Part 1
Most of those who reject the idea that Zodiac might actually have been an earlier
incarnation of Theodore Kaczynski do so based on differences, rather than similarities.
This doesn't seem outlandish, on its face. Zodiac assailed his victims from close range,
using such "intimate" weapons as gun and knife, while Kaczynski, in true
"mad bomber" fashion, created elaborate explosive devices that killed from a
safe, impersonal distance. Be that as it may, given the distance in time between the two,
it seems both prudent and logical to inquire whether the similarities in the cases
outweigh the differences, and whether those differences can be adequately explained.
Stripped to its essence, the Unabomber-Zodiac hypothesis comprises three major
elements, namely (1) a common psychological profile; (2) proximity; and (3) a common
criminal signature.
A Common Psychological Profile
What we know of Zodiac’s personality and psychological constitution can be
gleaned only through an examination of his writings and, most importantly, his
victimology. In a span of only nine short months, from December 20, 1968 through September
27, 1969, Zodiac committed three crimes so alike in their nature as to suggest that it is
through those three events that we are most likely to achieve a true knowledge of why
Zodiac killed. The horrifying incidents at Lake Herman Road, Blue Rock Springs and Lake
Berryessa each involved a young couple caught alone and unawares in an isolated trysting
place where they were either engaged in sexual activity or could be mistakenly thought by
the killer to be engaged in sexual activity.
There is little if any doubt that the turnout at Lake Herman Road served the teenage
population of Vallejo and its surrounding environs as a private place for sexual or simply
affectionate liaisons. Given the loneliness and isolation of the place we can scarcely
think otherwise. The same can probably be said of the golf-course parking lot at Blue Rock
Springs, as indeed it can probably be said of any parking lot at innumerable golf courses
and public parks across the nation. Lake Berryessa and its environs no doubt contain a
great many informal trysting places, and it is impossible to confirm with any degree of
certainty whether the site occupied by Hartnell and Shepard had been used extensively for
that purpose. A photo of the location taken at an unknown date shows a picnic table
standing at the far end of the narrow peninsula, suggesting that it might have been a
popular site for visitors to the park; at least popular enough that it might serve as a
relatively common place for young people to be alone together.
It is therefore not unreasonable to conclude that in his first three Bay Area assaults
Zodiac sought to murder young couples that he found alone together in isolated places.
That is the first, and most significant, principle with which we have to work. It
comprises a distinct pattern of victimology that suggests a particular mindset on the
killer’s part. It suggests, particularly, that these initial murders were none other
than acts of retribution fostered by the killer’s own sexual inadequacy. The brevity
of the attacks and the abruptness of their conclusion preclude us from perceiving Zodiac
as a killer for whom the act of murder served as a vehicle for sexual stimulation (see Mass Murder and Modus Operandi for
an elaboration of this concept). Far more likely is the notion that Zodiac killed as an
act of retribution against a class of persons who represented the sexual fulfillment that
he himself could not attain.
Moreover, if we believe Zodiac to have been sexually frustrated, it almost assuredly
follows that he suffered from social frustration as well. In fact (barring some physical
problem) it is not illogical to assume that social ineptitude formed the precursor to any
sexual dysfunction experienced by the killer. Sex is an act that is purely physical only
in its culmination. The balance of the process (or rather, its precursor) is no different
than that which is involved in cultivating friendships and acquaintances that are
completely non-sexual in nature. People who lack the social skills necessary to form
simple friendships or sustain themselves in everyday social situations are, as a matter of
course, less likely to form the social relationships that will lead to sexual ones.
Zodiac became famous for his correspondences, rather than his murders. In many ways
those correspondences support the supposition that he suffered from social ineptitude as
well as sexual frustration. The very existence of the letters bears this out. In their
essence they comprise a plea for attention from an individual who is mired in obscurity
and seeks with desperation to be recognized. Thus it may be postulated that the murders
and the letters bear something of a symbiotic relationship. Had the murders not occurred,
there would have been no letters. This may seem obvious on its face, but it must be borne
in mind that, without the measure of credibility fostered by the killings, Zodiac’s
letters would never have seen the light of day. To a lesser extent, the murders appear to
have been driven by a need to achieve the credibility necessary to awaken the attention of
the media. The murders and letters together comprised a complex relationship at the
root of which lay a hatred of his fellow humans and a need for recognition that alike
arose from the killer’s overwhelming sense of inferiority and his inability to
function in society.
Concerning the psychological background of Theodore Kaczynski there is little need for
guesswork or extrapolation. Extensive documentary evidence presents a portrait of
Kaczynski as an individual plagued by social and sexual pathologies that originated in his
early teens and persisted unabated for the duration of his life. Prodded by the
indefatigable efforts of a doting mother (herself an intellectual), Kaczynski’s youth
was marked by a rapid intellectual advancement that progressed at the expense of his
adjustment to social life and situations. Kaczynski entered his senior year of high school
two full years in advance of his peers and two full years behind his “normal”
classmates, both in age and social adaptation. A classmate observed:
While the math club would sit around talking about the big
issues of the day, Ted would be waiting for someone to fart. He had a fascination with
body sounds more akin to a 5-year-old than a 15-year-old. [New York Times, May 26,
1996]
In his autobiography, written ca. 1979, Kaczynski claimed
that during his high school years he developed a personal philosophy of hatred and
amorality. This is important to bear in mind when delving into the possibility of his
implication in later crimes:
By the time I was, say, 12 years old, my system of
morality had evolved into an abstract, artificial construction that could not possibly be
applied in practice. I never told anyone about this system, since I knew they would never
take it seriously.
By and by I got bored with this game. One day when I was
13 years old, I was walking down the street and saw a girl. Something about her appearance
antagonized me, and, from habit, I began looking for a way to justify hating her, within
my logical system. But then I stopped and said to myself, "This is getting
ridiculous. I'll just chuck all this silly morality business and hate anybody I
please." Since then I have never had any interest in or respect for morality, ethics,
or anything of the sort. [United States v. Kaczynski, GX 18-2014C, p. 11]
In his sixteenth year, Kaczynski entered Harvard
University, leading an obscure existence marked only by extreme solitude and study. During
the entire period of 1958 through 1962, Kaczynski’s list of relationships with the
opposite sex consisted of a single, short-lived friendship with an unknown woman.
Obscurity and isolation continued during his graduate years at Michigan, from 1962 through
1967. The psychological profile taken of Kaczynski during the course of the Unabomber
trial (the “Psych Report”)
lists only one female relationship during five years of study, involving a woman
identified by Kaczynski only as “Ms. Z.” [Psych Report]
Constant study, part-time work, and a frustrating series of
setbacks involving a doctoral dissertation may have diverted Kaczynski’s attention
from the lack of social interaction and sexual gratification that marked his first four
years at Michigan. By the beginning of his fifth year, however, social and sexual
ineptitude appear to have boiled over into a crisis that, by Kaczynski’s tacit
admission, would color his worldview for the remainder of his life. The nature of this
crisis, based on Kaczynski’s 1978 autobiography, is related by Dr. Sally Johnson in
the Psych Report:
While at the University of Michigan he sought psychiatric
contact on one occasion at the start of his fifth year of study. As referenced above, he
had been experiencing several weeks of intense and persistent sexual excitement involving
fantasies of being a female. During that time period he.became convinced that he should
undergo sex change surgery. He recounts that he was aware that this would require a
psychiatric referral, and he set up an appointment at the Health Center at the University
to discuss this issue. He describes that while waiting in the waiting room, he became
anxious and humiliated over the prospect of talking about this to the doctor. When he was
actually seen, he did not discuss these concerns, but rather claimed he was feeling some
depression and anxiety over the possibility that the deferment status would be dropped for
students and teachers, and that he would face the possibility of being drafted into the
military. He indicates that the psychiatrist viewed his anxiety and depression as not
atypical. Mr. Kaczynski describes leaving the office and feeling rage, shame, and
humiliation over this attempt to seek evaluation. He references this as a significant
turning point in his life. [Psych Report]
In a later section this incident is given further elaboration, including
Kaczynski’s own account, written ca. 1979:
In the summer after his fourth year, he describes
experiencing a period of several weeks where he was sexually excited nearly all the time
and was fantasizing himself as a woman and being unable to obtain any sexual relief. He
decided to make an effort to have a sex change operation. When he returned to the
University of Michigan he made an appointment to see a psychiatrist to be examined to
determine if the sex change would be good for him. He claimed that by putting on an act he
could con the psychiatrist into thinking him suitable for a feminine role even though his
motive was exclusively erotic. As he was sitting in the waiting room, he turned completely
against the idea of the operation and thus, when he saw the doctor, instead claimed he was
depressed about the possibility of being drafted. He describes the following, "As
I walked away from the building afterwards, I felt disgusted about what my uncontrolled
sexual cravings had almost led me to do and I felt humiliated, and I violently hated the
psychiatrist. Just then there came a major turning point in my life. Like a Phoenix, I
burst from the ashes of my despair to a glorious new hope. I thought I wanted to kill that
psychiatrist because the future looked utterly empty to me. I felt I wouldn't care if I
died. And so I said to myself why not really kill the psychiatrist and anyone else whom I
hate. What is important is not the words that ran through my mind but the way I felt about
them. What was entirely new was the fact that I really felt I could kill someone. My very
hopelessness had liberated me because I no longer cared about death. I no longer cared
about consequences and I said to myself that I really could break out of my rut in life an
do things that were daring, irresponsible or criminal." [Psych Report] [Author’s italics]
This, then, was the precipitating factor in
Kaczynski’s determination to embark upon a career of murder, beginning in September,
1966:
He describes his first thought was to kill someone he
hated and then kill himself, but decided he could not relinquish his rights so easily. At
that point he decided "I will kill but I will make at least some effort to avoid
detection so that I can kill again." He decided that he would do what he always
wanted to do, to go to Canada to take off in the woods with a rifle and try to live off
the country. "If it doesn't work and if I can get back to civilization before I
starve then I will come back here and kill someone I hate." In his writings he
emphasized what he knew was the fact that he now felt he had the courage to behave
irresponsibly. [Psych Report]
At approximately the same time, other events were transpiring that may have affected
Kaczynski’s ever-increasing sense of sexual frustration and resentment. As described
by Kaczynski in his autobiography:
I often had fantasies of killing the kind of people whom I
hated (e.g. government officials, police, computer scientists, behavioral scientists, the
rowdy types of college students who left their piles of beer-cans in the Arboretum, etc.,
etc., etc.) and I had high hopes of eventually committing such crimes. … The back
half of the house where I roomed during my fifth year at Michigan consisted of an
apartment occupied by a bunch of rowdy jocks who belonged to the hockey team. My room was
adjacent to their apartment, and, as the wall was thin, I heard a great deal of what went
on there. These jocks were respectable bourgeois: They were clean-shaven, short-haired,
neatly dressed, and went to church on Sunday like typical clean-cut college boys. They
also smoked pot, held wild parties at which they would get drunk and continually shout
words like “fuck” and “cunt” at the tops of their voices, and they
would go to bed promiscuously with various girls—no great sin perhaps, but one of
them [redacted], had a girl named [redacted], whom he was engaged to marry. When
[redacted] was at Michigan for …. [United States v. Kaczynski GX 18-2014F, p.4]
The Psych Report elaborates:
It was during that period of time that he was staying at a
rooming house, managed by a graduate student, (REDACTED). He began to experience
difficulty with the noise from the other rooms, particularly the sounds resulting from
sexual activity of other renters. He reported the noises he heard in the house to the
University System, with the hope that action would be taken against Mr. (REDACTED). He
describes three experiences where he perceived he overheard the landlord providing
negative information about him which subsequently resulted in a negative outcome. The
first involved an Engineering student by the name of (REDACTED), who was coming over to
get help with math problems. Although Mr. Kaczynski couldn't clearly hear a conversation,
he eventually heard a statement by (REDACTED) indicating that he had "only come to
get help with math." He perceived that Mr. (REDACTED) must have said something
negative to (REDACTED) about him. On the second occasion, he had given an individual
information about rooms to rent at the house where he was residing. Again, he heard a
voice which he thought belonged to the individual he had spoken with, but he never came up
to see him, and the next time he saw him, he was snubbed by him. On the third occasion, he
had received a letter from his mother referencing that the daughter of some of their
friends was interested in the woods and might like to look him up; they had given her his
address. Subsequently, several weeks later he thought he overheard a woman's voice in the
foyer area of the house and Mr. (REDACTED) say "Oh hi (REDACTED)" and then he
said something negative about him, and the woman left without ever visiting him. [Psych
Report]
These incidents sketch a portrait of an individual alienated from normal human
society. They depict the young Kaczynski as both sexually and socially dysfunctional,
immature, and sexually frustrated to the point where he began to question his sexual
identity. They show faint but distinct signs of a growing resentment toward a specific
class of individuals (the “rowdy jocks” and “rowdy types of college
students”) and their social and sexual habits (i.e., beer drinking and promiscuous
sex).
They also show, quite clearly, a definitive correlation between those resentments and
a growing desire to kill, expressed in a series of plainly stated resolutions beginning
with the psychiatrist whose only fault was to have presided over the humiliation and shame
surrounding Kaczynski’s pondered sex-change operation.
During the two years spanning June of 1967 and June of 1969, Kaczynski worked as an
assistant professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, a very short
drive from the scenes of Zodiac’s murders at Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs.
Compared to the wealth of information available concerning Kaczynski’s life and
movements at all stages of his life, this period has proven frustratingly spare of
documentation. Perhaps the most cogent (and relevant) observation concerning this two-year
period is that given by Kaczynski’s younger brother, David, in a statement tendered
to agents of the FBI:
TED’s inability to make friends or establish any
ongoing relationships is also a lifelong characteristic of his. Since he had not thought
TED was much interested in relationships with women, DAVE was surprised when TED told him
he had advertised in the paper for female companionship during TED’s time at the
University of California at Berkeley (UCB) in 1968–69. DAVE believes TED continued to
be unsuccessful in his quest. [FBI Interview, February 24-25, 1996]
Many years later, in a letter to his brother, Kaczynski poignantly wrote: “…
for 37 years I’ve desired women. I’ve wanted desperately to find a girlfriend or
a wife but have never been able to make any progress toward doing so because I lack the
necessary social self-confidence and social skills. … I am tormented by bitter regret
at never having had the opportunity to experience the love of a woman.”
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