. Harriet then explained that she was having a difficult time comprehending the material and she hoped he might be able to give her a new angle on the material. She made an emotional appeal for Ted to re-frame the material so that she could get over her mental block. Ted responded as if he did not understand a word she said. He asked her in a dry, unemotional tone if she had any questions. His response was completely inappropriate and nonsensical, but not in a rude or dismissive way. He just seemed to have completely missed what Harriet had said. It was as if Ted knew he needed to respond, but he had no idea what she had said or how to respond to it. He did not react like a normal human being would to Harriet’s plea for help.
Harriet was not expecting Ted’s response. It shocked her. She managed to think of a few specific questions for Ted which he answered and then she left. Harriet wondered how someone like Ted, who clearly could not relate to people, could be a teacher. Someone in Ted’s profession should not have acted like Ted did. Harriet’s experience with Ted was the most bizarre experience she ever had with a professor. She sought help from other professors who were like Ted in that they dressed conservatively and taught in a rigid, distant style. Unlike Ted, however, these professors acted appropriately even if they were not incredibly helpful. Ted was different from anyone Harriet encountered in graduate school. Ted was a shell of a human being.
Harriet’s talk with Ted was the only time she ever talked to him. She received a C- in his class which she thinks was generously given.
Harriet was one of very few women getting a graduate math degree. She was the only woman in Ted’s class. She did not like the male bonding atmosphere of the math department. The male students were chummy with each other and may even have been close to professors. She was not. She never went to a professor’s house for a meal. She does not know whether other students did. She did not socialize much with the other students, most of whom, were male. She does not know what the math students did for fun. She was married at the time so she kept mostly to herself.
Tinley Park, IL
October 4, 1996
Mike graduated from Evergreen Park High School in 1959. Mike also attended Central Junior High School, but he does not remember Ted from that time.
Mike remembers Ted from Evergreen Park High School. They were not friends but they had the same chemistry class and said hi when they saw each other outside of class. Mr. McCaleb, the chemistry teacher, was not very good and Mike did not learn much chemistry. Mike was a close friend of Keith Hreben, the student who caused the chemistry incident. Mike sat near the windows in chemistry class and contrary to what was reported in the newspaper, none of the windows broke.
Ted was extremely small and thin compared to the other boys at Evergreen Park High School. Ted had very quick, jolty movements. He was always in a hurry. Evergreen Park High School had a dress code in the 1950’s. Boys were required to wear shirts with collars and slacks. Ted conformed to this code.
Mike believed that Ted was brilliant. Ted never participated in class, but he always knew the answers and received the best grades. Mike sometimes saw Ted with the other eggheads (smart kids) in their class. Ted also belonged to many of the science clubs at Evergreen Park High School and was friends with the other students in these clubs.
All of the students at Evergreen Park High School went to the school-sponsored dances and sporting events. Mike never saw Ted at any social activity, whether organized by the school or not.
Mike’s counselor was Mrs. Skillen. Mrs. Skillen really pushed students to go to college. Mike went to pharmaceutical school, but dropped out after one year. Ted’s going to Harvard was not a big deal.
Evergreen Park, Illinois
June 28, 1997
Mr. Jenkins taught algebra and biology at Evergreen Park High School from 1955 until he retired in 1985.
Mr. Jenkins was on his way back from a vacation with his wife Marilyn when he heard the news that Ted had been arrested. As soon as Mr. Jenkins heard Ted’s name he thought of a young, bright math student he once taught. When the reporter on the news cast stated that Ted was from Evergreen Park, Mr. Jenkins realized it had to be the same person. He couldn’t believe it. Mr. Jenkins does not remember many students from that long ago but Ted stood out in his mind. Ted was a brilliant math student, one whom Mr. Jenkins could not forget.
Ted was in Mr. Jenkins’ algebra class his freshman year. The class was mainly comprised of sophomore students because it was considered an accelerated class for freshman. During the first week of class Mr. Jenkins noticed how much sharper Ted was than the rest of the students. It was clear that Ted needed more than the class could offer. Not knowing what to do, Mr. Jenkins went to the counseling department to ask for advice. Ms. Skillen, the head of the counseling department, suggested that they contact Ted’s parents.
Mr. Jenkins proposed the idea of accelerating Ted a year but Wanda was strongly opposed to it. Wanda explained how Ted had already been accelerated once and she felt Ted was not ready socially to be advanced another year. Mr. Jenkins decided to have Ted help the other students in the class with the work so he would not be too bored. Mr. Jenkins also thought this could help Ted interact with the other students.
Ted was what kids at that time called an egghead or a nerd but Mr. Jenkins felt that Ted was not a typical nerd. Ted did not back down when he was teased by other students. When a bully began to tease Ted about being too smart, Ted replied, “So what?” Because Ted talked back bullies quickly lost interest in teasing Ted and sought out meeker kids to prey on. Ted was outspoken in algebra class and critical of students who couldn’t figure out the math problems. Mr. Jenkins had to settle Ted down at times by saying, “Now, now Teddy that’s enough.”
Ted had a cosmopolitan air about him that most students lacked. It was obvious that Ted had a wider background than most people his age. Ted’s vocabulary was quite extensive and he had an advanced knowledge of many subjects such as politics. Ted was a teacher’s dream and Mr. Jenkins liked him very much.
For some time, Mr. Jenkins was an assistant coach in basketball, baseball and track. Ted didn’t participate in any of these sports.
In 1957, Mr. Jenkins stopped teaching and began working in administration at Evergreen Park High. He worked in the area of attendance and discipline. Mr. Jenkins did not have much contact with Ted after Ted’s freshman year. Ted never had any discipline problems. Mr. Jenkins was a close friend of the chemistry teacher, Calvin McCaleb. Mr. Jenkins recalls that there was some sort of incident in the chemistry classroom but cannot remember any names associated with the incident.
Lois Skillen was a tremendous counselor who proved to be an invaluable asset to the high school. She gained a reputation for challenging students and helping them get into the best possible colleges. She quickly became overloaded with students as all the parents wanted her to be their child’s counselor. Mr. Jenkins has a great deal of respect for her.
By the time David entered high school Mr. Jenkins was the assistant superintendent at Evergreen Park High. He no longer had time to teach classes or coach any of the sports. Mr. Jenkins knew Linda Patrik while she was in high school because he and her family attended the same church. Linda was a wonderful person who was quite intelligent. Linda’s father and Mr. Jenkins are the closest of friends. When David and Linda were married, Mr. Jenkins did not make the connection between David and Ted. Mr. Jenkins saw David and Linda when they came out for the Patrik’s 50th wedding anniversary last year. David and Linda are both very nice and intelligent people.
Mr. Jenkins vaguely remembers David coming back to teach at Evergreen Park High’s Oasis Program. The Oasis program was created for kids with serious behavioral problems. The classes were for students who couldn’t make it in regular classes. There were not many students in this program, typically around 2–10 kids a year.
Ted Sr. and Wanda were very active in the PTA. Ted Sr. and Wanda were fine people who were concerned with education.
Mr. Jenkins grew up in a small town in Central Illinois. He attended a parochial high school and at one point thought he might become a minister. The pastor in the town advised him that he could do more good if he taught in a public school rather than a parochial school. Mr. Jenkins decided that the pastor was right and accepted the scholarship he received from Eastern Illinois University. After graduating from college, Mr. Jenkins was drafted into the military and fought in the Korean War.
In 1955, Mr. Jenkins moved to Evergreen Park and began teaching at the new high school. Evergreen Park was a budding community at that time. There were 400 students at Evergreen Park High in 1955. The number of students quickly grew to 1800. Currently, Evergreen Park is a very Catholic community with population of 27,000 all living within four square miles.
Mr. Jenkins and his wife are currently trying to sell their home in Evergreen Park so they can move to Prescott, Arizona.
Oak Lawn, IL 60453
October 6, 1996
John graduated from Evergreen Park High School in 1959.
John attended a parochial high school until he transferred to Evergreen Park High for his junior and senior year. At that time Evergreen Park was a small school where everyone knew each other. John remembers high school as the best years of his life. He was on the football and basketball team. Sports were a crucial part of high school. After the basketball games the school held sock hops. Everyone attended these dances. John recalls seeing the kids Ted used to associate with at these dances but not Ted. Ted never participated in events such as school dances.
Ted was an extremely shy person who was unable to open up to anyone. He was an exceptionally smart student who never participated in anything that wasn’t scholastic. Ted never attended any of the dances or school games. Ted was a good-looking boy who dressed quite neat. He was extremely thin and you could even see his shoulder bones sticking out through his shirt. He had longish hair which was not the style at the time.
After classes Ted walked close to the wall through the hallway to avoid contact with any of the other students who filled the hallways between classes. Ted walked briskly with his briefcase at his side, never making eye contact with anyone.
John recalls one incident where Ted was stuffed into a locker by a classmate who left Ted in the locker while he went to class. Ted remained stuffed in the locker until finally a janitor heard him banging on the door and let him out. He was easily shoved into the locker because of his small size.
The fire department was called in after an explosion in the chemistry class. John was not in the class but remembers the explosion. There was not much damage done. As for repercussions, John does not recall what happened to the kids involved. He does remember, however, Ted being a part of it somehow.
Ted never initiated conversations with anyone. One of John’s friends always used to try to get Ted to talk but never succeeded. He used to tell Ted to just talk.
John is employed as a meat manager at Dominix, a grocery store chain. He has worked there ever since he graduated from high school. He was offered a football scholarship to Florida State but had to turn it down. At the time his father was quite ill and unable to work so John was responsible for financially supporting his family. He is now married and has put his two sons through college. His wife works as a secretary at a psychiatric and drug abuse treatment center.
Evergreen Park, IL
October 21, 1996
Jack was a high school classmate of Ted’s. Jack was a police officer in the Evergreen Park/Chicago area for 22 years. He retired during the 80’s and now works as a financial planner. He also has several products, including an athlete’s foot treatment and fingernail softener, that he is trying to market.
As a police officer, Jack saw the results of a great many crimes. He supports the death penalty, but not for Ted. Ted is no hardened criminal. He would never have hurt anyone. Whether or not he’s guilty, it’s clear from the news stories that Ted needs help. The death penalty is not for guys like Ted who deserve sympathy and need help.
Ted’s interest in explosives was nothing unusual when he and Ted were kids. He knew a thousand kids who played with fireworks and explosives. Those interests were just a part of growing up in those times.
Jack has heard the story about the chemistry lab. It’s strange that this story is associated with Ted because he has no memory of Ted ever getting in trouble. Explosions in the school’s chemistry lab were common. Even Jack’s father blew up the chemistry lab during his high school days. Over the course of Jack’s four years in high school, he recalls at least seven or eight different explosions in the lab.
Jack still refers to Ted as Teddy, the name he used for Ted in his school. It seemed appropriate in those years because Ted was younger and smaller than his &&& classmates. Jack also thought Ted seemed very thin and frail, as if he was not capable of defending himself.
As soon as Jack met Ted, he noticed Ted’s severe shyness. He was extremely introverted, quiet and very much to himself. His interest was his education, and he socialized only with a small group of other very smart kids. He never associated with anyone else in the school besides this group.
Jack spoke to Ted occasionally, but he never saw Ted open a conversation with him or with anyone else. Jack thought Ted was a nice, likable young man, and he tried to get Ted to come out of his shell. Several times he tried to engage Ted in conversations, but each time, he had to pull the words out of Ted by asking him question after question. Ted tried to avoid these conversations and usually answered with as few words as possible. He never elaborated when answering. Ted’s end of a conversation was usually “Hi” and “Goodbye” without any words in between. Ted didn’t let anyone get close to him.
Jack never knew anyone who didn’t like Ted. However, most of the kids in the school never paid any attention to Ted at all. Since he was quiet and never bothered or hurt anyone, people just ignored Ted.
Jack had a class with Ted his sophomore year, and he thinks they probably had homeroom together too, since their last names begin with ‘J’ and ‘K.’ Even if they hadn’t been in the same classes, Jack would have known who Ted was, since the school was so small, and Ted had the reputation of being its smartest student.
It was simply a known fact that Ted was brilliant. He was in all the advanced classes and he always carried books around with him.
During Ted and Jack’s high school years, school spirit was high, and many, if not most, of the students went to school to have fun and to enjoy social and athletic activities like dances, dating, sock hops, sports games and pep rallies. Almost all the other students attended these events, but Ted never attended any. In fact, the only time he came close to participating in anything social or athletic was in gym class where all students had to participate in sports. In these cases, guys like Ted were always the last chosen to a team.
Ted never dated girls in high school. There was no way he would have raised the courage to ask a girl out, and even if he had, none of the girls would have gone with him. Since Ted was seen as a bookworm, he was not the kind of kid that girls wanted to associate with, much less date. In fact, outside the small group of other very smart kids, almost no one in the school would have anything to do with Ted.
Jack has always been an outgoing person who likes people and tries to get to know everyone. But since he was an athlete and Ted was a serious student, Jack and Ted lived in separate worlds in the high school, and he never got to know Ted well. Jack always felt that Ted was nice, polite kid, but as an athlete who attended school primarily for its social and sporting activities, he had nothing in common with Ted. The athletes and the smart kids did not have anything in common, so they did not socialize with one another.
Still, Jack liked Ted and invited him to a bonfire that his group had one night. Ted told Jack he had something else to do, but Jack could see that Ted was making up an excuse. It was clear that Ted felt he did not fit in with Jack’s group and his self esteem was too low to for him to try to fit in or relate to others.
After that, Jack continued to like Ted, but knew that there was no point in trying to get to know him better. Ted was too shy to socialize with anyone besides the other smart kids in the school. Ted was a nice, polite kid, but he didn’t have anything to offer Jack and Jack didn’t have anything to offer Ted. Ted did what he wanted, Jack’s group did what they wanted, and they didn’t bother or associate with each other. In Jack’s world, Ted was non-existent.
As far as Jack was concerned, all the kids in the smart group were the same. Most of the students in the school felt the same and never paid any attention to Ted or the other smart kids. Ted was easy to ignore since he never bothered anyone, never caused any trouble, and didn’t draw attention to himself.
Evergreen Park, IL
September 5, 1996
Michael Johnson is a rotund 44-year-old who has spent his entire career in the Chicago education system.
Johnson, who calls Evergreen Park high a good school with good kids whose idea of doing bad things extends to chewing gum in the halls, flatly declared that the experiment of skipping kids ahead grades was a huge failure. The experiment was a notable failure during the era that Ted Kaczynski was promoted. Johnson added that the experiment was most especially a disaster with boys and indicated he could document the fact that many of the boys who had been skipped ahead during Ted’s era ended up as outcasts. Boys, he added, are typically smaller physically and thus have even greater problems being pushed ahead. Less-bright kids become resentful of those boys who are advanced ahead, causing the smart and accelerated kids to be even more acutely ostracized from their peer groups. More important, Johnson added, girls do not go out with boys who are younger. Thus, these boys have been set up for failure, and fail they do. The act of pushing youngsters ahead is almost never done anymore as a result of these past experiments. In fact, the state of Illinois now requires kids to be older before they can be promoted ahead a year.
At the time Ted Kaczynski started high school in Evergreen Park (fall, 1955), the high school was almost brand new. 1954 was the first official year of the school, but &&& &&& &&& &&& &&& because the building was not completed, 178 high school freshmen attended classes in the basement rooms of the Immanuel United Church of Christ.
Evergreen Park is three and a half square miles, divided into four quadrants. Each quadrant has a K-6 while Central Junior High is 7–8. Each quadrant has its own catholic school, K-8. At the time Ted was in elementary and junior high school, Central served as an elementary school in his quadrant. [NOTE: Ted attended Sherman Elementary School until the family moved to Evergreen Park. Then, Ted started at Central in the fifth grade.] Consequently, Ted’s high school class at Evergreen Park high school had not moved through their local school system together. Many had gone to different elementary schools or to catholic elementary and junior high schools. Johnson’s point was that Ted Kaczynski, because he was advanced two grades and because he did not move through a school system with one group of kids, was more of an outsider than the average boy.
The make-up of the school has always been about 97 per cent white, with more Irish Catholics and Italian Catholics. Poles were always part of the mix but never the majority. Evergreen Park is bordered on the east by Beverly, a town filled with Frank Lloyd Wright homes and rich, Jewish lawyers. It is bordered on the north by Lawndale, a town with a Hispanic and white middle class population, with gangs just a little farther north. It is bordered on the south by Mt. Greenwood, a Chicago town populated with many policemen and firemen. Evergreen Park, Johnson emphasized, is a village, not a town. The difference between a village and a town is how you want to be viewed by people.
The Plaza, in Evergreen Park, is one of the first five shopping centers in the United States (located at 95th and Western). Six of their franchise stores are the highest grossing in the country. Johnson pointed out that if one goes to the shopping mall during the day the mall population is 97 per cent white, but if one goes to the mall in the evening, one might find 100 white people and 15,000 blacks.
Lincoln, Montana
June 14, 1996
Alyssa is the teenage step-daughter of Lee Mason. She has lived in Lincoln for her whole life and has seen Ted on and off through the years. She said that sometimes she would see Ted once a month and sometimes once a year. She always saw Ted on his bicycle, even in the winter. She said that people called Ted “the Hermit” and that Ted was “dirty” and “smelly”. She said that Ted smelled like body odor. Alyssa said that when she would see Ted she would usually say “hi” and he would say “hi” back and then “scurry off.” “He wasn’t scary. He just never talked.”
Chicago, IL
November 17, 1996
Felix Kaczynski Jr.’s father, Felix Kaczynski Sr., is Ted Sr.’s paternal first cousin and Felix Jr. is Ted’s second cousin. Ted Sr. worked for Felix Sr. at Felix Sr.’s sausage company, Felix Kaczynski and Sons, on 49 Street and South Ashland Avenue in Back of the Yards. The sausage company was in operation from 1920 until 1968. Felix Jr. is exactly one month younger than Ted Jr. He was born June 22, 1942. Felix Jr.’s parents, Felix Sr. and Sophia, are dead. Felix Sr. died in 1971 and Sophia died in 1992. Felix Jr. has one brother, William Kaczynski, who lives in Crystal Lake, Illinois, and is a staunch Republican. William has two children, Wiliam Jr. and Virgina Miller. William Jr. is thirty-seven years old and Virgina is thirty-four. Felix Jr. is a conservative Democrat.
Felix Jr. lives by himself in an apartment close to Midway Airport. It is the same apartment where Felix Sr. and Sophia lived before they died. Most of the other tenants are substantially older than Felix Jr. Felix Jr. was married briefly about ten years ago, and suffered from a period of depression following his divorce. He currently has a girlfriend. He started working for the emergency trauma unit for the City of Chicago in 1976. He now is the director of a satellite office that offers services to the homeless.
Felix Sr. was wealthier than Ted Sr. Felix Sr. owned his own company and eventually moved his family to Beverly, a suburb south of Evergreen Park. Felix Sr. paid cash for the house in Beverly. He provided for his family well and bought both Felix Jr. and William convertible cars when they graduated from high school. Felix Sr. helped Ted Sr. out financially so that Ted Sr. and Wanda could move from Back of the Yards to Evergreen Park. Felix Sr. moved to Beverly because he wanted to get as far away from Back of the Yards as possible. Eventually, Felix Sr. went bankrupt. The Sausage company went out of business because it was too hard to compete with the larger businesses that emerged.
Felix Sr. was born in 1908 in Poland. His parents immigrated from Poland around 1910. Felix Sr.’s father’s name is Bollesaw, which translates to William in English, and his mother’s name is Stella. Felix Sr. had three brothers, one named Alexander, and two who died young from influenza during the outbreak of 1910. Felix Jr. believes that there is a lot of hidden disfunction in his father’s family. He has always wanted to find out more about his ancestors but is afraid of what will turn up.
When Felix Sr. lived in Back of the Yards, he was very involved in the community. At one time, Felix Sr. was the deputy sheriff of the area. Back of the Yards was a working class, immigrant neighborhood. There were many Irish and Polish people and the Catholic Church became the center of the community.
Felix Sr. and Sophia argued with each other. They tried to hide their arguments from Felix Jr. and William, and Felix Jr. tried hard not to listen to his parents fighting. Sophia was often upset because Felix Sr. was an alcoholic, who could not say no to anyone or anything.
Felix Sr.’s parents came to live with his family in Beverly. Felix Sr.’s father died in their Beverly home. Felix Sr.’s mother died exactly five years later at Holy Cross Hospital in Chicago. Felix Jr.’s grandparents were buried out of Saint Joseph’s Cathedral, where they were long time parishioners. His grandfather was the monseigneur wolf of the Leo Council of Knights of Columbus located on 55th Street and Halsted.
Although their families lived only one mile away from each other, Felix Jr. and Ted Jr. rarely saw each other. Ted Sr. and Wanda were very secretive about their family. They had odd quirks. They were very private people and did not enjoy socializing with Felix Sr. and his family more than once or twice a year. Felix Sr. and Sophia saw Ted Sr.’s brother, Stanley, and his wife, Madeline, more often. Stanley’s family lived on School Street in Chicago.
Felix Sr. and Stanley’s families spent Christmas and other holidays together. Wanda and Ted Sr. wandered away from religion completely. Felix Sr. sent Felix Jr. and William to Catholic schools, while Ted Jr. and David attended public schools. Wanda and Ted Sr. never came when Felix Sr. and Stanley gathered to celebrate the holidays.
Ted Sr. and Wanda had different ideas about parenting than Felix Sr. and Sophia. Religion was central to Felix Sr. and Sophia and they instilled religious values in their children. Ted Sr. and Wanda were only concerned about Ted Jr.’s education and actively rejected anything that might interfere with Ted Jr.’s learning.
Ted Sr. and Wanda shared little of their lives with Felix Sr.’s family or any of their other relatives. They were very private and secretive about Ted Jr.’s life, as well as their own. Felix Jr. has talked to Wanda several times since Ted Sr.’s death, but Felix Jr. did not know that Ted Sr. had killed himself until he read about it in the newspaper after Ted Jr.’s arrest.
When Ted Jr. first left his teaching position at Berkeley and moved to Montana, Ted Sr. and Wanda were supportive. But Felix Jr. saw Ted Sr. in May of 1982 at William’s daughter’s wedding, and Ted Sr. expressed concern over Ted Jr.’s seclusion. Ted Sr. was worried that Ted Jr. was isolated and unhappy.
Wanda thought like a textbook. Education was more important than personal relationships. Ted Jr. started reading extremely early. After college, Felix Jr. taught sixth and seventh grade in Kalumet Park. When Felix Jr. became a teacher, Wanda expressed great excitement. Wanda thought that teaching was an extremely noble profession. However, when Wanda tried to become a teacher herself in Iowa, she was not successful. Wanda’s pupils drove her crazy and she was completely unable to discipline her class properly.
Stanley was a great man. Kathy was an only child. Stanley and his family were always more friendly and social than Ted Sr. and Wanda.
Josephine is a very sweet and supportive person. She did a daring thing by marrying a black man. This made Josephine’s mother extremely unhappy.
When Felix Jr. was a kid, he liked to play sports, but Ted Jr. was not interested in sports. As a teenager, Felix Jr. loved to play basketball and football in the street with his friends, but Ted Jr. never wanted to play. Ted Jr. was always an extremely bright kid. Ted Jr. was the first one in the family to go to college. The last time Felix Jr. saw Ted Jr. was when they were about 16 years old. Ted Jr. was getting ready to leave for Harvard. Felix Jr. didn’t think that Ted Jr. had the social graces to survive an institution like Harvard.
Felix Jr. struggled around in school. He attended St. Percopius high school in Chicago, Illinois. He remembers John Denvir and his older brother Quin Denvir from high school. Then he went on to Regis College in Denver, Colorado.
Chicago, Illinois 60630
January 15, 1997
Felix Kaczynski Jr. works for the City of Chicago in the Department of Human Services.
Felix Jr.’s parents, Felix Sr. and Sophia Kopton, immigrated from Poland around 1910. Felix Sr. is Ted Sr.’s cousin. Felix Sr. had two brothers who died shortly after coming to America.
Felix Jr. and his family lived with his paternal grandparents until they passed away. They lived in a two-story house in Chicago, Illinois. His grandparents occupied the second story. His paternal grandfather, Bollesaw, died in 1951. His grandmother, Stella, died exactly five years later. Felix Jr. was only nine years old at the time of his grandfather’s death and does not remember much about him. Felix Sr. took very good care of his parents. Felix Sr. and his father Bollesaw appeared to have a decent relationship. Felix Jr. remembers that both men loved to garden.
Ted Sr. was very kind to Felix Sr. and his family. Ted Sr.’s family and Felix Sr.’s family did not socialize much, even though they lived only a block away from each other. Ted Sr. worked for Felix Kaczynski & Sons Sausage Company for many years. Ted Sr. and Wanda believed in things that Felix Jr.’s side of the family did not. Felix Sr. and his family were practicing Catholics. Felix Jr. and his brother William attended parochial schools. Ted Sr. and Wanda were not religious. Ted Jr. and Dave went to public schools. Ted Sr. and Wanda were consumed with their children’s education and put it above everything else. The couple did everything they could to ensure their children were intellectually superior to others. Ted Sr. and Wanda constantly pushed Ted Jr. toward academic endeavors.
Felix Sr. played basketball in high school and was good enough to get a scholarship to Villanova in Pennsylvania. He was unable to attend college because he had to work to help support his parents. It was customary in Polish families for the son to stay and help contribute to the family. Felix Sr. never seemed disappointed that he was not able to attend college. Obtaining a college degree back in the 40’s and 50’s was not nearly as important as it is today. Typically, a high school degree back then was more than sufficient.
Felix Jr.’s parents were married on March 29, 1937. They had Felix Jr.’s brother, William, in 1938. Felix Jr.’s mother, Sophia, was a very supportive and patient person. She put up with a lot from Felix Sr. Felix Sr. was an alcoholic who enjoyed gambling.
Felix Sr. was the kind of man you really had to pressure to get him to come through for you. He liked to have a good time and fooled around quite a bit. One of his favorite things to do was to go out to the popular Chicago clubs. The Sherman House, Black Hawk, and the Empire Room were among the clubs he went to. Felix Sr. was an extravagant man who never spared any expenses on his family. Once, completely unplanned, he took Felix Jr. and William to Washington D.C. to see a White Sox game. Felix Sr. occasionally surprised his family with these type of spontaneous adventures. He especially enjoyed nice big cars. He bought a new car every two to three years no matter if he could afford it or not. He was very active in the community and was even made deputy sheriff for some time. Felix Sr. mingled a little with the polish mafia and did some booking for them. This was how he financed the house he bought in Beverly. The polish mafia had an operation at 55th and Damen in the Back of the Yards. In the mid 1950’s he was asked to book for the polish mafia full time. Felix Sr. turned the job down. Sophia was unaware of her husband’s shady affairs until after his death.
Felix Sr. predicted that the Back of the Yards neighborhood was going downhill and decided to move the business. The demographics of the neighborhood were changing and Felix Sr. could smell it. The stockyards had closed down which left many people jobless. He moved the sausage company to 58th and Pulaski in 1967. Times were hard and small business was not able to compete with the larger businesses that were coming in. Many polish people moved out of the neighborhood to southern suburbs. Felix Sr.’s sausage company eventually went bankrupt. After the demise of his company, he worked for the City in the Streets and Sanitation Department and worked there until he died.
William went into business with his father at the sausage company . Felix Jr. only worked at the sausage company occasionally during summer breaks. There was quite a bit of tension between William and Felix Sr. toward the end of the business. After the sausage company closed William wound up working for the state.
Felix Jr. recalled a story about Wiliam when he was just three years old. Felix Sr. and William Jr. were driving somewhere when Felix Sr. had gotten tired and decided to pull off the side of the road to rest. When Felix Sr. awoke little William was in front of him pointing a gun to his head. Felix Sr. had kept the gun in his glove box and William had found it. No one was hurt and later it turned into an amusing story.
Felix Jr. had a tough time in high school. He was not quite ready for serious academics and basically loafed around for the first couple of years. He managed to get himself into the honors program but it was way beyond his capabilities. The classes were much too hard for him but he really wanted to be in the accelerated program so he stuck with it. It was not that he was merely a mediocre student; he just was not going to set the world on fire with any of his ideas.
Felix Jr. feels the hardest thing for him to overcome growing up was dealing with his ethnicity. Having a last name that ends with many syllables guaranteed that you’d be teased. Ted Jr. was brought up with such a narrow focus that it must have been hard for him to understand the ways of the world. Ted Jr. lacked many social skills.
Ted Jr. is a perfect example of the down side to putting kids through school too fast. Ted Jr. could not have possibly been ready to enter Harvard at age sixteen. He was not equipped with the social graces that many of the Harvard students must have possessed. This overwhelming experience must have been traumatic for Ted Jr. Felix Jr. feels sorry for Ted Jr. He feels that Ted Jr. had a lot more to offer the world.
Felix Jr. and his brother William are much closer now than they were ten years ago. They have a decent relationship. Felix Jr. was always closer to his parents than William was. William and Sophia had a good relationship until Felix Sr. died. Sophia had a hard time dealing with Felix Sr.’s death. William was not very supportive when Sophia was feeling down. Felix Jr. feels his parents offered as much emotional support as they could. Felix Sr. and Sophia were encouraging. Felix Sr. did the punishing in the family.
Felix Jr. does not regret not having children. He feels it would have been a big mistake if he and his wife had kids. His marriage only lasted a few years and ended in a bitter divorce. Felix Jr. does not believe he would have made a good father. He is not a very patient person.
Felix Jr. worked in the emergency trauma unit for the Department of Human Resources for many years. He found the job depressing because he felt he could not help most of the clients. He feels lucky to have his current job as director of a human services satellite office. He believes his office will be closed down in a year or two due to lack of funding.
Felix Jr. did not know that Ted Sr. had died until about six or seven months after the fact. He sent Ted Sr. and Wanda a Christmas card the year that Ted Sr. died. A few weeks later he received a letter from Wanda thanking him for his card. Felix Jr. thought it was odd that Ted Sr. did not sign the card so he called to see how Ted Sr. was doing. Wanda explained that he had died earlier in the year from cancer. Felix Jr. thought it was terribly strange that she did not bother to contact his family members. It wasn’t until he read one of the articles after Ted Jr.’s arrest that he found out that Ted Sr. had committed suicide. Wanda was like a rock, nothing seemed to affect her.
The last time Felix Jr. saw Ted Sr. was at Felix Jr.’s niece’s wedding in 1982. There was something different about the way he looked then. He just did not seem like himself. His clothes were unkempt and he was unshaven. He didn’t look like he had been taking good care of himself at all. Ted Sr. seemed very unhappy about the way Ted Jr. was living up in Montana.
Felix Jr. believes there is something wrong with his entire family. During his marriage, Felix Jr. began to drink quite heavily. He was going through many personal problems and drinking became an escape for him. After his marriage failed, Felix Jr. finally came to the realization that he was seriously depressed. He felt that it was time to seek professional help. Felix Jr. checked himself into Holy Cross hospital. He stayed in the hospital for two weeks and underwent intensive treatment for depression. His brother William also suffers from depression. Felix Jr. has been taking antidepressants since the early eighties.
Oaklawn, IL
October 8, 1996
Madeline was married to Ted’s deceased uncle Stanley Kaczynski.
When Ted was growing up, she lived with her family on the north side of Chicago and rarely saw Ted’s family. The few times she did come to Ted’s house, Ted ran upstairs to his room, shut the door behind him and didn’t come out until after she left. Madeline recalls that Wanda kept Ted very sheltered from everyone, even his own (extended) family.
Wellesley, Massachusetts
May 1, 1997
Dr. Kamitses was a student in Ted’s math 113B class during the winter quarter in 1968 at UC Berkeley. Dr. Kamitses was very impressed with Ted’s mathematical ability. The course was in upper level algebra and Ted made the material very challenging. The class met three days a week and consisted of approximately 15 to 20 students who were mostly math majors. The students were generally interested in the material Ted was teaching.
Dr. Kamitses found the homework problems Ted assigned fascinating. In fact, Dr. Kamitses was so pleased with Ted’s assignments, he copied over and saved his entire course notebook. Dr. Kamitses never did this for any of his other undergraduate or graduate math courses.
Dr. Kamitses felt like he connected with Ted intellectually, but not personally. Ted had zero personality. Ted appeared to be completely obsessed with math. Dr. Kamitses never heard Ted talk about any other subject. Ted dressed in a conservative, eastern, Ivy League style. He wore slacks and a jacket, and was clean shaven. Dr. Kamitses had long hair and a scraggly beard and, like many other people in Berkeley during the sixties, he wore old clothing and cut-off jeans. Ted did not fit in.
Ted seemed uncomfortable around people. He had a wooden lecture style and faced the board during his entire lecture, rarely making eye contact with any of his students. The students did not ask questions during class.
Ted was quiet and reserved. He never expressed any political opinions, which was unusual in Berkeley’s charged political climate.
Ted had office hours where the students could meet with him personally. Dr. Kamitses was doing very well in the course so he never went to Ted’s office hours. Dr. Kamitses put a lot of work into Ted’s class and he ended up receiving an ‘A.’ Dr. Kamitses thought highly of Ted as a mathematician and wanted to impress Ted with his own mathematical abilities. Dr. Kamitses was one of the best students in the class. The only way Dr. Kamitses felt that he could connect to Ted was through his performance in class.
Every spring there was a national math competition and each university traditionally entered approximately two dozen of their brightest students. After the competition, the results were published. In 1969, Dr. Kamitses participated in the competition as one of UC Berkeley’s students. One of the problems on the exam was one of the same problems Ted had assigned in his math 113B class half a year earlier. The problems on the national math exam were usually challenging, but this problem was extremely difficult and unusual. No one else taking the exam got the problem correct. Given the originality of the problem, Dr. Kamitses thinks that Ted may have submitted the problem for use on the exam.
Since Ted’s class was difficult there were students who struggled. Some of the students may have grumbled about the work load, but since much of the teaching at UC Berkeley was so poor, Ted’s teaching did not cause too many complaints.
Ted was a pure mathematician. Pure math is basically an intellectual exercise. It serves no real purpose beyond entertaining the mathematician. In Berkeley during the late sixties, pure math was viewed as an unproductive way to spend one’s time. People felt that considering the bloodshed in Vietnam, academics should not waste their time playing mathematical games.
Dr. Kamitses grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. He earned both his undergraduate and graduate degrees in math at UC Berkeley. He moved to Massachusetts because he wanted his children to experience seasons. Dr. Kamitses now works in the high-tech computer industry.
Dr. Kamitses believes that Ted most likely had a complete mental breakdown and is insane. Ted had great talent which was unfortunately wasted.
South Hadley, MA
October 22–23, 1996
Kevin Kaye and his sister are the adopted children of Robert and Gloria Kaye. Kevin has not seen his sister since he was fifteen.
Kevin Kaye is a recovering alcoholic. In April, 1996, he was released from prison where he served 6 months for assaulting a police officer. He is currently employed with the Steel Workers’ Union.
His father, Robert Kaye, worked on the railroad in Chicago before joining the Air Force at the age of 17 and retired from the Air Force around 1970, after 23 years of service. After retiring from the Air Force, he worked in the South Hadley area until he died around 1974–6.
Robert Kaye was a strict parent who commanded respect from his son. He performed military inspections on Kevin Kaye’s room. The inspections included such military hallmarks as bouncing a quarter off the bed and a white glove inspection.
Robert Kaye was tall and lanky while he was in the Air Force. Towards the end of his life, Robert Kaye was out of shape. He was an alcoholic as was his wife, Gloria Kaye. Kevin Kaye remembers that as an eight year old, he sat between a drunk Robert Kaye and Robert’s drinking buddy as Robert drove at speeds in excess of ninety miles per hour. Gloria’s alcoholism worsened after her husband’s death. From Robert’s death until Gloria’s commitment to the nursing home, she was a functioning alcoholic who maintained her employment as a secretary. After Robert Kaye’s death, she never remarried or dated again.
In 1993, Kevin first noticed his mother was experiencing problems with her memory. He returned home for lunch and saw her car parked in the driveway. As he entered his house he saw her sitting in the living room dressed in her night clothes. He asked her why she was not at work and she replied that she did not know she had a job. Soon after, he put her in a nursing home. It is too painful for Kevin to see his mother so he no longer visits her at the nursing home.
After his father, Robert Kaye, died, Kevin’s sister began to experience trouble in school and with the family. When she was 16 or 17 years old, she ran away from home. Later, she and her boyfriend robbed Gloria Kaye’s house. Kevin has not seen his sister since she and her boyfriend robbed his mother.
Robert Kaye’s death was also hard on Kevin. He had to take on the responsibilities of the man of the house while still very young. Kevin Kaye worked as a building contractor and wholesale car dealer after high school. He developed a subdivision in Needham, Massachusetts. After he sent his mother to the nursing home three years ago, he began drinking heavily and his life started to fall apart. He was unable to maintain his development work and backed out of his partnership with a lawyer named Bobby. His life continued to fall apart until after his arrest for assaulting an officer in 1995. While in jail he dried out and does not drink anymore.
Lincoln, Montana
June 18, 1996
Rick and his wife Peggy live on Stemple Pass Road, just beyond the turn off to Ted’s house. Rick is employed by the phone company. He and his wife have lived in their current home for 14 years, but have had virtually no contact with Ted. They have seen him along the road, either walking or riding his bike, but have never offered a ride to him. Rick said when they first moved into their home, Butch Gehring told him about Ted, and said he was all right, but just wanted to be left alone. Rick said he and his wife thought that was fine, and so didn’t pursue any sort of contact with him over the years. They thought he was a good neighbor, and respected his wish to be alone. Twice over the years that Rick could recall, Ted stopped at their house, once to ask what day it was, and another to ask what time it was. Rick said he apparently wanted to catch the mail route driver into town, and was trying to coordinate his trip. In relation to his employment, Rick had some contact with Ted. The phone company keeps phone books for all the communities in Montana, and many people, Ted included, come in and used the books. Rick would often see him looking up numbers and then going to the pay phone right outside the building to make calls. There was nothing about Ted’s appearance that drew Rick’s attention to him. Rick also said much has been made in the news about a letter Ted wrote to the phone company years ago about having difficulty using a pay phone. According to Rick, what really happened was Ted wrote a letter to the Commission on Consumer Affairs about the phones in Lincoln, and the letter eventually made its way to Rick’s desk. He said the phones in Lincoln are unusual, and somewhat difficult to operate if you are not familiar with them. (You don’t put money into the phone until someone answers. If you put money in before someone answers, and you get either a busy signal or no answer, the money will not be returned.) The next time Rick saw Ted in the phone company using the phone books, he went up to him and talked about the letter he wrote. Rick said Ted was polite and appeared appreciative of Rick’s comments on the unusual phone system. Rick doesn’t believe anyone really knew Ted.
Marshalltown, IA
June 13 and 19, 1997
Ruth Knudson was Ted’s Evergreen High School sophomore English teacher in 1957. It was Ruth’s first year teaching at Evergreen High School. She had just moved to Evergreen Park from Crestón, Iowa, with her four children. Her husband, John, stayed in Iowa to pursue his political career.
Ruth remembers Ted. He sat alone in the southwest corner of the classroom. No one sat near him. Ted was very quiet. He never raised his hand to volunteer an answer or ask a question. He did not talk to the other students. Ted entered the classroom alone and exited alone. He did not voluntarily talk to Ruth. Ted was shy and socially awkward.
Ruth was a bad teacher her first year at Evergreen Park. Although she had been teaching in Crestón, she had never taught the Chicago curriculum followed at Evergreen Park. She struggled her first year trying to grasp the material and it showed in her teaching. Ruth did not respect her teaching and she believes neither did Ted. Ted did not say anything critical nor was he rude, but he seemed bored and uninterested.
Ruth’s son Stephen graduated with Ted in 1958. Her son Tom was better friends with Ted. Tom graduated in 1960. Tom and Ted became friends because they both played the trombone. When Tom met Ted in 1957, Ted was a better player than Tom. Ruth wanted to help Tom make friends so she hired Ted to teach Tom. They practiced in Ruth’s basement and at Ted’s house. They became friends.
Ruth became friends with Wanda through Ted and Tom’s friendship. Ruth began chatting with Wanda when she came to pick Tom up after his lesson. Ruth and Wanda continued to be friends after Ted went to Harvard. Wanda told Ruth a little bit about her background and Ted Sr.’s. Ruth recalls that Ted Sr.’s father made picture frames for the Austrian aristocracy. One night, Wanda and Ruth sat up almost all night while Wanda told Ruth about her childhood in Ohio. She told Ruth how mean people were to her and her family simply because she was Polish. Wanda told Ruth about the Ku Klux Klan trying to run Wanda’s family out of town by placing a burning cross on their front lawn.
Ruth respected Ted Sr. One time, Ted Sr. invited her sons to a reception at the Field Museum. Ted Sr. also took her daughter on a day trip to a local park to look for fossils and interesting rocks. Ruth felt Ted Sr. took her children under his wing since her husband, John, was still in Iowa.
Wanda and Ted Sr. were very proud of Ted’s accomplishments. They did not brag about Ted’s brilliance, but they did occasionally mention what Ted had done. Wanda seemed proud that Ted had been able to afford to buy his own house after only working three years. Wanda told Ruth that Ted lived alone in Montana, but she did not tell Ruth anything more.
Ruth kept in touch with Wanda after Wanda and Ted Sr. left Evergreen Park. She and Wanda exchanged cards and occasional telephone calls. Wanda cut off communication with Ruth when Ted Sr. committed suicide. Wanda wrote Ruth a letter explaining that there were too many tragedies in her life and she could not continue to maintain contact. Ruth did not know what else Wanda was referring to other than Ted’s suicide.
Ruth left Evergreen Park in 1970. She moved back to Iowa. Her children were grown by then. Her eldest son Stephen became a doctor.
Evergreen Park was an extremely racist environment. If an African American came into the neighborhood, he or she was almost always driven out of town. There were informal groups of Evergreen Park men and boys who drove around the community at night to ensure that no African Americans came into the town limits.
Worth, IL
October 8, 1996
Roger is a high school classmate of Ted’s. Roger graduated from Evergreen Park High School in 1959. He is now a mechanical engineer. He can remember Ted in both the 10th and 11th grade.
Ted was extremely quiet in class. Ted dressed very plain and simple. He is not someone who sticks in your mind, because Ted was the type to avoid drawing attention to himself. There was something about Ted that made him seem very different from all the other students.
Ted had his own group of friends — Russell Mosney, Roger Podewell, George Duba. Ted never went to any Evergreen Park High School social functions. Ted never went to a football game or a dance. Every other student, even Ted’s friends — the other smart kids — attended school events.
Roger was in many of the advanced college preparatory classes at Evergreen Park High School with Ted. Although Roger rarely talked with Ted, Roger liked him. Sometimes Roger asked Ted for help with a math problem. Ted always helped Roger and helped other students if they asked him to as well. Ted never once initiated a conversation with Roger. Ted was always nice if Roger asked him a question, but Ted never talked with Roger freely. The only conversation Ted and Roger had was about math.
Roger was not aware that Ted was going to graduate Evergreen Park High School a year early. He did not know that Ted was leaving for college. He did not know Ted was going to Harvard. Roger graduated the year after Ted and attended the University of Illinois.
After Ted’s first year at Harvard, Roger heard a rumor that Ted had a nervous breakdown and threw all of his books out of his dorm room window. Roger cannot remember who told him this story, but it was the last time he thought about Ted until he heard about the arrest.
Lincoln, Montana
June, 1996
Mike works for the phone company.
He remembers that Ted filed a complaint against the phone company 8 or 9 years ago, which is how he knew Ted’s name. Ted had put a quarter in the machine when he was only supposed to put in a dime, jammed the machine and filed a complaint. The only problem was that he wasn’t reading the directions. According to Mike, everyone called Ted “Ted the Hermit.” He thinks he saw Ted 50 or 100 times around town. Mike has lived in Lincoln most of his life. He noticed that Ted would sometimes have his hair slicked back. It looked like he greased it to keep it in place. Some days he would dress nicer than on others.
Lincoln, MT
June 14, 1996
Diane has lived in Lincoln for 20 years and used to work at the D & D until 4 years ago. Now she works in the school kitchen. She talked to Ted whenever he came in to the store, about twice a month but not every month. He would buy the generic food brand (black and white label) and would buy things that were on sale when she pointed them out to him. He wanted to buy whatever was the cheapest. He bought stuff like canned foods, mainly tuna, flour, crisco and paper. He never bought any meat. He smelled bad, like tuna or like someone who has been on a fishing boat, and she would try to serve him quickly so that he wouldn’t stink up the store. He packed the groceries in his backpack and later in a basket and never took a shopping bag. Once he quietly unpacked groceries that had been bagged for him in a corner and returned the bag. He never made a fuss about anything.
Diane knew his name from the checks he wrote and wondered whether people called him Theodore or Ted. He never introduced himself to her or asked her name. He always brought a list and shopped only for things on the list. He rode his bike into town even in the winter. Once she saw him ride his bike in a snowstorm. She tried to engage him in conversation and to get him to joke around but he never followed her lead. He always responded though and was always polite. Ted kept to himself and was quiet. His demeanor never really varied as far as she could tell and she admits that it was &&& hard to tell. He seemed content and happy rather than sad or depressed. She did not notice any great weight fluctuations and said that his face looked drawn. His hair was always bushy but sometimes it was more unkempt than at other times. She thinks that he must have cut it himself. She can remember one time when his beard was really long and others when it was shorter, but never as short as it has been in recent media pictures. He usually wore the same clothes each time he came in. He didn’t always smell equally bad.
After seeing him once or twice, she asked other people what his story was since he struck her as kind of odd. At the store they would refer to him as “the guy on the bike who lives up in the cabin.” She remembers talking to Teresa Garland about Ted. Teresa mentioned the fact that he smelled to her and told her about the letter that Ted had written to Becky.
Diane remembers being surprised to hear that he graduated from Harvard and didn’t really believe it although she thought he was educated. Diane thought of Ted as harmless and nice but not exactly talkative and easy going.
Her husband has never talked to him but saw his cabin when he was snow shoeing with a friend. They saw smoke coming out of the chimney and noticed that there were no tracks whatsoever in the snow which meant that nobody had left or come to the cabin for a long time. They considered knocking and checking to see if everything was ok but then thought that someone who has gone so far out of his way to be alone must not want to be disturbed.
Chicago, Illinois
September 9, 1996
Adam Krokos is a limousine driver with a deeply belligerent tilt and is the widowed father of six grown children. Tall and lanky, the mid-50s Krokos lives among his own in a tidy Polish neighborhood, only a short drive from Marshfield Street where his family occupied the upstairs section of a house inhabited in the lower quarters by Theodore, Wanda, Ted and the toddler, David Kaczynski. Krokos’ parents owned the house, located in Back of the Yards.
&&&Krokos currently lives with two of his children, a high-school senior and a young man of around 30. Both boys appeared to be concerned about their father’s apparent loss of interest in life, the result of the untimely death of his wife of 31 years about three years ago. Krokos repeatedly mentioned his loss.
&&& &&&Krokos recalled that he and Ted knew each other from the time they were quite young until around the age of nine. Ted and his family then moved away from Marshfield, to Evergreen Park. Krokos thought he visited Ted once or twice and even thought too that Ted had returned to Marshfield to visit him. On those visits, Krokos thought that his parents had dropped him off at the Kaczynskis in Evergreen Park, and that he had eaten dinner with the family, then waited for his father to pick him up. Krokos thought that Ted had also been dropped off at the Krokos’ house and spent the day, ate dinner and then was picked up by his parents. The last time Krokos saw Ted, he thought, was when Krokos was around 11. Ted is younger by a bit than Krokos although Krokos did not know by how much.
Wanda was the force behind the Kaczynski move out of the neighborhood to Evergreen Park and even back then pushed Ted. Krokos recalled that Wanda wanted to move to a place like Evergreen Park rather than another kind of suburb like Cicero, because she believed Ted needed an accelerated school program. Even back then, Wanda talked about Ted’s need to progress. Wanda said that Evergreen Park had special schools with accelerated programs. At the time, to Krokos, Evergreen Park seemed far away, not real. Today, to Krokos, Evergreen Park is simply a suburban community two and a half miles from South Harding.
Krokos did not attend Sherman Elementary, but rather attended the local catholic school. Still, Ted and Krokos bonded and became fast friends with easy access to one another. Krokos described Ted as quiet and friendly and nice, and someone who was so smart even then that he left not only Krokos but other neighbor kids in the dust. Krokos mused that while he could make a toy, Ted could make a toy that moved, that worked, that actually did something other than just exist.
Krokos thought of Ted over the years off and on, always fondly, and was shocked when he realized Ted had been arrested.
Logue Lincoln, MT
June 18, 1996
The Logues have lived on Stemple Pass for the last 11 years. Clay used to give rides to Ted up Stemple Pass. However, Clay has Alzheimer’s Disease and the last thing he can remember is being a Marine in WW II. Ramona said that they would see Ted about once a month in both the summer and the winter, sometimes Ted was on his bicycle and sometimes on foot. They gave Ted rides from town back to the turn-off to Ted’s cabin off of Stemple Pass. They never gave Ted rides to town. Ted never asked for a ride, but did not refuse when they offered. She said that Ted was clean and well kept: “I have a very good nose and I never noticed any smell.” She said that they would only talk about the weather and the roads. Ted’s clothing was not as old as it looked when they arrested him. Ted usually wore jeans and a jacket and had a backpack. She did not notice any change in Ted over time. Ramona thinks that a lot of people in town are saying that they knew Ted when they didn’t. The Logues live in the house that Ramona’s uncle, Kenneth Lee, built and lived in with Irene Preston. Her sister, Dolores Williams, and her sister’s husband, Glenn Williams, first told her about Ted. Dolores said that Ted was an artist and Glenn said that Ted was a writer. Ramona said that Glenn and Ted had once gone hunting for elk many years back.
Frankfort, IL
October 6, 1996
Sandy graduated from Evergreen Park High School in 1959. She now sells real estate in the Evergreen Park area.
Ted was different from all the other students at Evergreen Park High School. Ted was extremely small and thin. Ted dressed in slacks and most of the boys wore jeans. Ted carried his books in a brief case and most of the boys did not carry books around at all. Ted had bushy, unbrushed hair and he was always in a hurry. Ted always walked through the halls very fast and avoided talking to anyone on his way.
Ted was friends with Russell Mosney and Roger Podewell, but most of the time, Ted was alone. Ted was not as social as the other students. He never attended school dances or sports events. Ted was considered a geek by his peers. Sandy’s female friends laughed at the thought of Ted asking one of them on a date.
Many of Ted’s classmates at Evergreen Park High School made fun of Ted. They called him a nerd and the brain. They were very cruel to Ted. Any effort Ted made toward friendship was pointless. He was too different and strange to fit in with the other students. If any other student had gone off to Harvard after only three years at Evergreen Park High School, the administration, teachers and parents would have made a big deal out of it. But when Ted left for Harvard, nobody even noticed. Since Ted was so smart, people expected him to go to a school like Harvard.
Sandy strongly believes in the death penalty, but she does not want Ted to be executed. Ted was so intelligent and had so much to contribute to society, something obviously must have gone wrong with him. Ted should not be put to death because he can still contribute to the world.
Wanda Láveme
Lincoln, Montana
June, 1996
Wanda appeared on the Jenni Jones Show with Beverly Coleman. She used to work at the Blackfoot Market. Wand said that Ted would put groceries in his backpack before he got to the checkout to see what would fit. She was worried that Ted was stealing but her friend Diane said, “Oh, no. He always does that. It’s okay.”
One time Ted gave her two pennies so he wouldn’t get any change back. She didn’t know that he was a math professor and didn’t know why he put the pennies there. So she gave him 3 pennies back. He corrected her, saying that he gave her 2 pennies so he wouldn’t get pennies back. She joked with him about it when he came in again. She remembers that Ted bought batteries.
Lincoln, MT
October 25, 1996
The Lundbergs, who live on Stemple Pass Road, used to carry the mail for the United States Post Office from Lincoln to Helena. They also hauled freight and milk. Approximately three years ago, they turned over the business to their son-in-law.
Dick Lundberg met Ted Kaczynski in the mid-1970’s. At the time, Ted did not have a bicycle and walked everywhere. When Ted first arrived in the area, he worked at the post yard. Eileen heard that Ted had applied for a job at Blackfoot Market but he was not hired. The Lundbergs do not know what Ted did for money, but Ted told them he lived on $10-$15 per month.
Dick gave Ted rides to Helena on occasion over the years. Dick estimated that Ted went to Helena four to five times a year. Dick’s route got them to Helena between noon and 1:00 p.m. and Dick had to leave at 3:00 p.m., not enough time for Ted to complete his errands, so Ted stayed overnight and always got a ride back from Dick the following day. Ted arranged the rides with Dick (and later Eileen when she began to drive the route every other day) by stopping by the Lundbergs’ residence or flagging one of them down the day before. He was always where he said he would be. Ted paid the Lundbergs $2-$3 per ride despite the fact that Ted frequently helped them load and unload the freight and milk. The Lundbergs understood that Ted would be uncomfortable about asking for rides if they did not accept the money.
Ted was always clean, with a neat beard and hair. Sometimes his hair was long. Ted dressed in work-type clothes. Contrary to the stories in the news, Ted never smelled and never dressed in the dirty or torn clothing he wore when he was arrested. He carried a little backpack, appropriate to what he would need for staying overnight. Dick understood that Ted shopped for groceries and other items such as saw blades, files, and batteries, and took care of legal business such as paying his taxes and filing for water rights. Ted did not have any power tools, to the best of Dick’s knowledge.
Ted lived an isolated life, only entering society when he needed something and staying only as long as it took to get what he needed. Dick was surprised when he read in the Blackfoot paper that Ted had helped remodel the Lincoln library. If Ted were an animal, Dick would call Ted timid. Only seldomly did Ted ever initiate a conversation although he responded when others asked questions or raised topics. It seemed to Dick as though Ted did not know what to say, except in response to others’ conversation. Ted was always polite but there was a privacy line that Eileen knew not to cross. She never pried into his personal life because she sensed it would make Ted feel uncomfortable.
Although one could tell Ted was well-educated, Ted did not talk about his education. Dick knows that Ted’s father killed himself and assumes that Ted must have told him but Dick does not recall the actual conversation. Dick recalls discussing gardening with Ted before Ted began his own garden. After Ted took up gardening, he gave the Lundbergs a sack of parsnips every fall. In October 1995, Ted left the parsnips at the Lundbergs when no one was home. Dick also talked about logging with Ted, complaining to Ted about the wasteful ways of certain loggers. Ted agreed with Dick but Ted did not express a general animosity toward logging or mining. Ted also talked about building a root cellar and it was clear from the conversation that he did not know how to do it.
Ted never discussed women and he never made physical contact with anyone. Eileen and Dick felt totally comfortable having their daughters around Ted, even in their absence.
When Ted saw Dick, he acted like he was glad to see Dick but never overjoyed. Ted’s moods did not seem to swing much; he was neither chipper nor down in the dumps. Dick got a sense of urgency from Ted. There seemed to be something undefinable that Ted needed to get done, although in reality, Ted had plenty of time to do things. Although Ted could be calm in the car and did not seem worried about delays (such as a flat tire) while traveling to Helena, Dick felt Ted’s sense of urgency whenever he saw Ted in town.
Washington, D.C.
December 11, 1996
Keith Martin was one of Ted’s Eliot House roommates. Keith is in his mid-fifties. He lives with his wife, his teenage son, and his newborn baby in a nice house located in one of the more run-down areas of Northwest Washington, D.C. Keith grew up in a working class home in Schenectady, New York. His father only earned $10,000 a year, and Keith had a scholarship and a job to help pay for his education. Keith graduated from Harvard in 1962. He studied history as an undergraduate and then went on to earn his Ph.D. in international relations at the Fletcher School. Keith spent a few years in the foreign service, and then moved to Washington, D.C. where he took a teaching job at the Wesleyan Theological Seminary. Eventually he got tired of teaching and started working for the federal government in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he is presently employed.
Keith remembers Ted from Harvard well. He lived in 8 Prescott, the same dorm as Ted, his freshman year. The dorm had 13 separate rooms. Keith’s freshman year roommate was Ron Bauer, who is now a judge in California. 8 Prescott was removed from the other freshman dorms which are all located in Harvard Yard. Keith may have been placed in 8 Prescott because he was on scholarship. The rooms were cheaper and less desirable than all of the other freshman dorms.
After his first year, Keith shared a suite with Ted in Eliot House for his remaining three years at Harvard. Toward the end of freshman year, all of the students were required to request their first choice housing for the following year. Early in the morning someone walked around through all the houses and slipped a sheet under each dorm room saying where that student had been assigned to live the following year.
Keith did not want to live in Eliot House because it housed so many of the wealthier students, yet Eliot House is where Keith was assigned. Eliot House had a reputation for being the home to Harvard’s wealthier and preppiest students. Keith heard a rumor that the administration was placing scholarship kids into Eliot House in order to make it a more heterogeneous environment.
Ted and Keith’s suite in Eliot House was no one’s first choice. Their suite was considered the low rent district of Eliot House. The rooms were cheaper than all the others, and students who were on scholarship, or who had little money, were forced to live there. Because Keith was on scholarship, he had a job while in school to help pay for his expenses. Keith worked as a housekeeper, helping to clean other Harvard student’s rooms. Keith was always resentful that he had to clean rooms that were so much nicer than his own.
Ted and Keith’s suite also had more single rooms than the other suites in Eliot House. At Harvard, it was unusual for students to live in a room by themselves. Only misfits, who no one wanted to share a room with, lived alone. Ted had a single room in their suite. Keith shared a room with Patrick McIntosh. Senior year, Keith and Patrick’s room was located next to Ted’s room, and they shared a common wall.
Ted was noticeably smaller and younger than the other students. He was always extremely quiet. Keith rarely heard Ted speak, and when he did, it was only in response to a question that Ted had directly been asked. There may have been times when Ted was unresponsive to questions. Ted was sometimes spaced out. He seemed completely absorbed with his intellectual life. He was always lost in a book or a thought.
Ted walked in a forced march. Ted’s room was all the way across the suite from the door. Every day, Ted clomped through the suite with a determined look on his face. After class, he went directly to his room, not stopping to talk with anyone, and slammed the door shut. Ted did not slam the door as an expression of anger. He was never aggressive or angry. This was just the way Ted always shut the door. Keith did not think of Ted as the type to work with his hands, because Ted did not seem to be very coordinated. Ted was a gentle person. He was never in any way menacing.
The few times that Keith ventured into Ted’s room, Ted was always sitting at his desk holding a book in his hands. Ted’s room was a complete mess. There were papers, books, and trash all over. There may have also been old food and dirty dishes in the piles that covered the floor. Ted always had a disheveled appearance. Harvard required the students to wear a coat and tie, and Ted dressed accordingly. However, most students were much preppier than Ted. Ted’s clothing was unfashionable and he always wore the same thing, day after day. In fact, it usually looked as though Ted had even slept in his one outfit.
Ted studied much more than the average student. Ted often stayed up until 2 in the morning studying and reading. Keith knew that Ted always stayed up so late because Keith, through the common wall that they shared, could hear Ted rocking methodically back and forth in his chair. The rocking made noise against the wooden floor and often Ted would bang into the wall causing even more disruption to Keith. Often Keith asked Ted to stop rocking so that Keith could sleep. Ted always agreed to stop when Keith asked. However, after a short time Ted always started rocking again. Ted was not trying to annoy Keith purposefully. Ted did not seem to be consciously aware of his habit and was unaware that he had started to rock again after he had told Keith he would stop.
John Finley, the Master of Eliot House, was wonderful. He was a classics scholar and he seemed to care about the students under his guidance. On several occasions, during the three years that Keith lived in Eliot House, Finley had students over to his house for dinner. Keith did not see Ted at any of these gatherings.
At Harvard, after the main graduation ceremony, all the students return to their respective houses to have a more personal, intimate ceremony. At Eliot House’s graduation, John Finley said a personal anecdote about each student. Keith played on the varsity tennis team, and when it was Keith’s turn, John Finley said something about Keith having a good stroke and a good heart. Keith can not remember what Finley said about Ted, but he imagines that it must have had something to do with mathematics. Finley probably did not know much about Ted beyond that he was majoring in math.
Harvard men mainly dated students from Radcliffe, known as “Cliffies”, and Wellesley. Women from Wellesley were considered more desirable, but they mainly dated the wealthy students, many of whom had cars and were able to afford to go out. The Cliffies attended the same classes as Harvard students, but they were not allowed in the Harvard library or the Harvard dinning halls. Patrick McIntosh was the only one of Ted and Keith’s roommates who had a steady girlfriend. Most of the other men in the suite, with the exception of Ted, dated sporadically. Ted never dated and no women ever came to Eliot House to visit him. Keith can not imagine Ted being able to function on a date.
At Harvard there were many different social groups. There were, of course, the rich kids and the poor kids, but there were also groups that crossed class lines. For example, the athletes tended be friends with each other. There were also political groups. In the dinning hall there was a group of Republicans who all ate together and a group of Democrats who all ate together. There were even groups of nerds, who were intensely interested in math and science. Ted was too weird and eccentric to fit in with any of these groups, even the nerds. No friend ever came to visit Ted in his suite.
Harvard was a large, impersonal place. If a student was having trouble emotionally, no one, including the administration, noticed or cared. No one at Harvard offered students help or encouraged students to seek help. Students were responsible for themselves, and if they had a problem, they had to solve it on their own. Harvard was a rough experience for anyone, but for Ted, who was only 16 years old, it was extremely difficult.
Chicago, Illinois
September 8–10, 1996.
Ludwika Alchimowicz immigrated to the United States from Poland around 1900, two years before her daughter, Helena Alchimowicz (Ted Jr.’s paternal grandmother). Before Ludwika immigrated, three of her children and her first husband died. All three children died of scarlet fever within the same month. Ludwika’s husband, a law enforcement official, died of double pneumonia.
In New York City, Ludwika Alchimowicz met Julian Sokolik and they married. They lived in the lower east side of Manhattan.
Josephine has very warm memories of her grandfather, Julian. He was a doting grandfather who bought her toys in the open air markets of the lower east side.
Years later, after Helena’s son, Stanley Kaczynski (Ted Jr.’s paternal uncle) was born, Helena’s parents moved from the lower east side to Pittsburgh to live with Helena and her husband Jacob Kaczynski. Money was tight for the family so Jacob got Julian a job as a clothing presser. Nine months later Julian died of pneumonia. Ludwika lived on and moved with the family to Chicago where she spent the rest of her life.
In 1902, Helena Alchimowicz immigrated to the United States through Ellis Island at the age of 16. She was born in the Mazowsze area (a political subdivision similar to county) of Poland, close to Warsaw, in November, 1886 (approx, year). After the death of her father and three siblings, her mother, Ludwika Alchimowicz, came to the United States leaving Helena alone in Poland. During the next two years, Helena apprenticed with a dress maker in Warsaw. Unfortunately, instead of learning how to sew, she was merely a messenger for the dressmaker.
Jacob Kaczynski was born in November, 1866 (approx, year) He attended art school in St. Petersburg, Russia, where he studied gilding. He worked on the art work in the cathedrals of Europe. He spoke Russian, Polish and German, although he hated Russian and German. He never learned to speak English. He was a very patriotic American. He wanted there to be no doubt that his children were American so he listed his childrens’ names on his naturalization papers even though they were born in the United States and their citizenship was never in dispute. He became a naturalized citizen in 1922.
Jacob may have immigrated to Massachusetts, where he worked for a cigar factory. After living in Massachusetts, Jacob moved to New York City and worked as a gilder on books and picture frames. In New York, he was a member of the Polish National Alliance and of the Polish Singing Society. Through his membership in the Polish National Alliance, he met Julian Sokolik who, in turn, introduced him to Helena Alchimowicz. A romance ensued and Jacob and Helena married.
In 1906, Helena gave birth to Josephine while living at 15th Street and the Bowery in New York City. In 1909, Jacob lost his job and the family moved to Pittsburgh, PA, where he had a job with Wonderly Brothers gilding picture frames, books and other items. In Pittsburgh, Helena gave birth to her second child, Alex Kaczynski. After Alex, she gave birth to Theodore Kaczynski who died at 3 months from water on the brain. After the birth of Harriet, the fourth Kaczynski child, Helena sent Josephine to New York City to live with Ludwika on the lower east side of Manhattan. Helena needed the time to recover and to care for the newborn. In 1914, Helena gave birth to Theodore Richard Kaczynski, whom Josephine named in memory of her dead brother. A few years later, Stanley was born. Ludwika came to Pittsburgh for the births of all of her grandchildren.
Helena was sickly when her children were young. She had asthma and after Harriet’s death began to experience heart murmurs. Josephine, the eldest daughter, took on many of the responsibilities of the household from a very young age, including shopping, and cleaning, though she was caught many times not attending to her duties. Helena was hospitalized twice, and was not expected to survive these hospitalization. During one of those hospitalizations, she ordered Josephine and Harriet to sew themselves black dresses to wear to her funeral. They all said their final goodbyes and Helena went to the hospital. Helena survived these episodes, but this chain of events ultimately led to Josephine’s nervous breakdown in which she experienced vivid hallucinations of a burning house. To this day she has to fight those images.
Helena was a very intelligent woman who taught herself English from reading the comic strips. She had a near photographic memory, reciting sections of Madame Bovary 20 years after reading the novel. In her later years, Helena spoke with only a slight Polish accent.
In Pittsburgh, the Kaczynski’s lived in the Polish Hills, an ethnic Polish neighborhood, until around 1916. In the Polish Hills, they had no electricity and no indoor plumbing. They also lived in Poe(Sp?) Alley and on Stanton Street. Later, they moved to 5150 or 5120 Duncan on 51st Street and Duncan in Laurenceville (Sp?) near Highland Park, PA. They spent 11 years across from the Allegheny cemetery (this may have been the time they lived in the suburbs). Around 1920, they bought a house and moved to Knoxville, PA, a suburb of Pittsburgh. Here they had electricity and indoor plumbing. The kids could not stay out of the bathroom.
Helena did not work outside the home until they moved to Knoxville, PA. Then she worked for a laundry across the street. This job lasted only for a short while. Later, in Chicago, she worked for Felix Kaczynski. After her husband’s death, she worked for the Navy.
In the late 1920s, Jacob’s job at Wonderly Brothers was coming to an end. He had some difficulties because he never learned to speak English, and another man, who could speak English, was hired. As a result, Wonderly Brothers demoted Jacob. He inquired about work with Felix Kaczynski, who owned a sausage factory in Chicago, and moved there during Josephine’s last year in high school (around 1924). Three months later, Helena sold their house and followed with the children, except for Josephine who completed her education at Knoxville Union high school and followed four months later (3 months for school and 1 month after school). During this time, Josephine lived with the Szafranskis , friends of the family who first gave Josephine art lessons. The Szafranski’s son, Erik, played violin with the NBC orchestra.
The Kaczynski family lived in the Town of Lake also known as the Back of the Yards. The Kaczynski’s lived on 51st street off of Troop (sp?) street, 8 blocks from the entrance to the yards located on 43rd Street. Later, they bought a house at 1251 W 51st Street. Some days the smell of the yards was unbearable and made Josephine sick. The Kaczynski family had a happy life in PA, but Chicago brought tougher times.
These were lean depression years for the Kaczynskis. Jacob’s employment at the sausage factory meant that they always had plenty (sometimes too much) sausage. Helena worked in the yards for a time, a fact that Josephine finds very embarrassing. Josephine also worked at Triangle Electric Company and contributed her income to the house.
The Kaczynskis attended St. John of God church. The neighborhood was completely Polish during this time. Polish General Halel (sp ?) and Mr. Powdereski (sp?) came to St. John of God. Jacob Kaczynski was treasurer of the Chicago chapter of the Polish National Alliance. The Kaczynskis entertained often and enjoyed a high standing in the community; due, in part, to the high Warsaw Polish they spoke and to Jacob’s high level within the Polish National Alliance.
Helena excommunicated Josephine from the family because of her marriage to Mr. Manney, an African American. This excommunication lasted for about 10 years. &&& As a result, Josephine did not know about her grandmother’s death, and Stanley’s and Ted Sr.’s marriages. Mother and daughter mended fences at the command of Jacob, from his hospital bed, where he lay dying of cancer.
In his later years, Jacob suffered some sort of dementia. At one point, he ran away from home wearing only his undergarments. Ted Sr. was sent to retrieve him, but Jacob refused to return home, saying that if he went home he would die and that he did not want to die until he was 81. He wanted desperately to outlive his father who died at 79. He could not be coaxed home and was arrested by the police. Helena was extremely humiliated to have to retrieve him from the police station. Soon after, Jacob died at the age of 79, failing to surpass his father.
Josephine Manney is a spry, alert woman. She keeps busy with a plethora of activities. She is enrolled in two classes: an improvisational acting class and a biography class which evolved into a chat group about the students’ lives and their desires for the future (and future lives). She is an artist in watercolors and drawing, and teaches a drawing class at Lawrence House. She signs her paintings “Zuita” (pronounced ‘chjeweeta’) which translates from Polish to “Jo.” She also enjoys reading novels and painting greeting cards for people. She attends mass regularly. She has worked as an extra in several movies including: Men Do Leave and Only the Lonely. She eventually stopped signing up for these parts as they often kept her working all night.
Josephine Kaczynski Manney was born in 1906 at 15th Street and the Bowery in New York City. At the age of 3, she and her parents moved to Pittsburgh, PA. When Harriet Kaczynski was born, Helena sent Josephine to New York City for one year to live with her maternal grandparents. She enjoyed this immensely, especially the attention of her doting grandfather who spoiled her by buying her toys from the open air markets of the lower east side of New York. She did not want to return to Pittsburgh after her year in New York.
Jacob taught her to read and write Polish by editing her letters to Ludwika and Julian. She also corresponded with her father’s relatives in Poland, Rudolph and Zenia. The letters the Kaczynskis received from Poland during the war contained hidden messages under the stamps.
Her most horrid memory of childhood is the nervous breakdown she suffered after her mother made her sew herself a black funeral dress.
Her most pleasant memories were the singing of the family. Jacob and Helena sang duets while Alex played violin and Harriet accompanied on the piano. Her elementary school graduation was another warm memory in which her mother sewed her a pink satin dress and bought her a new watch.
When the Kaczynskis bought their house in PA, and moved to the suburbs, they entered the world of nonethnic whites and there were times when it was difficult to be Polish. Josephine felt the prejudice of her high school Latin teacher. She was the only bilingual student in her high school. When Josephine looked for summer employment in Pittsburgh, a potential employer told her she should change her name and deny that she is Catholic to help her get employment. It was out of these experiences that she decided she was not prejudiced. Jacob Kaczynski was also racially tolerant. When the family was living in Pittsburgh, Josephine was riding the bus with her father when she saw a black man across the aisle from her. After she made a derogatory remark, her father scolded her, telling her never to do that again.
Josephine graduated Valedictorian from Knoxville Union High School (now an elementary school). Then she joined her family in Chicago.
When Josephine was around 22, her sister Harriet died. Josephine was very close to Harriet and remembers this time as horrible. She was extremely depressed for 3 months, crying at the drop of a hat. Her co-workers at Triangle Electric ridiculed her for not containing the sorrow she felt for her dead sister.
Josephine stopped mourning her sister after a series of dreams in which Harriet spoke to her. In the first dream, she saw Harriet in heaven except heaven looked like an upscale neighborhood of Chicago and Harriet was dressed up and going out for the evening. In the next dream, Harriet told Josephine not to worry about her. In the last dream, Harriet was riding in a transit bus heading west in the South side of Chicago. This ended her depression.
Josephine worked for Bernan and Hamlet, a prestigious architecture firm in Chicago for many years, including the time during Ted Jr.’s adolescence. Her direct boss was Mr. Berman, a bigshot architect in Chicago. His father designed the Million Dollar Mile, the Chicago Exposition and some of the buildings downtown.
She also worked at the Lakeview Bank on Ashland and Belmont in Chicago.
Helena moved in with Josephine after Jacob’s death and lived with her until her death in ~1976. Ted Sr. would only come see Helena in the afternoon when he was free from work. He never came to see his mother with Wanda.
Harriet died January 25, 1929, at the age of 18 or 20. That January, she had just had her tooth pulled and wanted to go out to a dance. Her mother was very concerned as it was extremely cold outside and Harriet had been born with a weak heart, for which she took pills from a very young age. Helena finally relented and allowed Harriet to go to the dance. Subsequently, Harriet contracted double pneumonia and died. The death was attributed to her weak heart.
The family kept her body in the house for 4 days while mourners came to see the body. They had to replace the carpet after the death because of all the mourners tracking mud and snow into the house.
Harriet had many boyfriends, six of whom carried the coffin at her funeral.
Alex (or Al) was a very talented violinist, performing concerts from the age of 9. When he was around 19 years old he began to experience pains in his abdomen. He walked with a drag in his left leg. The family physician, Dr. Dubosky, referred him to a specialist from England who determined that he was suffering with MS. Eventually, the MS affected his speech and hands. He was hospitalized in the psychiatric unit of the hospital. He died at the age of 29 from MS.
Theodore Richard Kaczynski (Ted Sr.) was the prettiest boy in the Kaczynski family. He was very curious about things and got along well with Josephine.
When he was 18 or 19, he stole a gun from Shane Brothers, the clothier where he worked, and rode a freight train to Pittsburgh. He used the gun to kill rabbits for food. Ted Sr., like Josephine, missed Pittsburgh and the country. After he arrived in Pittsburgh, he went to the Szafranskis (the neighbors with whom Josephine lived in the last 4 months of high school). They called Jacob who sent money for Ted Sr. to return to Chicago. In total, he was away for 3 weeks. After he arrived in Chicago, Josephine convinced Shane Brothers to give Ted Sr. his job back.
Wanda had an inferiority complex stemming, in part, from the low Polish she spoke, in contrast to the Warsaw Polish spoken by the Kaczynski family. Wanda even went so far as to buy herself a “Teach Yourself Polish” book.
After Harvard accepted Ted Jr. for matriculation, Mr. Berman, Josephine’s boss and a Harvard grad, suggested that Ted Jr. come talk to him. Ted Jr. and Ted Sr. came to speak with Mr. Berman at his office. After the meeting, Mr. Berman remarked that Ted Jr. was a real dummy and unsocial. He said that Ted Jr. had not said anything during the meeting but just looked at him with a blank expression. Ted Sr. carried the Kaczynski end of the conversation with Mr. Berman.
Chicago, Illinois
October 7 & 10, 1996.
Ludwika and Julian Sokolik lived at 268 1st Avenue in New York City before moving in with the Kaczynskis in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
When Josephine was six years old and the Kaczynski family was living in Pittsburgh, her mother, Helena, became ill and was taken to the hospital (possibly St. Margarets). Josephine Kaczynski and her brother, Albert, were also taken to the hospital to visit their mother. Upon arrival at the hospital they saw that Helena was in a hospital bed with a white curtain drawn around it. This signified that she would not have long to live. Josephine’s father, Jacob, was crying and told his children to say goodbye to their mother.
After sitting with her mother, Josephine returned home. That night she experienced her first hallucinations, the beginning of what she refers to as her nervous breakdown. She saw the walls of her room explode in flames as her house burned down around her. Later that week, Josephine spent the night at a neighbor’s house to allow her father to remain with Helena in the hospital. Her hallucinations continued as she saw the walls of the neighbor’s house move around her. Within three weeks her mother returned from the hospital, but remained under the care of a physician and bed ridden. Josephine’s burning house hallucination continued and the doctor gave her a bitter liquid medicine that eased her symptoms. The hallucinations went away but Josephine continued to suffer from fear and anxiety attacks. After the family moved to Chicago, Josephine told her sister, Harriet, that she needed to curl up with her when she had anxiety attacks. Recently, Josephine wakes up in the middle of the night with anxiety attacks about dying.
Helena Kaczynski was a very strict mother. She hit her children with her hand or Jacob’s razor strap on the legs and bare buttocks. One Christmas Eve in Pittsburgh, Josephine ran out into the cold Pennsylvania night to avoid being beaten, but after several hours she returned home and her mother beat her with the razor strap. Often, the kids protected each other from beatings by not revealing who had committed the punishable deed. Helena, frustrated, hit them all across the legs with the razor strap. This hurt less than being beaten on the buttocks.
Helena was a very reserved person who would not discuss her health or her feelings with her children. One example is that Josephine does not know the two illnesses that nearly took her mother’s life when Josephine was 6 years old and again when she was around ten years old. Josephine attributes her mother’s reserved nature to the isolation she experienced when her mother, Ludwika Sokolik, left her alone in Warsaw, Poland.
Neither Jacob nor Helena talked to their children about why certain things happened and how the children felt about these events. When her brother, Ted Sr., ran away from home, her parents did not talk with him about why he decided to run away.
Charles Manney was born around Memphis, Tennessee and went to college in Virginia. He was a Southern Baptist. Josephine and Charles married in March, 1934 in a Baptist church. Later, they became Christian Scientists.
Ted Jr. was quiet, within himself and always thinking or dreaming. He was hard to approach. When he was in high school and came to visit Josephine, he would not tell her what he was doing in school because he said she would not understand. David would initiate conversation with her and was more responsive in conversation. When Ted visited, he just sat on her couch and hardly moved.
Josephine gave birth to Robert Kaye prior to her marriage (1934). He was born in Chicago at St. Francis orphanage around 1930. St. Francis no longer exists.
Josephine’s mother, Helena, told her to leave the house when she was 6 months pregnant. She asked Robert’s father for some money and rented a room at the Washington Hotel in the north side of Chicago for the last three months of her pregnancy. Her parents visited her almost every Sunday for dinner.
For the first year after Robert’s birth, Josephine kept him at a farm for children in the northwest of Chicago where she visited him once a week. After she discovered he had rickets she returned him to St. Francis and paid them $100 to put him up for adoption. At the age of four, St. Francis contacted Jospehine’s mother, Helena, and told her they could not place Robert. Helena adopted him and called him her son. Josephine never again referred to him as her son because she felt this would undermine her mother. Instead, she referred to Robert as a brother. It upset Robert when he learned that Josephine was his biological mother. Helena adopted Robert in 1934, the same year Josephine married Charles Manney and was excommunicated by the family. As a result, Josephine was not in contact with her son, Robert, for many years. She saw Robert only occasionally when her mother would not know.
When Robert turned 17, he joined the Air Force serving in the Phillippines and other bases around the globe. He married a woman in Massachusetts and adopted two children.
Chicago, Illinois
January 15, 1997.
Josephine has suffered periods of anxiety and depression throughout her entire life. When she was six years old, Josephine’s mother, Helen, left Josephine with one of the Kaczynskis’ neighbors, Mrs. Grimes. Mrs. Grimes had a sixteen-year-old daughter named Evelyn. Josephine was laying in Evelyn’s bed, looking at the wall, when she suddenly saw the wall begin to move. Josephine screamed and Mrs. Grimes came into the room to see what was wrong. For the rest of the summer, Josephine felt continuously fearful and nervous.
These feelings of fear and nervousness continued throughout Josephine’s childhood and adolescence. Each episode started with Josephine feeling nervous and anxious. After a period of nervousness, Josephine always felt a deep depression. These episodes happened frequently. When Josephine was young, she thought a lot about life and death. Thinking about either life or death usually triggered an episode of nervousness and depression.
Josephine also panicked when she thought about eternity. Eternity was a concept that Josephine did not have the ability to grasp or understand. She feared both eternity and an end to the world at the same time. Sometimes Josephine had episodes of nervousness and depression for no apparent reason at all. Josephine was confused by her feelings and they made her want to scream. Often Josephine did find herself screaming.
Josephine often had feelings that she was slipping away from reality. She frequently had hallucinations that walls and pictures were moving. Josephine felt like she was slipping into a world of her own. When Josephine started to feel this way, she usually asked someone to touch her. The touch of another person was usually enough to bring Josephine back to reality. When Josephine and her sister, Harriet, were growing up, they shared the same bed. At night, Josephine asked Harriet to touch her on the arm. Once Harriet asked Josephine why she was always asking Harriet to touch her. Josephine told Harriet that she needed to be brought back to reality. Harriet agreed to help Josephine and every night when Josephine asked, she touched Josephine on the arm.
When Josephine was young, it was not common for people to visit psychiatrists or counselors. Josephine went to the town doctor and told him about her episodes and that she was afraid of eternity and the end of the world. The doctor gave Josephine a liquid medication to help her depression. Josephine has fought episodes of depression her entire life.
In high school, Josephine was known for her psychological instability. Under Josephine’s name in the yearbook there was a poem: Fair Josephine is often seen/ In attitude dramatic/ It is not quaint that she can paint/ For genius is erratic. Josephine hated being called erratic. Josephine felt that being erratic meant that she was changeable, eccentric, irregular and random. Josephine did not want to be any of these things.
One of Josephine’s most severe periods of depression followed Harriet’s death. Harriet died when Josephine was about 23 years old. Josephine and Harriet were extremely close sisters. Whenever the two sisters were apart, they wrote letters to each other every day.
When Josephine’s brother Alexander died, Josephine was already married to Charles Manney. Josephine was no longer communicating with her family. Josephine’s brother, Stanley, informed Josephine that Alexander had died. Josephine did not have a chance to say goodbye to Alexander. Alexander was sick for a period of ten years before he finally died at the age of 29. When Alexander first became sick, he was admitted to the psych ward of Cook County Hospital. Josephine’s family was embarrassed that Alexander was in the psych ward so they told all of their friends that the hospital was full and the psych ward was the only place that had room for Alexander. However, Alexander did suffer mentally. He gradually became very distraught and often said that he wished he had died along with Harriet.
Josephine, Harriet, and Alexander all had very different personalities. Josephine was the child who always got in trouble with their parents. Alexander was the child who was quiet, pleasant, and talented at the violin. Harriet was the child who was most outgoing and popular. As a teenager, Harriet had many boyfriends, while Josephine had relatively few. Alexander never dated any girls at all.
Josephine’s brothers, Stanley and Ted Sr., were both substantially younger than Josephine. As a child, Josephine did not have as much contact with them as she did with Harriet and Alexander. Stanley was a moody, serious type. However, as an adult, Josephine was closer to Stanley and his family than any of her other siblings.
Ted Sr. always lacked ambition. He never took the initiative to do anything with his life. Ted Sr. simply took whatever job was offered to him. He spent most of his life working for his cousin’s sausage company, Felix Kaczynski & Sons, because it was the easiest thing for him to do.
Josephine’s mother, Helen, always said that she hated the name Josephine. Josephine was named after her aunt, Jacob’s sister, who died of small pox at the age of thirteen. Alexander was named after Alexander the Great because they share a birthday, February 27. Harriet was named Harriet Louise after her maternal grandmother, Ludwika. Ted Sr. was named Theodore after Josephine’s first brother Theodore, who died.
When Josephine was four years old, her mother, Helen, sent Josephine to live with her grandparents in New York. Helen had just given birth and was unable to care for Josephine, Alexander, and Harriet at the same time.
In New York, Josephine and her grandparents lived near many Jewish families. Josephine loved living with her grandparents. With her grandparents, Josephine received more love and attention than she received in her parents’ home. Josephine did not miss her mother or father at all. After one year, Helen said that she wanted Josephine back. Josephine did not want to return home and asked if she could stay. Her mother said no. Josephine tried to hide in her grandmother’s closet, but her grandparents soon found her.
Josephine’s mother, Helen, was a very stem and silent woman. She kept to herself and rarely shared her feelings with anyone in her family. Helen lived to see four of her children-Theodore, Harriet, Alexander, and Stanley--die. When Theodore, the baby, died, Josephine’s family kept a picture of him in a baby basket for years. Josephine was upset by this shrine, because she felt that her family was not healing from their loss. When Ted Sr. was born, Josephine suggested that her parents name him Theodore, hoping that everyone would finally forget about the dead baby.
Helen took Stanley’s death the hardest. At Stanley’s funeral, Helen became hysterical. Helen threw herself onto Stanley’s coffin and eventually had to be pried away. Helen died the next year.
Due to Josephine’s episodes of depression, she was a difficult child to raise. Josephine had a streak of independence that angered Helen. Helen was an extremely stubborn and controlling mother. There were times that Helen was so angry at Josephine that she refused to talk to Josephine for a week. Josephine and Helen were living in the same house and Helen simply ignored Josephine completely. At times, Josephine did misbehave, but Helen’s anger was often not justified.
Josephine remembers one incident that occurred when she was twenty years old. Although she was a grown woman, Josephine was still living with her parents in Chicago. Josephine had a job and she gave all of the money she earned, except for her vacation pay, to her parents. Josephine was allowed to keep her vacation pay to spend how she pleased. Helen picked out all of Josephine’s clothing, much of which Josephine did not particularly like. Josephine decided to use her vacation pay to buy a fashionable brown velvet suit. Josephine did not tell her mother she was going to buy the suit. Josephine expected her mother to be both surprised and pleased. Instead, when Helen saw the suit that Josephine had bought, she became incredibly angry. Helen was furious that Josephine had bought a dress without her approval. Helen did not speak to Josephine for two weeks.
Josephine’s lack of education regarding sex was one reason Josephine had difficulties forming proper relationships with men. When Josephine was 23 or 24 years old she began dating a man named William Martin, who worked with Josephine at Triangle Electric Company. Josephine and William worked together for one 1/2 years. William was 20 years older than Josephine. He was married and he had two children. William often offered to drive Josephine home from work. William paid special attention to Josephine and gradually they began to have an affair. Although William was married, he came to Josephine’s house and met Josephine’s parents and friends. Everyone told Josephine that what she was doing was okay because Josephine was not the one cheating on her spouse. But when Josephine discovered she was pregnant, everything changed.
Josephine’s mother, Helen, was furious and upset. Josephine and Helen both sat in the living room and cried. Josephine knew that William was not going to leave his wife and she did not want to involve him with her pregnancy in any way. Helen felt differently. Helen called William’s wife and told her that Josephine was pregnant with William’s child. Josephine quit her job in shame.
Josephine still lived at home with her parents, but as soon as her pregnancy started to show, Helen and Jacob decided that Josephine was an embarrassment to the family and sent her to live in an apartment by herself on Washington Boulevard. Helen and Jacob came to visit Josephine once a week. Helen and Jacob did not want their neighbors to know that their daughter was going to have an illegitimate baby.
Four weeks before her baby was due, Josephine went to live in an orphanage. Josephine told all of the other girls in the orphanage she was married. Josephine told the girls that she had to come to the orphanage because her husband was out of town. Josephine pretended that her last name was Kaye. She named her new baby Robert Kaye (Bobby). The people who ran the orphanage were the only ones who knew the truth about Josephine’s situation.
Even after Josephine had been forced to give William’s illegitimate son up for adoption, William tried to resume his affair with Josephine. Josephine said no.
Josephine thought frequently about her son Bobby and often regretted giving him up for adoption. Josephine felt as though she had been expected to give away Bobby in order to save her family embarrassment. After Josephine married Charles Manney, she tried to have more children unsuccessfully.
During her marriage to Charles, Josephine learned that Bobby was living with Helen and Jacob. Josephine was upset and hurt for several reasons. Josephine had been told by the orphanage that Bobby was going to be adopted. Josephine wanted Bobby to live with a happy family, with parents who wanted him and loved him, rather than with her own parents, who resented Bobby and were embarrassed by him. If no family wanted to adopt Bobby, Josephine wanted to care for Bobby herself. Josephine was now a married woman who wanted a child. However, the orphanage called Josephine’s parents instead of Josephine, and Helen and Jacob decided to take Bobby as their own. Since Josephine’s parents were not speaking to her, they did not bother to inform Josephine that they were now caring for her son. It was Ted Sr. who finally called Josephine to tell her where Bobby was living. Josephine desperately wanted to meet Bobby, so Ted Sr. arranged for them to meet at his house.
Lincoln, MT
June 17, 1996
Lee lives with his family in the closest year-round home to Ted. He has lived there for approximately 23 years and has lived up there as long as Ted. Lee estimated that in the 23 years he has known who Ted was, he has had a total of perhaps 6 verbal contacts with him. He would not even call them conversations, since each, except for once, involved the exchange of only 2 -3 words. The one time Lee and Ted did talk at length involved a time approximately 22 years ago. Lee took some heavy equipment up the logging road near Ted’s house to cut fencing posts for his yard. Ted came over to Lee, and a discussion occurred which according to Lee was polite and nonthreatening. Ted did not want Lee to go up the road with the equipment and Lee maintained he had the right to, and intended to. Ted was not hostile in any way, he just objected to the heavy equipment going up the logging road. Lee did go up and cut the fencing posts. Within a day or two, Lee found out Ted had gone to the Forest Service to check whether Lee had the appropriate permits to cut the posts. (He did.) The only way Lee knew this was because his ex-wife worked for the Forest Service at the time. The description Lee got of Ted’s visit to the Forest Service was that he was polite, not hostile, and expressed concern for the environment. On 2 or 3 occasions, he gave Ted a ride to or from town. Each time Lee was in his pickup, and each time Ted sat in the back of the truck, although Lee invited him to sit up in the cab with him. Lee said no matter what the temperature, and no matter whether he had his bike with him, he always sat in the back of the truck. He would politely decline Lee’s offer to have him sit up front. Lee said he thought Ted’s cleanliness was “ok considering the living situation he had.” He considered Ted the “perfect neighbor” because he was quiet and didn’t bother anyone. Lee has a “live and let live” attitude, and he really didn’t see anything strange about the way Ted lived or conducted himself in town.
Neither he, nor anyone in his family has had any problem with Ted. Approximately 4–5 years ago, Lee was sighting his rifle in and shooting across his yard at a target. Ted suddenly appeared, and politely asked Lee if he would stop shooting long enough so he (Ted) could walk up the road to get to his house. Lee said he was somewhat embarrassed because he didn’t know Ted was out walking, and it was unsafe for Ted to continue home until Lee stopped shooting. In the 70’s Lee said Ted occasionally had visitors, but he hasn’t seen anyone up there in many years. He knew Kenny Lee used to visit on occasion, and several others, who Lee did not know.