ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 7, 1996 TAG: 9604080050
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: HELENA, MONT.
SOURCE: Associated Press
Investigators discovered and defused a live bomb in the cabin of Theodore Kaczynski, the former math professor suspected of being the elusive Unabomber, a federal law officer said Saturday.
Agents who have been warily searching Kaczynski's cabin since he was taken into custody Wednesday believe the bomb they defused Friday was intended for someone in particular, said the official.
Authorities now have little doubt they have apprehended the man responsible for placing or mailing bombs that have killed three people and injured 23 over the past 18 years, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
``I've been working this case since 1985,'' he said. ``If it isn't him, I don't know who it is.''
Agents are X-raying about 40 boxes found in the loft of the 10-by-12-foot cabin where Kaczynski has lived for more than a decade.
Reporters on Saturday got their first look at Kaczynski's remote home, a spartan hut without plumbing or electricity more than 5 miles from the town of Lincoln, Mont. They weren't allowed inside.
The structure, made of dark-stained wood, is hidden in a wooded setting about 300 yards from the nearest neighbor. It has two windows and a door with three locks.
There was a bicycle parked outside, along with parts of other bikes. Neighbors said Kaczynski often rode his bike around town.
A creek runs nearby, and there were two gardens. There was no sign of an outhouse.
The FBI had set up a table outside the cabin, but there was no sign of anything that looked like evidence. Agents refused to answer questions about their search.
Meanwhile, a magazine reported that Kaczynski's family had sent him thousands of dollars over the years, possibly explaining how a person with no visible means of support could have traveled the country, planting or mailing bombs.
``The guy lived largely off family contributions,'' a senior Justice Department official told U.S. News & World-Report in its April 15 issue.
Kaczynski, 53, was charged with possession of bomb-making materials and jailed without bail. The charge doesn't mention the Unabomber investigation and is intended to keep him in custody while investigators build a case.
A partially completed pipe bomb, bomb-making chemicals and components and notes on making bombs were in the cabin, and one law enforcement official said a typewriter found there appears to be the one the Unabomber used to type his manifesto and letters.
The Unabomber's explosives were mailed from several states, and federal agents are also trying to track Kaczynski's movements through travel records.
Federal authorities have learned that Kaczynski left his shack and traveled 50 miles to a Helena hotel at least 25 times; four of the stays roughly coincided with five bombings blamed on the Unabomber.
Tom Stell, a driver for Rimrock Stages, part of Trailways bus line, said Saturday he saw Kaczynski on buses from Missoula, Mont., to Helena as many as five times since the early 1990s.
``He was greasy and dirty and never said anything to anybody,'' Stell said.
Federal agents in Sacramento, Calif., have visited six inexpensive hotels near the downtown bus depot to examine registration records, The Sacramento Bee reported Saturday. The New York Times reported that the depot is three blocks from the post office where letters to the Times were postmarked in 1993.
ABC News reported late Friday that agents found intricately carved wooden boxes in the shack. Carved videocassette-size wooden boxes were used in some of the Unabomber's bombs.
The U.S. News article said Attorney General Janet Reno received an internal memo Feb. 15 that for the first time identified Kaczynski as the prime suspect.
Kaczynski's name was in the FBI task force's database for more than a year, but he did not emerge as a top suspect in part because one profile of the suspect indicated he would be a blue-collar worker with no college degree, the magazine said. Kaczynski has a doctorate in mathematics and taught at the University of California, Berkeley.
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