The brother of the “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, who killed three people and injured more than two dozen in a targeted mail bombing campaign between 1978 and 1995, lamented reports that alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO shooter Luigi Mangione took an interest in his brother—though another friend said Mangione disapproved of Kaczynski.
Theodore "Ted" Kaczynski, center, is guided to his arraignment in Helena, Montana on April 4, 1996.
Mangione, who was arrested Monday and charged with the murder of Brian Thompson, left a four-star review for Kaczynski’s book, “Industrial Society and Its Future,” on Goodreads in January, where he said it was easy to write off the text as the beliefs of a "lunatic" but was sympathetic to the "uncomfortable problems it identifies.”
His review, made private on Monday, also quoted another person’s take about how “violence is necessary to survive.”
In an interview with NBC News Tuesday, Ted Kaczynski’s brother David expressed concern that his brother may have inspired Mangione's alleged actions and said the Unabomber’s behavior was "like a virus," and could easily be misinterpreted by people who don't understand "he was a very angry and disturbed man."
David Kaczynski said to cast his brother’s "violent acts as beneficial to humanity is a terrible mistake."
The connection between Kaczynski and Mangione’s alleged actions—if any—is unclear, and police haven’t explained his suspected motive in detail.
New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Mangione was carrying a handwritten document speaking to his “motivation and mindset” at the time he was arrested, but the manifesto has not been released to the public.
An internal NYPD report obtained by The New York Times and CNN said Mangione appeared to view the targeted killing of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO “as a symbolic takedown and a direct challenge to its alleged corruption and ‘power games,’ asserting in his note he is the ‘first to face it with such brutal honesty.’”
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Suspected shooter Luigi Mangione is led into the Blair County Courthouse for an extradition hearing ... [+]
An English writer named Gurwinder Bhogal, who struck up an online friendship with Mangione earlier this year, shared emails with The New York Times on Tuesday in which the pair discussed the Unabomber. Bhogal told the Times Mangione "disapproved" of Kaczynski’s actions "but was fascinated by his ideology, and shared his concerns about rampant consumerism gradually eroding our agency and alienating us from ourselves.” Bhogal said Mangione had also complained about the expense of the U.S. healthcare system.
Honolulu Civil Beat, a Hawaii-based newspaper, reported that Mangione helped found a book club among members of a co-working space he frequented, which then read Kaczynski's book. Other members of the club suggested the read as "a joke," the paper reported, and most people found the manifesto so "painful to read" it ultimately ended the club.
Since the reports tying Mangione and Kaczynski together first surfaced Monday, search interest in the Unabomber’s case has skyrocketed. Google searches for terms like "Unabomber motive," “Ted Kaczynski manifesto summary” and "Who was the unabomber and what did he do" growing by more than 5,000% in the last day.
Kaczynski was born to a working class family in 1942 and was regarded for his exceptional intelligence, graduating from high school at age 15 and going on to Harvard University on a scholarship that same year. He went on to earn his doctorate in mathematics in 1967 and was an assistant professor at the University of California Berkeley before abruptly resigning and moving to a remote cabin in Montana. There, he dove into sociology and political philosophy and, according to his manifesto, ultimately concluded technology had led to the destruction of the natural world and the only way forward was the collapse of industrial society. Between 1978 and 1995, he mailed or hand-delivered bombs to various universities, people who worked with computers, the president of United Airlines and an American Airlines flight, among other targets, that killed three people and injured 23 others. The FBI's hunt for Kaczynski was, at the time, the longest investigation ever carried out by the agency at 223,586 hours. He was ultimately caught after officials agreed to his demand that his manifesto be published by The New York Times or The Washington Post under the threat of continued violence. Both papers published the writing in 1995, and his brother, David, recognized the style of prose and reported his suspicions. Kaczynski died in a federal prison medical center last year at the age of 81. Netflix released a four-part mini series about Kaczynski titled "Unabomber: In His Own Words" in 2020 and the first season of the Spectrum series "Manhunt" dramatized the FBI's search in 2017.
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot dead on the streets of New York City last week. Thompson, who worked for UnitedHealth for almost two decades before he was promoted to CEO of its insurance unit in 2021, was shot outside the New York Hilton Midtown, where an investor meeting was set to take place, in what police said early on was a targeted killing. Shell casings found at the scene had the words “deny,” “defend” and “depose”—alleged tactics insurance companies are accused of using to avoid paying claims— written on them. Police searched New York City before saying they believed the suspect had left the city on a bus, and released several photos of the suspected shooter in a plea to the public for help. On Monday, Mangione was recognized in a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, and reported to local police. He was arrested and later charged with second-degree murder in Thompson's death.