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Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast, the podcast dedicated to Serial Killers. Who they were, what they did and how. Episode 255. I am your humble host, Thomas Rosaland Viborgthun.
We ended the previous episode with the as far longest message from the Unibomber, released to the public before the release of his famous Manifesto. Tonight, we witness Ted at the hate of his power, or evil, if you will, as his devices become more lethal than ever before. We also see how Ted starts to communicate more and more, almost as if he was, well, lonely. But where others might reach out with kindness and love, Ted only knew hated and of violence.
Enjoy. This episode, like all other sagas told by me, would not be possible without my loyal Patreonists. They are, Lizbeth, Lisa, Kathy, Corbin, Niall, Val, Marilyn, Craig, The Douglass, Jonathan, Cheryl, Brad, Manuel, Aulen, Rachel, Alicia, Robert, and Michael. You are truly the backbone of the Serial Killer Podcast, and without you, there would be no show.
On my Patreon account, over at patreon.com slash the Serial Killer Podcast, there is a brand spanking new bonus episode. It is the long awaited review I have been promising you, the listener. The topic? The remake of the masterpiece Nosferatu, of course.
It is available for all my $10 plus club members. The second letter arrived at a familiar address, that of David Gallantam, the Yale University Computer Scientist and author who had been seriously wounded in the bomber's 24th of June 1993 attack. The enormous blast had rendered him death in one ear, torn off part of his right hand, and blinded him in one eye. Squinting at the envelope, Gallantam recognized the return address.
It read, 9th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C., 20535, FBI headquarters. Inside was a mocking, astonishingly cruel, five paragraph letter that chastised him for being injured by the device. The letter read as follows, and I quote, Dr. Gavanta, people with advanced degrees aren't as smart as they think they are.
If you had had any brains, you would have realized that there are a lot of people out there who resent Italy, 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. In the epilogue of your book, Mirror Worlds, you try to justify your research by claiming that the developments you describe are inevitable, and that any college person can learn enough about computers to compete in a computer-dominated world. Apparently, people without a college degree don't count. In any case, being informed about computers won't enable anyone to prevent invasion of privacy through computers.
Genetic engineering, to which computers make an important contribution, environmental degradation, through excessive economic growth, computers make an important contribution to economic growth, and so forth. As for the inevitability argument, if the developments you describe are inevitable, they are not inevitable in the way that old age and bad weather are inevitable. They are inevitable only because techno nerds like you make them inevitable. If there were no computer scientists, there would be no progress in computer science.
If you claim you are justified in pursuing your research because the developments involved are inevitable, then you may as well say that theft is inevitable, therefore we shouldn't blame thieves. But we do not believe that progress and growth are inevitable. We'll have more to say about that later. F.C.
P.S. Warren Hoge of the New York Times can confirm that this letter does come from F.C. End quote. The digital age had a killer on the loose, a ghost with a grudge against those who dared to shrink the world into a computer chip.
The Unabomber, a shallow with no name targeted David Galerter, a computer scientist whose 1991 book Mira-Worlds or The Days Software puts the universe in a shoebox, how it will happen and what it will mean, laid out a future where machines could mimic life, crowds, earthquakes, everything. Galerter thought these tools would let humanity dissect reality, control its chaos. To the bomber, it was a crime against nature, and he was a judge, jury, an executioner. His next move was calculated, patience.
On the 20th of April 1995, two letters hit the mail aimed at Nobel laureates Richard J. Roberts and Philip A. Sharp. Roberts, a Brit from Derby, England, worked at a New England BioLads in Beverly, Massachusetts, just outside Boston.
His letter carried a return address, Manfred Murari, 2735, Artmore Road, San Marino, California, 911, 08-1768. Murari was a nobody, in the case, questioned and cut loose by the FBI. Roberts didn't hesitate, handed the letter to the feds. Sharp, running MIT's biology department in Cambridge, got his own warning, tipped off by a Unabom letter in the Times.
He turned it over, no questions asked. Both men were giants in genetics, their 1970s discovery of split genes kicking off biotechnology and a mass of ethical fights. General Electric, in Schenectady, New York, cooked up a bacterium to eat oil spills like the Exxon Valdez mess. In 1980, the Supreme Court's 5-4 Diamond V.
Shakra Barty ruling, said a company could patent life. To the Unabomber, that was a green light for war. It would be beneficial to your health to stop your research in genetics, Ted wrote, his words sharp as a switchblade. No bombs this time, just a promise of blood.
In Sacramento, the California Forestry Association, or CFA, sat at 1-3-11 bi-street, a single-story brick box three blocks from the state capital's marble bulk. Across the street, the new State Department of Justice Building stood cold and official. A block away, the fire department headquarters missed the trouble brewing. On the 24th of April, 1995, as Roberts and Sharp opened their letters, a package landed at the CFA's doorstep, a 10-inch by 10-inch by 6-inch wooden box, wrapped in brown paper and nylon filament tape weighing 6 pounds, or around 2-3 kilos.
The label, typewritten, red, closet dimensions incorporated, an Oakland furniture joint addressed to the Timbar Association of California, named the group ditch one year earlier, and William Denison, former president. Denison had tapped Gilbert Murray 47 to take over, picking him for his clean record in a dirty industry. Murray was popular, very honest, affable, quiet-spoken, low-key, solid, very business-like and courteous to the extreme. Like Thomas Moser, killed by the Unabomer months earlier, he had no enemies, a rare breed.
Murray and ex-Marine, who'd survived two Vietnam tours, studied forestry at UC Berkeley in 1968 to 1969, and a Unabomer, then just the professor, haunted the same campus. By 1988, after stints with Collins Pine Company near Chester, Murray joined the CFA, climbing to president of California's top timber lobbying outfit. He broke deals between environmentalists, farmers, loggers, and fishermen to save the co-host salmon of the north coast, the CFA, funded by a $1.5 million budget from Timbreduse, pushed to gut the Endangered Species Act, which they said choked logging in the Pacific Northwest. They backed Senator Slade Gordon's plan to ramp up salvage logging in forests like six rivers, Tahoe, and plumas, dodging green regulations.
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Husbandos Droukhani, father to Wilson and Gilbert, Jr. 18 and 16. They hiked Lake Tahoe, biked Mount Shaster, even snapped goofy photos outside the White House. A known joker, Murray's warmth, won over Lisa, the C.F.A.'s communications director, four months pregnant.
Of that morning, Lisa showed Murray a sonogram in his office, a neat space with stacked papers and a photo of his voice. He grinned at the image, knowing it was a guddle. You're gonna have your hands full, he said. was low but playful.
Lisa smiled, handed him the cassette and headed back to her desk. Maria was set to see Wilson get an award that night, athletic and academic honors, with a partial Cornell scholarship already locked in. At 2pm, the CFA's lobby was quiet, the receptionist gone. Maria stepped in to check the mail, spotting Lisa.
Not since lunch, she said, when he asked about the receptionist. Three staffers joined him, flipping through the envelopes. Then they saw it. The brown wrapped box from that morning.
It forbell one said, should we have forwarded it? Maria picked it up. The six pound, weight, heavy. The outdated address and fake sender nagging at him.
The lobbies fluorescent buzz felt like a warning. Let's open it, he said. Voice flat but tense. Lisa grabs and scissors.
She brought them, handed them over. Thanks, he muttered. Already zeroed in on the package. Lisa headed back, half closing her door, catching a glimpse of Maria, slicing the tape, focused like a man, diffusing a door.
He wasn't wrong. But he was too late. A roar ripped through the CFA, a blast that shook the building. The explosion, tore doors off hinges, sent them skidding across the floor.
Aluminum shards punched holes in walls and bedding in the lobby skylight 15 feet up. The force surged upward, a column of flame and black smoke, sucking air out and leaving a chemical stink. Nails sprayed like buckshot, carpet burned to ash, furniture splintered to scraps. Lisa hit her desk, coughing on accurate fumes.
Where Maria stood, there was nothing. His body was torn apart, face completely gone. Arms ripped off, fragments scattered in the wreckage. FBI and ATF agents rolled in, boots covered in plastic, stepping through the debris like it was a minefield.
Forensic teams catalog every splinter, every shard. The blast size was a slaughterhouse, blood on the walls, metal quills in the plaster, the air thick with a smell of explosives. Maria's remains were barely recognizable. Pieces collected in bags for analysis.
The Unibomber's early bombs left room for doubt, maim or kill. The Sacramento bomb settled it, said the Unibomber was out for blood, was out to kill. He was targeting anyone pushing the boundaries of tech and biology. The federal officers combed the scene, bagging fragments of the box, tracing the filament tape, analyzing the typewriter font.
The device was screwed but very deadly. Aluminum pipe, nails, chemical triggers, no fingerprints, no fibers, just precision and hate. The CFA's budget, its lobbying for logging, its fight against the Endangered Species Act, all made it a target. Maria's clean reputation did not save him.
It made him a symbol. The investigation stretched from Sacramento to the east coast, where Roberts and Sharp's letters hinted that the bomber's next moves. His manifesto sent to the Times, railed against a world wired and engineered. A future he would burn to stop.
Agents crossed reference the Marari address. And it was a dead end. Darguing to the Oakland furniture shop, another false trail, the Unibomber was ghost, slipping through every net. His bombs was his only signature.
To construct his most powerful device yet, Unibom nested three hand-casted aluminum pipes, made just slightly larger circumference. It learned a lot since he used a tin-juice can as a containment vessel. Now, he knew that the tighter the container, the stronger the seals. The greater the impact.
Now, too, he scored the pipes to increase fragmentation. Apparently, he had also used relatively difficult to buy sodium chloride. For the next two months, nothing was heard from the bomber. In the days after the Oklahoma City bombing and the Sacramento explosion that took Gil Murray's life, crack bomb threats flooded northern California.
San Francisco PD was receiving two to three bailful warnings a day. And so it was that the New York Times received the package mailed on the 24th of June but not opened until the 28th of June. That had an odd return address. The name of Calgene incorporation of Davis, Yolo County, California, was printed in the upper left-hand corner.
Calgene had created a genetically engineered tomato. In the package was a copy of Unibom's 56-page manifesto and 11 pages of footnotes and corrections. A hand-drawn chart by the bomber had been closed as well. The Washington Post received the same material plus a new letter and copies of Unibom's letters to the Times and pent out, an adult magazine published by Bob Guccione.
The second letter of the Times received that June had no mailing date but was opened on the 29th of June and read as follows and I quote. Since the public has a short memory, we decided to play one last prank to remind them who we are. But no, we haven't tried to plant a bomb on an airline recently. In one case, we attempted unsuccessfully to blow up an airliner.
The idea was to kill a lot of business people who we assumed would constitute the majority of the passengers. But of course, some of the passengers likely would have been innocent people, maybe kids or some working stiff going to see a grandmother. We are glad now that that attempt failed. We don't think it is necessary for us to do any public soul searching in this letter, but we will say that we are not insensitive to the pain caused by our bombings.
A bomb package that we mailed to computer scientist Patrick Fisher injured his secretary when she opened it. We certainly regret that. And when we were young and comparatively reckless, we were much more careless in selecting targets than we are now. End quote.
Tom Tyler, an authority in the field of psychology of law and an author of a 1990 work, headed up the Social Psychology Department at UC Berkeley. On Friday, the 30th of June 1995 at 1045, 4 AM, a package appeared on his desk at Tolman Hall. The 9 by 12 inch thick Manila envelope had travelled through the campus mail system before showing up at his office. The serious dark-haired scholar looked down at the unexpected package, then began to open it, though it bore all the telltale signs of suspicious mail.
The package had excessive postage, hand-cancelled stamps, and no return address, and wore a typed address on a white-gund mailing label like all the packages to the post at the times. The FBI had learned long ago that the technophobic bomber never licked these labels, but the stamps were another issue. They were to be tested for DNA. Campus bomb squad chief Bill Foley had warned the university staff repeatedly to not open any packages until their bomb squad had cleared it.
Still, the package bore none of the other common marks of a mail bomb, that is, oily stains or discoloration on the outside of the wrapping, protruding wires or tin foil, excessive securing materials such as tape or string, restrictive markings such as confidential or personal or misspelled words. The Unibomber's mail, devices, had often given the incorrect or outdated title for the address, and Tyler's title was incorrect on the typed level. Yet the incorrect phrase, social psychology group, had been used in a recent May Chronicle story on Tyler's tape on the Oklahoma City Inside, the professor Tyler found a carbon copy of the manuscript sent to Penthouse, The Times and the Post, 68 pages of typed material, 56 of the manifesto, 11 of footnotes, and a one-page personal letter to Tyler, which read as follows. And I quote, Do you keep hearing podcast ads like this one, for example, but always wonder how you actually get involved with them for your own brand or organization?
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This is podcast advertising without barriers. Get started at acast.com slash advertising. Dr. Tyler, this is a message from FC.
The FBI calls us Unibomber. We read a newspaper article in which you commented on recent departments, including ours, as an indication of social problems. We are sending you a copy of a manuscript that we hope The New York Times will get published for us. The trouble with psychologists is that in commenting on what people say or do, they often concentrate exclusively on the non-rational motivations behind the speech-show behavior.
But human behavior has a rationale as well as an irrational component. And psychologists should not neglect the rational component. So, if you take the trouble to read our manuscript and do any further thinking about the Unibom case, we suggest that you should not only consider our actions as a symbol of social or psychological problems, you should also give attention to the substance of the issues that we raise in the manuscript. You might ask yourself, for example, the following questions.
Do you think we are likely to be right in a general way about the kind of future that technology is creating for the human race? If you think we are wrong, then why do you think so? How would you answer our arguments? Can you sketch a plausible scenario for a future technological society that does not have the negative characteristics indicated by our scenario?
If you think we are likely to be right about the future, do you consider that kind of future acceptable? If not, then what? If anything, do you think can be done about it? Do you think our analysis of present social problems is approximately correct?
If not, why not? How would you answer our arguments? If you think we have identified some present social problems correctly, do you think anything can be done about them? Will they get better or worse with continued growth and progress?
We apologize for sending you such a poor carbon copy of our manuscript. We can't make copies and a public copy machine because people would get suspicious if they saw us handling our copies with gloves. Signed, F.C. End.
Quote, Tyler intended to respond through the media in the written form. The FBI gave him their blessing, not editing or censoring Tyler in any way. They hoped the dialogue might provide leads to solve the case. On 4 July, Professor Tyler published his open letter to the Unabomber in the Chronicle, prefacing his 23 paragraph public response with these remarks to reporter Michael Taylor and I quote, I really appreciated that he tried to educate me as opposed to just assuming I wouldn't listen and just sending me a bomb.
I would rather be having a dialogue with what concerns him and those issues in society. End quote. The following is Professor Tom Tyler's reply to the Unabomber and again, I quote, on May 1st the Chronicle published an article using both the Oklahoma bombing and the actions of the Unabomber F.C. as examples of general social malaise in America.
I was one of several psychologists interviewed for the article. I have received a letter from F.C. commenting on that story along with a copy of his manuscript, Industrial Society and its future. I have read the manuscript and I'm writing this open letter to address the concerns raised by F.C., both in his letter to me and in the manuscript itself.
I regret that we cannot communicate more directly. Hopefully you will read this reply to the questions you have raised. In your letter, you suggest that we look beyond the questions of whether you have social or psychological problems and consider the substance of the issues you raise in your manuscript. This seems to me a fair request.
Rare is a widespread feeling of social malaise in our society today and we need to consider why people have those feelings. It is wrong to simply say that people who are dissatisfied are in some way non-rational. We should also consider whether the structure of society is hurting people and needs to be changed. The manuscript you prepare directly addresses this issue.
I agree that it is important for all Americans to talk about what is wrong with our society and to try to find ways to improve it. By circulating your manuscript, you are encouraging us to think about these important issues. I have tried to read and consider your arguments with an open mind. I think violent actions are wrong and I am pleased that you have decided to communicate your ideas by sending me and others your manuscript.
I cannot completely present or comment on all of these issues you raise in your lengthy manuscript within this letter. But I would like to note what seems to me to be several key arguments. The central point of your manuscript is that the economic and technological changes in our society have had a negative effect on people's lives. Your concerns about widespread feelings of inferiority and over-socialization into conformity with society's rule are widely shared.
As is your suggestion that many people do not find their lives very satisfying. Many people today do feel that they have little control over their lives and very few opportunities for autonomy. As you say, they do not feel that they have power over their lives. I think that your feelings and concerns are widely shared.
Many people in America are searching for ways to make their lives more fulfilling. I agree with you that technology is resulting in many social problems and that our society has to address those problems and their solution. You also argue that industrial technological society cannot be reformed. Here I am less certain that I agree.
There have been increasing signs that people are making choices that create individual freedom and local autonomy for themselves. People quit jobs in corporations to start their own small businesses. People move from large cities to the country. People voluntarily conserve water, recycle their trash and lower their use of electricity and natural gas.
People are finding many ways to change their lives in positive ways. It seems to me that the revolution you advocate is already occurring. Instead of being trapped in the system through psychological manipulation, people are finding ways to live better lives. People are developing the type of anti-technology ideology that you advocate in your manuscript.
Of course, many people's lives continue to be difficult and change takes time. But, given evidence that people are able to make choices that give them a sense of control, does it not seem possible that society can change? You suggest two ways of creating social change, developing an alternative ideology and promoting social stress and instability. As I have noted, there is already evidence that people themselves are developing an alternative ideology that lessens the importance of technology and increases their control and autonomy over their lives.
But how is it useful to promote social stress and instability, especially through acts of violence? My impression is that people react to violence by becoming less willing to change. Instead of encouraging social change, threats of violence make people fearful and unwilling to consider a new idea. How can you encourage people to think about your alternative ideology by creating fear and insecurity?
I think that education is the key to changing people. Would it not be possible to try to develop the core group of intelligent, thoughtful, rational people that you describe in your manuscript? That core group could articulate and develop a new ideology that allows us to move beyond the problems of technological industrial society. Many members of our society would welcome new ideas about how to deal with the problems created by technology.
That group could change society by showing people a better way to live their lives. Do you have thoughts about how such a group could be formed? Who should be on it? What the most important issues for it to address might be?
Let me close by saying that I especially welcome your suggestion in the manuscript that a quote unquote a revolution that changes the economic and technological basis of our society need not be violent or sudden. It can occur peacefully and over a period of decades. In that spirit, I think our society should consider the important issues you raise in your manuscript. Then watch the data to tell you it worked.
You're not buying impressions. You're buying influence. Learn more by visiting acast.com slash advertise. And on that note, Darlisa, we come to the end of part eight in this long series covering the Unibomber Ted Kaczynski.
Next episode I will continue his saga. So as they say in the Land of Radio, stay tuned.