Was Ted Kaczynski the Zodiac Killer?

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Transcript

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Was Ted Kaczynski, the unibomber, also the zodiac killer? Now, you might be thinking, well, why are you bringing that topic up out of the blue? Well, because tonight I took a shower, and while I was in the shower, I was listening to part of an interview from Coast to Coast A.M. on February the 13th, 2023. I'm a Coast Insider, so I can listen to recordings of shows. And um George Norrie was interviewing this true crime author. And uh, let's see, I think the guy's name is Dr. Mark Hewitt. Let me make sure about that. Yeah, Dr. Mark G. Hewitt. And uh this fella, he has written a number of books about the Zodiac Killer, and from what what I understand in his latest book, he says that um he thinks that it's it's very possible that Ted Kaczynski was the Zodiac Killer. And uh, I'd never heard that before. This was new to me. So I was listening to this in the shower, and when I got out of the shower, I went downstairs and I told Lauren, like, uh listen to this uh this guy's theory, you know. And so I I kind of gave her a summary of everything, and she thought it was interesting. And now here it is late, and uh she has already gone to bed, and I'm sitting here in my home studio, and I thought to myself, hey, why should Lauren have all the fun? Uh, you know, this is fresh on my mind, so uh maybe I can sit down here in front of a microphone and just kind of summarize this for you the way that I summarized it for her. Uh but uh before I do that, you know, because you know, again, it's it's f it's fresh on my mind, but still I'm in the shower and I'm catching bits and pieces, and I want you to know I have done no actual show prep. So the the the accuracy of the information that I'm about to give you is exactly almost exactly the the level of accuracy that you would get if we were sitting together tonight getting drunk at a bar, and I just decide to tell you, hey, listen to this uh the this thing this guy was saying on the radio while I was in the shower. I mean, I'm just gonna bring all this up from memory off the top of my head. And so uh do not put stock or store in anything I'm about to tell you. Uh this is just like my general impression of like, well, why does this guy think that may be the case? Okay, so uh so that is the extent of how seriously you should take this. But at least, I mean, if you find what I'm gonna tell you interesting, well, you know you can go back and you can listen to the interview from Coast to Coast AM on February the 13th, 2023. Or you can just buy this guy's books. Uh Dr. Mark Hewitt, his website is drhewitt.com, and that's spelled D-O-C-T-O-R. And his last name is H-E-W-I-T-T. Drhewitt.com. All right. So, first off, like I uh I guess like a lot of people, you know, I've always just been interested in true crime, and uh I think nowadays it's just like every I guess everybody must be kind of obsessed with it because it's just uh omnipresent, you know, it's ubiquitous, it's all over media of every kind. But I know some of you might not even understand exactly who I'm talking about and what I'm talking about. So let me just say, okay, Ted Kaczynski, the unibomber. I mean, this is the guy, he is he's still alive, he's 80 years old. And uh he he became uh internationally notorious because I think like starting in the 70s, uh he began uh mailing bombs to uh different figures associated with corporate America and technology and development and uh and killing people with these these mail bombs. And then eventually, you know, he published a manifesto um where he was talking about his philosophy on how that uh technology is is is a bad thing and all this kind of stuff. So, like again, if you don't know who Ted Kacinski is, you go go look that up on your own. I actually I if I just pull it up here on uh on Wikipedia real quick, it says here he was born in 1942, uh says an American domestic terrorist and former mathematics professor. And it says that uh between 1978 and 1995, uh he killed three people and injured 23 others in a nationwide mail bombing campaign against people he believed to be advancing modern technology and the destruction of the environment. So anyway, um he you know he lived in a cabin for many, many years in Montana. Uh, and that's those were his golden years when he was uh he was at the top of his line of work in the in the unibomber industry. Um but okay, so uh like and in fact there's a movie that came out I think I guess in 2021 called Ted K, which is uh it's a drama about uh it's kind of like a biopic about him. And I and Lauren and I really enjoyed it, so you might want to check that out also. Ted K. You should be able to to stream that. But uh, you know, Ted Kaczynski, crazy looking guy, you know, he had the when they caught him, he had the big shock of wild-looking brown hair and the and the beard. And uh he has been well, ever since they caught him, I think for the most part, he's been locked up in the the supermax prison in Colorado. Um the Supermax pr we only have one supermax prison here in the U.S. And that is where the creme de la creme of shit bags end up at the supermax. And uh that's where you have, you know, like uh Terry Nichols, he's there. There are a lot of bombers there. Terry Nichols is one of the Oklahoma City bomber conspirators, and then you have like uh El Chapo is there, you know. It's like if you're if you're notorious because you try to escape or you've killed a lot of people, or you know, you're a terrorist, or you'll probably end up at the Supermax prison. And from what I understand, like they're very mysterious about like what it's like inside the Supermax prison because they don't want people to figure out how to escape. Uh, but you're put into a little cell there, and let's see, it looks like okay, the cells are seven feet by twelve feet. I think the lights are on like 24-7. So good luck getting sleep in there. You're only let out of your cell one hour per day. And I think what they do is they blindfold you and then they take you to like a little pit where you it's like a little swimming pool like that without any water where you can walk around and get a little bit of exercise. And and but they they they keep you blindfolded because they never want you to even know the the structure of of the facility and and your position in it, so it makes it even harder for you to figure out how to escape. And they have all this advanced technology, you know, pressure sensors. You can imagine. I mean, it's so it's so supermax that we don't even know exactly what it's like. Look up the Supermax prison in in Colorado. So he has Ted Kaczynski has been there um for uh decades up until just recently, I think like I think maybe like a couple years ago, uh he was moved from there to a medical prison in North Carolina because supposedly he is terminally ill with cancer. That's the word on the street, and that he probably is gonna die sometime this year from cancer. But he actually uh this author said that he spent more time in the Supermax prison than he did in his cabin in Montana. Okay, so anyway, you're like, okay, fine, if you know anything about who the the unibomber was, then you know you probably know all that information. But have you ever heard this idea that, oh, and by the way, he was the zodiac killer in California in the 60s? Hmm? All right, so look again, I uh I'm I'm a dark twisted guy. I watch all this true crime stuff. I already know who the zodiac killer is, but if you don't, okay, uh let me I got it's so easy, it's it's easy for me to just bring up a Wikipedia page and just tell you like the first few sentences. Okay, the Zodiac Killer is the pseudonym of an unidentified serial killer who operated in Northern California in the 1960s, and the case has been described as the most famous unsolved murder case in American history. Did you hear that? It's still not been solved. Nobody knows, which which I guess is why you know the point of this me doing this podcast, duh. So uh anyway, um, they say the the Zodiac murdered at least five known victims in the San Francisco Bay Area between December 1968 and October 1969. This guy would just pretty much walk up to people and shoot them. Uh I he liked to to shoot people in Lovers Lanes. He claims that he killed like 30 some people. Who knows if that's true or not? But um he like one time he uh he shot somebody and that person didn't die. And so that's where they got like a description of of how he looked as he was walking up. And um basically what he did is he would put on this black outfit that he made. He made like a superhero costume for himself, like a serial killer superhero costume, and he had this like black outfit, and uh and then he had this black hood, but it was like a big black rectangular hood with sunglasses, and uh it was weird because he kind of looked like a giant evil gumby, and then um but it's freaky, you know. Let me tell you, this guy walks up on a sunny day when you're having a picnic and he's got a gun, and you're like, something does not look right here, and he has this emblem that looks like a white bullseye on the chest of this thing. Um you know, freaky guy, but it's not just that he's going up and shooting people, well, then he also starts writing all of these letters to the cops, uh teasing them and uh you know, just agitating them, and his letters have all kinds of weird like codes and puzzles and all this kind of stuff that have never been satisfactorily deciphered, and so yeah, it's you know, it's it's an unsettling, an unsettling uh case on on many levels. So, all right, well, so why does this guy think that um that the two are the same? Well, here is kind of what I gathered in a in a nutshell from from listening to this interview. So, for one thing, during the period of time when the uh the zodiac killings were happening, Ted Kaczynski was living in that same area of California, and he was uh a math professor. Uh Ted Kaczynski uh is a math genius. He he has a PhD in mathematics, and he wasn't very good as a professor because he was antisocial and you know people didn't like him. Um but uh he was obsessed with like you know codes and and all that, you know, cryptography and such, because that's all based in math. And so uh during that period of time he was there, and so this author was saying that if you looked at his schedule, like his teaching schedule at that time, and you compared it to the timing of the Zodiac murders, that um uh it timed out interestingly, so that uh I I guess what you could say is like he would have been free. You know, Ted Kaczynski would have been free on those days and times to to do this stuff. So there's no conflict there in the schedules. Okay, that's that's one thing. Um and then uh he said that uh uh you know uh once again, you've got the uh the fact that they're both interested in uh and in codes and and symbols, and in fact, this author said that for um I think like a couple years, he started writing letters to Ted Kacinski in prison and looking at the wording of those letters, and there's a lot of stuff in Kaczynski's writing that seems similar to the the writing style of the zodiac. And in fact, uh he said that he was able to uh deceive Ted Kaczynski. That the the reason that Kaczynski started like corresponding with him was because that he was saying uh he was pretending to be an admirer, like, oh, your manifesto is wonderful and you're brilliant, and and and Ted Kaczynski is a narcissist, and so uh Kacinski responded to that, and he so but eventually Kacinski somehow found out that this guy was a true crime author, and Kaczynski just flipped his shit, you know, and just wrote this nasty, horrible, hateful, scathing uh he called it like Exorcist Letter or something like that. I would actually love to read that. I don't know if it's out there or not, but uh and and he said, you know, when when Kacinski also found out that this guy, this author, was into the Zodiac Killer, that that may have also made him uh especially angry. Um even c even though, you know, he didn't deny that he was the zodiac killer, but uh, you know, when when Ted Kacinski got caught, uh he he pled guilty to everything. And so George Norrie said, well, I mean in that case, why didn't he just admit that he was the zodiac killer? And the author says, Look, the one thing about Ted Kaczynski that just pisses this guy, just pisses him the fuck off, is if you say that he is insane or mentally ill, okay, he does not like that uh a bit. That he he wants to present his life's work, his killing people to get attention for his manifesto as being totally rooted in uh a rational point of view. And that uh like one time some doctor diagnosed him as being schizophrenic, and that was oh, he just again he flipped his shit. Like that's that's the one thing that that really super duper pisses off the unibomber, is if you tell him he's crazy. If you tell him he's crazy, all right. So you might want to keep that in mind. I don't know why. Anyway, so anyway, uh so he said that his okay, the this author says that the unibomber, that Ted Kacinski's life's work is is is rooted in his perception of there being some logic and rationale, and that if he were in his mind associated with this zodiac killer guy who's just like you know, seemingly kind of like randomly going around and killing people, that that would make him look like he was crazy. And so uh he did he doesn't want that association. That's what this author was saying. And also the author said that there's a lot of misinformation out there about the motives of Ted Kaczynski. He said that the Kaczynski, like a lot of people go, Oh, he was an environmentalist, and you know, he was just fighting for the environment. The guy goes, that's all a bunch of bullshit. That um that he he said that Ted Kaczynski would play on that environmental sympathy and stuff to try to gain supporters because he's a narcissist. But he said there's no real evidence that Ted Kaczynski cared about the environment or any of it. He said he thinks that Ted Kaczynski is just, you know, a damn serial killer who just gets off on it. And uh, as a matter of fact, um the the Zodiac killer in one of his letters to cops back in the day said, I kill people because it's fun. And and so he thinks that that's how Ted Kaczynski is, also. But uh anyway, so yeah, you have this um this idea that Kaczynski was there when that stuff was happening, the timeline uh and his availability kind of matches up, and uh the interest in in math and cryptography matches up. And then he said that also when the zodiac killer would write letters, like the zodiac guy was just going up and just shooting people, right? But sometimes in his letters, he would have little illustrations of bombs, and which which is weird because it didn't really have anything to do with what he was up to at that time. And yet, uh, if you look at some of those bomb illustrations, they apparently bear a resemblance to some of the the bomb-making stuff that the unibomber would later do uh in the future. And um so, like, you know, when when Kaczynski uh left that area, well, there were no more zodiac killings, and and apparently a lot of people have sat down and taken portions of Kaczynski's letters and his manifesto and stuff, and portions of Zodiac letters and spliced them together and said, like, look at the similarities, and there are there are a bunch of them. I haven't even sat down to do that to to take a look at that, but that'll be interesting to check that out. So that's another thing that um that makes this guy think that it's the same person authoring this stuff. But one of the things that really stood out for this author, uh Dr. Hewitt here, is um he said that there is this book that was written by Joseph Conrad and published in 1907 called The Secret Agent. The Secret Agent. And that um he said if you read this novel that there's this character in there that uh behaves in a way that is so much like how the Zodiac behaved that you just have to say, like, surely the Zodiac was inspired by this character. And that um in some letter that uh Ted Kaczynski later wrote to his relatives, he said um his favorite book was that book, The Secret Agent, that he'd read it at least a dozen times and that uh he said, like, if you want to understand Who I am and you know how my mind works, read this book. So and I and and I was not familiar with that book. I don't at least I don't think uh I don't recall uh having come across it. So I mean that might be something else interesting to to take a gander at. So uh there was not like one singular smoking gun here that that really kind of sealed the deal, but just a lot of interesting uh similarities and circumstantial evidence that makes it seem like a possibility. I mean, he kind of acted like that uh he feels that Ted Kaczynski had always been experimenting with different ways of of killing people leading up to you know his his big grand uh achievement as as the unibomber that uh he said, like, for example, at one point uh Kaczynski was staying for I think like a short period of time with his parents who were living near Chicago, and it was during that period of time when there was some uh Tylenol poisoning uh scare that happened, where uh a number of people died in the Chicago area from uh from just you know having tainted Tylenol that I I I think he said it had cyanide or something like that. So he thinks that uh Kacinski did that. Um and so I mean, therefore, uh it's possible that this guy, this mathematical genius, Ted Kaczynski, uh just decided to start killing people um a long time ago and and just experimented with different ways of doing it. And um, you know, he he finally built up to this one thing, the the the unibomber that that really caught on, and so uh that's what he wants to be remembered for, and that uh he will he will die without ever acknowledging these uh other things that he did or contributed to in some way, and that uh yeah, I guess if you want to know more about it, you can just read this guy's book. But I think in a nutshell, in a nutshell, that's why this author believes that uh Ted Kaczynski may have been the zodiac. And again, this author's book uh and all that you can find out. Uh Drhewitt.com D-O-C-T-O-R H E W I T T. So what do you think about that? I don't know. I mean I guess it's possible. Why not? Why not? So maybe you found that interesting, and uh if so, you can go and do some more research on your own. So now you get to see the kinds of stories that my wife gets to hear after I get out of the shower. All right, my friends. I guess that's it for now. Um till next time. Thank you for listening. Thank you for your interest and support. Thank you for staying curious, and I will talk to you again soon. Oh, yeah. My name is Joshua P. Warren, and my website is joshuapwarren.com.