The Shocking True Story of Netflix’s ‘Unabomber’: What Happened to Ted Kaczynski?

A new Netflix film, Unabomber, has instantly drawn attention, as it recreates the story of a teenage math prodigy who went on to become a the “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski (played by Jacob Tremblay). The film also sees Russell Crowe appear as a psychologist and Shailene Woodley as FBI agent Joanne Miller.

Netflix says the film is inspired by true events, with its plot focussing in part on the controversial psychological experiments Kaczynski took part in at Harvard, and presents agent Joanne Miller as leading the hunt for him. The film’s central story is real, but it is a not wholly accurate. For starters, Miller is a character in the movie, rather than the name of a real FBI agent who led the investigation.

The real case also lasted nearly two decades. Between 1978 to 1995, Kaczynski sent or placed 16 bombs across the U.S., killing three people and injuring 23. He was arrested in 1996 after his brother recognized similarities between his writing in a manifesto published in the press.

This is the true story of what happened to Ted Kaczynski—and how he became known as the Unabomber.

Who was Ted Kaczynski?

Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski was born in Chicago in 1942. Early on, it was clear he was a gifted student with a high aptitude for math, and at just 16 years old, he headed off to study at Harvard University. Kaczynski later earned a doctorate in mathematics at the University of Michigan, then became an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Scott Manchester//Getty ImagesTed Kaczynski pictured at UC Berkeley

Kaczynski resigned from Berkeley in 1969 and two years later, moved to a small cabin near Lincoln, Montana, where he tried to live self-sufficiently. He grew increasingly hostile to modern technology and industrial development, and later wrote that he wanted to take revenge on a changing society.

Kaczynski's time at Harvard period features prominently in the Netflix film—notably, in 1959, Kaczynski took part in a three-year psychological study led by Professor Henry Murray (played by Crowe). Students were asked to write essays about their beliefs, then subjected to intense verbal attacks while researchers measured their responses, something that Kaczynski later described as deeply distressing.

What did the Unabomber do?

Kaczynski’s bombing campaign began in May 1978, when a package bomb was found at the University of Illinois at Chicago. It injured a campus security officer. Over the following years, he sent or placed bombs at universities, on an aircraft and at the homes or workplaces of people he considered connected to technology and industry.

The devices became more sophisticated, and the attacks more deadly. The FBI has said that 16 bombs killed three people and injured nearly two dozen others. Among those injured were academics and people working in technology-related businesses.

The FBI called its investigation “UNABOM,” a shorthand linked to its early focus on university and airline bombings. The media later turned that into “Unabomber,” giving Kaczynski a notorious nickname as investigators struggled to track him down.

What was in the Unabomber’s manifesto?

In 1995, Kaczynski threatened to continue his attacks unless a major newspaper published his essay, Industrial Society and Its Future—something the FBI supported, in the hopes that someone would recognize the author’s language or ideas.

Evan Agostini//Getty Images

The 35,000-word text appeared in The Washington Post and The New York Times, with the opening paragraph including, “The industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.”

The essay argued that modern technology and industrial society had damaged human freedom and the natural world. But the manifesto did more than broadcast Kaczynski’s ideology: It gave investigators a chance to seek help from the public—and gave his family a reason to suspect who might have written it.

How was Ted Kaczynski caught?

Kaczynski’s younger brother, David, recognized similarities between the manifesto and his sibling’s earlier writing. David and his wife Linda alerted the FBI and shared letters and other documents. Investigators compared the writing and found strong enough similarities to help secure a search warrant.

On April 3, 1996, FBI agents arrested Kaczynski at his cabin near Lincoln, Montana. Inside, they found bomb-making components, around 40,000 pages of handwritten journals and a live bomb ready to be mailed. Investigators also found writings that described his crimes.

What happened to Ted Kaczynski after his arrest?

Kaczynski pleaded guilty in 1998 to federal charges connected to the bombings. He was sentenced to four life sentences plus 30 years, with no possibility of parole. He was held in a high-security prison in Colorado before being transferred to a federal medical center in North Carolina in 2021.

San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers//Getty Images

How did Ted Kaczynski die?

Kaczynski took his own life in prison on June 10, 2023, at the age of 81, two years after being diagnosed with rectal cancer. A month prior to his passing, a report stated that he was “was noted to be depressed and sent for psychiatric evaluation.”

According to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in North Carolina, Kaczynski's official cause of death was hanging, after he used a shoelace used as a ligature.