David Kaczynski is the past Executive Director of Karma Triyana Dharmachakra, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery located in Woodstock, New York. An anti–death penalty activist, Kaczynski served as the Executive Director of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty from 2001 to 2012 and has given hundreds of public talks throughout the United States about mental illness, the death penalty, and healing in the aftermath of tragic violence. He is also the author of the poetry chapbook
James L. Knoll IV, MD is the Director of Forensic Psychiatry and Professor of Psychiatry at State University of New York Upstate Medical University and has served as a consulting forensic expert for the ACLU, as well as for many law enforcement agencies including the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice.
This chapter presents a portrait of Theodore Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, from childhood to middle age, as viewed through the eyes of his younger brother, David Kaczynski. Included in the chapter are discussions of Theodore’s childhood hospital trauma, his participation in a possibly CIA-funded psychological research project while Theodore was an undergraduate student at Harvard, and early signs of his mental illness, which was eventually diagnosed as schizophrenia. There is also attention given to the broader theme of brotherhood throughout David’s description of his strong emotional bond with Theodore and of the challenges he faced in trying to understand and love his deeply troubled sibling.
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