The Unabomber Case Timeline: From the First Bomb to Ted Kaczynski's Arrest

The Unabomber campaign began in 1978, its last attack occurred in April 1995, and Ted Kaczynski was arrested on April 3, 1996. The FBI records 16 devices associated with the campaign. Three people were killed: Hugh Scrutton, Thomas Mosser and Gilbert Murray. Other victims sustained serious injuries, and some incidents caused no injury.

Those dates distinguish the attacks from the longer investigation. Netflix’s UNABOMBER dramatizes the case alongside earlier Harvard events; our true-story guide explains that framing. This timeline follows the crimes and their aftermath at a historical level.

1978–1982: universities and airlines

The first incident involved a package found in the University of Illinois Chicago Circle campus area and returned to a Northwestern professor who did not recognize it. A campus security officer was injured when it exploded. The FBI’s chronology dates the package’s discovery to May 25, 1978.

Date	Location or target	Recorded outcome
May 1978	Chicago university incident	A Northwestern campus security officer was injured.
May 9, 1979	Northwestern University	A graduate student was injured.
November 15, 1979	American Airlines Flight 444	The aircraft filled with smoke and landed safely; passengers suffered smoke inhalation.
June 10, 1980	United Airlines president Percy Woods	Woods was injured at his home.
October 8, 1981	University of Utah, Salt Lake City	A device was discovered and dealt with without injury.
May 5, 1982	Vanderbilt University	A departmental secretary was injured.
July 2, 1982	University of California, Berkeley	An engineering professor was injured.

An FBI-led investigation involving ATF and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service formed in 1979. Its early university and airline targets produced the UNABOM case code.

1985–1987: the first death and an eyewitness

After a gap, the campaign resumed in 1985. Its targets now included people and businesses outside the categories that had given the case its name.

Date	Location or target	Recorded outcome
May 15, 1985	University of California, Berkeley	An engineering student was injured.
June 13, 1985	Boeing in Washington state	A device was dealt with without injury.
November 15, 1985	University of Michigan	A psychology professor and his assistant were injured.
December 11, 1985	Sacramento computer store	Owner Hugh Scrutton was killed, the campaign’s first fatality.
February 20, 1987	Salt Lake City computer store	The owner’s son was seriously injured. A witness saw the person associated with the incident.

That witness’s description helped produce the familiar composite of a man wearing a hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses. The FBI’s interviews with former investigators place the sketch in this 1987 event. It was an investigative image of an unidentified suspect, rather than a photograph of Kaczynski.

1993–1995: renewed attacks and two further deaths

There were no further recorded devices in the FBI sequence until 1993, a gap of about six years.

Date	Location or target	Recorded outcome
June 22, 1993	Geneticist Charles Epstein, California	Epstein was seriously injured at home.
June 24, 1993	Computer scientist David Gelernter, Yale	Gelernter was seriously injured in his university office.
December 1994	Thomas Mosser, New Jersey	Mosser was killed at home.
April 24, 1995	California Forestry Association, Sacramento	President Gilbert Murray was killed in the campaign’s final attack.

UCSF’s account of Epstein’s career and Yale’s reporting on the attack on Gelernter document the harm to two of the surviving victims. They were people with lives and work beyond their place in an offender’s chronology.

The FBI’s retrospective describes three deaths and nearly two dozen injured. Injury totals vary between summaries, so the event descriptions above preserve the recorded outcomes without presenting an inconsistent precise total as settled.

September 1995: publication opens a new line of inquiry

On September 19, 1995, The Washington Post published the bomber’s manifesto in a special section. Federal authorities had recommended publication in the hope that a reader would recognize its language or ideas.

Linda Patrik and David Kaczynski became concerned about Ted. David provided investigators with earlier writings through an attorney. Linguistic comparison and further investigation then helped support a search warrant.

April 1996: arrest and search

On April 3, 1996, investigators arrested Kaczynski at his cabin near Lincoln, Montana. The search recovered writings and other evidence connecting him to the crimes. Our investigation explainer follows how investigators moved from the family tip to that warrant.

The arrest ended the search for the unidentified offender. It did not itself determine the court sentence.

1998: the plea and sentence were separate events

Kaczynski pleaded guilty on January 22, 1998, under an agreement that removed the prospect of a federal death sentence. He was sentenced on May 4, 1998, to four consecutive life terms plus 30 years, without the possibility of parole.

The dates should not be collapsed into “sentenced in January.” Our account of what happened after his arrest follows the prosecution, prison years and death in 2023.