1988 - 1995 The Unabomber: A Chronology Before the Bombings 1978-1982 1985-1987 1988-1995 1996-1997 The Trial Special Report: A Question of Competency Trial Transcripts The Unabomber: A Chronology Documents from the Case Reports from Court TV & American Lawyer Media The Players The Bombings The Counts Against Kaczynski The Unabomber's Manifesto Building the Unabombs July 11, 1988 Kaczynski writes a letter to mental health professionals requesting psychiatric counseling, and specifies that he would "prefer" to conduct the counseling by writing letters rather than speaking in person. October 1990 Theodore Kaczynski, the father of the alleged bomber, shoots and kills himself in the family's house in the Chicago suburb of Lombard, with his wife and son David in another room in the house. July 12, 1991 Kaczynski writes another letter in an attempt to seek some sort of counseling, and details his lack of friends and an absence of social contact, as well as describing a perceived lack of social skills, self-confidence and other traits that lead to his isolation. June 16-18, 1993 Kaczynski allegedly transports several bombs from Montana to Sacramento. June 18, 1993 Kaczynski allegedly mails a bomb, contained in a wooden box and placed in a padded envelope, from Sacramento to nearby Tiburon, to the residence of Dr. Charles Epstein, a geneticist at the University of California, San Francisco. The return address on the bomb is listed as James Hill, a chemist at California State University, Sacramento. He also mails a similar bomb to Dr. David Gelernter, a computer science professor at Yale University. The package to Gelernter has a return address listed as Mary Jane Lee of the computer science department at Cal State in Sacramento. Neither Hill nor Lee had any knowledge of the packages at the time. June 22, 1993 One package arrives at Epstein's house. His daughter brings it from the mailbox and leaves it on the kitchen counter. Late that afternoon, Epstein opens the package in his kitchen. It explodes, causing him a broken arm, abdominal trauma and the loss of several fingers. June 23, 1993 The mail bomb sent to Gelernter explodes when he opens it, causing him to lose sight in one eye, hearing in one ear and the loss of part of his right hand. He claims that he had to drag himself down five flights of stairs to a university hospital a block away. Shortly after the bombing, the switchboard at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center received a call saying, "You are next." Gelernter's brother Joel, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale Medical School, works at the VA hospital. Joel Gelernter is also a geneticist, and authorities look for connections to the Epstein bombing. The same day, Warren Hoge, assistant managing editor for the New York Times, receives a letter mailed from Sacramento, presumably from an anarchist group called "FC." The letter connects "FC" to the two bombings, and specifies a nine-digit number in Social Security format (553-25-4394), which it says will be used to authenticate future communications from "FC." July 1993 The UNABOM Task Force, made up of agents from the FBI, Treasury Department, and Postal Service, is formed in San Francisco to find the bomber. December 10, 1994 A package bomb explodes outside the North Caldwell, New Jersey house of Thomas Mosser, the executive vice president of advertising firm Young & Rubicam. Mosser is killed in the explosion when he opens the package. The return address is listed as H.C. Wickel at San Francisco State University. Subsequent investigation determines that no such person exists. The bombing is attributed to the Unabomber. March 1995 David Kaczynski is restored as co-owner of the Montana plot where his brother Ted lives in his cramped cabin. March or April 1995 Kaczynski allegedly transports a bomb from Montana to Oakland, California. April 20, 1995 Kaczynski allegedly mails the bomb to William Dennison, the former president of the California Forestry Association. April 24, 1995 Gilbert Murray, Dennison's successor as president, opens the package bomb, which explodes. Murray is killed in the explosion. Additionally, a number of letters are received with the "FC" indentifying mark on this day and referring to Warren Hoge, the New York Times editor who received the June 1993 letter. David Gelernter, the victim of the 1993 bomb, receives one saying that "there are a lot of people out there who resent bitterly the way techno-nerds like you are changing the world and you wouldn't have been dumb enough to open an unexpected package from an unknown source." Dr. Phillip Sharp at MIT receives a letter postmarked Oakland, California and dated April 20 that warns him: "It would be beneficial to your health to stop your research in genetics." A letter sent to Dr. Richard Roberts of New England Biolabs has the identical postmark and language to the one sent to Sharp. Hoge himself receives a letter on the same day with the initials "FC" and the identifying number originally indicated in 1993. The letter discusses a number of the previous attacks and offers reasons for the selection of the victims. According to the text, Mosser was chosen because of his work for a firm that "helped Exxon clean up its public image after the Exxon Valdez incident"; the professors were selected because of they were experts in certain fields. The author of the letter claims to be part of an anarchist ground aiming to "break down all society into very small, completely autonomous units" and discusses aspects of the explosive devices. The author then suggests a "bargain": if a lengthy manuscript is published, the "group" will cease its "terrorist activities," though it differentiates between terrorism and "sabotage," the former relating to people and the latter to destruction of property. "We reserve the right to engage in sabotage," says the letter. June 27, 1995 Jerry Roberts, the San Francisco Examiner's editorial page editor, receives a letter addressed to him which claims to be a warning from "the terrorist group FC, called unabomber by the FBI." The letter says that the group is planning to blow up an airliner flying out of Los Angeles during the next six days. The same day, Michael Getler, deputy managing editor at the Washington Post, receives a letter "from the terrorist group FC." The letter mentions the bomb at the Forestry Association and repeats the offer to desist from terrorism if an enclosed manuscript -- a carbon copy of the one sent to Warren Hoge -- is published. June 28, 1995 Warren Hoge at the Times receives another letter from "FC" that offers the identifying number used previously and includes a 65-page manuscript, referenced in the April 1995 letter and conditions for publication. The message ends by stating that the group has "no regret" that the April bomb blew up Gilbert Murray, whom it calls "the 'wrong' man," and not William Dennison. Scientific American also receives a letter whose author claims to be "the terrorist group FC" which references a 1993 article in the magazine on particle accelerators and discusses negative aspects of scientific advances on society. June 29, 1995 Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione also receives a letter in response to an earlier offer by his magazine to publish FC's manuscript. The letter states conditions for publication in Penthouse, but expresses a preference for publication in the Washington Post or New York Times, which it considers "respectable" publications. Among the conditions are a statement that the group reserves the right to one additional bomb after publication in Penthouse if other media do not publish it. The letter also identifies the meaning of the letters FC: "Freedom Club," the name of the purported group. June 30, 1995 Social psychologist Tom Tyler of UC-Berkeley receives a letter from FC and another copy of the manuscript sent to the Times and the Post. It poses questions to Tyler about technology and its effects, and references a newspaper article in which Tyler had commented on one of the recent bombings. September 19, 1995 The Washington Post and New York Times split costs on the publication of the Unabomber's manifesto in the day's Washington Post. They also print a joint statement in both of their papers saying that they made the decision to print it based on recommendations from the FBI and due to "public safety reasons." They indicate that it is being printed in the Post due to the paper's ability to distribute a separate section for that day. HOMEPAGE | VERDICTS | FAMOUS CASES | TRIAL TRACKING | LEGAL DOCUMENTS | PROGRAM GUIDE | CTTV STORE | GAMES/CONTEST | LEGAL TERMS | SEARCH | INDEX | HOW TO GET CTTV | COMMENTS Copyright© 1999 by the Courtroom Television Network LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this site may be reproduced in any form without permission of Court TV.Nothing in this site is intended to constitute legal advice. COURT TV is a registered trademark and COURT TV ONLINE is a service mark of the Courtroom Television Network.