Unabomber : the secret life of Ted Kaczynski

by Waits, Chris

  When they left I knew there would be repercussions and that Dave would be calling soon.

  Sure enough, Dave called Saturday. I told him about the threatening phone call and he said to tell Tom McDaniel so there would be a record.

  I already had told Tom and also had saved the tape from the answering machine. I would probably let the incident slide, but if it happened again the young man would be held responsible.

  Dave said some of his bosses w ere mad at me for not turning over the things they wanted. He had advanced that possibility earlier to his boss, Joel. "Why do you want this stuff now.^" he had asked. "What if Chris doesn't want to give up the things.'^"

  The truth w^as the prosecution had withheld information about the secret cabin and caches from the defense and that risky strategy was now coming back to haunt them.

  I told Dave that if I turned over the items it would only be to him, as I trusted him and he trusted me.

  I asked what he wanted me to do.

  "I can't tell you what to do," he replied. "You'll have to do what you think is best." He added that he thought I should probably turn over what they wanted and fill out a claim paper so that after the trial I could get the things back.

  I still had reservations. I knew the possibility existed that if I gave them everything, it could be hidden or destroyed, or they could deny the items ever existed.

  Now that the secret cabin story had leaked out, I was in a position to embarrass the agents and maybe even get them into legal trou-

  ble. That was the last thing I wanted to see happen, but now that mistrust had developed I wanted to protect myself, too.

  I told Dave to call me in a few days and I would let him know what I would do.

  I felt as though I was about to get swept into the middle of a conflict between the defense and prosecution. I also found it interesting that, after all this time, the agents had come to my house unannounced now, when they knew that the secret cabin story had leaked out. I certainly didn't blame Tom or Terry, who were following orders from the Task Force in Sacramento.

  I had no idea what was going on at the trial, but as it turned out the defense team had spent the weekend preparing a motion to compel the prosecution to disclose the location and other relevant information about the secret cabin.

  On Monday, January 19, the motion was filed by fax and delivery; the trial was set to resume that Thursday, but on Wednesday the motion was argued in federal court in Sacramento before United States Magistrate Gregory G. Hollows.

  According to the hearing transcript, the defense motion stated: "On January 14, 1998, the defense learned from a media source that the secret shack had been located by the government. Based on that information the defense has requested that the government provide all information in its possession concerning the location, contents, and other matters regarding the shack. Although not denying that the government has located the shack, the government refuses to provide any further information. Regardless of whether the government intends to use evidence regarding a secret shack, the defense is entitled to discovery of all information in the government's possession regarding the shack. The shack, the location, the method of construction, and the contents are all potentially relevant to the issues of the defendant's past and present mental status, and thus may be admissible on these issues in either the guilt or penalty phases of the trial."

  The secret cabin certainly fit into the defense's mental defect plan, supporting the argument that Ted lived a pathologically isolated life. But disclosing this kind of evidence didn't fit the prosecution's game plan of seeking the death penalty.

  rhc prosecution maintained to the court they weren't going to use the e idence of the cabin and its contents in the trial, so they didn't have to disclose the information.

  Judge Hollows didn't buy the prosecution's argument and came down hard on them, saying the defense had the right to see the evidence. One of the problems facing the prosecution was that the bulk of the relevant photographs were ones taken by me and they had neither extra copies nor the negatives. I had both. Along with the cabin's contents.

  Defense attorney John P. Balazs, answering the judge's querv' about what this evidence would add to the defense, stated:

  "Well, I think it's significant....[T]wo points I could make. One is that...Mr. Kaczynski said that he built the shack because he felt there was no place to escape civilization. I think it's directly relevant to his mental state. We've already told the government, and they've brought a motion to preclude, w hich was denied, that we wanted to present information in the guilt phase, and maybe in the penalty phase as well, of his writing, of lay witnesses and other information that could go to his mental state at the time of the offenses. And second, it's not just a matter of the shack itself but what is in the shack and in the surrounding area. And so we need to know^ whether or not they found anything in the shack."

  Now Judge Hollows asked prosecutor Stephen P. Freccero whether the defense had been shown the photos. Freccero answered, "No. We're prepared [pause] the point I want to make is, we don't know whether these [pause] We have never known whether...[pause]"

  The prosecution's lawyers all of a sudden found themselves facing embarrassment. They hadn't bothered to get a complete list of the cabin contents, even though I had offered it to them. I had sent them a preliminary list the previous June, but the final one had more than double the entries.

  How would they explain that.'^ As the hearing continued, there w^ere a lot of "oh's," "um's," and pauses in their answers.

  "I want you," Judge Hollows told Freccero, "to define 'no' for me. Did you have any knowledge that this might be a shack related to defendant Kaczynski.'^"

  "Absolutely," came Freccero's answer. "These are locations w hich

  could be or might be or sound similar to locations mentioned in Mr. Kaczynski's writings."

  "And have you acquired any confirmation that one place or another is probably related to the defendant?" When Freccero hesitated over his answer, Hollows went on, "In other words, have you interviewed the neighbors? Did you talk to any..."

  "Yes, we have."

  "All right. And that's the information that they [the defense] want."

  Freccero turned to legal technicalities of defining the information that would satisfy disclosure, and the judge answered in kind. Then Freccero tried to excuse the delay: "...[W]e have protected the confidentiality of the people who have given that information."

  Judge Hollows was not buying that argument, and replied, "But if they've already talked to them...what difference does it make? I could say tongue in cheek, perhaps, inquire of the media; there are probably people crawling all over that place right now as we speak, talking with people. I don't think privacy's an issue anymore."

  Judge Hollows pursued photographs and reports, but Freccero almost slipped, in his response to the question about "any other documentation": "No, nothing besides what we've already turned over to the defense. There is no physical evidence. We have seized no evidence from these locations."

  Freccero caught himself by specifying "seized."

  "You seized no evidence," Judge Hollows asked, "from locations outside of the cabins themselves but that relate to the cabin other than what you've told me about, photos, and reports of some type?"

  "That is correct."

  "All right. With respect to any photos or reports that you have in your possession—that relates to utilization by defendant Kaczynski, turn that over to the defense."

  Freccero nodded, and Judge Hollows asked if he had any questions.

  "No, Your Honor. And the scope...Fm just trying to understand the scope pertains to those locations they've tried to describe in their motion?" The prosecution was still playing technicalities.

  "No," the judge answered. "It refers to any locations that the Government has knowledge of from its report, from its interviews,

  from its confirmation process that there's a shack out there that may have been utihzed by defendant Kaczyn
ski. I ciori^tcare if they^ve used the right gulch an notation in their motion. If you've got some information that relates to that, turn it () er. [emphasis added]"

  "Okay. Okay. I guess my hesitation...! just want to make sure it's not a problem; I want to make sure we comply with the court's order."

  "C'orrect," Judge Hollows answered. ''That's what they're looking for, correct, Mr. Balazs.'^"

  ''Yes, Your Honor," Balazs answered.

  Judge Hollows concluded, "All right. Thank you. Do the initial disclosure by the end of today; and by Wednesday of next week, evers-thing else."

  Of course, Freccero knew he needed to be cautious here. He said, "...I would just note that we may not have copies of the photographs so we might have to show the photographs and make arrangements for copies, if they actually... if any of those photographs are relevant. I can't make copies by the end of today, is what I'm saying."

  "Right. Make a Xerox by the end of today. If they need something better, they'll tell you."

  As the hearing ended, despite all its hedging, the prosecution had managed to pacify the judge. But it w asn't over. I suspected they soon would be trying frantically to get my pictures, negatives, and the evidence list.

  It was a sure bet evidence from the secret cabin and caches would become a focal point during court proceedings. The prosecution wasn't out of the woods yet, because the judge surely would come down on them even harder when the court discovered there was a fingerprint, evidence, and even handwriting from the cabin wall that hadn't been produced.

  It was turning into an awkward eleventh-hour situation at best. And there was no chance all this would be missed by the press.

  The hearing had barely adjourned when the ringing of my phone became as constant as the cooing of my wife's white dove, peacefully caged nearby.

  When I came in from working, the answering machine tape was full and the phone was still ringing. By now the late-afternoon winter sky was dark, a harbinger of things to come.

  Among the messages was an ominous one from Dave. He said the motion to disclose had contained the names Diagonal Gulch and McClellan Gulch.

  I knew there was no such place as Diagonal Gulch; that was just a code name used by Ted to conceal the location of his secret cabin. It was more a geographic description than a name, one that Ted used to mask his hideaway in the journals. What he meant was that his secret cabin was situated in a gulch that ran diagonally off the main gulch, which was McClellan. It was a clever way to disguise the real name of that gulch. McClellan was a different storv; It could be found on virtually every map.

  Dave's message went on to say that Jerry Burns at the Forest Serv ice had just called and said his office was being flooded with media calls asking about the location of McClellan Gulch.

  Almost everyone in Lincoln could give directions to McClellan and my home, so about the only thing I could do was brace myself for the fury that would soon be headed up the Stemple Pass Road.

  Looking out the window, I could already see vehicles driving slowly past the entrance to my gulch.

  Dave ended by saying, 'Tm sure that you have the weather on your side now to help keep those folks out. Good luck with the media— I feel for you."

  I decided to call Bobby Didriksen and see what he knew.

  He had successfully run cover for me so many times in the past that people often called him to find me.

  Bobby said he had been trying to call me.

  He said there was a man from ABC at his house, eager to talk to me; they had flown into Lincoln by helicopter and landed just west of town.

  Bobby said they wanted to take me for a ride in the helicopter to get some pictures at the secret cabin site.

  "Why don't you talk to him, he's a nice guy," Bobby said. "His name is Mike and he's sitting right here."

  With that Mike took the phone.

  He had been on assignment in Seattle when the call came in that Ted's secret cabin had been the topic of a court hearing. He was told to get to Lincoln without delay.

  Mike asked if I would go up in the helicopter w ith them, take them to the site and help them shoot some ideo.

  "^bu don't know what youVe asking," I said.

  E en though I would have enjoyed a helicopter ride, there was no way Td divulge the location of the secret cabin to the media, or anybody else for that matter.

  "The mountains are steep, rugged, and covered with timber, and there's no place to land either," I explained to Mike. ''The cabin can't be spotted by air, even with a helicopter."

  I wasn't lying. Dave and his pilot were unable to spot it from the air even after they were told exactly where to look.

  I knew it was only a matter of time before other media people approached me.

  I told Mike I'd tell my whole story to someone soon, depending on the trial, and wondered if he was interested.

  "Very much so," he said.

  I told him I owed it to both Betty and me to carefully weigh how the stor>^ would be handled before I talked to anyone. Then we talked about some of the pictures, evidence and other items I had in my possession.

  We decided to meet that night or the following morning.

  "I'm in room number seven at the Sportsman's Motel," he said.

  That evening among all the messages was one from a reporter at the Sacramento Bee. I knew they were the paper of record for the trial, so I wanted to return the call. They had called several times since Ted's arrest.

  The reporter said my name kept coming up in conversations with different people, and he wondered if I could tell him about Ted's secret cabin.

  Just the day before, I had refused to let the same reporter quote me, but today was a different story. Everybody in the media knew about McClellan Gulch and that I owned it.

  I told him that he could print a quote from me in the paper. I said, "The rumors about a secret cabin are true. There is a secret cabin. The FBI did not find it. I did, more than a year ago." I explained that I did live in McClellan Gulch, how long I had known Ted, that I had taken the FBI to the cabin the previous summer, and that I

  had worked closely with the FBI. That was all I wanted to say at the time.

  The phone rang into the night, and began again the next morning.

  I told Betty I was going to Lincoln to visit Bobby and to see what was happening in town.

  At least one or two mobile satellite uplink trucks were already setting up for on-the-scene reporting. The town was crawling with reporters, every motel and room was booked, and out-of-town vehicles were everywhere. I decided to take a back route to Bobby's house.

  He met me at the door and said many people were looking for me. "Really, I would have never guessed," I replied.

  We laughed and then both noted the town looked similar to the way it did when Ted was first arrested.

  I told Bobby I was headed down to see Mike from ABC.

  "Mike has already called to see if you were in town yet," he said, and added, "NBC has called, too. The woman you and Betty know is also in town and would like to see you."

  I called Mike and told him I'd be over shortly. He said the story was far bigger than he would have believed and told me an ABC crew was working in Sacramento on a documentary. He felt that type of format would best cover my situation.

  I agreed. I appreciated how ABC's 20/20 had handled my earlier interview But I told him I had to leave for a minute. I promised I'd be right back.

  In the few minutes while I drove to the NBC crew's motel, the trial effectively ended.

  Court had convened in Sacramento at 8:01 A.M. Pacific Time, almost an hour ago. Just now, the defense had proposed a plea agreement.

  When I arrived, the NBC crew members already were talking about the plea and advancing theories about what it meant to their Lincoln story. Essentially, they decided the plea agreement had diminished the importance of my story.

  I was amazed, but at the same time relieved. First, I wouldn't get caught up in a long, drawn-out trial; second, a lot of informa
tion that I was privy to wouldn't make it into court proceedings and become a

  matter of public record; third, I felt liberated from the shroud of secrecy. I could talk now!

  I favored the longer documentary type format and I decided right then to go back to ABC. Mike had me talk to a producer named Peter Bull, who said he would come to Montana soon, and I agreed not to make any commitments until he arrived.

  I left for home, anxious to tell Betty of the new developments. She would be cry glad to hear I wouldn't be stuck in Sacramento for the trial, and I knew the ABC proposal would please her. And, indeed, she was as relieved as I to hear the case was over.

  At 3:22 P.M., January 11, 1998, as the court adjourned, the criminal case of the United States versus Theodore John Kaczynski was in the history books.

  Ted had pleaded guilty unconditionally to all offenses, in both the California and New Jersey cases. He would spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. All that was left was the formal sentencing, which wouldn't occur for several months.

  As Betty and I talked about the sentence, and how we were glad Ted wouldn't be put to death, we thought our lives might start to return to normal. I had lost my ability to discern normalcy, whatever that was.

  ABC producer Bull arrived in Lincoln the following week, and we met for lunch at a local cafe. We worked out the details and by the end of the week his film crew was in Lincoln. They wanted to air an hour-long Turning Point documentary on the day of the sentencing. We had mixed w^eather for the taping, but it was nice enough to do some outside work. Things went well, and Peter and his crew packed up and left Lincoln. He told me it was going to be a tough squeeze, considering the amount of footage he had. I told him I understood and was confident they would do a good job.

  Betty and I were more relaxed during the next couple of months than we had been in two years.

  I had sent the last batch of photographs to Dave before the end of the trial. His wife. Sue, left a message that he received the package and would call at a later date. I was going to miss talking to him, but I knew they would return sometime for a vacation and we all could have a reunion along with Jerry Burns and his wife.