(January 8) -- Disrupting his trial twice in one week with a request to change his defense team, Theodore Kaczynski asked to be allowed to represent himself at his trial and agreed to psychological testing to prove he's competent enough to be his own lawyer.

And in a surprising turn late in the day, word came that Kaczynski had tried to kill himself last night in his prison cell, using his underwear in an attempted hanging. Sacramento County Undersheriff Lou Blanas confirmed that U.S. Marshals informed him Kaczynski had made a suicide attempt, had a red mark on the right side of his neck and was not wearing his underwear briefs in court this morning. When Kaczynski was questioned about the missing garment, he told officials he lost it in the shower.

Officials at the Sacramento County jail placed Kaczynski in their psych ward and put him on a heart monitor after an apparent suicide attempt

"We searched his cell," said Blanas. "We assume he flushed them down the toilet."

Blanas also said that Kaczynski would be moved to a cell with 24-hour video monitoring in the psychiatric area on the second floor county jail, and that otherwise, Kaczynski had been a model prisoner. He added that until now, Kaczynski's cell had been monitored every thirty minutes.

In the new cell, he will wear a heart monitor at all times.

Kaczynski made the request to serve as his own counsel this morning through his lawyer, Judy Clarke, who said her client felt the mental defect strategy to be used by his lawyers was a "situation that he cannot endure."

U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell pointed out that Kaczynski had said yesterday he did not want to defend himself. Burrell shot down a request yesterday by Kaczynski to be served by San Francisco defense lawyer Tony Serra.

Burrell brought up the issue today of Kaczynski's competency in the morning, but seemed at least tentatively willing to go ahead with Kaczynski's request, pending psychological tests to prove that he is able to serve as his own defense. The government vigorously objected to allowing Kaczynski to undergo the tests, but while Burrell said he understood the prosecutors' position, he would allow the defendant to prove his mettle.

"I'm going to trust him," said Burrell.

Kaczynski reportedly tried to hang himself in a cell like this one

Burrell left it to the lawyers on both sides to agree on a couple of psychiatrists who would conduct the exams on Kaczynski. If the sides don't agree by Friday, Burrell plans to hold another hearing on the matter. The judge also called in local defense attorney Kevin Clymo, who has been mediating between the defendant and his lawyers, to represent Kaczynski on the matter of his competency.

Kaczynski brought proceedings to a halt Monday when he told the judge he wanted to read something he had written and said he wanted to "revisit the issue of my relations with my attorneys." His utterance prompted a lengthy meeting in Burrell's chambers between Kaczynski, his lawyers and the judge on Monday, and an additional meeting yesterday.

Kaczynski had made repeated protests to the judge about his lawyers and would occasionally spar with them. That tension led him to try and dump them in favor of Serra, who would have presented a defense based on Kaczynski's anti-technology views and excluded mention of his illness.

The government, ironically, has been in support of Kaczynski serving on his own behalf, saying that he should be able to have any sort defense he chooses.

And this latest concession by Kaczynski to be examined by mental health experts seems to contradict his repeated attempts to evade such examination by government experts earlier this year, as well as the hostility he displayed to defense experts hired to examine him.

"You are the enemy," he reportedly once told defense psychiatrist David Foster.

According to Nanci Clarence, a San Francisco criminal defense lawyer and former assistant federal public defender, Kaczynski's mistrust of his lawyers may have stemmed from his paranoid schizophrenia more than any legitimate grudge.

"Those trust issues come up with or without the use of a mental health defense," she said. "He doesn't trust people and the minute he stars to feel himself trust people, he begins to have fear and doubt."

Kaczynski's courtroom conduct was not the only setback today. An alternate juror called in sick, which might have delayed the proceedings regardless of this latest twist in the ongoing battle over representation for Kaczynski.

The current trial will cover incidents in 1985 and 1995, as well as two bombings in 1993. A separate trial will cover charges against Kaczynski for a 1994 bombing in New Jersey.

Federal authorities believe that Kaczynski, 55, is the Unabomber, responsible for sixteen mail and package bombs that killed three people and injured 23 during between 1978 and 1995 in attacks across the country. He was arrested on April 3, 1996 in his Montana cabin, where he had lived for most of the past 26 years.

During the early stages of the case, federal authorities coined the name "Unabomber" because universities and airlines were early targets.