Stuck in the Middle

Linda Kaczynski felt a nagging pain in her gut when she read pieces of the Unabomber's Manifesto.\nAs she read the words explaining the perils and evils of technology from a man who had sent shrapnel--covered bombs to unsuspecting victims, it seemed all too familiar.\nShe sat motionless, and then asked her husband to sit down on the couch.\n"Don't get angry at me, but is there any possibility this could be your brother Ted?" Linda said, clutching a copy of The Washington Post, which had published the Manifesto.\nDavid Kaczynski, who will remain famous as the brother of the Unabomber, recalled the conversation between he and his wife to a silent audience during a lecture Friday in Woodburn Hall. Now executive director of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty, David travels the country to share the story of the day that changed his life, his brother's mental illness and his hope for changes in the criminal justice system.\n"You could have knocked me over with a feather," David said. "I just kept thinking, 'Why are you saying my brother is a serial killer?'"\nSixteen bombs, 29 injuries, 3 deaths, 17 years.\nThe Unabomber was one of the most sought after killers during the 1980s and 1990s, but he was also one of the most elusive. Nobody knew the identity of the man who terrorized neighborhoods with explosive brown parcels. Nobody knew the origin of the homemade bombs that exploded, maimed and even killed his victims.\nAnd it wasn't until the Unabomber demanded newspapers print his 78-page manifesto that David would begin to piece together the truth.\nFor weeks David spent his hours after work researching all he could about the Unabomber. He remained skeptical that someone of his own blood could have been responsible for such violence and hoped through his reading he could clear his brother as a suspect.\nAt first, it looked promising. Eyewitness accounts of the Unabomber didn't describe Ted. \nBut soon enough, too many coincidences started to stack up.\nDavid learned his brother had worked in Salt Lake City during the time a bomb exploded there. When the manifesto was finally printed by The Washington Post, David compared it with old letters his brother had written him, which were prolific in length and unique in style.\n"As I read the first, second and third paragraphs I got this sinking feeling that it sounded like my brother," David said. "After three weeks of reading, I almost had this feeling that I could hear my brother's voice reading the manifesto."\nOne morning, David woke up with "a crushing sense of depression." He said he knew in his heart that despite what he had hoped, there was a 50-50 chance the Unabomber was his brother, the same older brother who at the age of 10 constructed a door knob so David could get in and out of the backyard. He was the same older brother who was a mathematical genius and entered Harvard at the age of 16.\n"Do I really know my brother?" David recalled thinking. "Had I grown up with an evil person?"\nDespite an awful sense of guilt, David made a harrowing phone call that would end a 17--year search for a killer.\n"I knew if we turned Ted in, there was a fair chance he'd be sentenced to death and executed. What would it be like for me to have my brother's blood on my hands?" David said. "But I knew we hadn't chosen to be in these circumstances."\n"If we could stop the violence, we needed to do it. We couldn't let anyone continue doing this, even if it was a family member that was killing the people."\nThen one day, David got the call he had always dreaded. Deep in his mind there was still a hope the FBI would clear his brother, that it would all be a big mistake. But when he picked up the phone, David said the voice at the other end of the line told him words he can clearly remember.\n"They said, 'We've done everything to try and clear (Ted), but he's at the top of our suspect list.'"\nThen, David's attention turned to his mother, who had always worried about Ted.\nWhat would she think? Would she be mad her son turned on his brother?\nAfter explaining everything to his mother, David fearfully waited in deafening silence for his mother's response.\n"I'll never forget what Mom did that day. She got up out of her chair, walked up to me and put a kiss on my cheek," David said. "She said, 'I can't imagine what you've been struggling with, David. I know that you love your brother and you wouldn't have done this unless you thought you had to.'"\nDefining Moments\nOne week later, on April 3, 1996, Ted was arrested at his remote cabin outside Lincoln, Mont. With a scraggly beard and messy hair, Ted was led out of the cabin by police and gave the world the first glance of a man who had been splattered across newspapers and news broadcasts for years. \n"He was skin and bones," David said. "He was wearing clothing that was ripped and torn and it looked like he hadn't bathed in months."\nInside the cabin, police found bomb-making parts, a carbon copy of the manifesto and another live bomb.\nPrior to the arrest, the FBI had promised David that his identity would remain anonymous. But immediately following the arrest, David recalls hearing commotion outside as media trucks began to park on the lawn. He watched CBS News Anchor Dan Rather report that the Unabomber had been turned in by his brother, who lived in Schenectady, N.Y.\nDuring talks with FBI agents and his lawyer, David asked if it was possible to not seek the death penalty because of his brother's mental illness, but he was told no promises could be made.\n"I had always been an opponent of the death penalty, but until that day I never imagined having a personal stake in it," David said. "One day the death penalty kind of came knocking on my door." \nDavid hoped his brother's mental illness would save him from being executed, but federal prosecutors hired a forensic psychologist who had frequently denied claims of mental illness.\nIn January 1998, the Unabomber trial was halted with a plea bargain. In exchange for a guilty plea, Ted would not be executed. He would spend the rest of his life in jail.\nAlthough David had hoped his brother's mental illness would spare him, he said it was thanks to his brother's lawyers that he is still alive today. \n"My brother's life wasn't saved because he was mentally ill or because we had turned him in," David said. "He had incredibly gifted attorneys."\nAfter the trial ended, David received an unexpected phone call from a chaplain in Sacramento, Calif., who said the victims' families wanted to meet with him and his mother. An hour later, David and his mother sat in a room with three women whose family members had died at the hands of the Unabomber.\nIn an emotional moment, words escaped David and he broke down crying.\n"You know your words can't undo the harm that was done," he said to the audience in Woodburn Hall.\nIn an attempt to explain her son's condition, David's frail mother spoke about Ted's mental illness, but all the women heard were excuses.\n"'He knew what he was doing,'" David recalled one of the women saying.\nThe room froze. Silence and tension filled the room until David's mother finally erupted in emotion.\n"I wish he would have killed me instead of your husband," she said.\nWhen David and his mother left the room, everything had changed. David donated the $1 million reward for the Unabomber's capture to the families of victims hurt by his brother's actions. After the meeting, David said he knew it would take his brother many lifetimes to atone for what he had done, and nothing he or his family could say or do would bring back the people Ted had killed. \n"I looked into a victim's face," David said. "There is no closure. People will live with these losses for the rest of their lives."\n A new chapter\nFor a long time, Ted had no idea his brother had been the who turned him in. In a meeting with his lawyer, he even denied his brother would ever betray him, until his lawyer presented him a copy of The New York Times with an article about David.\nTo this day, Ted still refuses to see his family.\nOn holidays and special occasions, David sends his brother cards in jail. His mother writes Ted at least two times a month. But the family still hasn't received a response.\n"It's still totally unacceptable what he did," David said. "But that doesn't mean we don't love him."\nAlthough David knows he will always be known as the brother who turned in the Unabomber, David hopes to make a difference by taking what he has learned about the death penalty through his brother's case and educating others. "My biggest regret is that I didn't know how bad his mental illness was until it was too late," David said. \nHaving spoken at several colleges and conferences across the country, David hopes to help people understand the flaws in the death penalty and the criminal justice system regardless of their personal opinions.\n"Any open-minded, fair-minded person has to have some serious doubt that all of these people on death row are guilty," David said. "The death penalty is supposed to be for those who have committed the worst crimes. There have been 12 innocent people who have been executed across the country and whether you're for or against the death penalty, that's got to be a concern."\nCriminal justice professor Bill Head had two of his classes attend the lecture to see up close what the effects of the death penalty are on real people.\n"A lot of people have general notions about the death penalty," he said. "But to actually be exposed to someone who has had a personal connection with the issue is really important."\nAs he tours cities speaking to a wide variety of audiences, David said he knows it will be difficult to ever have the same relationship with his brother again.\n"I know he said he thinks I did this because I was jealous, jealous of him and that he was the favorite son," David said.\nAlthough he knows it is unlikely he will ever hear from his brother, he wishes for one simple request from Ted.\n"Mom is 88," David said. "And it would make her life if he just wrote her back and said he loved her"