By the time a suspect was apprehended in April of last year, after the most extensive and expensive manhunt ever, the terrorist known as the Unabomber had become one of the most widely known serial killers in history. With the arrest of Theodore John Kaczynski in Montana, FBI agents uncovered a cabin filled with damning evidence, including not only a signature explosive device in the style of the Unabomber, but a draft of his infamous 35,000-word manifesto against technology and diaries providing incredible detail about Kaczynski's thoughts and actions, material that appears to amount to a virtual signed confession. This trove of incriminating evidence will form the core of the government's case against Kaczynski when his federal trial begins here with jury selection on Wednesday. In other words, Kaczynski may have committed the crimes, but his sense of reality was so abnormal, so delusional, that he cannot be held responsible. The evidence of mental defect may be important in the guilt phase.
Legal experts agree.
All sorts of mitigating evidence might be presented to show that he's a strange bird, not someone we should execute, because he's crazy as a loon. Kaczynski was transferred Thursday from the Federal Correctional Facility in Dublin, south of San Francisco, back to the Sacramento County Jail, where he had been held for more than a year after his arrest. He was moved to Dublin in September after complaining of excessive noise and insomnia at the Sacramento jail. Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal Michael Nelson said the accused Unabomber, who has abandoned his shaggy, mountain-man beard in favor of a neatly trimmed style, spends most of his time in his single cell quietly reading books from the jail library. He's a very prolific reader.