Unabomber's sibling still feels brotherly bond

ALBANY, N.Y. — David Kaczynski still tells the story, describing the creeping suspicion that his older brother was the Unabomber, the wrenching choice he made to inform the FBI and the burst of unwanted fame.

In the decade since Theodore Kaczynski's arrest, the once-friendly brothers are worlds apart. One is in prison for life. The other talks to crowds as an anti-death penalty lobbyist and offers a picture of his infamous brother as a human being suffering from mental illness.

Although the two have not spoken in ages, the brotherly bond still exists for the younger Kaczynski.

"There's no question that he's part of me," he said. "It's hard to explain. I can't emphasize enough what a good older brother he's been to me."

Federal agents raided Theodore Kaczynski's primitive Montana cabin on April 3, 1996. News soon broke that the suspect's brother helped link him to the series of package bombings that killed three people and injured 23 beginning in 1978.

The arrest ended a period of anguish for David Kaczynski, who months earlier had begun comparing the critique of technology in the Unabomber's manifesto with his brother's personal letters. He woke up one morning at the home he and his wife shared in Schenectady with a crushing depression, believing there was a good chance "Ted" wrote the manifesto.

For much of the past decade, David Kaczynski has spoken publicly about his brother to spare him from the death penalty.

As executive director of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty since 2001, Kaczynski tells his story to put human face on an emotional issue.

Kaczynski, 56, was once hesitant to speak before a large audience. He is now polished after some 100 speeches a year. He is soft-spoken but keeps listeners rapt with a highly personal telling of a well-known tale.

Last week, he told a group of social workers in Albany how, as a 3-year-old in a Chicago suburb, he couldn't reach the handle to the back screen door. Ted, who was mechanically inclined even at age 10, nailed a thread spool to the door, creating a makeshift doorknob in reach of his younger sibling.

"There was a bond between us as brothers for as long as we lived," he told the crowd.

The brotherly bond is now largely based on a sense of loss and memories, he says. Sometimes when he's driving, he will glance in the rearview mirror and see a man with a beard, thinking for an instant "It's Ted!"

Then he remembers that's impossible.