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Speaker 1: Put yourself in this exact moment, right, it is eleven

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to fifty am. Yeah, November fifteenth, nineteen seventy nine. You

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are sitting on an American Airlines Boeing seven to twenty seven.

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Speaker 2: Oh wow, okay, setting the sea.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you departed Chicago maybe thirty minutes ago. You're climbing

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through that really cold November air and you're cruising toward Washington.

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Speaker 2: D C. Just a totally routine flight.

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Speaker 1: Exactly completely routine, and you might be reading a newspaper,

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maybe sipping a coffee, just kind of looking out the

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window at the cloud cover, right, and then out of

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absolutely nowhere you hear it. Oh yeah, a muffled thump

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from deep down in the baggage hold.

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Speaker 2: And I gotta say that is just It's not a

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sound you ever want to hear on an aircraft. No,

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absolutely not, because it's not the normal rattle of turbulence,

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you know, or or like the mechanical whine of the

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landing gear deploying. Is this distinct structural concussion, right, a fump.

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Speaker 1: And it's instantly followed by this terrifying, just hollow sucking sound.

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Then think about the crew up in the cockpit for

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a second thing, I have absolutely no idea what just.

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Speaker 2: Happened because they don't have cameras down in the cargo

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hold back.

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Speaker 1: Then exactly all they know is that a massive bang

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just went off somewhere inside the belly of their aircraft,

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like directly beneath the passenger cabin.

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Speaker 2: And within seconds, I mean, the reality of the situation

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just hits everyone on board.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, because thick, acrid smoke starts pouring into the cabin

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through the ventilation system.

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Speaker 2: And the pure panic of that enclosed space. I mean

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it's hard to overstate. You are thousands of feet in

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the air, right the oxygen masks dropped down, People are

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scrambling to put them on while breathing in this blinding smoke,

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and the pilots are basically forced into immediate evasive maneuvers.

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Speaker 1: Because they don't know if the plane is literally coming.

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Speaker 2: Apart exactly, They don't know if there's an active fire

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melting through their control cables or what.

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Speaker 1: So the plane just goes into this steep, desperate dive.

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I mean, they are trying to get to the ground

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as fast as the laws of aerodynamics will allow them to.

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We were talking about descending at over six hundred miles in.

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Speaker 2: Which is insane. That is what twice the normal speed

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of approach for a landing.

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Speaker 1: At least twice. It's a plummet. The air traffic controllers

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are frantically clearing the airspace. On the ground, You've got

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fire trucks and ambulances already.

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Speaker 2: Scrambling rushing out to the runway.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, rushing to meet an aircraft that is essentially falling

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out of the sky.

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Speaker 2: And the physical forces exerted on the plane during a

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dive like that are just extreme. I mean, the airframe

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is shuttering, the engines are screaming.

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Speaker 1: This is the incredible part. The pilots managed to hold

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it together.

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Speaker 2: They did. It's a miracle they did.

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Speaker 1: It, really is well. Welcome to Thrilling Threads everyone. I'm

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so glad you're joining us.

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Speaker 2: It's great to be here to get into this one today.

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Speaker 1: Our mission is to unravel the eighteen year saga of

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one of the most elusive, brilliant, and honestly terrifying figures

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in American history.

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Speaker 2: And we're relying strictly on detailed historical transcripts, investigative records,

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and case files to piece this all together.

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Speaker 1: Right, we're looking at the puzzle that literally parallel nation.

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And I want you, the listener listening to this right now,

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to imagine a world where the everyday act of just

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opening the mail.

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Speaker 2: Or just boarding a commercial flight to go see your.

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Speaker 1: Family exactly where that suddenly feels like a game of

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Russian roulette. You just never know if the next mundane

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package holds a deadly secret.

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Speaker 2: And what's fascinating here is the central mechanism we are

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examining today. It's really about how the collision of a

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brilliant and I mean genuinely genius level mind for sure

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with a deep pathological alienation created this decades long nightmare

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for the American public.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and perhaps even more compellingly, we'll look at the

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specific logistics of how an unprecedented, incredibly risky media gamble

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finally brought that nightmare to an end.

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Speaker 2: Such a wild story, it really is.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this and get right back to that

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terrifying dive on flight seven twenty seven.

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Speaker 2: Right, the American Airlines fight so.

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Speaker 1: The pilot manages to successfully land the plane. It is

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a total masterclass in emergency aviation, incredible flying. The doors

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blow open, the slides deploy, and all the passengers are evacuated,

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but at least twelve passengers are immediately rushed to the

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hospital for severe smoke.

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Speaker 2: Inhalation because that smoke was thick. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But once the plane is on the tarmac, the passengers

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are safe, the fire is extinguished. The investigators finally step

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into the scorched baggage hold.

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Speaker 2: And they're looking for the source obviously, right, they.

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Speaker 1: Want to know what nearly brought a commercial airliner out

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of the sky. And what they find it isn't some

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highly sophisticated military grades surface to air missile. Right, It's

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not a complex time device with the digital countdown.

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Speaker 2: No, it is jarringly rudimentary. I mean, they discover the

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remnants of a pipe bomb.

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Speaker 1: A simple pipe bomb.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it had been housed inside a very basic

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wooden box.

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Speaker 1: A wooden box wrapped in everyday craft.

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Speaker 2: Paper like you'd get at any supply store.

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Speaker 1: Exactly. And let's talk about the specific detail that makes

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the so insidious. The stamps. The box was completely covered

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in ordinary postage stamps. They designed it to look like

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a completely nondescript package. It was like a trojan horse,

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it really was. When investigators trace it back, they find

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it was mailed from a postal facility in suburban Chicago.

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But I have to ask why stamps. Why not just

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take it to the post office and pay the clerk

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to put a metered label on it.

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Speaker 2: Because metered mail requires human interaction. Ah right, it requires

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actually handing your package to a federal employee who might

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remember your face, or your height or the sound of

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your voice. That makes sense, And it also generates a

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paper trail. You get a specific time stamp at location

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barcode even back then, in the late seventies.

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Speaker 1: So the stamps were intentional.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, stamps are the ultimate analog encryption. You could buy

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them at a grocery store.

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Speaker 1: With cash, no credit card receipting.

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Speaker 2: Right, you can fix them in the privacy of your

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own home. And crucially, you can drop that package into

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any blue collection box on any street corner in America

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in the dead of night.

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Speaker 1: Oh wow, so you never talked to anyone.

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Speaker 2: It completely bypasses the human element of the postal system.

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Speaker 1: That is, I mean, it's social engineering at its most lethal.

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The bomber didn't need to hack the airline security. He

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hacked human psychology.

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Speaker 2: He made the bomb look agonizingly mundane.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it bypassed every human instinct for danger because it

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looked exactly like a birthday present or a package of

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books from an eccentric.

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Speaker 2: Uncle, completely invisible in plane sight.

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Speaker 1: But here's what I don't fully grasp. How does someone

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even know that an airmail package won't be scanned? I mean,

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in today's post nine to eleven world, you can't even

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bring a bottle of water onto a plane. Was this

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just a lucky guess by the bomber that cargo mail

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wasn't being x rayed.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't a guess at all. It was an acute

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observation of the systemic vulnerabilities of the nineteen seventies.

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Speaker 1: Really.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we have to contextualize the area here. The security

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infrastructure we rely on today simply did not exist.

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Speaker 1: Right. Things were way looser, exactly.

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Speaker 2: Passenger screening was minimal, and cargo screening was virtually non existent.

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The postal service relied on volume and.

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Speaker 1: Speed getting the mail there overnight.

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Speaker 2: Exactly if you tried to x ray every single piece

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of mail going onto a cargo plane in nineteen seventy nine,

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the entire American economy would have ground to a halt,

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and the bomber recognized this logistical reality. He understood that

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the system's greatest strength, which was its massive frictionless volume,

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was also its fatal flaw.

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Speaker 1: So he just slips this lethal device onto an aircraft

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with absolutely no alarms raised anywhere in the supply chain.

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I try to picture those investigators standing in the cargo hold,

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piecing together this burned wooden box and just realizing that

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the postal system had been weaponized.

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Speaker 2: Terrifying thought.

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Speaker 1: The lifeblood of American communication had just been turned into

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a delivery mechanism for a.

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Speaker 2: Bomb, and it fundamentally shifted the paradigm for law enforcement.

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I mean, think about it. If someone plants a bomb

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in a public square, there is a physical.

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Speaker 1: Perimeter, right, you can take it off.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there are witnesses, there's a geographic focus. But a

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bomb moving invisibly through the mail system, it could be anywhere.

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That means the threat is totally decentralized. It could be

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anywhere at any time. The vector of attack is literally

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the smiling letter carrier walking up to your front porch.

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Speaker 1: That is chilling. But wait, if this was his first attack,

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trying to take down a whole commercial airliner seems like

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an incredibly ambitious starting point, doesn't.

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Speaker 2: It highly ambitious?

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Speaker 1: I mean, most criminals escalate, they don't just start with

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a mass aviation disaster.

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Speaker 2: And that is exactly the logic the FBI applied. They

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realized this likely wasn't a first attempt, Okay, So they

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began cross referencing this specific bomb design, you know, the

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use of wood, this specific type of pipe, the trigger mechanism,

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looking for a signature exactly, cross referencing it with other

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unsolved palmings nationwide, and they got a.

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Speaker 1: Match, actually two matches, right, Yes, two matches. They trace

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the bomb's unique physical signature back to a pair of

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attacks that had taken place at Chicago's Northwestern University, right,

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And the timeline is what really paints a grim picture here.

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The first of those attacks at Northwestern happened a full

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year and a half before the American Airlines.

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Speaker 2: Flight right under their noses.

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Speaker 1: So this single incident in the sky was actually the

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escalation of a much darker growing web on the ground, and.

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Speaker 2: The realization that they had a serial bomber on their

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hands forced the government into an unprecedented posture. How so, well,

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you suddenly have three massive, notoriously territorial agencies forced to

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work together. Oh boy, you have the FBI, which handles

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federal crimes and terrorism, right. You have the ATF, the

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Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, who are the

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technical experts on bombs.

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Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, and you have the.

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Speaker 2: US Postal Inspection Service, who have jurisdiction over literally anything

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sent through the mail.

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Speaker 1: I can only imagine the bureaucratic friction in those rooms.

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I mean, the turf wars must have been legendary. Well, absolutely,

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ATF probably thinks it's their case because it's an explosive.

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Speaker 2: Yep.

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Speaker 1: The Postal Service says, no, it used our stamps, it

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went through our boxes, it's our jurisdiction, right, And then

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the FBI steps in and says, well, it crossed state

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lines and hit a commercial airplan, So we're taking the lead.

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Speaker 2: And the friction was immense, But honestly, the sheer terror

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of the situation eventually forced them to break down those

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traditional silos.

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Speaker 1: They had to collaborate out of sheer desperation.

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Speaker 2: They did. They formed a JAINT task Force, but the

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logistics of combining their databases, their field agents, and their

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forensic labs was a monumental undertaking.

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Speaker 1: Especially in an era before digital networking was really a thing.

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Speaker 2: Right, there's no cloud sharing here. It's all paper files

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and phone calls.

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Speaker 1: And from that massive inner agency task force, we got

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the name that would basically haunt the country.

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Speaker 2: The unabomb task Force.

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Speaker 1: Exactly. They needed an administrative case file name, so they

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created an acronym unabomb short for University and Airline bomber,

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which is very little, very literal. And from that sterile

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bureacratic file name, the media and the public extract a

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moniker that becomes synonymous with domestic terror, the unabomber, the unabomber,

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and that's the name that would dominate headlines for eighteen

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agonizing years.

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Speaker 2: Eighteen years, over nearly two decades, the unabomber sent sixteen

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bombs to homes, academic institutions, and corporate offices.

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Speaker 1: The human toll was just devastating.

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Speaker 2: It was twenty three people were injured, and many of

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them suffered life altering wounds. We're talking about losing fingers, hands,

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their sight just off, and three people were killed.

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Speaker 1: Let's just pause on that timeline for a second.

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Speaker 2: Eighteen years it's lifetime, It.

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Speaker 1: Really is if a child was born on the day

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of that first attack at Northwestern University, they would be

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graduating high school putting on a cap and gown by

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the time this bomber was finally caught.

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Speaker 2: That really puts it in perspective.

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Speaker 1: That is nearly two decades of millions of Americans living

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in a state of low level, pervasive anxiety because it

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was no longer just a local incident in Chicago or

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an isolated threat to airlines.

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Speaker 2: Right, the unpredictability of the targets was the true source

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of the terror. Yeah, because, like we said, it started

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at a university, then escalated to a commercial airline, but

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then just fractured out.

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Speaker 1: He started picking individuals.

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Speaker 2: Yes, he targeted a computer store owner in California. He

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targeted a genetics researcher. He targeted a timber industry lobbyist, which.

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Speaker 1: To the public just seemed entirely random.

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Speaker 2: Completely random. There was no apparent geographic or demographic pattern

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that a regular citizen could use to assure themselves they

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were safe.

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Speaker 1: You couldn't say, oh, I don't work at a university,

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so I'm.

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Speaker 2: Fine, exactly. Anyone receiving an unexpected package could potentially be

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the next victim, which.

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Speaker 1: Brings up a really crucial question about his methodology. Does

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the shift from leaving a bomb on a university campus

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to trying to bring down an airliner to then mailing

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highly targeted packages to specific individuals. Does that suggest his

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own underlying rage was escalating.

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Speaker 2: That's a great question.

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Speaker 1: Or was he simply treating this like an engineering problem,

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testing his technical confidence as his bomb making skills evolved.

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Speaker 2: Well, the forensic evidence suggests it was an evolution of

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both his technical mastery and his ideological focus. Okay, so

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early on the bombs were relatively crude. The device on

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flight seven twenty seven, for instance, actually failed to detonate properly.

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Speaker 1: Wait really it failed?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the barad trigger worked the thing that detects altitude,

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but the main explosive charge didn't ignite completely. Oh, it

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mostly just burned, which is what produced all that smoke.

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Speaker 3: So if it had detonated fully, that plane likely wouldn't

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have survived.

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Speaker 1: That is terrifying.

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Speaker 2: But as the years went on, his devices became horrifyingly efficient.

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He learned how to maximize fragmentation. He learned how to

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disguise the trigger mechanisms so that the simple act of

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just lifting a flop on a wooden box would complete

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the circuit.

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Speaker 1: But there is a limit to how much a pipe

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bomb can actually communicate, right exactly. I mean, a bomb

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can communicate anger, it can communicate destruction, but it cannot

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communicate a complex ideology.

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Speaker 2: No, we can't.

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Speaker 1: And for years the FBI only had the physical remnants

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of these bombs to communicate with the killer, the twisted metal,

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the fragments of wood, the specific choice of batteries.

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Speaker 2: They were basically analyzing the metallurgy looking for microscopic clues.

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Speaker 1: But eventually the unobomber realized that if he actually wanted

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to change society, he had to stop just destroying it

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and start talking to it.

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Speaker 2: He decided violence wasn't enough. He needed an audience. The

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violence was no longer a sufficient vehicle for his grievances.

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He needed the world to understand why he was doing this.

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Speaker 1: And that leads us to June twenty fourth, years deep

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into this massive, frustrating manhunt, an envelope arrives at the

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New York Times.

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Speaker 2: Now, given the history of male terror at this point,

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you'd expect the building to be evacuated immediately.

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Speaker 1: Right, Well, absolutely, call the bomb squad. But this envelope

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doesn't contain a bomb. No, it contains a letter, and.

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Speaker 2: That letter fundamentally alters the trajectory of the entire investigation.

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Speaker 1: It really does, because it claims to be written by

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a member of a group with the initials FC.

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Speaker 2: The letter says FC stands for Freedom Club.

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Speaker 1: Right now, anyone can write a letter to a newspaper

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and claim to be a famous criminal. Sure, we see

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it all the time in high profile cases, you know,

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attention secrets just muddying the water.

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Speaker 2: Was Zodiac case had tons of those.

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Speaker 1: Exactly, But the author of this letter doesn't just make

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empty claims. They provide definitive proof.

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Speaker 2: They included a secret code for all further communication, ensuring

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no one else could falsely take credit.

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Speaker 1: But more importantly, the FBI already knew exactly what FC meant.

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Speaker 2: And this is where the forensic brilliance of the FBI

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labs really comes into play. What the public absolutely did

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not know at the time was the significance of.

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Speaker 1: Those initials because they kept it a secret.

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Speaker 2: Right inside every single one of the devices. The unabomber

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had said and over the years there was a hidden

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physical signature. Yeah, the bomber had embedded a small metal

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disc with the letters FC stamped into it.

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Speaker 1: But and this is what always gets me, how does

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a small metal disc survive the explosive force of a

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pipe bomb?

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Speaker 2: It's a great question.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the whole point of a pipe bomb is

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that the immense pressure tears the metal casing into microscopic shrapnel.

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How did he guarantee the FBI would find these little

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calling cards?

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Speaker 2: It requires a really deep understanding of explosive physics. Okay,

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he engineered those specific metal discs to withstand the extreme

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heat and force. He would place them in areas of

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the device that would be thrown clear of the primary

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blast zone. Or he would manufacture them from alloys that

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had a higher melting point than the surrounding materials.

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Speaker 1: Oh wow, So it was entirely deliberate.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't an accident when they survived. It was a

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calculated engineering choice.

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Speaker 1: So he's essentially a twisted artist signing his canvas.

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Speaker 2: That's a good way to put it.

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Speaker 1: He wanted credit just as much as he wanted destruction.

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And the FBI knew about those discs. They had kept

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that detail strictly classified.

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Speaker 2: So when they saw the letters FC. In this communication

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to The New York Times, they knew instantly, beyond a

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shadow of a doubt, that they were finally talking to

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the person who had been terrorizing the country.

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Speaker 1: And the communication didn't stop there. He began sending more letters,

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expanding his audience to the Washington.

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Speaker 2: Post as well, And these letters gave investigators their very

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first unfiltered insight into his actual motives. They were no

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longer just looking at the type of wood he used.

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They were looking at his philosophy.

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Speaker 1: He starts laying out his ideology. And it is fascinating

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to look at these documents purely as historical artifacts. And

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I want to pause here and explicitly state for our

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listeners we are not taking a stance on the bomber's

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political or anti industrial views. Today. We are simply reporting

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the contents of the historical documents to understand the psychological

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profile of the subject.

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Speaker 2: Exactly. It's about understanding the mind behind the crimes.

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Speaker 1: Right, because if you strip away the violence for a

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second and just look at the text, you see a profound,

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almost paralyzing anxiety about technology. Yes, he argues that computerization,

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the industrial complex, and modern technology are fundamentally destroying human autonomy.

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Speaker 2: He believed that the systems we were building would eventually

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enslave us, and that the only way to save humanity

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was to violently dismantle the technological infrastructure.

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Speaker 1: It's a hyper extreme manifestation of technopessimism.

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Speaker 2: And then comes the ultimatum.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the deal.

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Speaker 2: The unabomber offers a deal to the media and the

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federal government. He states that if a major newspaper publishes

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his thirty five thousand word manifesto exactly as written, the

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bombings will cease.

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Speaker 1: Thirty five thousand words. Let's just put that in perspective

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for a minute. That is the length of a short novel.

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Speaker 2: It's huge.

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Speaker 1: It's not a quick op ed. He wants this massive, sprawling, dense,

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academic thesis printed in the most prominent newspapers in the world.

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Speaker 2: Which puts the government in an incredibly precarious.

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Speaker 1: Position because it forced this is a collision between the

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fundamental principles of counter terrorism and the desperate need to

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stop the bloodshed.

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Speaker 2: This raises an important question about the ethics and risks

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of negotiating with a terrorist. The debate within the highest

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levels of the Justice Department and the FBI was just intense.

401
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Do you negotiate?

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Speaker 1: Right? Doesn't that violate the cardinal rule of counter terrorism?

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Speaker 2: Usually yes.

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Speaker 1: By giving in to his demand and publishing the manifesto,

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you are literally letting a murderer hold the free press hostage.

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You are setting a precedent that, if you kill enough

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innocent people, the New York Times will print your personal essay.

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Speaker 2: It's a terrifying precedent.

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Speaker 1: How did Attorney General Janet Reno and the FBI possibly

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justify that risk?

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Speaker 2: It was a highly controversial, incredibly calculated gamble, but the

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justification was rooted in behavioral analysis. The FBI profilers realized

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that the bomber's need for intellectual validation, his desperate desire

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to be recognized as a visionary philosopher rather than just

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a common murderer, was his Achilles heel oh I see.

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They hypothesized that by publishing the manifesto, they weren't just

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giving him a platform, they were setting a linguistic trap.

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Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting. They were using his

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own enormous ego against him, exactly because it takes a

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staggering level of narcissism to write thirty five thousand words

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and assume that the entire country needs to read your

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thesis to hold lives hostage, just to force people to

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consume your academic paper.

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Speaker 2: It reveals a line that believes it operates on a

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plane entirely superior to the rest of humanity. Yeah, but

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that arrogance is exactly what the FBI banked on. They

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knew that a thirty five thousand word document contains millions

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of data.

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Speaker 1: Points linguistic data points, right.

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Speaker 2: It contains specific vocabulary choices, unique structural cadences, philosophical references,

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idiosyncratic phrasing.

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Speaker 1: Things he couldn't hide exactly.

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Speaker 2: They hoped that by putting all of those words out

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into the public sphere, someone somewhere out in America would

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read it and recognize the voice.

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Speaker 1: The FDI essentially crowdsourced the investigation.

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Speaker 2: They did.

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Speaker 1: They told the Washington Post to go ahead and print it,

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and they waited, hoping that a coworker or an old

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college roommate, or maybe a neighbor would.

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Speaker 2: Call in a tip, just waiting for the phone to ring.

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Speaker 1: But the wild twist of fate here is that the

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trap didn't spring in America at all.

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Speaker 2: No, it didn't.

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Speaker 1: It sprang all the way across the Atlantic in Paris.

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Speaker 2: It is late nineteen ninety five. The investigation is dragged

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on for seventeen years. At this point, WOA, and we

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introduce Linda Patrick, a philosophy professor from Schenectady, New York,

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who is currently on a sabbatical in Paris.

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Speaker 1: I love this part of the historical record because it

451
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hinges on such an ordinary moment. She is sitting in

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Paris reading an English language newspaper, the International Herald Tribune,

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which happened to print extensive excerpts of this recently published

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Unabomber manifesto. She's reading it over coffee or maybe on

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a train, and the tone of the writing just stops

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her cold. It seems eerily uncomfortably familiar.

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Speaker 2: This is where Linda Patrick's specific professional background becomes the

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absolute lynchpin of the entire case.

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Speaker 1: Because she's a philosophy professor.

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Speaker 2: Exactly as a philosophy professor, she is professionally trained to

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analyze texts. She doesn't just read for content, she reads

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for structure.

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Speaker 1: She sees how the arguments are built right.

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Speaker 2: How grievances are framed, the specific syntax of a logical progression,

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and the structural cadence she saw on the newspaper contains

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striking similarities to a very specific private set of documents.

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Speaker 1: She recognized the skeleton of the argument. It mapped perfectly

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onto letters that her husband, David Kotsinski, had received from

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his estranged brother. Yes, and these were not casual catch

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up letters. They were dark, furious.

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Speaker 2: Diatribes, extremely hostile.

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Speaker 1: The estranged brother was absolutely livid that David was marrying Linda.

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Keep in mind, the brother had never even met Linda,

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never met her, yet he wrote these long, vengeful essays

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to David, disparaging their relationship and attacking the very institution

476
00:22:59,799 --> 00:23:00,799
of marriage itself.

477
00:23:00,960 --> 00:23:04,920
Speaker 2: The intellectual arrogance, the tone of absolute certainty, combined with

478
00:23:05,519 --> 00:23:08,079
deep personal grievance. It all alive.

479
00:23:08,200 --> 00:23:08,799
Speaker 1: It really did.

480
00:23:09,000 --> 00:23:11,559
Speaker 2: So, She tells David about her suspicion, and you really

481
00:23:11,559 --> 00:23:14,039
have to put yourself in that room. Having that conversation,

482
00:23:14,559 --> 00:23:17,119
she looks at her husband and says, I think there's

483
00:23:17,160 --> 00:23:19,240
a chance that your brother could be the un a bomber.

484
00:23:19,640 --> 00:23:22,640
Speaker 1: And David's initial reaction is to try and quantify the

485
00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:25,440
absurdity of the claim. He estimates it. He says, Okay,

486
00:23:25,440 --> 00:23:27,000
maybe there's a one in a thousand chance.

487
00:23:27,039 --> 00:23:30,400
Speaker 3: It seems mathematically remote to him, right, But Linda, with

488
00:23:30,480 --> 00:23:34,000
that incredible philosophical clarity, replies that a one in a

489
00:23:34,079 --> 00:23:37,160
thousand chance of your brother being the most wanted domestic

490
00:23:37,279 --> 00:23:39,160
terrorist in American history.

491
00:23:39,319 --> 00:23:41,720
Speaker 1: Is significant enough that you cannot ignore it.

492
00:23:41,799 --> 00:23:42,839
Speaker 2: You can't just brush it off.

493
00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:45,960
Speaker 1: No, you have a moral obligation to act on that

494
00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:47,319
one tenth of one percent.

495
00:23:47,559 --> 00:23:50,880
Speaker 2: So David has to face the unthinkable. He goes into

496
00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:54,119
his personal files, his attic or his desk, and he

497
00:23:54,200 --> 00:23:57,920
pulls out year's worth of letters he's received from his brother. Well,

498
00:23:58,079 --> 00:24:00,799
he pulls up the full text of the publicish manifesto,

499
00:24:01,559 --> 00:24:03,440
and he and Linda sit down at a table and

500
00:24:03,480 --> 00:24:05,200
begin to read them side by side.

501
00:24:05,319 --> 00:24:10,079
Speaker 1: The emotional toll of that exercise is just unfathomable. Spreading

502
00:24:10,079 --> 00:24:14,759
out those old, hateful, deeply personal letters that attacked his wife,

503
00:24:15,039 --> 00:24:18,079
his happiness, his choices, and reading them next to a

504
00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:23,400
terrorist's manifesto. As they read, the agonizing reality sets in.

505
00:24:23,839 --> 00:24:27,240
They aren't just similar. They share the same unique vocabulary, the.

506
00:24:27,160 --> 00:24:28,519
Speaker 2: Same unusual spelling quirks.

507
00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:32,799
Speaker 1: Exactly, they share the same underlying obsessive resentment against modern

508
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:34,079
societal structure.

509
00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:39,240
Speaker 2: And this realization forces David Katynski into what is arguably

510
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:41,920
the most profound moral dilemma a human being can face.

511
00:24:42,480 --> 00:24:45,200
Speaker 1: How does a family member even process that kind of

512
00:24:45,279 --> 00:24:46,519
betrayal and grief?

513
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:49,119
Speaker 2: It's tearing him apart. On one hand, he is fighting

514
00:24:49,160 --> 00:24:52,559
a deep, innate biological instinct to protect his own blood

515
00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:55,599
his brother naturally. On the other hand, he has an

516
00:24:55,640 --> 00:24:58,720
overwhelming civic and moral duty to protect the public from

517
00:24:58,759 --> 00:25:01,920
a man who has already killed three people, maimed dozens more,

518
00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:04,799
and promised to keep going if his demands weren't met.

519
00:25:04,920 --> 00:25:08,119
Speaker 1: The brother's rage wasn't just directed at society either. It

520
00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:12,799
was deeply personal, directed at David's happiness. And the butterfly

521
00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:15,200
effect here is just staggering.

522
00:25:15,519 --> 00:25:16,160
Speaker 2: It really is.

523
00:25:16,680 --> 00:25:20,559
Speaker 1: Think about the fragile chain of events. If Linda Patrick

524
00:25:20,680 --> 00:25:23,960
hadn't taken that sabbatical to Paris, if she hadn't picked

525
00:25:24,039 --> 00:25:27,960
up that specific English language newspaper on that specific day,

526
00:25:28,319 --> 00:25:31,240
if David had simply thrown his brother's hateful letters in

527
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:33,759
the trash years ago instead of keeping.

528
00:25:33,519 --> 00:25:35,279
Speaker 2: Them, which most people would have done.

529
00:25:35,279 --> 00:25:39,720
Speaker 1: Exactly, or if Linda hadn't possessed the specialized analytical mind

530
00:25:39,839 --> 00:25:43,359
of a philosophy professor capable of connecting a diatribe about

531
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:47,440
the Industrial Revolution to a personal letter about marriage. The

532
00:25:47,519 --> 00:25:49,200
unabomber might never have been caught.

533
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:51,839
Speaker 2: He might have died a free man. The margins of

534
00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:53,079
history are incredibly thin.

535
00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:53,759
Speaker 1: Youre really are.

536
00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:56,599
Speaker 2: But to truly understand how this situation came to be,

537
00:25:57,039 --> 00:26:00,799
how an estranged brother sitting alone in isolation could wage

538
00:26:00,839 --> 00:26:04,519
a highly sophisticated, lethal war on the modern world, we

539
00:26:04,599 --> 00:26:05,200
have to rewind.

540
00:26:05,319 --> 00:26:06,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's go back.

541
00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:08,279
Speaker 2: We have to look at the life of the boy

542
00:26:08,599 --> 00:26:12,759
who became the bomber. We have to examine the two distinct,

543
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:15,440
conflicting lives of Ted Kasinski.

544
00:26:15,599 --> 00:26:18,160
Speaker 1: Let's dive into that backstory, because it is the definition

545
00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:21,160
of a tragedy. Ted Kasinski was born in Chicago in

546
00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:24,720
nineteen forty two to working class parents, and from an

547
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:27,519
incredibly early age it is abundantly clear that he is

548
00:26:27,559 --> 00:26:29,000
not a standard issue child.

549
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:30,000
Speaker 2: No, not at all.

550
00:26:30,079 --> 00:26:34,400
Speaker 1: He is profoundly gifted, particularly in the realm of complex mathematics.

551
00:26:34,599 --> 00:26:37,480
Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, his intellectual

552
00:26:37,519 --> 00:26:41,000
capacity wasn't just high, it was a statistical anomaly. He

553
00:26:41,079 --> 00:26:44,279
scored a one to sixty seven on an IQ test. Wow.

554
00:26:44,680 --> 00:26:46,640
To put that in perspective, he was operating on a

555
00:26:46,720 --> 00:26:50,839
level of cognitive processing that is vanishingly rare. The school

556
00:26:50,880 --> 00:26:53,039
system literally didn't know what to do with him, so

557
00:26:53,079 --> 00:26:56,400
they accelerated him. He skipped two entire grades in high school.

558
00:26:56,480 --> 00:26:58,359
Speaker 1: He graduates high school at the age of fifteen. I

559
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:00,480
want everyone listening to think about what they were doing

560
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:01,359
at fifteen years old.

561
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:03,079
Speaker 2: I was probably playing video games, right.

562
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:07,240
Speaker 1: The emotional maturity you possessed at fifteen. Meanwhile, Ted Kasinski

563
00:27:07,279 --> 00:27:11,480
at fifteen was hacking his bags and enrolling at Harvard University.

564
00:27:11,279 --> 00:27:14,599
Speaker 2: And that is where the psychological fracturing likely begins. You

565
00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:17,920
think so, Yeah, The intellectual environment at Harvard in the

566
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:22,440
late nineteen fifties was intensely competitive. Putting a fifteen year

567
00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:26,279
old boy into that environment surrounded by older, more socially

568
00:27:26,319 --> 00:27:29,720
developed young men, creates a profound isolation.

569
00:27:30,400 --> 00:27:34,039
Speaker 1: So his intellectual development vastly outpaced his social and emotional

570
00:27:34,079 --> 00:27:38,079
development exactly. He finishes at Harvard, and despite whatever social

571
00:27:38,160 --> 00:27:43,039
struggles he's having, his academic momentum is just unstoppable.

572
00:27:43,119 --> 00:27:45,920
Speaker 2: He goes to the University of Michigan, gets his master's degree,

573
00:27:46,039 --> 00:27:48,559
and then his doctorate in mathematics.

574
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:51,079
Speaker 1: And his dissertation is so complex that supposedly only a

575
00:27:51,079 --> 00:27:54,240
handful of professors in the entire country could even understand

576
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:55,440
the math he was proposing.

577
00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:58,720
Speaker 2: His rise in academia is meteoric. He is quickly hired

578
00:27:58,759 --> 00:28:00,480
by the University of California.

579
00:28:00,599 --> 00:28:02,279
Speaker 1: In his mid twenties, Yes.

580
00:28:02,440 --> 00:28:05,000
Speaker 2: Placed on a tenure track as an assistant professor at

581
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:08,519
one of those prestigious research institutions on the planet. By

582
00:28:08,559 --> 00:28:11,039
all conventional metrics, this is a young man who has

583
00:28:11,079 --> 00:28:12,240
won the lottery of life.

584
00:28:12,279 --> 00:28:15,079
Speaker 1: He has a limitless, brilliant future ahead of him.

585
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:18,640
Speaker 2: But the archival records show a completely different reality.

586
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:22,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, the parallel track of Ted Konsinski's life is one

587
00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:26,759
of a person who felt profoundly, painfully alienated from his peers,

588
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:30,359
very much so, despite all his brilliance, he had extreme

589
00:28:30,440 --> 00:28:33,279
difficulty forming even basic human connections.

590
00:28:33,599 --> 00:28:36,599
Speaker 2: The records from his time at Berkeley are telling. Was

591
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:40,240
it the pressure of academia or the realization that even

592
00:28:40,279 --> 00:28:43,240
at the pinnacle of his field, he was entirely alone

593
00:28:43,440 --> 00:28:44,720
that caused him to snap?

594
00:28:44,920 --> 00:28:45,839
Speaker 1: That's the big question.

595
00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:48,720
Speaker 2: Because he wasn't well liked by his students. They didn't

596
00:28:48,759 --> 00:28:51,960
find him to be a charismatic genius. They found him

597
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:57,079
to be dull, unengaged, rigid, and pathologically shy. Really, he

598
00:28:57,119 --> 00:29:00,599
would deliver his lectures looking at the chalkboard, rarely engaging

599
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:01,200
with the class.

600
00:29:01,319 --> 00:29:04,519
Speaker 1: I picture his life like a high performance supercomputer running

601
00:29:04,519 --> 00:29:06,440
on a completely corrupted operating system.

602
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:07,799
Speaker 2: Oh that's a good analogy, right.

603
00:29:08,079 --> 00:29:11,079
Speaker 1: The processing power that one sixty seven IQ was phenomenal.

604
00:29:11,359 --> 00:29:14,200
He could compute complex topology that most of us couldn't

605
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:17,200
even read. But the software required to connect him to

606
00:29:17,240 --> 00:29:21,160
the outside world, the basic human interface of empathy, conversation,

607
00:29:21,359 --> 00:29:24,200
and relationship building, was entirely broken.

608
00:29:24,279 --> 00:29:26,200
Speaker 2: It is a highly functional analogy.

609
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:30,400
Speaker 1: So what does this all mean is extreme intelligence sometimes

610
00:29:30,480 --> 00:29:33,759
a liability? Does being that much smarter than everyone else

611
00:29:33,839 --> 00:29:38,039
inherently lead to the kind of profound alienation that breeds resentment?

612
00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:41,279
Speaker 2: Well, in his case, the inability to connect didn't just

613
00:29:41,279 --> 00:29:45,119
make him sad. It caused a deep, festering resentment. He

614
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:48,039
began to view the society that he couldn't participate in

615
00:29:48,319 --> 00:29:50,119
as inherently flawed and corrupt.

616
00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:52,720
Speaker 1: So he blames society, Yes.

617
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 2: And so in nineteen sixty nine, after only two years,

618
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:58,079
he abruptly resigns from his highly coveted ten year track

619
00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:01,680
position at Berkeley, just quits. He gives absolutely no explanation

620
00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:03,799
to the administration. He just packs up and walks away

621
00:30:03,839 --> 00:30:04,200
from it all.

622
00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:06,160
Speaker 1: He doesn't just walk away from his job, though, he

623
00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:09,480
walks away from the entire concept of modern civilization. In

624
00:30:09,559 --> 00:30:13,640
nineteen seventy one, he relocates to a tiny, rudimentary cabin

625
00:30:14,279 --> 00:30:17,160
he builds himself in the remote woods of Lincoln, Montana,

626
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:20,559
middle of nowhere. He begins living a life completely off

627
00:30:20,559 --> 00:30:23,440
the grid, no electricity, no running water.

628
00:30:23,599 --> 00:30:25,880
Speaker 2: Now we need to demystify off grid living for a moment,

629
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:30,079
Please do it is not a peaceful pastoral vacation. Living

630
00:30:30,119 --> 00:30:35,440
in a cabin in Montana with no modern amenities is brutal, exhausting,

631
00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:37,279
constant physical labor.

632
00:30:37,319 --> 00:30:39,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, winters in Montana are no joke.

633
00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 2: You are chopping wood to survive the winter. You are

634
00:30:42,279 --> 00:30:45,480
hunting and foraging for every calorie. His move to that

635
00:30:45,519 --> 00:30:47,839
cabin wasn't just a physical retreat. It was a total

636
00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:51,440
hostile rejection of a society he felt utterly rejected by.

637
00:30:51,759 --> 00:30:54,960
Speaker 1: But despite the extreme physical isolation of the Montana woods,

638
00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:58,200
his mind was absolutely not at rest. He's living the

639
00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:01,160
low tech life he supposedly ideal, but he is spending

640
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:04,680
his nights hunched over by candlelight, writing these furious letters

641
00:31:04,680 --> 00:31:08,680
to his family and drafting these intense diatribes against the government,

642
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:11,079
against socialization, against computerization.

643
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:14,119
Speaker 2: The isolation didn't cure his rage, had acted like a

644
00:31:14,119 --> 00:31:16,279
pressure cooker for it. Yet with no one around to

645
00:31:16,359 --> 00:31:20,920
challenge his ideas or offer perspective, his worldview became entirely.

646
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:23,559
Speaker 1: Distorted, which brings us back to the investigation in nineteen

647
00:31:23,599 --> 00:31:26,720
ninety six, while Ted was living a low tech life

648
00:31:26,759 --> 00:31:29,880
in the woods, the highest tech law enforcement apparatus in

649
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:33,119
the world was finally zeroing in on his front door.

650
00:31:34,079 --> 00:31:37,640
Speaker 2: The FBI, after receiving the tip from daviian Linda Kosinski,

651
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:41,920
are highly optimistic, but they are also very cautious. Sure,

652
00:31:42,119 --> 00:31:46,200
after eighteen years of chasing ghosts, false leads, and dead ends,

653
00:31:46,359 --> 00:31:47,799
they have a genuine suspect.

654
00:31:47,880 --> 00:31:50,880
Speaker 1: They bring in their behavioral analysts and linguists. They sit

655
00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:54,000
down and speak extensively with David, they interview Linda, and.

656
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:57,240
Speaker 2: The more the FBI linguists compare those old handwritten letters

657
00:31:57,279 --> 00:31:59,799
Ted had sent to his family with the published manifesto

658
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:03,240
the more certain they become. The linguistic fingerprint is a

659
00:32:03,279 --> 00:32:04,279
definitive match.

660
00:32:04,319 --> 00:32:06,839
Speaker 1: So what does this mean? Logistically? It means the FBI,

661
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:10,440
with its forensic labs, satellites, and massive databases, is finally

662
00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:13,319
going after a man living a deliberately analog, low tech

663
00:32:13,400 --> 00:32:14,960
life in a shack in the woods.

664
00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:18,279
Speaker 2: The contrast is striking, but the FBI knows they are

665
00:32:18,279 --> 00:32:21,759
dealing with an incredibly dangerous individual. This leads to the

666
00:32:21,799 --> 00:32:25,880
climax of the entire decades long saga. April third, nineteen

667
00:32:25,960 --> 00:32:26,519
ninety six.

668
00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:30,400
Speaker 1: The FBI arrives in Lincoln, Montana. But they don't just

669
00:32:30,559 --> 00:32:33,319
roll up with sirens blaring and knock on the front door.

670
00:32:33,559 --> 00:32:36,079
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely not. They know exactly what this man is

671
00:32:36,119 --> 00:32:37,039
capable of building.

672
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:41,359
Speaker 1: They bring full tactical operations teams to this remote, heavily

673
00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:45,319
wooded location. They have snipers quietly positioned in the tree.

674
00:32:45,079 --> 00:32:46,880
Speaker 2: Line, bomb squads on standby.

675
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:49,480
Speaker 1: They are entirely ready in case this turns into a

676
00:32:49,559 --> 00:32:52,920
violent standoff, because stepping onto the property of a paranoid

677
00:32:53,039 --> 00:32:56,319
master bomb maker is like walking into a literal minefield.

678
00:32:56,400 --> 00:33:00,160
Speaker 2: Every floorboard, every door handle could be rigged exactly the

679
00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:04,519
tactical approach was slow and methodical. Consider the sheer tension

680
00:33:04,559 --> 00:33:06,839
of the raid. The FBI knew they were walking into

681
00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:10,440
a potential death trap, but their primary objective, aside from

682
00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:14,279
securing the suspect without loss of life, was preserving the evidence. Right.

683
00:33:14,359 --> 00:33:16,960
Speaker 1: If the cabin burned down in a firefight, they might

684
00:33:17,039 --> 00:33:17,759
lose the case.

685
00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:20,440
Speaker 2: They needed everything intact to prove their case beyond a

686
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:22,759
shadow of a doubt in a court of law. When

687
00:33:22,799 --> 00:33:25,880
they finally breached the cabin and secure Kasinski, they begin

688
00:33:25,960 --> 00:33:27,440
to process the scene.

689
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:31,640
Speaker 1: And what they find inside that tiny, cluttered space is

690
00:33:31,839 --> 00:33:36,119
just a definitive, overwhelming treasure trove of forensic evidence.

691
00:33:36,279 --> 00:33:38,279
Speaker 2: Let's talk about what was in there. They find the

692
00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:43,960
raw bomb making materials, pipes, wires, batteries, chemicals, the components.

693
00:33:43,960 --> 00:33:48,319
They find the exact specific Smith Corona typewriter that was

694
00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:51,279
used to type the manifesto and the letters sent to

695
00:33:51,319 --> 00:33:52,039
the newspapers.

696
00:33:52,079 --> 00:33:53,960
Speaker 1: And how do they know it's the exact one Because

697
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:58,440
typewriters have physical fingerprints, right. The metal striking arms wear

698
00:33:58,519 --> 00:34:01,480
down over time, and he might have a microscopic chip

699
00:34:01,519 --> 00:34:04,559
on the surf. The team might strike slightly heavier on

700
00:34:04,599 --> 00:34:06,079
the left side due to bent metal.

701
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:08,679
Speaker 2: It acts exactly like ballistic striations on a bullet.

702
00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:11,840
Speaker 1: The FBI lab matched the typewrit and manifesto directly to

703
00:34:11,840 --> 00:34:15,079
the physical imperfections of that specific Smith Corona machine.

704
00:34:15,119 --> 00:34:18,840
Speaker 2: The forensic link was undeniable. But the most staggering find

705
00:34:19,159 --> 00:34:23,480
wasn't the typewriter. No, the investigators discovered over forty thousand

706
00:34:23,519 --> 00:34:25,320
pages of handwritten journal entries.

707
00:34:25,519 --> 00:34:27,559
Speaker 1: Forty thousand pages. What was in them?

708
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:31,360
Speaker 2: Everything? This is where the profound irony of Ted Kasinski's

709
00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:37,360
ego truly destroys him. Those journals meticulously, obsessively explained every

710
00:34:37,400 --> 00:34:40,280
single bomb he ever built over the past eighteen years.

711
00:34:40,400 --> 00:34:41,280
Speaker 1: Are you serious?

712
00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:45,039
Speaker 2: He detailed how to construct them, the specific materials used,

713
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:49,320
the rationale for targeting specific individuals, and his reaction to

714
00:34:49,360 --> 00:34:53,360
the media coverage of the explosions. Wow. His intellectual pride,

715
00:34:53,679 --> 00:34:57,760
his belief that his actions were historically significant, demanded that

716
00:34:57,840 --> 00:34:59,239
he document his work.

717
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:02,760
Speaker 1: He essentially he wrote out his own meticulous forty thousand

718
00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:05,559
page confession, organized it, and wrapped it in a bow

719
00:35:05,599 --> 00:35:06,280
for the FBI.

720
00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:07,039
Speaker 2: Pretty much.

721
00:35:07,119 --> 00:35:08,719
Speaker 1: I mean, if he had just burned those journals in

722
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:11,280
his woodstove, the prosecution would have had a much harder

723
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:13,719
time proving he was the sole architect of the bombings.

724
00:35:14,400 --> 00:35:17,400
Speaker 2: But amidst the journals, the tools, and the typewriter, the

725
00:35:17,519 --> 00:35:21,440
investigators find something else, something that chillingly proves the true

726
00:35:21,480 --> 00:35:22,519
extent of his deception.

727
00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:23,440
Speaker 1: What was it?

728
00:35:23,639 --> 00:35:27,639
Speaker 2: Underneath his bed, investigators discover an aluminium wrapped package. It

729
00:35:27,719 --> 00:35:30,519
is fully prepped, taped up, and already addressed to an

730
00:35:30,559 --> 00:35:34,639
aerospace company executive in Texas. And inside that package is

731
00:35:34,760 --> 00:35:37,280
a fully constructed live bomb.

732
00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:40,480
Speaker 1: Wait, wait, let's pause there, because that completely shatters the

733
00:35:40,559 --> 00:35:43,840
narrative he sold to the public. That live bomb already

734
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:47,360
addressed and ready to mail proves that the manifesto negotiation

735
00:35:47,719 --> 00:35:48,239
was a lie.

736
00:35:48,519 --> 00:35:48,960
Speaker 2: Exactly.

737
00:35:49,039 --> 00:35:51,440
Speaker 1: He had explicitly promised in his letters to The New

738
00:35:51,519 --> 00:35:54,400
York Times and the Washington Post that if his manifesto

739
00:35:54,519 --> 00:35:57,320
was published, the bombings would permanently stop.

740
00:35:57,239 --> 00:35:59,159
Speaker 2: And the media held up their end of the.

741
00:35:59,079 --> 00:36:02,960
Speaker 1: Bargain theif ffesto was published in full, Yet there under

742
00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:05,320
his bed was the next lethal device, ready to be

743
00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:06,400
dropped in a mailbox.

744
00:36:06,559 --> 00:36:09,119
Speaker 2: The ideology was a shield for his compulsion. He was

745
00:36:09,159 --> 00:36:11,840
never going to stop. The violence had become an intrinsic

746
00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:12,960
part of his existence.

747
00:36:13,039 --> 00:36:15,760
Speaker 1: But on that cold day in April nineteen ninety six,

748
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:19,400
one of the longest, most expensive, and most terrifying manhunts

749
00:36:19,400 --> 00:36:22,320
in the United States history is finally over. The invisible

750
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:24,360
threat has a face, and he is in custody.

751
00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:24,760
Speaker 2: Yes.

752
00:36:25,119 --> 00:36:28,039
Speaker 1: Fast forward through the legal proceedings to January of nineteen

753
00:36:28,119 --> 00:36:32,559
ninety eight. Ted Kasinski, facing a mountain of insurmountable evidence,

754
00:36:32,599 --> 00:36:34,079
pleads guilty to all charges.

755
00:36:34,159 --> 00:36:37,199
Speaker 2: He does this primarily to avoid the death penal okay right.

756
00:36:37,599 --> 00:36:40,119
Speaker 1: He is subsequently sentenced to life in prison without the

757
00:36:40,159 --> 00:36:43,840
possibility of parole. He has moved to an isolated cell

758
00:36:43,880 --> 00:36:47,440
in the Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, the most secure

759
00:36:47,519 --> 00:36:50,559
facility in the country, where he ultimately dies by suicide

760
00:36:50,599 --> 00:36:52,639
many years later in twenty twenty three.

761
00:36:53,320 --> 00:36:56,119
Speaker 2: And while the legal saga concludes there, we really must

762
00:36:56,199 --> 00:36:59,519
look at the deeply poignant aftermath for the family that

763
00:36:59,519 --> 00:37:00,639
brought him justice.

764
00:37:00,800 --> 00:37:01,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, David, Linda.

765
00:37:02,159 --> 00:37:05,280
Speaker 2: David Kasinski lived for years with the agonizing weight of

766
00:37:05,280 --> 00:37:08,320
his decision. He turned in his own flesh and blood,

767
00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:10,280
knowing it could lead to his brother's execution.

768
00:37:10,480 --> 00:37:13,400
Speaker 1: It's an unimaginable burden, but he followed through on his

769
00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:15,280
moral convictions to the very end.

770
00:37:16,039 --> 00:37:18,960
Speaker 2: The FBI had offered a one million dollar reward for

771
00:37:19,039 --> 00:37:22,360
information leading to the capture of the annabomber, and because

772
00:37:22,440 --> 00:37:26,199
David provided the definitive tip, he was awarded that money.

773
00:37:26,320 --> 00:37:28,039
Speaker 1: And he doesn't keep a dime of it, not a

774
00:37:28,079 --> 00:37:31,559
single dime. David tongs that entire one million dollar reward

775
00:37:31,679 --> 00:37:34,000
over to the families of his brother's victims and to

776
00:37:34,039 --> 00:37:35,280
the survivors who remained.

777
00:37:35,840 --> 00:37:39,599
Speaker 2: It is the ultimate heartbreaking contrast in a brotherly relationship.

778
00:37:39,840 --> 00:37:43,119
Speaker 1: It really is. While Ted devoted his brilliant once in

779
00:37:43,159 --> 00:37:47,440
a generation mind and his entire adult life to causing pain, destruction,

780
00:37:47,639 --> 00:37:51,760
and terror, David devoted his lowest, most difficult moment to

781
00:37:51,880 --> 00:37:52,960
offering restitution.

782
00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:55,920
Speaker 2: He used that reward money to try and bring some

783
00:37:56,199 --> 00:38:00,519
small measure of financial and emotional healing to the families broke.

784
00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:03,760
Speaker 1: It is a profound testament to the divergence of their paths.

785
00:38:04,079 --> 00:38:07,400
Two brothers raised in the same house. One chose absolute

786
00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:10,719
isolation and violence, the other chose connection and accountability.

787
00:38:11,039 --> 00:38:15,159
Speaker 2: And Ted Kasinski tried his absolute hardist to violently destroy

788
00:38:15,199 --> 00:38:19,280
the modern world because he felt entirely, irredeemably disconnected from it.

789
00:38:19,840 --> 00:38:22,679
But in the end it was a human connection, the distinct,

790
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:25,679
recognizable voice of a brother echoing through the pages of

791
00:38:25,679 --> 00:38:28,320
a newspaper in a foreign country that proved to be

792
00:38:28,440 --> 00:38:31,719
his undoing. The permanence of human connection is what ultimately

793
00:38:31,719 --> 00:38:32,480
stopped the terror.

794
00:38:32,880 --> 00:38:36,360
Speaker 1: We've covered an incredible, harrowing arc today on thrilling threads

795
00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:39,519
from the terrifying muffled thump in the cargo hold of

796
00:38:39,519 --> 00:38:42,880
Flight seven twenty seven, through an eighteen year labyrinth of

797
00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:46,760
systemic fear, agency turf wars, and a high stakes media

798
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:50,159
gamble with a thirty five thousand word manifesto.

799
00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:53,480
Speaker 2: All of it ending at a dilapidated, explosive filled cabin

800
00:38:53,639 --> 00:38:57,480
in the woods of Montana. It is a historical case

801
00:38:57,760 --> 00:39:01,599
that forces us to constantly examine the very thin, fragile

802
00:39:01,639 --> 00:39:05,719
line between extreme genius and profound madness.

803
00:39:05,239 --> 00:39:08,199
Speaker 1: And the incredible weight of moral responsibility when those two

804
00:39:08,199 --> 00:39:11,239
things intersect. But before we sign off, I want to

805
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:13,760
leave you with a lingering thought that builds on everything

806
00:39:13,800 --> 00:39:17,880
we've just discussed. Ted Kasinski was utterly terrified of technology.

807
00:39:18,239 --> 00:39:21,079
He believed that computers would eventually track our every move,

808
00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:25,360
dictate our social interactions, and destroy our human autonomy. He

809
00:39:25,440 --> 00:39:30,559
went to unimaginably violent lengths to try and stop that future. Today,

810
00:39:30,599 --> 00:39:34,239
we voluntarily carry advanced tracking devices in our pockets. We

811
00:39:34,360 --> 00:39:37,280
let algorithms carrate our news, our entertainment, and even our

812
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:40,360
social lives. Did the society he went to such horrific

813
00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:43,559
lengths to prevent actually come to pass anyway, just with

814
00:39:43,639 --> 00:39:44,519
our willing consent.

815
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:46,239
Speaker 2: That is a very heavy thought.

816
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:48,639
Speaker 1: And that leads me to my final question. And I

817
00:39:48,679 --> 00:39:51,079
am turning the microphone over to you listening to us

818
00:39:51,119 --> 00:39:53,760
right now. I want you to really think about this.

819
00:39:54,559 --> 00:39:57,719
If you were in David and Linda Kasinski's shoes, sitting

820
00:39:57,760 --> 00:40:00,320
at a table in your home, looking at per personal

821
00:40:00,400 --> 00:40:03,599
letters from your own brother and knowing that turning them

822
00:40:03,639 --> 00:40:07,440
into the FBI meant potentially sending your own flesh and

823
00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:10,599
blood to face the death penalty, do you think you

824
00:40:10,599 --> 00:40:11,760
could have made that same call?

825
00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:12,840
Speaker 2: Where do you draw the line?

826
00:40:13,039 --> 00:40:15,719
Speaker 1: Exactly where do you personally draw the line between deep

827
00:40:15,719 --> 00:40:18,840
family loyalty and the greater good of society? Let us

828
00:40:18,840 --> 00:40:21,199
know what your stand is and drop a comment. Belowed answer.

829
00:40:21,840 --> 00:40:23,679
Thank you so much for joining us for this edition

830
00:40:23,719 --> 00:40:26,679
of Thrilling Threads. We'll be back to unravel more mysteries

831
00:40:26,760 --> 00:40:28,880
soon but until then stay curious.