Credit: Netflix

Janus Metz Pedersen’s Unabomber on Netflix traces Ted Kaczynski’s Harvard years while also focusing on the nearly two-decade hunt for the domestic terrorist, who claimed three lives with his untraceable mail bombs, injuring 23.

While his identity remained concealed for years, only after his manifesto was out in the open did his brother, David Kaczynski, and David’s wife recognise the uncanny parallels between the document and Ted’s early writings.

The Netflix movie chronicles Kaczynski’s life, crimes, and the intense manhunt that ultimately led to his capture, dramatising the story to a certain extent.

Of course, Unabomber includes both facts and fiction, but here are five real-life details the Netflix movie leaves out.

Five details about Ted Kaczynski that Unabomber leaves out

The six-year bombing hiatus

Netflix’s Unabomber details Ted Kaczynski’s nearly two-decade bombing campaign that terrorised the nation. However, the crime thriller doesn’t include the six-year bombing hiatus after the February 1987 Salt Lake City attack. He reportedly took a break when someone saw Kaczynski placing the bomb outside a computer store, resulting in the famous composite sketch of the Unabomber donning aviator shades and a hood (via History.com).

According to the FBI’s website, no Unabomber attacks took place after that until June 1993.

Ted Kaczynski’s schizophrenia diagnosis

Although the Netflix crime thriller does raise the flag about Ted Kaczynski suffering from schizophrenia when Harvard psychologist Henry A Murray tells him about the possibility, the revelation is driven by the desire to provoke yet another emotional reaction during the psychological experiments. Unabomber doesn’t divulge the official diagnosis that Kaczynski later received in reality.

Amid Kaczynski’s federal trial, he wanted to represent himself over disagreements with his lawyers on their plan to strike back with a mental health defence in 1988 (via The New York Times). He was officially ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation by US District Judge Garland E Burrell. According to CNN, Dr Sally Johnson, a psychiatrist in the federal prison, interviewed Ted for 20 hours across four days.

This led to his official diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. However, it was conclusively determined he was competent to stand trial. That said, certain experts also refuted the claims in the years since his conviction. In March 1988, forensic psychiatrist Dr Park Dietz told The New Yorker that the evaluation results “[screamed] geek” rather than schizophrenia.

Ted Kaczynski tried to challenge his guilty plea

Unabomber on Netflix pulls the curtain after Ted Kaczynski’s arrest, meaning the legal battle that followed remains largely unaddressed. Ted pleaded guilty to federal charges in January 1998 following a plea agreement that left no scope for the death penalty. He was sentenced to multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole. Although that waived his right to appeal, Kaczynski tried to overturn the conviction in 1999, citing that the guilty plea was involuntary, per The Washington Post.

A federal district court eventually rejected the motion, prompting him to appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The decision was upheld in 2001. He also went to the US Supreme Court for review, which was rejected in 2002 (via SFGate).

Ted Kaczynski’s cancer diagnosis

Besides the legal battle, Unabomber also doesn’t detail the final years of Ted Kaczynski’s life. He spent over two decades serving prison time in Colorado before being transferred to a federal medical facility in Butner, NC, in 2021, where he was diagnosed with rectal cancer, per NBC News. He took his life behind bars at 81 on June 10th, 2023.

Ted Kaczynski’s handwritten will

According to The New York Times, after Ted Kaczynski’s suicide, it came to light that he had left behind a handwritten will dated December 2014, in which he strictly prevented his relatives from inheriting anything that he had left behind.

“No person known to be related to me by blood or by marriage shall possess, or have any control over, all or any part of my estate,” Ted stated in his will.