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FBI evidence offers insight into Unabomber

To evade authorities chasing him, Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski kept shoes with smaller soles attached to the bottom in his reclusive Montana cabin, according to evidence released 10 years after his capture.
KACZYNSKI
Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski, wearing a white bullet proof vest, is escorted by U.S. marshals into the federal courthouse in this June 21, 1996 file photo in Helena, Mont. Elaine Thompson / AP
/ Source: The Associated Press

To evade authorities chasing him, Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski kept shoes with smaller soles attached to the bottom in his reclusive Montana cabin, according to evidence released 10 years after his capture.

The shoes were intended to make it appear as if a person with smaller footprints were walking in them, investigators believe.

Kaczynski, 64, is serving a life sentence with no possibility of parole for a bombing spree that lasted from 1978 to 1995. The blasts from homemade bombs killed three people and injured 23.

The government had collected evidence from his Lincoln, Mont., cabin for a trial, but it was never publicly released because Kaczynski pleaded guilty in 1998.

'He wrote about everything'
San Francisco’s KPIX-TV aired a report Tuesday about the evidence. A source close to the case gave the station photographs of the items, which included his typewriter, a handmade gun of wood and metal, writings, and the hooded sweat shirt and sunglasses featured in his FBI wanted photos.

“He wrote about everything. He wrote about what he had for lunch on May 5 of 1979, where he got the food, how he prepared it and what did it taste like,” said retired FBI agent Max Noel, who helped lead the investigation.

KACZYNSKI HOME
The cabin of suspected Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski, partially surrounded by white, plastic tape, sits at the end of a muddy, private road, hidden in a wooded setting about 300 yards from the nearest neighbor Saturday, April 6, 1996 in Lincoln, Mont. The home, on 1.4 acres, is only 10 by 12 feet, with no electricity or plumbing. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)Elaine Thompson / AP

Investigators also found an unexploded bomb inside a silver box with the name of another intended victim, the station reported.

The station said Kaczynski described in his writings how he placed two human hairs he found in a bus station into a bomb “to deceive the policemen, who will think that the hair belongs to whoever made the device.”

It also quoted writings that revealed what he thought of many of his crimes, such as a 1982 explosion that injured a Tennessee woman.

“No indication that the woman was permanently disabled,” he wrote. “Frustrating that I can’t even (make a) lethal bomb.”