Decades after Ted Kaczynski was caught, we wrestle with a question that still hangs in the air: Was Ted a prophet or simply a murderer who terrorized a nation and killed three people? Project Unabom is an Apple Original podcast, produced by Pineapple Street Studios. Listen and follow on Apple Podcasts. https://apple.co/Project_Unabom
A quick heads up before we get started.
This episode contains a mention of suicide.
Please take care while listening.
Three days after Ted Kaczynski was taken into custody, Kathy Puckett arrived at the ten by twelve cabin up in the hills off Stemple Pass Road.
Agents from the evidence team were there, moving in and out.
Kathy stepped inside.
He had a bunk to the right that had an army green army blanket on it.
There was a wood burning stove in one corner, next to a chair that looked homemade.
And the wall, the plywood wall that it was butted up to, there were images of his body and his body grease and things from, you know, I mean, he rarely washed.
And so there were outlines of where he had sat for years against that wall and different outlines of his body.
When FBI agents first stepped into the cabin, they found shelves filled with dry goods and bomb making materials.
There were guides to edible wild plants and literary books like Joseph Conrad's novel the Secret Agent, which is about a professor who quits academia, then launches an anti science bombing campaign.
One of Teds rifles, a 300 six, hung on the wall above his bed with a detailed note he'd written about how to properly calibrate the sighting.
An old timey string instrument called a zither hung nearby on a nail.
There were a couple of jackets, too, including a faded and tattered blue hoodie.
The first thing I thought was, he never saw us coming or he would have gotten rid of this stuff.
There was a big box of wood of firewood at the foot of his bed that actually turned out to be steps that went up to a loft, which, full of evidence.
I don't know if you've ever helped a relative move after they've been living somewhere for 30 years and they're kind of a hoarder.
There are layers and layers and layers of life that have just accumulated there.
But I thought, 25 years he's been in here, you know, I was just.