Ohhh, it’s Un-A-bomber…

The latest in my ‘Learn Something New Every Day’ series – taken from The Great Courses’ Trails of Evidence: How Forensic Science Works (Lecture 27 – Profiling)

File this one under “You can tell I’m not American…”

Ted Kazinski, aka the Unabomber, was called that because he targeted universities and airlines to bomb.  (UN=university, A=airlines). UN-A-Bomber.

He was an academic for many years which explained how he could go so unnoticed in an academic setting. When the rest of the world had decided the Unabomber was a disgruntled airline mechanic, the investigator that eventually brought him down argued that a well-educated academic would be more successful at bomb-making than a blue-collar mechanic could possibly comfortably immerse in Academia. Turns out he was right and when Kazinski started to get cocky and communicate with the media believing authorities had no idea where to look for him, the profiler’s work led to Kazinski’s apprehension.