WEBVTT - What’s Wrong With Teddy? 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:07.600 Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. It 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:12.520 was an impossible dilemma in the sense that we realized 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:16.479 that any decision we made could lead to somebody's death. 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:19.400 We'd have to go through the rest of our lives 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:22.600 knowing that someone had died because we had failed to act. 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:26.280 On the other hand, I had to ask myself, what 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:28.320 would it be like to go through the rest of 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:33.160 my life with my brother's blood in my hands. That's 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:38.080 David Kazinski, author of the book Every Last Tie, the 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:42.239 Story of the UNI Bomber and his family. David is 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:46.920 the younger brother of Ted Kazinski, a brilliant, troubled, reclusive 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:51.000 former mouth professor who began sending bombs through the mail, 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:57.520 in killing three people and injuring twenty three others. When 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:00.840 the FBI finally closed in on Ted kasins g after 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:04.880 a nationwide manhunt that spanned years, it was because they 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:09.640 received the ultimate tip the UNI Bomber's brother had turned 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:23.480 him in. I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets, 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:26.600 the secrets that are kept from us, the secrets we 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:30.600 keep from others, and the secrets we keep from ourselves. 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:40.200 There were four of us in our family Mom and dad. Uh. 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:44.920 Dad made sausages at his uncle's delly. Mom was a 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:47.200 stay at home mom, at least until I get to 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:50.600 high school. My older brother, Ted is seven and a 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:54.760 half years older, was you know, idolized him. He was 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:58.680 kind to me. UM. But in addition, he seemed to 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:05.640 exemplify the family's values, which focused on integrity education. Um. 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:09.320 He was very very smart, skipped two grades in school, 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:12.080 went to Harvard at the age of sixteen on a scholarship. 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:16.120 Is a Q was tested it I think a hundred 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:21.400 and sixty seven at one. So you know, he represented 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:24.440 everything that I wanted to be at that point in 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:27.960 my life. And I never doubted for a moment that 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:31.359 I was loved by any of my three family members. 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:35.200 And you know, I'm very very grateful for that. And 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:38.240 I have to say, you know, our our parents values. 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:41.720 There were there were two working class people, both of 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:45.240 whom had to drop out of school in high school 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:48.239 in order to support their families during the depression. I 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:50.720 had to go to work, and then they finished their 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:53.720 high school at night school. Sometime later. I think they 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:57.640 actually met in a book discussion club. So there was 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:01.960 this attraction to the life of mind um, a sort 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:08.680 of very powerful optimism, a belief that by developing your mind, 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:12.760 you've developed your spirit, you became someone who could really 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:16.880 contribute to the world. So it was part of it. 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:20.080 It wasn't only that I modeled myself and Ted. You know, 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:24.200 our family sort of had this framework of values that 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:28.240 it was around the life of the mind, the arts. 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:34.200 But even though David idealized and idolized Ted, there was 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:36.720 also a sense that there was another side to Ted 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:39.840 that had nothing to do with the families shared values 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:45.320 or academic achievement. There was a time a little bit 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:50.120 later when I asked my mom what's wrong with Teddy? 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:52.720 And she was a little taken aback. You know, what 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:55.000 do you mean, David, there's nothing with your brother? And 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:57.040 I said, well, he doesn't have any friends. Why is that? 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:01.400 Doesn't he like people and games? He did seem to 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:05.920 shy away from folks, you know, somebody would come over 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:08.840 unannounced and he would sort of leave the room quickly, 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:13.600 like he was upset that they arrived, a little frightened. 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:19.359 And it was then that Mom said that, you know, 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:23.120 Ted had had an experience as a child. He is, 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:25.480 at the age of nine months, he had gotten sick. 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:29.000 They took him to the hospital. Some kind of rash 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:32.359 had covered his body, apparently an allergic reaction, but they 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:35.640 couldn't diagnose it, and they kept him there for I 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:40.200 think well over a week, and our parents were only 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:44.120 allowed to visit during the regular visiting hours. Mom always 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:49.479 faulted the hospital for for that, and you know, she 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:52.440 felt that when they brought Teddy Holme from the hospital, 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:55.320 he was a very different child, at least for a while. 0:04:55.400 --> 0:05:00.120 He didn't smile anymore, he didn't make eye contact. And 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:02.679 it was at that point that my mom had said 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:05.360 to me, Dave, whatever you do in your life, don't 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:10.000 ever abandon your brother, because that's what he fears the most. 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:14.479 And of course I love Teddy, I said, oh, I 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:19.320 love Teddy. I'd never abandoned Teddy. And I remember crying 0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:22.480 thinking about the pain he had suffered this a little baby. 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:24.960 And I think there was another lesson that my mom 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:28.880 sort of wove into that sort of teachable moment, and 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:34.039 the lesson was that it takes some compassions empathy to 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:37.960 try to understand another human being. And how old were 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:40.720 you when she imparted this lesson? More or less would 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:44.880 think I'm not exactly sure, probably somewhere between seven and 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:48.680 nine years old, and when you said to your mom 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:53.599 what's wrong with Teddy? What? What was it beyond that 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:56.120 he didn't seem to have any friends? What prompted you 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:59.320 to say that? Do you think, Oh, I don't know 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:04.039 that I've been that question and it's an interesting one. Um. 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:06.880 I think there were times when Teddy just seemed like 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:12.520 kind of shut down, UM, like something was bothering him, 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:16.240 but he wouldn't express it. A strong sense of privacy, 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:22.039 an introversion that was unusual, I think, at least in 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:26.039 my experience, and I tended to be a fairly social person. 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:28.560 I mean, I had friends, you know, it was natural 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:31.960 for me to to be interested in people and too, 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:35.560 I want to interact with people, and with Teddy it 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:38.560 was quite different. So probably I was trying to explore 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:41.880 wire Teddy and I different in this way. Did you 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:47.800 share a room? We did for a while until I 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:52.040 was maybe six or seven years old, and then our father, Um, 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:55.839 we had an attic that was unfinished. We had moved 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:59.680 at from Chicago out to one of the suburbs when 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:04.839 I was about three years old, and my father finished 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:07.440 the attic and you know, a beautiful knotty Pine just 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:11.840 made it another story of the house, and then that 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:16.000 became Ted's room, so that he and I weren't together 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:18.920 in a small bedroom. You know. In some ways it 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:21.720 was wonderful for Teddy. On the other hand, it became 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:25.480 a very very convenient escape for him. So on those 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:29.520 occasions when he wanted to avoid company, he would just 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:33.640 walk up the stairs up to his attic. And you know, 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:35.960 I call it an attic. It wasn't like it was, 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:40.320 you know, some place of banishment. It was very very nice, 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:44.720 nice room up there. Ted goes to Harvard as a 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:48.960 very young freshman. During his first year, he's identified as 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:53.080 a candidate for a psychological study, an experiment that Ted 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:56.560 took part in for three years during his undergraduate career. 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:02.600 The study, titled a Multiform Assessment of Personality Development among 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:08.120 Gifted College Men, was masterminded by a famous psychologist named 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:11.480 Henry Murray and was meant to measure the effects of 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:17.040 trauma ungifted male students. But here's the thing. In order 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:20.280 to study the trauma, first they had to inflict it. 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:27.680 Students were berated, emotionally and psychologically, beaten down, humiliated, these 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:32.559 students chosen for their vulnerability and high degrees of social alienation, 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:37.720 were purposefully being traumatized and gas lit because they weren't 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:40.600 told the purpose of the experiment, so they had no 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:44.760 idea why they were being treated. So sadistically, it's a 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:47.360 study that would never pass MUSTER today. At least I 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:50.480 hope that you know there are institutional review boards at 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:53.040 colleges and universities. I think that would look at a 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:56.400 study like this and say, no way, this is unethical 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.480 for various reasons. Um In fact, even if you go 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:01.520 back for the time of the study, there was the 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:04.800 Nuremberg Code that came out of World War Two, and 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:07.920 part of the code was that people should not be 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:13.680 harmed or deceived, and this study did both. To my brother. 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:18.600 He was asked by his defense attorneys, why didn't you 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:21.040 drop out? Why didn't you quit? And he said, well, 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:23.000 I wanted to prove I could take it, that I 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:26.560 couldn't be broken. And in some ways this is so 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:32.000 much like Ted, because he has this kind of indomitable will, 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:36.120 this stubbornness, and yet what occurs to me is that 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:39.240 in some ways he may have been broken without realizing 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:43.360 it at the very least he was hardened. We didn't 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:46.400 know about it. Actually, Mom had had to sign a 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:49.680 release because Ted was only seventeen when he went into 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:53.680 this study, and so he needed parental permission. And Mom 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:56.840 is thinking, oh, you know Ted, he has some social 0:09:56.840 --> 0:10:01.319 adjustment and issues. Maybe these nice psychologists could help him. 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:06.600 Oh my gosh, it was just the opposite. I think 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:11.440 there's a theme in a way running throughout this story 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:15.480 of misplaced trust and institutions in some way. You know, 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:20.640 the hospital at that time isolating a baby, I'm sure 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:23.480 thinking that they were doing the right thing, but you know, 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:28.320 with repercussions. And then Harvard itself, the idea that you know, 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:31.559 Ted would go to Harvard and find many other very 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:34.960 high i Q individuals just like him, and it would 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:38.360 be somehow a soft and gentle place, which is a 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:41.800 more accepting place, a more accepting place, right, And then 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:46.080 these psychologists under Harvard auspices who run a study like that, well, 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:50.760 surely that's going to be a good thing. Ted graduates 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:54.800 and continues his academic rise. David goes off to college himself, 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:57.960 and even though they're very different young men, they have 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.520 a really tight relationship for a pure of time, they 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:04.520 both love the woods and far At preserves, and they 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:08.640 go on joint camping trips. But then the summer after 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:11.520 David's junior year, Ted decides that he's going to quit 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:15.120 his job as an assistant professor at UC Berkeley. He 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:19.280 wrote a letter to our parents saying that he's decided 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:23.640 to quit that you know, he did not find mathematics fulfilling. 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:26.400 That in addition to that, he'd come to this conclusion 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:32.079 that technology that most people celebrate kind of uncritically is 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:37.280 actually has many, many negative consequences. And he did not 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:43.080 like the mathematics supported technology. But also on a personal level, 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:44.840 he wanted to get as far away from it as 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:47.040 is he good, and he wanted to go in and 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:52.920 live in the woods someplace. And I remember at that time, 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:55.800 I don't know if you're old enough to remember the sixties, 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:58.839 but it wasn't that uncommon, you know. I think there 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:02.280 were time magazine had say a cover stories about people 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:06.280 dropping out, quote dropping out or going back to nature. 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:09.120 You know, there was a little bit of a movement 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:15.280 to countercultural movement that Ted, you know, wasn't that he 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:18.640 wasn't personally aligned with it, but we could understand where 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:22.200 he was going, and remember hearing what he was planning 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:24.720 to do, and I thought, oh, this is fantastic. Wow. 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:27.960 You know, I've always admired my brother, but this is 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:31.559 even better. I mean, how many people um get to 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:33.880 do what they really want to do in life instead 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:36.839 of what other people expect them to do, And how 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:41.960 many people have the courage to follow their own deepest 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:47.120 instincts instead of sort of conforming with the social expectation. 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:50.480 So I thought it was wonderful. Our parents, you know, 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:53.480 were accepting. They didn't try to talk Chet out of 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:57.560 what he was doing. But I remember Mom saying to 0:12:57.600 --> 0:13:00.800 me at one point, you know, they've just I don't 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:03.120 really think this has a lot to do with technology. 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:08.560 I'm afraid that the problem is that Ted doesn't doesn't 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:11.240 really know how to relate to people, and he's running 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:14.800 away from a society that he doesn't know how to 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:20.160 fit into. It gave me pause. That summer Ted said 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:22.120 he was going to go look for land up in 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:26.000 Canada and Alaska, and did I want to join him 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:28.120 in that search? And so we spent a couple of 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:34.200 months together camping in British Columbia. Mostly we've got up 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:39.240 to the Yukon. There was definitely a brotherly closeness. I 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:43.400 remember we took one long hike and I don't know 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:45.160 if it was something I ate or if it was 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:48.200 altitude or something, and I got a very upset stomach, 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:52.840 and we were like four or five miles from the 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:56.440 car and Ted ran back to the car to get 0:13:56.559 --> 0:13:58.760 some tept this fault that we had there, and ran 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:02.080 came all the way back to help me so that 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:05.720 I could feel better. You know, there was a kindness 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:09.520 in him towards me that I always sensed, but there 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:12.160 were also the times when he was very shut down 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:14.080 and I didn't know what to make of it. I 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:19.560 remember sitting around the campfire one morning and he just 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:23.360 looking into the flames and he stopped talking, and I 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:26.360 asked him a few questions and he just didn't respond. 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:30.040 It was like a stone there and that. So I 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:31.600 went off and took a walk, and by the time 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:34.520 I got back, he was back to talking again, and 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:36.560 I asked him, you know, what was that about. What 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:39.080 Why wouldn't you answer me? Says So I was just 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:42.200 just deeply thinking. So I accepted it. But there were 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:45.040 a couple of times when he was in a state 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:50.120 that Gosh seemed close to what you would call catatonicum, 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:55.000 and I sometimes wondered, if, you know, if he was 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:58.800 coming to terms with the idea that you know, maybe 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:02.800 Mom was right, maybe the really wasn't the answer just 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:07.680 running away. Both David and Ted are drawn as young 0:15:07.720 --> 0:15:12.000 men to living solitary lives, but that, it seems, is 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:16.240 where the similarity between them ends. While Ted seems to 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:19.200 be pushing further and further away into a world that 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:23.240 appears dangerously hermetic, with nothing but the contents of his 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:27.400 own mind for company. David's solitary time has more of 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:31.440 a feeling of a pilgrimage. Ted's in Montana, David's in 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:35.320 a small cabin in the Texas Desert. The brothers are 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:41.480 both geographically, psychologically, and spiritually on very different paths. Ted 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:45.240 is becoming angrier, more and more hostile. He's written a 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:49.160 series of terrible letters to their parents, blaming them for everything, 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:54.520 cutting off all contact. David uses his time to arrive 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:58.000 at a deep sense of self knowledge, and eventually he 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:00.600 comes to realize that he's in love with his old 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:04.280 friend from childhood, Linda, and that he wants to marry her, 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:07.840 and so David writes to Ted to tell him the 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:11.680 good news. At one point I told him that I 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:14.760 was going to be leaving the desert. I said, be 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:17.760 happy for me. I finally found the person I want 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:22.080 to get married to. It's it's Linda Patrick, this girl 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:26.920 I've known since elementary school. And he just wrote this 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:32.240 very cruel letter. He had never met Linda, and yet 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:34.920 he was saying, it's obvious, just David, just from your letter, 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:37.600 that she's a horrible person. You know she's going to 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:40.760 take advantage of you. But no, you never listened to 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:44.800 my advice. So um, you know, it's just too painful 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:48.200 for me to be your brother anymore. So don't don't 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:50.280 contact me. I don't want to have anything to do 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:54.240 with you anymore. It was just a shock and surprised 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:58.040 to me, although I had some precedent with his sort 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:01.360 of out of the blue abuse of letters to our parents, 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:05.040 angry letters to our parents. And also puts you in 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:09.760 a situation where by choosing to love another person, you're 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:14.320 losing this person who you love deeply. Yeah, and it's 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:16.520 you know, it's kind of like was Ted thinking that 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:19.240 love is finite. You know that it's like a piece 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:21.239 of pie, and if Linda gets a piece, he has 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:26.400 less um. Now love isn't like that, it's it can 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:32.280 expand um amazingly. You know, I thought maybe he just 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:36.040 didn't understand that, maybe he felt abandoned in some way, 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:40.800 and again my mother's request but I never abandoned came 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:43.919 to mind at that point. But I was also pretty angry. 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:47.520 I have to admit thinking, how dare he? You know, 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:51.480 our parents were just I think, lovely parents and kind 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:55.160 to him and generous to him, and he hurt them 0:17:55.240 --> 0:18:00.240 terribly and now he's lashing out as another person. But 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:06.200 I love as it turned out from his diaries later. Ever, 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:08.919 of course, nobody ever read his diaries until after he 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:12.680 was arrested and the defense team and asked me to 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:15.959 read through his diaries. It was like thirty thousand pages 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:20.320 of diaries. It was unbelievable, um, But it was like 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:26.480 opening a window into a tortured soul because I realized 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:32.080 he had this tremendous longing for human contact, for companionship, 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:34.919 would have liked nothing better than to be married and 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:38.560 to have a family. We'll be back in a moment 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:48.919 with more family secrets. David and Linda Settle into married life. 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:52.119 David works as an assistant director of a shelter for 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:55.879 runaway and homeless youth. Linda is a professor of philosophy 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:59.760 at a local college. He and Ted are completely estranged. 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:03.959 David's never even heard of the unibomber. Remember these are 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:07.160 pre internet days, where news stories are run the old 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:11.600 fashioned way, the literal actual newspaper, or, if the story 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:15.359 is big enough, the nightly broadcast news. David and Linda 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:19.240 are living in Schenectady, New York, and it's before the 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:23.120 unibomber story makes headlines near them after a mail bomb 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:28.520 kills New Jersey advertising executive Thomas Masser. At this time, 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:31.960 the unibomber contacts several national newspapers and asks them to 0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:35.960 publish what he refers to as his manifesto. He says 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:39.240 that if his manifesto is published, the bombs will stop. 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:48.240 So then Linda, who's never met your brother, has this 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:52.239 kind of lightning Boltova thought, And as to you, I 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:57.400 think that Ted maybe the unibomber, and I was very 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:04.480 moved by the way at the two of you navigated 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:10.119 that whole period of time after the manifesto was published, 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:13.760 because your your initial response was that that was completely 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:15.720 out of the question, of which, of course it was. 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:18.640 Of course it was. But then you read the manifesto 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:24.720 and somewhere within you a tiny little sliver of doubt 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:29.120 creeps in. There's a phrase that I came across when 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:32.919 I was writing my most recent book. It's a psychoanalytic phrase, 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:37.159 and it's the unthought known. What we what we know, 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:40.199 but it's a live wire. We cannot it's way too 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:44.360 dangerous to think. And so you're somewhere in the territory 0:20:44.560 --> 0:20:48.400 of the unthought known, and you and Linda are parsing, 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:52.439 you know, the manifesto, looking for clues, and at the 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:55.600 same time it's like played out against this backdrop of 0:20:56.440 --> 0:21:04.560 this profound impossible choice. When you finally do reach the 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.520 sense that it's possible, you know that it's possible that 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:10.240 Ted is the UNI bomber. I mean, can you talk 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:13.720 a little bit about that. Of course I had talked 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:17.719 a bit about my brother a lot. Perhaps Linda had 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:20.639 many questions why he didn't come to the wedding. I 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:23.560 hadn't showed her the letter that Ted had written to 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:27.199 me because it was so awful. But you know, I 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:33.159 remember some years earlier it was shortly after our father died. 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:38.440 Ted reconnected with my mom briefly. Um she invited him 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:41.520 to explain a little bit about why he had been 0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:45.720 so angry before, and then he wrote a letter that 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:49.760 just sailed off back into that anger. And Mom sent 0:21:49.840 --> 0:21:52.919 me the letter. I showed it to Linda. Remember this 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:56.239 is years before David or Linda have ever heard the 0:21:56.359 --> 0:22:00.359 term unibomber. Linda's looking at this letter. This is in 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:04.280 so it's shortly after we're married. She's looking at this 0:22:04.400 --> 0:22:06.439 letter and she says, she looks up at me and 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:09.399 she says, Dave, you know your brother is sick, don't you. 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:17.160 I mean he's mentally ill. And I said, no, no no, no, no, 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:19.359 he's really really smart. He's got a you know, a 0:22:19.440 --> 0:22:21.359 genius like you, and this is the way he thinks. 0:22:22.480 --> 0:22:25.000 And Linda said, David, look at this passage. You know, 0:22:25.160 --> 0:22:29.000 people who are healthy in their minds don't think like this. 0:22:30.200 --> 0:22:33.600 She actually persuaded me at that point to bring some 0:22:33.760 --> 0:22:37.679 of my brother's letters to a psychiatrist who we knew socially, 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:42.960 and his viewpoint was that yes was sick. He said 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:46.320 he couldn't make a diagnosis based on some letters, but 0:22:47.560 --> 0:22:53.280 possibly it was schizophrenia, which ends up being because eventual diagnosis. 0:22:55.720 --> 0:22:58.200 So now we're in the mid nineties, you and a 0:22:58.280 --> 0:23:03.760 bomber has been at it for you. Between ninety he 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:07.639 placed or mailed sixteen bombs that killed three people and 0:23:07.720 --> 0:23:13.359 injured twenty three others. Linda reads his manifesto and she's 0:23:13.400 --> 0:23:16.320 able to have the clarity of thought that this letter 0:23:16.880 --> 0:23:19.199 and the letter she read and had analyzed by the 0:23:19.200 --> 0:23:22.760 psychiatrist years earlier, may well have been written by the 0:23:22.800 --> 0:23:27.520 same person. Yeah, I mean, it was an impossible dilemma 0:23:27.680 --> 0:23:31.480 in the sense that we realized that any decision we 0:23:31.600 --> 0:23:37.199 made could lead to somebody's death, and my brother was 0:23:37.280 --> 0:23:39.439 the un obamber. Of course, we didn't know at this 0:23:39.480 --> 0:23:41.439 point that if it turned out he was and another 0:23:41.480 --> 0:23:44.520 person was killed, we'd have to go through the rest 0:23:44.520 --> 0:23:47.359 of our lives knowing that someone had died because we 0:23:47.440 --> 0:23:51.600 had failed to act. On the other hand, at this 0:23:51.680 --> 0:23:55.720 point in time, the un obamber was like public enemy 0:23:55.800 --> 0:23:59.640 number one, and if he was sentenced to death and executed, 0:24:00.160 --> 0:24:02.040 I had to ask myself, what would it be like 0:24:02.280 --> 0:24:04.520 to go through the rest of my life with my 0:24:04.640 --> 0:24:10.120 brother's blood in my hands. You know, Ultimately we realized 0:24:10.160 --> 0:24:13.679 there was one thing we could control. We could save 0:24:14.240 --> 0:24:18.439 the next person's life. We could set the violence, and 0:24:18.480 --> 0:24:21.720 then maybe, since you know, we had some evidence, we'd 0:24:21.720 --> 0:24:24.480 already gone to a psychiatrist, maybe we could convince the 0:24:25.040 --> 0:24:28.359 Justice Department that Ted was mentally ill and that there 0:24:28.520 --> 0:24:31.920 was reason to mitigate the sentence of death, and maybe 0:24:31.960 --> 0:24:35.919 he could get a prison sentence. Sad anyway, that was 0:24:35.960 --> 0:24:39.760 the hope. I'm struck again and again by the care 0:24:39.880 --> 0:24:43.520 and thoughtfulness David and Linda put into their impossible decision. 0:24:44.480 --> 0:24:47.320 They want to be certain, or at least as certain 0:24:47.359 --> 0:24:51.879 as possible. Linda's oldest friend is a private detective, and 0:24:52.000 --> 0:24:55.360 she submits one of Ted's letters anonymously to an expert 0:24:55.400 --> 0:25:00.200 in forensic analysis of language. The expert comes back at 0:25:01.080 --> 0:25:03.040 that the author of a letter and the author of 0:25:03.080 --> 0:25:08.160 the manifesto are one and the same person. Her father 0:25:08.600 --> 0:25:11.040 was gone at this point, but Mom was still alive, 0:25:12.040 --> 0:25:14.600 and we had another choice to make. Do we do 0:25:14.720 --> 0:25:17.440 involved Mom and this, Do we tell her what's going on? 0:25:17.880 --> 0:25:22.120 Do we ask her advice? Certainly she was a stakeholder 0:25:22.160 --> 0:25:24.720 in this thing, But you know, my sense at the 0:25:24.760 --> 0:25:28.800 time was, oh my god, I just can't this could 0:25:28.880 --> 0:25:31.960 kill mom, And what if Ted's innocent? You know that 0:25:32.320 --> 0:25:36.399 her paying her sleeplessness would be for nothing. Anyway. I 0:25:36.400 --> 0:25:38.159 don't know if that was the right decision, but we 0:25:38.240 --> 0:25:43.560 decided to go forward without telling them. But then ultimately, 0:25:44.359 --> 0:25:48.840 when it turns out that it is Ted and that's 0:25:48.880 --> 0:25:53.040 been confirmed and it's about to be public, you you 0:25:53.160 --> 0:25:59.360 go to your mom and she reacts really remarkably right right. 0:25:59.520 --> 0:26:03.119 I mean, it's probably my defining memory of my mother. 0:26:03.359 --> 0:26:05.440 I mean, of all the memories I have of her, 0:26:05.560 --> 0:26:09.919 but the moment that I told her that I suspected 0:26:10.200 --> 0:26:15.800 Ted and that I had gone to the authorities, she 0:26:15.880 --> 0:26:17.840 looked at me for a moment like she just couldn't 0:26:17.880 --> 0:26:20.879