Who was Ted Kaczynski? How the 'Unabomber' went from Harvard prodigy to ... trends now Infamous domestic terrorist Ted Kaczynski was found dead Saturday morning in his cell in federal prison, 27 years after his reign of terror was brought to an end. Known across America as the 'Unabomber' while authorities desperately sought him from 1978 to 1996, he waged war on unsuspecting victims by mailing explosives via the US postal system. Over an 17-year campaign, Kaczynski killed three people and injured 23 more with 16 bombs. But his descent into madness came after he became known as a prodigious Harvard-educated mathematician with a genius-level intellect, leading many to question where it went wrong for the terrorist. Ted Kaczynski was captured after an exhaustive 17-year manhunt. He is pictured being escorted by US Marshals in 1996 after his arrest Who was Theodore 'Ted' Kaczynski? Born on May 22, 1942, Ted Kaczynski was the son of second-generation Polish Catholics. His father was a sausage maker and his mother was a homemaker, and he grew up in Chicago with his younger brother David. From a young age it quickly became apparent that Kaczynski was a genius-level mathematician, and he skipped the sixth and 11th grades on his way to attending Harvard aged just 16. However, high school classmates remember the virtuoso as an outcast, with one ominous incident seeing him show a fellow student how to make a mini-bomb that detonated during chemistry class. Harvard classmates recalled him as a lonely, thin boy with poor personal hygiene and a room that smelled of spoiled milk, rotting food and foot powder. He went on to graduate school at the University of Michigan, before he got a job teaching math at the University of California at Berkeley. In 1971, an unemployed Kaczynski bought a 4-mile parcel of land in the wilderness outside Lincoln, Montana, where he built a cabin without heating, plumbing or electricity. While briefly working for his father and brother in Chicago in the late 1970s, he was abruptly dumped by a female colleague after two dates. When Ted began posting offensive limericks about her, his brother fired him, sending him back to the woods where he hatched his plot to terrorize society. Ted Kaczynski (pictured) was behind a 17-year mail bomb spree that left three people dead and wounded 23 others How did he become known as the 'Unabomber'? Kaczynski earned his moniker 'Unabomber' from the FBI because many of his early targets were universities and airports. The domestic terrorist used his knowledge of bomb making and engineering to hatch an insidious plot to spread fear and chaos across America, usually by posting bombs to his unsuspecting victims via the US postal system. His explosives were carefully tested and came in meticulously handcrafted wooden boxes sanded to remove possible fingerprints. While most of his victims were severely maimed by the explosives, he did kill three - computer rental store owner Hugh Scrutton, advertising executive Thomas Mosser and timber industry lobbyist Gilbert Murray. Mosser was killed in his North Caldwell, New Jersey, home on Dec. 10, 1994, a day he was supposed to be picking out a Christmas tree with his family. His wife, Susan, found him grievously wounded by a barrage of razor blades, pipes and nails. 'He was moaning very softly,' she said at Kaczynski’s 1998 sentencing. 'The fingers on his right hand were dangling. I held his left hand. I told him help was coming. I told him I loved him.' The terrorist mailed explosives across America. Pictured: An FBI reproduction of one of Kaczynski's bombs In April 1996 authorities found Kaczynski in a 10-by-14 foot wood cabin outside Lincoln, Montana What did the Unabomber believe? Throughout the 17-year hunt for Kaczynski, which was the longest and coldest manhunt in US law enforcement history, the bomber shot to infamy as an elusive and almost-mystical criminal mastermind. In 1995, he released his twisted manifesto, 'Industrial Society and Its Future', and promised to stop mailing bombs if it was published. The 35,000 word tome argued that society was spiraling out of control due to the emergence of technology. At the urging of authorities, it was published by major news outlets, which led his brother to recognize the outlandish belief system and tip off the FBI. His capture in 1996 revealed that the terrorist was living a hermit-like existence in the Montana wilderness, where he would construct explosives miles from civilization before sending them across the nation. Kaczynski was eventually captured living a hermit-like life in the Montana wilderness after retreating to a solitary cabin All rights reserved for this news site (dailymail) and under his responsibility