#title The Unabomber: A Chronology
#date Archived on 19 Jan 1998.
#source [[http://web.archive.org/web/19980119163443/https:/www.courttv.com/trials/unabomber/chronology/][courttv.com]]
#lang en
#pubdate 2023-02-12T12:28:05
#topics
*** BEFORE THE BOMBINGS
| May 22, 1942 | Theodore Kaczynski, Jr. is born in Chicago, Illinois. Six months later, he is put in the hospital for a severe allergic reaction to medication. In the hospital, he is isolated for several weeks from his family. Afterwards, family members have said, his personality seemed to go "flat." |
| 1950 | David Kaczynski is born. |
| 1952 | The Kaczynski family moves to the Chicago suburb of Evergreen Park, where a young Ted Kaczynski sometimes reads Scientific American on the porch with his mother. |
| 1958 | Kaczynski graduates from Evergreen Park High School, two years ahead of his class. He then goes to Harvard, on scholarship, at age 16. |
| 1962 | Kaczynski graduates from Harvard and goes to the University of Michigan to get his Ph.D. in math. |
| 1966 | The Kaczynski family moves from the Chicago suburbs to Lisbon, Iowa. |
| 1967 | He graduates from Michigan and begins teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, as an assistant professor of mathematics in July of this year. |
| 1969 | The Kaczynski family moves to the Chicago suburb of Lombard. Neighbors do not recall ever seeing Ted Kaczynski at the one-story home. Kaczynski suddenly resigns from his post at Berkeley on June 30. |
| June 1971 | Kaczynski and his brother David purchase a 1.4-acre lot in Lincoln, Montana from Clifford Gehring, Jr. He later builds a 10-by-12 cabin on the site by hand. |
| Mid-1970s | Kaczynski lives and works in Salt Lake City. |
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*** 1978 - 1982
| May 25, 1978 | A package is found in a parking lot at the University of Illinois in Chicago with a return address of Professor Buckley Crist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. The addressee is E.J. Smith, a professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, who later acknowledges no knowledge of the parcel. As becomes evident to FBI investigators over time, the Unabomber often addresses packages in a manner so that the return addressee is the ultimate recipient. |
| May 26, 1978 | Crist is suspicious of the package when it is returned to him and contacts the Department of Public Safety at Northwestern. Public safety officer Terry Marker opens the package, which explodes. Marker sustains minor injuries in the first incident eventually attributed to the Unabomber. |
| June 23, 1978 | Kaczynski moves back to the Chicago area and gets a job as a press operator at Foam Cutting Engineers in the Chicago suburb of Addison, Ill. His brother, David, works there as Kaczynski's supervisor. |
| July, 1978 | A woman named Ellen Tarmichael, a supervisor at the plant, has dinner with Kaczynski. Two weeks later, they go apple picking and bake an apple pie at his parent's house. During this occasion, she tells Kaczynski that she does not "wish to see him further on a social basis," as she informs several newspapers almost two decades later. Later, suggestive limericks about Tarmichael begin to appear around the plant. |
| August 23, 1978 | Kaczynski's brother David fires him from his job at Foam Cutting Enterprises because of the lewd notes Ted leaves around the office. The two brothers get into an argument and Ted is called into Tarmichael's office. Tarmichael explains that David had the authority to fire Ted, and that she supports David's decision. |
| May 9, 1979 | A bomb hidden in a Phillies brand cigar box is left on a table in the Technical Building on the Northwestern University campus. The device is left untouched until mid-afternoon, when John G. Harris, a graduate student in the Civil Engineering department, opens the box. The resulting explosion causes him cuts and burns, but not serious injury. |
| November 14, 1979 | A parcel with a bomb hidden inside is mailed from a post office in the Chicago area. |
| November 15, 1979 | It is routed by the Post Office to Washington, D.C. and put aboard an American Airlines Boeing 727. The bomb, equipped with a barometer to measure altitude, explodes as the plane reaches 34,500 feet. Smoke fills the cabin and the pilots are forced to make an emergency landing at Dulles Airport near Washington. Eighteen passengers are treated on the scene for smoke inhalation and the baggage compartment is damaged by fire resulting from the explosion. The FBI later attributes the bomb to the Unabomber. |
| June 9, 1980 | A package arrives at the home of United Airlines president Percy Wood. Several days earlier, Wood had received a letter from an Enoch W. Fischer at his home in Lake Forest, Ill, which said that Fischer would send to Wood, in a separate package, a book of great importance to all business executives. |
| June 10, 1980 | Wood opens the package, which contains a copy of the book "Ice Brothers," by Sloan Wilson. When Wood opens the book, a device inside explodes, causing Wood serious cuts on his face and thigh. The initials "FC" are discovered etched into a metal remnant of the bomb, the first time those initials are used. |
| October 8, 1981 | A student at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City discovers a large wrapped package in a hallway and brings it to the attention of a staff member, who calls the campus police. The campus police chief believes it is a bomb and brings in a bomb squad, which diffuses the device with a small explosive charge. The device is later found to contain a small metal tag with "FC" stamped on it. |
| May, 1982 | Kaczynski files a document in Montana removing his brother David as co-owner of the 1.4 acre plot on which his cabin is built. |
| May 5, 1982 | A package is mailed to Professor Patrick C. Fischer at Pennsylvania State University. A secretary at Penn State forwards the package to Vanderbilt University, where Fischer has been teaching for over two years -- though at the time he is in Puerto Rico. Janet Smith, Fischer's secretary, is seriously injured on her face and arms when she opens the package, which explodes. The package was mailed from Provo, Utah with a return address of LeRoy Bearnson, an electrical engineering professor at Brigham Young university, using cancelled stamps, presumably so that the package would be returned to the sender. Bearnson later tells investigators he had no knowledge of the package, and they believe the package may have been intended for him. A small metal tag inside the bomb contains the initials "FC." |
| July 2, 1982 | UC-Berkeley engineering professor Diogenes J. Angelakos sees what he believes is a piece of engineering equipment on the floor of a faculty lounge in Cory Hall at Berkeley, where the mathematics and computer science departments are located. Upon lifting the object's handle, it explodes and causes him serious injuries to his hand, arm and face. |
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*** 1985 - 1987
| May 15, 1985 | John Hauser, a Berkeley graduate student and Air Force captain, discovers a three-ring binder attached to a file box in the computer lab in Cory Hall, the site of the Unabomber attack in May of 1982. When he opens the binder, it explodes. Hauser sustains serious injuries: partial loss of vision in his left eye and trauma to his right hand -- including nerve damage and the loss of four fingers. Diogenes Angelakos, victim of the 1982 bomb, is across the hall when the bomb explodes and uses Hauser's tie to make a tourniquet. One of the metal pins used in the bomb has the letters "FC" etched onto it. |
| June 13, 1985 | A brown paper package with a return address of Weiburg Tool & Supply in Oakland, California -- a company that turns out to be fictitious -- arrives at the Fabrication Division of Boeing in Auburn, Washington. Because the parcel has no specific addressee, it remains in interoffice mail until it is sent to the mail room. Employees there partially open it and discover the bomb inside, whereupon they call in a bomb squad, which diffuses the bomb. Both metal plugs sealing the pipe containing the bomb have the initials "FC" stamped on them. The postal stamps used on the package have the phrase "America's Light Fueled By Truth and Reason" and "Of the People By the People For the People" printed on them. |
| Fall of 1985 | Kaczynski allegedly transports a bomb from Montana to Sacramento. |
| November 15, 1985 | University of Michigan psychology professor James McConnell is sent a package from a Ralph Kloppenburg at the University of Utah. Attached to the outside of the package is a letter to McConnell requesting that he review an enclosed manuscript. When Nick Suino, McConnell's assistant, opens the package, it explodes, injuring Suino's arm and midsection and causing McConnell, who is in the room at the time, to lose part of his hearing. It is later determined that Kloppenberg is a fictitious person. Again, the metal plugs on the bomb have "FC" stamped on them. The same types of postage stamps used on the Boeing bomb are used on this package. |
| December 11, 1985 | Hugh Scrutton, owner of the Rentech computer store in Sacramento, moves a package in the parking lot behind his store. The package explodes, killing Scrutton as shrapnel from the bomb rips open his chest and pierces his heart. One of the metal plugs on the bomb has the letters "FC" stamped into it. |
| February 20, 1987 | Gary Wright, vice-president of CAAMS, Inc. in Salt Lake City, Utah, is seriously injured by a bomb in a parking lot behind his office in another incident attributed to the Unabomber. A secretary there sees a man with a mustache in a sweatshirt placing what appeared to be two 2x4 pieces of wood nailed together -- what turns out to be the bomb -- next to a car. The employee's description is used in the sketch that ultimately comes to be the widely-used representation of the Unabomber. After this bombing, Unabom attacks appear to stop until 1993. |
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*** 1988 - 1995
| July 11, 1988 | Kaczynski writes a letter to mental health professionals requesting psychiatric counseling, and specifies that he would "prefer" to conduct the counseling by writing letters rather than speaking in person. |
| October 1990 | Theodore Kaczynski, the father of the alleged bomber, shoots and kills himself in the family's house in the Chicago suburb of Lombard, with his wife and son David in another room in the house. |
| July 12, 1991 | Kaczynski writes another letter in an attempt to seek some sort of counseling, and details his lack of friends and an absence of social contact, as well as describing a perceived lack of social skills, self-confidence and other traits that lead to his isolation. |
| June 16-18, 1993 | Kaczynski allegedly transports several bombs from Montana to Sacramento. |
| June 18, 1993 | Kaczynski allegedly mails a bomb, contained in a wooden box and placed in a padded envelope, from Sacramento to nearby Tiburon, to the residence of Dr. Charles Epstein, a geneticist at the University of California, San Francisco. The return address on the bomb is listed as James Hill, a chemist at California State University, Sacramento. He also mails a similar bomb to Dr. David Gelernter, a computer science professor at Yale University. The package to Gelernter has a return address listed as Mary Jane Lee of the computer science department at Cal State in Sacramento. Neither Hill nor Lee had any knowledge of the packages at the time. |
| June 22, 1993 | One package arrives at Epstein's house. His daughter brings it from the mailbox and leaves it on the kitchen counter. Late that afternoon, Epstein opens the package in his kitchen. It explodes, causing him a broken arm, abdominal trauma and the loss of several fingers. |
| June 23, 1993 | The mail bomb sent to Gelernter explodes when he opens it, causing him to lose sight in one eye, hearing in one ear and the loss of part of his right hand. He claims that he had to drag himself down five flights of stairs to a university hospital a block away. Shortly after the bombing, the switchboard at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center received a call saying, "You are next." Gelernter's brother Joel, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale Medical School, works at the VA hospital. Joel Gelernter is also a geneticist, and authorities look for connections to the Epstein bombing.
The same day, Warren Hoge, assistant managing editor for the New York Times, receives a letter mailed from Sacramento, presumably from an anarchist group called "FC." The letter connects "FC" to the two bombings, and specifies a nine-digit number in Social Security format (553-25-4394), which it says will be used to authenticate future communications from "FC." |
| July 1993 | The UNABOM Task Force, made up of agents from the FBI, Treasury Department, and Postal Service, is formed in San Francisco to find the bomber. |
| December 10, 1994 | A package bomb explodes outside the North Caldwell, New Jersey house of Thomas Mosser, the executive vice president of advertising firm Young & Rubicam. Mosser is killed in the explosion when he opens the package. The return address is listed as H.C. Wickel at San Francisco State University. Subsequent investigation determines that no such person exists. The bombing is attributed to the Unabomber. |
| March 1995 | David Kaczynski is restored as co-owner of the Montana plot where his brother Ted lives in his cramped cabin. |
| March or April 1995 | Kaczynski allegedly transports a bomb from Montana to Oakland, California. |
| April 20, 1995 | Kaczynski allegedly mails the bomb to William Dennison, the former president of the California Forestry Association. |
| April 24, 1995 | Gilbert Murray, Dennison's successor as president, opens the package bomb, which explodes. Murray is killed in the explosion.
Additionally, a number of letters are received with the "FC" indentifying mark on this day and referring to Warren Hoge, the New York Times editor who received the June 1993 letter.
David Gelernter, the victim of the 1993 bomb, receives one saying that "there are a lot of people out there who resent bitterly the way techno-nerds like you are changing the world and you wouldn't have been dumb enough to open an unexpected package from an unknown source."
Dr. Phillip Sharp at MIT receives a letter postmarked Oakland, California and dated April 20 that warns him: "It would be beneficial to your health to stop your research in genetics."
A letter sent to Dr. Richard Roberts of New England Biolabs has the identical postmark and language to the one sent to Sharp.
Hoge himself receives a letter on the same day with the initials "FC" and the identifying number originally indicated in 1993. The letter discusses a number of the previous attacks and offers reasons for the selection of the victims. According to the text, Mosser was chosen because of his work for a firm that "helped Exxon clean up its public image after the Exxon Valdez incident"; the professors were selected because of they were experts in certain fields.
The author of the letter claims to be part of an anarchist ground aiming to "break down all society into very small, completely autonomous units" and discusses aspects of the explosive devices. The author then suggests a "bargain": if a lengthy manuscript is published, the "group" will cease its "terrorist activities," though it differentiates between terrorism and "sabotage," the former relating to people and the latter to destruction of property. "We reserve the right to engage in sabotage," says the letter. |
| June 27, 1995 | Jerry Roberts, the San Francisco Examiner's editorial page editor, receives a letter addressed to him which claims to be a warning from "the terrorist group FC, called unabomber by the FBI." The letter says that the group is planning to blow up an airliner flying out of Los Angeles during the next six days.
The same day, Michael Getler, deputy managing editor at the Washington Post, receives a letter "from the terrorist group FC." The letter mentions the bomb at the Forestry Association and repeats the offer to desist from terrorism if an enclosed manuscript -- a carbon copy of the one sent to Warren Hoge -- is published. |
| June 28, 1995 | Warren Hoge at the Times receives another letter from "FC" that offers the identifying number used previously and includes a 65-page manuscript, referenced in the April 1995 letter and conditions for publication. The message ends by stating that the group has "no regret" that the April bomb blew up Gilbert Murray, whom it calls "the 'wrong' man," and not William Dennison.
Scientific American also receives a letter whose author claims to be "the terrorist group FC" which references a 1993 article in the magazine on particle accelerators and discusses negative aspects of scientific advances on society. |
| June 29, 1995 | Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione also receives a letter in response to an earlier offer by his magazine to publish FC's manuscript. The letter states conditions for publication in Penthouse, but expresses a preference for publication in the Washington Post or New York Times, which it considers "respectable" publications. Among the conditions are a statement that the group reserves the right to one additional bomb after publication in Penthouse if other media do not publish it.
The letter also identifies the meaning of the letters FC: "Freedom Club," the name of the purported group. |
| June 30, 1995 | Social psychologist Tom Tyler of UC-Berkeley receives a letter from FC and another copy of the manuscript sent to the Times and the Post. It poses questions to Tyler about technology and its effects, and references a newspaper article in which Tyler had commented on one of the recent bombings. |
| September 19, 1995 | The Washington Post and New York Times split costs on the publication of the Unabomber's manifesto in the day's Washington Post. They also print a joint statement in both of their papers saying that they made the decision to print it based on recommendations from the FBI and due to "public safety reasons." They indicate that it is being printed in the Post due to the paper's ability to distribute a separate section for that day. |
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*** 1996-1997
| February 14, 1996 | David Kaczynski begins contact with the FBI and indicates his belief that his brother may be the Unabomber. He indicated to the FBI that he does not want any of the reward money involved with the case. |
| April 3, 1996 | Kaczynski is arrested at his Montana cabin. |
| April 4, 1996 | Kaczynski is charged with possessing the components of a bomb based on evidence found in his cabin. The charge, though a felony, is relatively minor. Legal analysts following the case speculate that the government is merely taking time building a case and that more charges will follow. Kaczynski makes his first appearance in federal court in Helena, Montana. When asked if he is mentally impaired, he says, "No." |
| April 5, 1996 | Investigators searching Kaczynski's Montana cabin diffuse a live bomb. |
| April 8, 1996 | The Kaczynski family releases a statement through its lawyer, Tony Bisceglie, saying that their "deep sympathies go out to the victims and their families." Through Bisceglie, Kaczynski's mother, Wanda, says that it was right to arrest her son because he needed to be stopped if he was the Unabomber -- but she doesn't believed he could be. |
| April 15, 1996 | The Washington Post reports that the names of 25 math professors at the University of California--Berkeley were found on a list in Kaczynski's Montana cabin. Federal officials reportedly contact the twenty-five individuals to warn them of the list. |
| April 19, 1996 | In Helena, Montana, U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell denies a defense motion to free Kaczynski because of news leaks about the Unabomber case and the intense media coverage surrounding it. Kaczynski's defense appeals the motion to the Supreme Court, which denies it in October. |
| June 17, 1996 | Preparations are made at the federal courthouse in Sacramento for an expected indictment of Kaczynski, including the installation of surveillance cameras and the arrival of an armored car to use to transport Kaczynski. Police and traffic engineers make arrangements to handle crowds and traffic arising from an expected high-profile trial. |
| June 18, 1996 | Kaczynski is indicted by a 21-member federal grand jury in Sacramento on ten counts relating to the bombing attacks on Hugh Scrutton, Charles Epstein and Gilbert Murray in California, and David Gelernter in Connecticut. |
| June 23, 1996 | Kaczynski is transported to county jail in Sacramento to await his first appearance in court. |
| June 25, 1996 | Kaczynski appears briefly in court to plead not guilty to charges |
| September 1996 | Kaczynski family tells "60 Minutes" that Kaczynski sent them letters telling them not to contact him, even if his mother died. "There is nothing that could ever be important enough so that you would have to get in touch with me," Kaczynski wrote to his brother. |
| October 2, 1996 | A federal grand jury in Newark, New Jersey, indicts Kaczynski in the 1994 mail bombing of Thomas Mosser, the only bombing for which the Unabomber publicly claimed responsibility. The Justice Department says it will try the New Jersey case after the Sacramento case is tried. Kaczynski's lawyer, Quin Denvir, says he plans to have the two trials combined because it would be more efficient and cost-effective. |
| October 7, 1996 | Supreme Court refuses to give Kaczynski a new opportunity to argue to a lower court that the government should not be allowed to prosecute him because news leaks had tainted the case. His appeal to the high court had contended that government actions "made the word 'Unabomber' and the name Theodore Kaczynski interchangeable." |
| November 22, 1996 | U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell sets the start date of Kaczynski's trial as November 12, 1997, granting the defense their request for additional time to prepare their case. |
| March 4, 1997 | Defense files motion asking to throw out all evidence seized from Kaczynski's cabin, claiming that the FBI distorted comments from his relatives in obtaining their search warrant. In a sworn declaration, David Kaczynski claims he only told the FBI he had suspicions his brother was the Unabomber, but the warrant made it appear that he believed that was the case, which did not "fit the tone or spirit of what I told the FBI." |
| May 12, 1997 | Defense files papers arguing that none of the evidence seized from Kaczynski's Montana cabin can be used against him because it was obtained by giving false and misleading information to a judge. The papers specify that DNA evidence found on two Unabomber letters "firmly excluded" Kaczynski from being a suspect. |
| July 29, 1997 | Burrell rules that Kaczynski's journals cannot be excluded, but says he will allow a late challenge to the FBI's search of Kaczynski's cabin in April 1996. |
| July 31, 1997 | Prosecution argues that government experts have a right to examine Kaczynski and asks that they be informed of any possible insanity defense by the defense. |
| August 23, 1997 | Defense lawyers argue against the use of a CD-ROM information retrieval system in court. The previous week, the prosecution filed papers requesting the use of such a system in order to make the proceedings more expedient. |
| September 2, 1997 | Prosecution asks the court for an independent psychiatric evaluation of Kaczynski. Defense argues in court that prosecution has no right to insist on independent psychiatric evaluation of Kaczynski at this point in the case. |
| September 9, 1997 | Defense argues against use of computers in the trial. |
| September 16, 1997 | Defense argues that either the prosecution turn over any records of psychological evaluations of Kaczynski. The prosecution argues such records don't exist. |
| September 24, 1997 | David Kaczynski says that if he is given the FBI's $1 million reward, he will share it with families of Unabomber victims. |
| September 29, 1997 | Magistrate Judge Gregory Hollows grants the defense limited access to the grand jury proceedings, though such records are usually confidential. |
| October 1997 | A Sacramento television station reports it has found a web site operated by someone named "Softkill" posted the names of 18 potential witnesses in the trial, along with suggestions to threaten them. |
| October 2, 1997 | Prosecutors tell Burrell that several potential witnesses in the case have been threatened, but decline to give details. |
| October 6, 1997 | Some six hundred prospective jurors begin filling out jury questionnaires. |
| October 14, 1997 | In papers submitted to court, defense claims Kaczynski suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. |
| October 16, 1997 | Los Angeles Times reports on documents acquired by defense that show sloppy scientific work by the FBI crime lab. The defense in the trial of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh used similar documents unsuccessfully to try and invalidate FBI evidence against their client. |
| October 21, 1997 | Defense outlines anticipated expert psychiatric testimony in brief to court. |
| October 22, 1997 | Burrell sets ground rules for psychiatric testing of Kaczynski. This proves to be futile, as Kaczynski repeatedly refuses to submit to such testing. |
| October 29, 1997 | Papers filed by prosecutors mention "non-bombing acts of violence" that they claim occurred early in Kaczynski's adult life, possibly before the Unabomber attacks began in 1978. Defense lawyers claim they refer to "some acts of vandalism" and are irrelevant to the trial. |
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*** THE TRIAL
| November 12, 1997 | The trial begins with jury selection. The defense files a brief, including a statement from Dr. David Foster, who evaluated Kaczynski for them, arguing for the use of expert testimony during the trial. |
| November 14, 1997 | The prosecution files papers restating their position that expert testimony should not be allowed due to Kaczynski's refusal to submit to court-ordered examination. |
| November 18, 1997 | The defense files papers and affidavits from several psychiatrists, outlining in greater detail Kaczynski's mental illness and hostility towards mental health professionals. |
| November 19, 1997 | The prosecution files paper and statements from its own experts, arguing their case in further detail and making the point that Kaczynski's hostility towards psychiatrists and psychologists arises only when they confront him with his disease and that his refusal to submit to the ordered examination is willful. |
| November 21, 1997 | Judge Burrell holds a hearing to determine the extent of expert testimony to be used in the guilt phase of the trial. He asks the defense team to speak to Kaczynski again and implore him to submit to at least partial neurological testing. |
| November 25, 1997 | The prosecution announces that Kaczynski has told his lawyers he will not submit to a new series of government psychiatric exams. Though it is not definite that Kaczynski will refuse limited neurological tests, his own lawyers insist it is evident that he won't. The prosecution offers that government doctors are willing to submit their questions by phone or in writing, but the request is still refused. Kaczynski is visibly upset in the courtroom, throwing a pen across the defense table and muttering under his breath. |
| December 3, 1997 | Kaczynski's 10-by-12 foot cabin begins a trip from Malmstrom Air Force Base near Great Falls, Montana to Sacramento, where the defense plans to use it as one of their primary exhibits in order to show how their client lived. Driver Bill Sprout complains that driving on the 1,100-mile trip is made difficult by the incessant presence of news photographers attempting to take pictures of his flatbed truck, which sports an "Oversize Load" banner on the front. He sleeps in the cab of the truck each night in order to make sure the cabin is guarded at all times. |
| December 5, 1997 | Kaczynski's cabin arrives in Sacramento, where it will be stored in an Air Force hanger until the defense needs it for the trial. |
| December 11, 1997 | First phase of jury selection ends, with 85 of the 170 candidates who took the stand remaining in the jury pool. Ten others are dismissed in the following days. |
| December 22, 1997 | A jury of three men and nine women is selected after peremptory challenges by both sides against the 75 jurors left in the pool peel away potential jurors. Four men and two women are chosen as alternates. Opening arguments are postponed until January 5 from an earlier tentative date of December 29. |
| December 26, 1997 | In accord with requests made by news organizations, Judge Burrell releases redacted transcripts of in camera discussions held between December 18 and 22 that document discussions between the judge and attorneys about the defense strategy and Kaczynski's repeated attempts to inform the judge of his dissatisfaction with his defense team. |
| December 29, 1997 | On the heels of reports that they made failed attempts to plea bargain with the Justice Department to get Kaczynski life in prison in return for an admission of guilt, defense lawyers announce they will not use mental health testimony in the trial. The lack of such expert testimony makes it highly unlikely they will follow their previous plans for a diminished capacity defense. |
| January 2, 1998 | Government files motions to bar the defense from using any testimony at all in support of their claims that Kaczynski is mentally ill. |
| January 5, 1998 | Opening arguments are slated to begin in U.S. v. Kaczynski. However, at the start of the court session, Kaczynski stands up and says that he has an "important" issue to discuss with the judge about his "relations" with his attorneys. Judge Burrell, Kaczynski and his attorneys then retreat into Burrell's chambers for a closed meeting that lasts several hours and during which Kaczynski turns over a statement which is sealed by the court. There is speculation that the meeting focuses on David Kaczynski's presence in the courtroom and on the issue of possible new representation for Ted Kaczynski. By mid-afternoon, the jury is sent home until Thursday morning and court is recessed without a single word of the opening statements being presented. |
| January 7, 1998 | Judge Burrell rules that Kaczynski cannot make a requested last-minute switch in his defense team, despite an offer earlier in the day from San Francisco defense lawyer Tony Serra. Instead, says Burrell, the trial will go ahead with Kaczynski's current set of lawyers. He also rules that they will be allowed to use lay testimony and evidence to help paint a portrait of their client as a paranoid schizophrenic. The opening arguments originally planned for January 5 are set to begin January 8. |
| January 8, 1998 | For the second time in a week, Kaczynski interrupts his trial and asks Judge Burrell to allow him to represent himself. In a surprising decision, Burrell tentatively allows Kaczynski to do so, providing he can prove himself competent. Kaczynski agrees to examination by mental health experts as one method of proving his competence. Burrell gives both sides a day to select mutually chosen experts for the exams. At the end of the day, in a bizarre twist, reports are confirmed that Kaczynski tried to hang himself with his underwear in his cell the previous night. Red marks on his neck, and missing underwear briefs, lead reporters and U.S. Marshals to this conclusion. Prison officials announce he will be put under 24-hour supervision and placed on a heart monitor. |
| January 9, 1998 | Judge Burrell assigns Dr. Sally Johnson of the federal prison in Butner, NC to test Kaczynski for competency. |
| January 12, 1998 | Johnson begins testing of Kaczynski at the Sacramento County jail. Kaczynski appears to cooperate. |