Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, died by suicide on Saturday at a federal prison in Butner, North Carolina. He was 81.
Kaczynski was a mathematics prodigy who abandoned his academic career in 1969 to live a reclusive life in a remote cabin in Montana. Over the next 17 years, he mailed or hand-delivered a series of increasingly sophisticated bombs that killed three people and injured nearly two dozen more.
Kaczynski's motive for the bombings was to protest the rise of modern technology and the destruction of the natural environment. He believed that technology was dehumanizing and that it was leading to the destruction of the planet.
Kaczynski was eventually captured in 1996 after his brother, David, recognized him from a sketch published in the media. He pleaded guilty to the bombings in 1998 and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Kaczynski's death brings an end to one of the most notorious crime sprees in American history. His story is a cautionary tale about the dangers of extremism and the importance of mental health.
