Riverside Writings and Ted Kaczynski

[AK Wilks]

Ted Kaczynski was known to do what I call "Red Herring" or "False Sponsor" letters. He would write a letter claiming to be a helpful citizen, friend of the killer or be the killer himself but give false motives and information. Ted did it with the Utah letter trying to give police the idea that the Unabomber attack there was a local situation involving someone who hated attorneys. He did it several times - the "Wu - It worked! I told you it would. RV" being the most famous, a scrap of paper he put into a bomb, which may have been intended to point the finger at two Berkeley teachers, a Professor Wu and one with initials R.V.

The Riverside poem IMO likely written by Zodiac IMO and signed "RH". And it happens to match a known Kaczynski method, leaving false clues, like he did with the "RV" fragment he put into a bomb to steer police off track.



The wood desktop poem in Riverside signed RH was an example (IMO) of the Zodiac giving a false clue that the killer of Bates was a local student. It seems the killer of Aardsma probably left a morbid message on the wood arm of a chair signed RSK.

RV, RH, RSK. Hmm.

The weird "S" on the Riverside poem, looks like an upside down "5", also something Ted K does sometimes. Lots of other handwriting matches.



Compare them better here in blow- ups:



Top is Kaczynski bottom is Zodiac. Put together by Doug Oswell.

Notice the "Th" linkage, lower case "r", capital "I", rare three stroke "k" and many other matches. Also notice similar spacing and feel.








Thanks to AweShucks for the excellent research and graphics work on the handwriting comps.

RAND: Something I wanted to ask about TK. Z had a sense of humor. He was whimsical and strikes me as a bit of a prankster. This doesn't square with TK. He doesn't seem to have any sense of humor whatsoever. What say you that think TK was Z?

AK WILKS: Good question. As the "Freedom Club", aka "FC", aka the Unabomber, he was posing as a terrorist group, which are not exactly known for their side splitting laughs and good humor. Most of the Unabomber communications are fairly dry and academic in tone. He was trying to get across what he felt were serious points about society and technology.

There are a few exceptions - the Unabomber admitted that a July 4th threat to blow up a plane was a "prank" and said "we haven't tried to blow up an airliner (lately)." A rather sly sense of humor - and it matches what Zodiac said when he revealed a threat to mass transit (school bus) was a prank - "if you think I am going to take out a bus the way I said I was you cops deserve to have holes in your head." {Quote from memory}.

Zodiac said "2 cops pulled a goof"; Ted said "The FBI is a joke".

As a kid he hung a dead cat in the locker of a girl he liked. He also wrote a funny article that appeared in either Harpers or Atlantic magazine.

TK wrote dirty limericks and obscene poems against a woman who turned him down for a date.

TK also was a master at adopting different tones in different letters.

As the Unabomber he could be academic and pedantic.

But he also wrote a letter posing as a Utah resident pissed off at local lawyers "I heard you were a scoundrel! A super asshole! I give such people the BOMB treatment..."

As a teen he had an article published in a magazine about making a bomb, and it was funny!

And I think he adopted many other tones in different letters - young, scared, old, right wing, Christian, etc.

The only trouble he ever got into as a prof at U CAL Berkeley was when he wrote a letter pretending to be another faculty member, a ruse to get that person in trouble.

These are the Ellen poems and letter. Like Zodiac, Ted could be funny, sarcastic and cutting. Like the Riverside writer, he could do a poem.

Ellen poems and letter. Uses Zodiac terms "fat ass" and "nasty":

[vasa croe]

Are there any instances to compare of TK misspelling words in a similar fashion to Z? I lived in Montana and actually watched his transport pass through town when they caught him so I have always had an interest in him. He has always struck me as a VERY intelligent person that would not want to misspell anything because he looked at himself as better than others. Are there any examples things like "ee" or "ss" or odd spellings in his writings that you can put up?

Thanks!

[AK Wilks]

Are there any instances to compare of TK misspelling words in a similar fashion to Z? I lived in Montana and actually watched his transport pass through town when they caught him so I have always had an interest in him. He has always struck me as a VERY intelligent person that would not want to misspell anything because he looked at himself as better than others. Are there any examples things like "ee" or "ss" or odd spellings in his writings that you can put up?

Thanks!

Look here for the many, many word and phrase matches between Ted and Zodiac - viewtopic.php?f=102&t=250

I think Zodiac misspelled words to make people think he was not educated. As the Unabomber Ted wrote a letter to a PHD saying 'what about the rest of us who don't have advanced degrees'? This type of clues and others led the FBI to say the Unabomber was a blue collar airline mechanic with no college degree. In fact Ted had a degree from Harvard and a PHD from Michigan.

Z - misspells words, probably intentionally in most cases. Examples of last consonant in word changed to a vowel in the Z408.
TK - encodes "yesterday" as YESTERDAE.

Zodiac 408 Code: DANGEROUE
Unabomber Code: YESTERDAE

Both Zodiac and Kaczynski have a code in which in order to increase difficulty of solution they change the last consonant in a word to the vowel "E".

[vasa croe]

Is there any connection to TK and comics or movies? I am asking because it seemed that Z was an AVID comic and movie buff. Would also like to see if there is some connection with TK and RKO or Tim Holt's comics and movies. The link you put up is a great read...still going through it.

Thanks!

[onewhoknows]

Can you place TK in Riverside during the murder of Cheri Jo Bates? What kind of car did TK drive while living in California?
I notice that TK uses a looped 2 unlike the Zodiac Killer.

[AK Wilks]

Is there any connection to TK and comics or movies? I am asking because it seemed that Z was an AVID comic and movie buff. Would also like to see if there is some connection with TK and RKO or Tim Holt's comics and movies. The link you put up is a great read...still going through it.

Thanks!

If you really want to learn more about Ted I would suggest looking here viewtopic.php?f=102&t=938 and then at http://www.unazod.com and reading the excellent book by Doug Oswell The Unabomber and The Zodiac.

Maybe you should do a post in the Zodiac Theories section here or Zodiac Case General Discussion viewforum.php?f=25 and explain what evidence leads you to believe Zodiac was an avid comic buff and interested in RKO. In the Ted section I posted a link to, you can see the evidence that Ted shared many common interests with Zodiac, including movies, opera, hand sewn hoods, code making, bomb design, hunting with a flashlight attached to a gun, etc.

[AK Wilks]

Can you place TK in Riverside during the murder of Cheri Jo Bates? What kind of car did TK drive while living in California?
I notice that TK uses a looped 2 unlike the Zodiac Killer.

I don't know for sure what car Ted drove in 1966. He often borrowed his brother's car (a VW, later a Datsun) or the family car.

I can't place Ted specifically in Riverside, but the Illinois resident and University of Michigan student was in California in the Fall/Winter of 1966, interviewing for a University of California prof job at the Berkeley campus. I do not know if he interviewed, toured or studied at other U Cal campuses, which include LA and Riverside.

For those of us who think Zodiac killed Bates and wrote the Bates letters, that means Zodiac had to be in California in late October and late November (Bates murder and confession letter). And he had to be in California late April ("Bates Had To Die" letters).

All previously known evidence on Ted Kaczynski did show that he was in California in late Fall/early Winter of 1966 (based on a handsigned application to U Cal Berkeley, interview and campus tour). And we know he started teaching at U Cal Berkeley in Fall of 1967, and logically arrived at least by the summer to find a house, rent it, move in, etc.

Ted finished all course work for his PHD in 1966, all he had left to complete was his dissertation, which he could do anywhere there was a university library, and in fact most of it was done already, as it was based on his prize winning published article. And his brother David said he found out that in grad school at U of M, Ted would often never show up for a single class, just hand in a paper the last day.

So we know Ted was in CA roughly the time of the Bates murder and first letter. But while there was nothing preventing him from being in CA between Janury and June of 1967, meaning he could have done the April Bates letters, I have yet to see anything to prove he actually was in CA in that April 1967 timeframe.

Now there is evidence that Ted Kaczynski was in California from January 1967 until June 1967.

In an otherwise not particularly great out of print and hard to find book called Unabomber: On the trail of America's most-wanted serial killer by fomer FBI Agent and serial killer profiler John Douglas, I found this passage (p.89). Keep in mind that Ted Kaczynski got his PHD in June of 1967:

"According to the course catalog, he was actually named an assistant professor before he received his Ph.D"

That could mean that Ted Kaczynski started teaching a course from January 1967 to June 1967 in Berkeley.

Meaning he was there at the time the April Bates letters were sent (and when Nikki Benedict was murdered, and the August couple murder Morf found).


This is the hand signed application to U Cal Berkeley from December 1966. Although not absolute proof, it is very strong and reliable evidence that Kaczynski was physically present in Berkeley CA in late Fall/early Winter, the time when Cheri Bates was killed.

http://unazod.com/odd/bio.jpg

Everything I had seen previously indicated that Ted started teaching at U Cal Berkeley in the Fall of 67. Then I found this comment by former FBI Agent John Douglas that a course catalog listed Ted as a professor BEFORE he even got his PHD from Michigan. Which lead me to conclude it was possible he started teaching as early as January 1967. As he got his PHD around June 1967 - though may not have actually "got it", in the sense of final approvals and so forth, until sometime later that summer.

Ted stopped his TA duties in the summer of 1966, and also finished all his coursework at that time. As he only had to finish his thesis to get his PHD, there was nothing requiring him to be on campus in Michigan as he could have completed his research at any university library.

Now I found this is the Turchie Affidavit used to secure the search warrant on Ted (which has mostly accurate information though I have spotted a few mistakes):

132. During interviews with UTF members, David Kaczynski provided a review of Theodore Kaczynski's whereabouts and activities from 1967 to the present, to the extent that he was knowledgeable. David said that after graduating from the University of Michigan, his brother announced he had obtained a teaching position at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB). As previously stated, Theodore Kaczynski was an Assistant Professor in the UCB Department of Mathematics from July 16, 1967, through June 30, 1969, and lived in Berkeley, California. While at Berkeley, Theodore Kaczynski spent time in the woods in Northern California, took up deer hunting and purchased a rifle.

AK - As a side note, I find it interesting that Ted spent a lot of time "in the woods in Northern California" (David later said he thought Ted even had a small cabin there). Interesting in light of the Sonoma County murders, the Sacramento murders of Hakari and Bennallack, and a lot of other stuff that later went on in Northern California - the Visalia Ransacker, EAR, Lodi murders and car bombs. Note also Ted bought a rifle while at Berkeley. The excuse "I am going up to the north cal woods", while perhaps often true, could also be used as excuse for absences - say around 7/4/69 or 9/6/70, etc.

Of more immediate interest, the FBI states here in this affidavit that Ted Kaczynski started as a Berkeley professor in JULY 1967. If true think about the likely implications of that. Starting a new job in a new state, needing to find a house, rent a house, get furniture, etc., it certainly makes sense to look at Ted's hand signed application of December 1966, strong evidence he was in California in Fall/Winter 66, and conclude it likely that sometime in early 1967 Ted started living in California. That likely puts him in California for the April 30, 1967 "Bates had to die" letters.

[onewhoknows]

So you are not sure where TK was during the Sunday evening Oct 30, 1966 murder of Cheri Jo Bates? What do you feel was TK's motive to kill Cheri Jo?
Did TK ever go to Disneyland? The VW is interesting.

[AK Wilks]

So you are not sure where TK was during the Sunday evening Oct 30, 1966 murder of Cheri Jo Bates? What do you feel was TK's motive to kill Cheri Jo?
Did TK ever go to Disneyland? The VW is interesting.

Did you read my long post above?

For anyone interested in Ted, I am always happy to answer questions and discuss, but if you read the 8 pages here: viewtopic.php?f=102&t=938 and then read the information at http://www.unazod.com most of your questions would be answered. If you read that information then still have questions I am happy to answer them. It is just that over the last several years I tend to get the same questions again and again, and they are mostly already answered in those places.

As for Ted's possible "motive" in wanting to kill Cheri Bates or any young woman:

Many people who reject Ted as a viable Zodiac suspect say Ted was only motivated by his anti-technology views, and would not have killed random young men and women.

In fact he was proud of the fact that he hated virtually everyone and did not need any rationalization or motive in order to do so. This is another key moment in his life, would have been about 1955:

"One day when I was 13 years old, I was walking down the street and saw a girl. Something about her appearance antagonized me, and, from habit, I began looking for a way to justify hating her, within my logical system. But then I stopped and said to myself, 'This is getting ridiculous. I'll just chuck all this silly morality business and hate anybody I please.' Since then I've never had any interest in or respect for morality, ethics, or anything of the sort."


http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2008 ... new-bond/4

So many people tell me "Oh Ted only killed because he HAD to, he wasn't crazy, he just killed to advance his political beliefs and anti-technology views. He is not a serial killer really, he was an activist..."

In fact, Ted was psycho-sexually troubled in the manner of most serial killers. And keeping in mind Zodiac, who killed COUPLES in spots known for making out/love making, what Ted reports drove him to "madness" (his own words) was the sound of the U of M hockey players having sex with their girlfriends in the apartments next to him.

Ted described his "acute sexual starvation" and fantasies of being a woman.

In the summer of 1966, most likely late August/early September 1966, Ted Kaczynski records a break through moment in his life. He is a genius, yet socially alienated and isolated. He decribes hearing the sound of couples having sex in the apartment next door to his, and he says it fills him with frustration and anger. Out of despair and self described "acute sexual starvation", he records in his journal that instead of killing himself he will "really kill everyone I hate."

The people he says he hates and wants to kill are many, but they include two distinct groups. One group is what he calls "bigshots" or "government officials", and these include "scientists", "big businessmen", "politicians" and "police".

The other group of people he hated and wanted to kill included love making "couples", "rowdy college students" and those college men and women he deems "promiscuous". He calls promiscuous women "animals" and "pigs".Look at the government psychiatric report on Kaczynski done after he was arrested for the Unabomber crimes:

In the summer after his fourth year [of graduate school, the summer of 1966], he describes experiencing a period of several weeks where he was sexually excited nearly all the time and was fantasizing himself as a woman and being unable to obtain any sexual relief. He decided to make an effort to have a sex change operation. When he returned to the University of Michigan [most likely in late August or early September 1966] he made an appointment to see a psychiatrist to be examined to determine if the sex change would be good for him. He claimed that by putting on an act he could con the psychiatrist into thinking him suitable for a feminine role even though his motive was exclusively erotic. As he was sitting in the waiting room, he turned completely against the idea of the operation and thus, when he saw the doctor, instead claimed he was depressed about the possibility of being drafted. He describes the following:

"As I walked away from the building afterwards, I felt disgusted about what my uncontrolled sexual cravings had almost led me to do and I felt humiliated, and I violently hated the psychiatrist. Just then there came a major turning point in my life. Like a Phoenix, I burst from the ashes of my despair to a glorious new hope. I thought I wanted to kill that psychiatrist because the future looked utterly empty to me. I felt I wouldn't care if I died. And so I said to myself why not really kill the psychiatrist and anyone else whom I hate. What is important is not the words that ran through my mind but the way I felt about them. What was entirely new was the fact that I really felt I could kill someone. My very hopelessness had liberated me because I no longer cared about death. I no longer cared about consequences and I said to myself that I really could break out of my rut in life an do things that were daring, irresponsible or criminal." [Psych Report] {Emphasis added}

That happened sometime in the summer of 1966, most likely in late August/early September 1966. Probably mere days later, on or around September 3, 1966, bombs go off at the suburban Chicago house of Elmwood Park Mayor Elmer Conti and at a glass company on Paulina St. in Chicago. On October 30, 1966, when evidence shows Ted Kaczynski is in California, the first probable Zodiac crime, the murder of college student Cheri Jo Bates occurs.

His first confirmed Unabomber crime was in 1978, when he was 36 years old. Yet we know from research that the most active and violent period for the majority of serial killers is from their late teens to late twenties. And we see that Kaczynski reports the motivation, desire and ability to kill at least as early as the summer of 1966.

[onewhoknows]

One reason I find this interesting is because TK is a viable suspect as the Zodiac. He is a killer and his handwriting frequently resembles the Zodiac's.
I am not a handwriting expert. The thing is, there is the MtDNA from Cheri Jo Bate's killer I understand. This is then a provable crime(s). I would like
to see some of TK's hair compared to what Riverside has. What could it hurt. Did TK have a sister and did she have any children? Pardon me for not
having done an in depth study. My questions are never facetious, I would like to see the Zodiac Killer caught.