A Brother’s Dilemma: Decades of Letters Unraveling the Decision to Expose Ted Kaczynski

In May 1996, David Kaczynski, a youth counselor in upstate New York, began to compose a letter to his brother Ted. Just a month prior, Ted had been revealed as the notorious Unabomber, whose 17-year bombing spree had resulted in numerous injuries and fatalities across the nation.

Ted Kaczynski, a gifted yet troubled mathematician, had retreated to a secluded cabin in Montana years before. He was captured after a tip-off to the F.B.I., concluding one of the most lengthy and costly manhunts in American history. He was now detained, likely facing a long prison sentence, or potentially the death penalty.

The tip-off came from David.

In his Schenectady home, David started to pen his letter, using a pencil as he anticipated needing to revise his words.

“I feared Ted would harbor resentment toward me,” he later expressed in an interview. He asked if Ted would permit a visit so he could explain himself. “I wanted to share in person that we felt a moral obligation to put an end to the violence,” he noted.

Ted refused to add David to his approved visitors, and his reply unleashed a torrent of anger toward his brother.

“You will go to hell because, for you, seeing yourself as you really are will truly be hell,” he wrote.

David felt hurt but not surprised by his brother’s response.

“Ted’s letter was a confirmation of my fears,” he remarked. “It felt like destiny’s hand striking down.”

Determined to change the dialogue, David continued writing to Ted over nearly thirty years, filled with nostalgia, regret, and deep introspection.

In a series of recent discussions with The New York Times, David candidly shared insights into his lengthy correspondence—covering the numerous letters, cards, and books he sent in hopes of reopening the communication that his decision to alert the F.B.I. had severed.

His letters varied from everyday updates to meaningful reflections: memories of their childhood softball games, news of David’s retirement, and updates on their ailing mother’s health. Occasionally, he expressed sorrow over the loss of the strong bond they once shared.

“I was hoping for a chance to meet with Ted and explain my actions,” David, now 75, mentioned about the correspondence, some of which is preserved at the University of Michigan, including years’ worth of birthday and Christmas greetings. “I didn’t necessarily expect Ted to fully grasp my viewpoint to forgive me. I just thought both of us deserved the opportunity to look each other in the eye and share our truths.”

Two brothers, one childhood

The Kaczynski siblings, children of Polish American immigrants, were raised in Evergreen Park, Illinois, a modest suburb of Chicago. Their parents emphasized the importance of intellectual curiosity, achieving academic success, and living ethically.

The family often performed music together as a quartet, and the brothers fostered a love for the outdoors. However, with David being seven years younger than Ted, he noted his brother’s social awkwardness and lack of friends beyond him. Their mother remarked on Ted’s protective nature over David, indicating that he was the only person Ted seemed to care about.

David occasionally reflected on these times when writing to Ted.

The paths of their lives diverged academically and professionally. Ted, a mathematics genius, entered Harvard at just 16, earning both a master’s and doctorate from the University of Michigan. He later became an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley, but eventually left due to mental health struggles. David, aspiring to be a writer, graduated from Columbia University in 1970 with a degree in English.

David admired his older brother for his intelligence and independence, wishing to emulate him.

Both brothers shared a longing to escape societal norms and find solace in nature. In the summer of 1969, Ted invited David on a trip to the Yukon in Canada to scout potential land. They spent weeks hiking in the wilderness and sharing conversations by a campfire. Years later, David would fondly recall this adventure in his letters to Ted while incarcerated:

Shortly after, in 1971, the brothers acquired a 1.4-acre plot near Lincoln, Montana, where Ted constructed a cabin without running water or electricity. David, living about 90 miles away in Great Falls and employed at a zinc smelter, was thrilled to have Ted nearby. David had formed a small circle of friends, and sometimes Ted would come over to discuss philosophy or play sports like basketball and soccer.

David reflected on the dynamics of his friendship with Ted: “Ted would take me on hikes, while I helped him navigate our social environment, however limited it was,” he noted. “I didn’t realize at that time just how significant my role was in Ted’s life as his closest and only friend.”

However, David’s time in Montana came to an end when he lost his job at the zinc smelter due to layoffs. He then accepted a position as an English teacher at a high school in Lisbon, Iowa, where his father had previously managed a facility.

David taught there for two years before deciding to take a break to focus on writing a novel. Identifying as “anti-careerist,” he set his sights on the West Texas desert, which had captivated him since his initial visit years earlier. Influenced by 20th-century philosopher Martin Heidegger, David aimed to “explore true being” and moved to the desert in 1982, choosing a solitary and mostly primitive lifestyle for nearly eight years.

He settled into a sizable ditch he had excavated and partially covered with corrugated metal, later upgrading to an 8-by-12-foot cabin.

In many ways, his life was now a contrasting parallel to Ted’s. The brothers exchanged letters, sharing their journeys.

A Brother’s Betrayal

The bombings began on May 25, 1978, when a Northwestern University campus security officer got injured while inspecting a package flagged by a professor as suspicious. A year later, another bomb was found at the university’s technology institute. Although these incidents resulted in only minor injuries, Ted’s prolonged bombing campaign ultimately claimed three lives and injured 23, all in attempts to highlight the harmful impacts of industrial society.

David and the rest of the Kaczynski family were unaware that Ted’s growing paranoia and withdrawal were taking a violent turn. By around 1985, Ted had largely cut ties with his parents, angrily accusing them of pressuring him to excel and blaming them for his social awkwardness. There were a few exceptions, however—like when he called his mother in 1990 to share his condolences after his father, diagnosed with terminal cancer, took his own life.

The previous year, David had moved from the desert to New York to live with Linda Patrik, a philosophy associate professor with an interest in Buddhism, whom he had known since junior high. When David told Ted about his engagement to Linda, Ted, who had never met her, wrote a furious letter warning him he was making a grave mistake. This led Ted to almost completely sever communication with David.

As the Unabomber’s attacks persisted with few leads for authorities, Ted provided a crucial hint in 1995: a 35,000-word manifesto published in The Washington Post and The New York Times, asserting that “the Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.”

He argued that society made people unhappy and then prescribed drugs to mask that unhappiness.

David’s wife encouraged him to visit the library at her college, where he accessed the manifesto online for the first time, reading several pages.

Linda mentioned something troubling her: Didn’t some phrases and ideas seem reminiscent of Ted?

Though David had barely acknowledged it even to himself, he slowly began to consider the same possibility.

“If it weren’t for Linda, I probably would have pushed this thought aside and tried to forget it,” he admitted.

Over the course of three months, David collaborated with a private investigator and a former F.B.I. behavioral expert to investigate whether Ted could be the Unabomber. Eventually, he contacted a lawyer who assisted him in reaching out to the F.B.I.

David recalled that Ted was arrested in April 1996, about six weeks later. Ultimately, a plea deal spared him from the death penalty, resulting in a life sentence without the chance of parole.

Soon after the arrest, David wrote to Ted, receiving a harsh three-page response where Ted accused him of being “talented in self-deception.”

David, who turned to Buddhism after his brother’s arrest—finding comfort in its interconnectedness—remained resolute. He attempted to honor a promise made to their mother, Wanda Kaczynski, who had urged him in his youth: “You must never abandon your brother, as it’s his greatest fear.”

Seven months after Ted’s arrest, David continued grappling with his feelings of guilt and wrote an apology to his brother.

Sometimes, David reminisced about their childhood sports days. “I still cherish those memories of playing ball together,” he wrote in 2004. “Especially the softball game when you went 7 for 7, and I made a great catch. We were truly in sync that day.”

He hoped those memories would last forever.

David consistently made deposits in Ted’s commissary account to assist with small purchases in prison and sometimes ordered books for him. At their mother’s request, he sent Ted a Christmas gift in 2005: a book titled “Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung? Inspiring Stories For Welcoming Life’s Difficulties.”

Though Ted never acknowledged the gift, he scrawled a note on the invoice stating: “This went straight into the trash, like all books from my brother.”

In 2007, David informed his brother that their mother was experiencing “a serious health crisis.” He urged Ted to reach out to her at last.

There was no reply, and years later, when Ms. Kaczynski was close to death, David reached out to the prison chaplain. “The chaplain didn’t return my call but instead contacted Mom’s doctor, stating that Ted didn’t want to talk,” he remembered. Ms. Kaczynski passed away in 2011 at the age of 94.

Still struggling to communicate with his brother, David turned to an unexpected source for companionship.

Gary Wright, one of the victims of the Unabomber, suffered severe injuries in 1987 when he picked up a suspicious object in the parking lot of his computer store in Utah. It exploded, leaving him with over 200 shards of shrapnel in his body and severing nerves in his left arm. He endured numerous surgeries and treatment for PTSD.

Following Ted’s arrest, David and his wife reached out to the families of surviving victims and the relatives of those killed by Ted’s bombs, expressing their apologies and offering support.

The responses were limited, but eventually, a private investigator who had seen a TV interview with Mr. Wright, whom David had no contact information for, suggested David should try calling him. The investigator said Mr. Wright seemed approachable and not overly angry.

David called Mr. Wright, and they spoke for around 20 minutes. They both remember their first discussion vividly. “David, you don’t need to apologize,” Gary told him. “You did the right thing.”

For David, this conversation was a pivotal moment. “It was like a bridge over the chasm between me and all the families affected,” he stated.

The two men continued to meet regularly over the years, bonding over country music artist Merle Haggard, visiting the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, and making public appearances to discuss the abolition of the death penalty and the importance of friendship and forgiveness.

In 2015, David and his wife settled in Texas after retiring from their roles at a Buddhist monastery in Woodstock, N.Y., where David had been the executive director for three years.

David persevered in writing to Ted, reflecting on their shared experiences and his own spiritual path. In one letter, he reminisced about a trip they took together to the Yukon.

A Christmas Letter

During the Christmas season of 2021, David was troubled when a holiday letter he sent to Ted at the federal supermax prison in Colorado came back marked undeliverable. He had been sending letters there seamlessly for over 20 years.

He called the prison and was informed that Ted was no longer there, but they couldn’t provide more details. He checked the Bureau of Prisons’ inmate locator, which indicated that his brother was now at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, N.C., the largest medical facility in the prison system.

Eager to discover more about his brother’s health, David reached out to a lawyer who had represented Ted during his trial. The lawyer mentioned that she had heard Ted was diagnosed with late-stage cancer.

On Reddit, David came across a letter Ted seemingly wrote to someone whose name was erased, where he revealed he was terminally ill with cancer.

David found himself contemplating the complex tragedy that had unraveled their brotherhood, reflecting on how a once-close family had disintegrated and was drifting apart.

“It felt like I was approaching the conclusion of some grand narrative—serious enough and intricate enough to leave me pondering for all my remaining days,” David shared in an interview.

He intensified his correspondence with Ted.

“I needed to express my love for him and highlight the positive impact he had on my life,” he shared. “But I knew Ted was also quite stubborn, making it unlikely I would get a response.”

In what would become his last correspondence, David told Ted that the best of his thoughts “would outlast us all.”

On a June morning in 2023, David and his wife had just completed a hike and were enjoying crispbreads and cheese at a picnic table in a park near their home when he checked his phone. He saw an email from his former lawyer, sharing reports of Ted’s death. “I’m so sorry,” it read.

Ted had been discovered dead in his solitary confinement cell, having taken his own life. David’s thoughts involuntarily drifted to his father’s suicide years earlier.

More profoundly, he felt a sense of emptiness. All those years of writing—even without a reply—had kept a channel open. Now, that channel was shut forever.

“A completely one-sided relationship is still a type of relationship,” David stated. “But now, if I want to share my thoughts and memories with Ted, I can only articulate those to myself.”

David tried desperately to discover from prison officials whether he could be involved in managing his brother’s remains, but weeks went by without a response.

“Dear Sir or Madam, Please, please, PLEASE provide me with a contact number for someone I can speak to,” he implored in one email. “Not hearing from you feels cruelly dismissive. Do you treat other families this way? I loved my brother.”

Eventually, he was informed that Ted’s remains were dealt with according to his wishes and that David would need to file a federal Freedom of Information Act request to obtain any further information.

David struggled to manage his frustration regarding the treatment he received from prison officials.

“I made the tough choice to disclose my concerns about Ted to the F.B.I., an action that ultimately helped save lives,” he explained in one of many emails to federal prison officials.