Infamous US criminal 'Unabomber' Ted Kaczynski dies in prison

Ted Kaczynski, known as the "Unabomber," who terrorised Americans from 1978 to 1995 with his sporadic and anonymous bombing campaign, has died in prison according to US authorities.

Kaczynski, 81, whose attacks killed three people and injured two dozen, died at the federal prison medical centre in Butner, North Carolina, said the Federal Bureau of Prisons on Saturday.

The reclusive Harvard-educated mathematician, whose targets ranged from academics to random civilians, had a self-professed goal of halting the advance of modern technology and society, mounting his campaign of violence from a shack in rural Montana.

His bombs were either hand delivered or mailed over nearly two decades, confounding investigators looking to bring him to justice.

It was only after Kaczynski's capture and the revelation of his identity that the FBI uncovered his previous life, one where he scored 167 on an IQ test and entered university at just 16.

The nickname "Unabomber" came from his targeting of university professors and airline companies, leading the FBI to dub him the "University and Airline Bomber."

Unabomber's downfall

In September 1995, he published his 35,000-word anti-modernity manifesto in The Washington Post, based on a promise that he would stop his bombing campaign if they printed it.

But it led to his undoing. Upon reading it, his estranged brother David thought he might know the author, and alerted to FBI to his suspicions that Ted Kaczynski might be the man they were looking for.

After his arrest in 1996, Kaczynski was convicted to life in prison in 1998. When his lawyers tried to enter a plea of insanity, asked the court to dismiss them.

Kaczynski plead guilty, which helped him avoid the death penalty.

A psychiatrist who interviewed Kaczynski in prison diagnosed him as a paranoid schizophrenic.

“Mr. Kaczynski’s delusions are mostly persecutory in nature,” Sally Johnson wrote in a 47-page report. “The central themes involve his belief that he is being maligned and harassed by family members and modern society.”

Long held in a high-security prison in Colorado, one that also held the likes of drug kingpin El Chapo, he was transferred in 2021 to the health centre in North Carolina.