CHICAGO – Could the Unabomber and Chicago’s Tylenol poisoner be one and the same? FBI agents investigating the Tylenol killings, unsolved for nearly 30 years, want Ted Kaczynski’s DNA, but they aren’t saying whether there’s any reason to believe he might be a match.

Chicago FBI spokeswoman Cynthia Yates said the bureau wants DNA from “numerous individuals” including Kaczynski, although she wouldn’t provide details about any of the others. The FBI’s efforts to get Kaczynski’s DNA became publicly known because of a court motion he filed seeking to keep materials he claims would exonerate him in the Tylenol case: items from his Montana cabin that the U.S. Marshals Service is auctioning off.

Kaczynski lived in the tiny cabin as he sent off mail bombs that killed three people and wounded several others in attacks that began in the late 1970s. The FBI dubbed the man the Unabomber because the bombs originally targeted university professors and airline executives.

Kaczynski, who grew up in the Chicago area, was captured in 1996, pleaded guilty two years later and is serving a life sentence in federal prison in Colorado.

He has declined to voluntarily provide a DNA sample to agents investigating the Tylenol poisonings, which left seven people dead in the space of three days beginning Sept. 29, 1982. The victims took cyanide-laced Tylenol from packages that had been tampered with.

The deaths triggered a national scare and a huge recall, and eventually led to the widespread adoption of tamperproof packaging for over-the-counter drugs.

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Kaczynski’s attorney, John Balasz, said he’s “completely convinced” that Kaczynski had no involvement in Tylenol case, and added that he thinks the FBI wants his DNA not because they have evidence linking him, but because they want to definitively rule him out as a suspect.

“You’ve got to ask the FBI how serious they are. I think it’s probably more that they want to exclude him,” Balasz said.

Yates declined to say whether the FBI would try to compel Kaczynski to give a sample. In the motion he filed over his belongings, Kaczynski said the officials who notified him of the FBI’s request told him the agency was prepared to go to court to get the DNA.

Kaczynski said, without elaborating, that he would provide a sample “if the FBI would satisfy a certain condition that is not relevant here,” but Balasz said the government will need to go to court to get one.

Kaczynski filed the court motion May 9 in California, where he was tried. The Sacramento Bee first reported on the filing in Thursday’s paper. Kaczynski wants to keep certain items taken from his cabin in 1996, including journals he says could prove his whereabouts in 1982 and other evidence that could clear him in the Tylenol case.

The government auction began Wednesday and runs through June 2.

Among the items available is his manifesto, which helped lead to his arrest after newspapers published it and Kaczynski’s brother recognized his writing style and anti-technology beliefs. His books, clothing, typewriters and sneakers are also up for auction. The cabin itself is on display at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

 


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