On Jan. 9, in the wake of the judge’s decision, Kaczynski attempted to die by suicide, per BBC News. He was not seriously injured and appeared in court the following day.

Kaczynski then underwent a court-ordered evaluation with psychiatrist Dr. Sally Johnson, who diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia. During their interviews, Kaczynski claimed that he had experienced “extreme psychological verbal abuse by his parents,” per the Chicago Tribune.

Kaczynski also spoke with Johnson about his struggles with his gender idenтιтy. Following the evaluation, she deemed him mentally competent to stand trial on Jan. 20, per the Los Angeles Times.

In the years since Kaczynski’s conviction, his diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia has been contested, including by renowned forensic psychiatrist Dr. Park Dietz. Dietz told The New Yorker in March 1998 that the results of Kaczynski’s evaluation “scream geek, not schizophrenic.”

“They’re full of strong emotions, considerable anger, and an elaborate, closely reasoned system of belief about the adverse impact of technology on society,” he said. “The question always is: Is that belief system philosophy or is it delusion? The answer has more to do with the ideology of the psychiatrist than with anything else.”

What sentence did Ted Kaczynski receive?

On Jan. 22, 1998, the day that opening statements were set to begin, Kaczynski entered a last-minute guilty plea, per the ᴀssociated Press. In order to avoid the possibility of the death penalty, he pleaded guilty to all charges. He also admitted to placing or mailing an additional 11 bombs for which he had not been charged.

Kaczynski was subsequently sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. His surviving victims, as well as the families of those who died, were awarded $15 million, which was later paid for in part by auctioning Kaczynski’s belongings, according to NBC News.

What happened when Ted Kaczynski appealed his sentence?

In 2001, Kaczynski attempted to withdraw his guilty plea, claiming that the trial judge had coerced him into pleading guilty, per the Los Angeles Times. Kaczynski’s appeal focused on his desire to represent himself in court so that he would not be portrayed as “a grotesque and repellent lunatic.”

“Kaczynski hypothesizes that [his lawyers] may have used mental state evidence as a threat to pressure him into an unconditional plea bargain as a means of saving him from the risk of a death sentence, but admits that this is speculative and that no proof for it is possible,”Judge Pamela Ann Rymer of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco wrote, per the outlet.

Meanwhile, Judge Stephen Reinhardt said that Judge Burrell, who presided over the case in 1998, had violated a 1975 Supreme Court precedent that gives a competent defendant the consтιтutional right to represent himself.

Ultimately, the federal appeals court panel rejected Kaczynski’s bid for a retrial.

Where was Ted Kaczynski imprisoned?

For more than 20 years, Kaczynski was incarcerated at ADX Florence, a supermax prison in Florence, Colo. He spent 23 hours a day in a 12-by-7 foot jail cell, only slightly smaller than his remote cabin in Montana, per Yahoo! News. Kaczynski spent much of his time in prison writing letters.

“I consider myself to be in a (relatively) fortunate situation here,” he wrote in a February 2000 letter, per the outlet. “As correctional insтιтutions go, this place is well-administered. It’s clean, the food is good, and it’s quiet, so that I can sleep, think and write (usually) without being distracted by a lot of banging and shouting.”

He remained at the facility until December 2021, when he was moved to a medical facility in North Carolina due to health issues.

Who did Ted Kaczynski communicate with in prison?

While behind bars, Kaczynski befriended several other prisoners, including Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and Ramzi Yousef, who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993. In letters, he described other prisoners on his cell block as “easy to get along with,” per Yahoo! News.

“Actually, the people I am acquainted with in this range of cells … are nicer than the majority of people I’ve known on the outside,” Kaczynski wrote in another letter.

Aside from his allocated outdoor time, Kaczynski spent the rest of time in his cell reading, studying other languages, listening to the radio, exercising and writing letters to thousands of people around the world.

Kaczynski also published two books while in prison: 2010’s Technological Slavery and 2016’s Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How.

His archive, which includes hundreds of letters as well as legal documents, is currently housed at the University of Michigan’s Special Collections Library in the Joseph A. Labadie Collection. The names of his correspondents have been deleted and the original, unaltered documents are sealed until Jan. 1, 2050, per the library’s website.

How did Ted Kaczynski die?

In March 2021, Kaczynski was diagnosed with rectal cancer and was transferred that fall to the Federal Medical Center in Butner, N.C., per NBC News. He received biweekly chemotherapy until March 2023, “when he refused any further treatments due to negative side effects and his poor prognosis.” An autopsy later revealed that the cancer had spread to his liver and both lungs.

On June 10, 2023, Kaczynski died by suicide in his prison cell. He was 81.

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health challenges, emotional distress, substance use problems, or just needs to talk, call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org 24/7.