SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Unflinching and unrepentant, Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski was given four life sentences Monday as the families of his victims prayed aloud for his eternal damnation and demanded that he be locked up “so far down that when he dies he’ll be closer to hell.”
“He’s diabolical, evil, cunning, a murderer,” said Susan Mosser, whose husband, Thomas Mosser, died before her eyes in New Jersey after he opened a bomb sent by Kaczynski.
The outcome of the sentencing was never in doubt: U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell Jr. gave the 55-year-old former mathematician four life sentences plus 30 years, as spelled out in a plea bargain reached in January. Kaczynski’s plea spared him the death penalty and a trial in which his lawyers planned to portray him, against his will, as deranged.
When given a chance to address the court, Kaczynski, the man whose 35,000-word manifesto against the evils of technology filled eight newspaper pages, spoke only briefly, offering no apologies and no explanations.
The Unabomber, so named because he targeted university professors and airlines as well as others in his anti-technology terrorist campaign, killed three men and injured 29 others in 16 attacks between 1978 and 1995.
The attacks ended with Kaczysnki’s capture at his Montana shack in April 1996. He was caught after his brother notified the FBI that Kaczynski’s letters bore a resemblance to the Unabomber manifesto published under pressure in The Washington Post.
The plea bargain covered the three deaths and the maimings of two scientists. As part of the plea bargain, Kaczynski acknowledged responsibility for all of the Unabomber attacks.
He will be sent to a high-security federal prison, possibly in Lompoc or in Colorado.