Madman in the Woods ////// 597 | Forensic Files

when it comes to Quality sleep Ashley has you covered with top mattress brands at winning prices and with special
financing options available you can snooze now and pay later plus your mattress purchase helps give the gift of
better sleep to children in need and US Special Operations forces visit your local Ashley store or shop online today
and make every snooze count financing is subject to credit approval C store or ashley.com for d details dreaming of
overseas Adventures or connecting more deeply with family from afar Rosetta Stone Bridges the language Gap I've
tried others but Rosetta Stone's immersive lessons and voice feedback technology are game changers dive into
25 Languages by learning intuitively just like when you were a kid and here's the holiday Sparkle grab a lifetime
membership now and save 50% gift yourself the world head to rosettastone.com now and save 50%
[Music] [Music] % [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that Butters his Bread on both sides ladies and gentlemen
here is the c yeah give me some of that tasty apple butter it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listen
list thanks for telling a [Music] friend today we are drinking 7 years by the Brighton Brewing Company this New
England Style Pale Ale packs a lot of hop flavor without the bitterness and that's because of the tropical fruit
that they added berries and tangerine balanced this baby out for a delicious finish garage grade four out of five
bottle caps and our fridge is full thanks to our friend right here first up a big cheers to
Jordan bonapart from the nighttime podcast for sending us some delicious Canadian beers and a big shout out to
Lauren in Hudson New Hampshire next up here's a cheers to Lindsay and Fargo North Dakota old F and a big we like
your trip to Alberto B in Parts Unknown and also in Parts Unknown we have Vanessa b as well everyone we just
mentioned well they went to our website true Crim garage.com they clicked on the
Donate button and they helped us fill up the fridge for today's show and for that
we thank you yeah BW R you in beer run if you're not a member of our mailing list you need to do so today go to tr
crime garage.com and sign up on our mailing list I'll be sending out a promo code to the store tonight so look for
that in your inbox and if you have signed up and you don't receive that email look in your spam box or maybe you
signed up with the wrong email address so make sure you put the right email address in there Colonel that's enough
of the be that's right true crime garage creating all the spam all right everybody gather around grab a chair
grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime [Music] [Music] hello Jamie thank you for joining me
here in the garage today I'm excited to talk about your new book madman in the woods it's quite the interesting story
it's quite the interesting life that you had really kind of scary when you think
about how close you were to well the madman in the woods life next door to the unibomber jimie is here to talk
about her childhood and growing up next to Ted kazinski as casual as this is Jamie and as short and simple to put it
you grew up next to a serial killer yes I sure did I grew up um just less than a
quarter of a mile away from um Ted kazinski the unibomber and um sometimes when I say a quarter
mile people are like oh that that seems actually kind of far but it's rural Montana and so you have to really think
about the landscape there and um you know and and just to give you a a small amount of
background my family purchased about 9,000 Acres um of Ranch Land decades before Ted kazinski came to
Lincoln and in 1971 my grandfather sold 1.4 acre to Ted and David kazinski and that 1.4 acre was on
The Fringe of our Ranch Land and so since 1971 to 1996 when Ted was arrested our family and Ted kazinski basically
were sharing a backyard and me specifically for you know most of my childhood you're quite a bit younger
than Ted so um you're only living next door to him for what about 15 years is that right yeah you're you're very close
I was born in 1980 and so he was arrested in 96 I was 16 years old when he was arrested and describe this area
for us the uh the the land that your family owned and of course the 1.4 acres that Ted and his brother own so the area
that I am from um Lincoln Montana is very rural like it's a it's about a thousand residents give or take
depending on the season the town is very small it has um a blinking stoplight not
even red and green so you can imagine um you know that it's very very very tidy where Ted specifically lived was close
to four miles from the Tiny Town of Lincoln very isolated rural area surrounded by pine trees and when he
bought that land in 1971 there were very few people living out there and so obviously that really
did appeal to him as the years went on there were a couple more neighbors here and there but um really there there
weren't it wasn't very populated so my my family my dad of course um you know as as seemingly
fellow mountain men do was always looking out for Ted and trying to help Ted because that's kind of how the
community worked and you know because of that they did form almost you know it seemed on the
surface a friendship in those very early years so you know the the place is very
rural but the community is very tight-knit and so my you know my father really tried to care for Ted in um in
the way that he would care for any other neighbor yeah Ted was a very interesting guy a very odd
character to to Really you know when we covered the unibomber case while back a year or so ago and I really dove into
who he was and tried to get an opinion on his personality and his makeup even you know thousands a thousand miles away
and all these years later and really just what I could pull off of pages and not so much the experience you had where
you met him face to face on multiple multiple occasions and live next door to him essentially but the vibe I always
kind of got Jamie was that here we have this guy that yes he he moves out you say rural but you know like I live in a
rural area of Ohio to call your area Rural and mine rural in the same sentence would be Insanity because uh to
me like you guys are living out in the middle of nowhere pretty much and for this guy to move out into the middle of
nowhere it gives you this Vibe like here's this dude that wants to just run away from everybody else that he hates
Society he hates all that in society entails and he wants to be by himself he wants to be left alone but at the same
time I glad I'm glad that you bring up what you did with your father and and the way that the mountain men would work
and they would check in on one another and I imagine your father's going over there every couple of days or or just
dropping by when he happens to be in that corner of of your guys's plot of land and saying hey Ted how's it going
you you know any problems you know you just kind of check in with each other as neighbors would in any area but but it's
more important here in this area because you're talking about a situation where somebody could God forbid they have a a
health situation and pass away they could not be noticed for for days or weeks if nobody's there to check on them
if not longer but with Ted I always kind of got this vibe even though he's once and seems on the surface like he desires
this hermit style of life I do think just like every other human being though he was someone that
needed some kind of interaction with others and and and actually desired it even if he would tell us otherwise I
think he actually desired human interaction and really probably was starved for some type of meaningful
friendship that he just didn't have and and that maybe he didn't allow himself to have and you met him face to face and
your father knew him am I close to being right here yeah actually I think you're
pretty spot on especially in the what I call the early years for me so the late 70s early 80s
that is when Ted kazinski was still coming over to our family's home for dinner he he held me as a baby and and
and asked to hold me um you know there were still late night card games between him and my parents and in in my book and
madman in the woods I do really try to uncover that like was that was it a cover for Ted was it was
he trying to create this Persona of being this you know normal neighbor or did he really still at that point have a
desire for connection and and I don't know if we'll we'll ever really get to the bottom of
that answer but I there there's still a part of me that really does believe that
he he still he still needed that and even as the time went on when you know he was deep into his reign of domestic
Terror you can read his journals and sort of see that as well because he's writing every single day and and
when I say journals they're basically stacks of notebooks that were found in his cabin but he is detailing everything
about his day you know what he's eating what he's hunting what he's reading um and of course his crimes as well but
when he writes it's as though he's writing to an audience and that also has always made
me think that it was his own way of some sort of almost communication with the outside world the only the only safe way
he could do it was almost to mimic like he's writing somebody a letter rather than keeping a personal Journal exactly
exactly it was some sort of in his mind connection um and communication with others even though it really wasn't and
that's interesting too that he was doing that and I was aware of the these Diaries I kind of pictured as being
something a little bit different but um but didn't do a whole lot of research into those particular Diaries so that's
interesting to hear and that to me in some ways reflects the typical behavior of a solitary man you know uh we we will
see that similar behavior from inmates where they're locked up for long periods of days so of the day so they will write
down and journal things that you and I would not you know what what I had for lunch what time lunch was what books I
was reading and so on and so forth It's all these little minute insignificant details of their day but it's a way to
pass the time and to record the time in a way and but he's doing it in a way that that it would be almost that he's
presenting it to an audience or that he he's he's communicating with someone and
I think that goes back to what I was thinking and what you're hitting on there that I do think in a way as as
alone as he seemed to want to be on the surface again I I do think he was starved for real relationships I don't
know that he had the ability to to have them or to have any type of lasting meaningful relationship it's almost like
a his personality was his own prison while writing the book I did I connected with David kazinski his brother of
course and I mean that was that was one perspective that I found obvious for obvious reasons very interesting and he
you know kind of said the same thing especially with the with the isolation that Ted chose he was really just stuck
in the Echo chamber of his own mind and um you know who knows if that continued isolation um fueled him even
further with with his campaign did you meet his brother David before the rest of the world knew what Ted was up to no
I didn't so Ted and um his excuse me David and his parents had come out to Lincoln in the early 80s for a a few
visits um but we actually did not did not meet them and did not see them but um you know
Ted definitely destroyed that relationship and the last time that kazinsky came out was
the mid 80s and after that you know Ted decided that he didn't want anything to do with his family so we did not we did
not know them and there were very strange encounters as a child with with Ted and many times he would come to our
home and knock on the door and ask what time it was what day it was and so I would tell him and his reason
for many of those um encounters would be because he needed to go pick up his brother from town and it was it was
really interesting because when I was writing the book and talking with David I had told him about that and he
was like oh that that's definitely very strange because the last time I came to visit you know was the mid 80s and this
was definitely happening past that into the 90s and so that always made me really wonder too and something that I
wrote about as well is if he still in in part of his mind had the desire to see his brother because it was such a
strange thing to say or again if it was just a cover because he needed to know what time it was TR because he was
potentially catching the bus um to go plant a bomb so yeah very very strange things from my childhood once we you
know as an adult can really look back and uncover what was truly going on yeah that's interesting it's it's either a a
cover or like you said he still had the desire to to be close to his brother who
we know he was close with at one point in his life and we know that David helped him build build the Shack or
whatever we want to call it that Ted was living in that's interesting about kind
of having a cover for catching the bus to to plant these bombs but we do know that Ted was riding his bike into town
on occasion to for the Post Office you know like where where I live and where most people live there's there's a a
wonderful lady or man that drives around in a little truck and hands out the the
mail and puts it in the mailboxes and such but in these smaller communities we you have to go to the Post Office not
just to send something out but to retrieve your own mail and so Ted would go to he would ride into town on his
bicycle to pick up mail drop off mail and uh I believe he was visiting a a small a very small library that was in
town yeah so Ted would go in and out of the town of Lincoln um and he actually did have a mailbox on on the road
outside of his home with with his name on it but he also you're right he did also have a PO box and in reading some
of the letters the correspondence between him and his parents his mom specifically um there were some times
where Wanda kazinski his mother had sent dried fruit or you know some sort of Provisions in a package to him and the
box was too large to fit into his mail box and so they held it at the PO at the post
office and Ted would have to go down there ride his bike or walk down and it enraged him I mean reading reading the
scathing words was really actually pretty difficult um to see what he would write to his own mother but I mean
looking back now you can see I mean obviously it's the unibomber so there's you know there's a little Little Mix of
whatever's going on there with some potential mental illness and um the isolation so it's easy to see where the
words are coming from but anyway he would have to walk or ride his bike into town and go to the post office but he
would also take time to go into the Lincoln Library he would sometimes go into um the grocery store or Garland's
Town and Country as it was called back then which was like a general store um and at at those locations he did have
people that he would sit and talk to he had found you know just a few people in town that he was
comfortable conversing with but it was very very few as much as he refused to believe that he was crazy
and you're calling him the mad man and I actually believe that he was very deep in psychosis by the time that he was
apprehended it's difficult to I think it probably started rather young maybe in his teens or early 20s and I think it it
becomes a slippery slope that you just keep falling down a little bit more and I know understand that every case is
different but I'm looking at Ted specifically and I just wonder with the uh you know oh I have to pick up my
brother if it was more of could have been his his mental illness kicking in of you know retrieving mail or or hoping
to retrieve something from his brother in town talk about some of his you know you said he' come over and play cards I
would imagine it's difficult playing cards against someone with a genius level IQ um talk about some of your
interactions with him at the house what do you remember in your young childhood sharing a meal with the unibomber I
would imagine as a as a young girl you're probably sitting there watching dad and Ted talk about you know all
sorts of things so when Ted kazinski was coming to our home for meals still I was a baby
so I don't remember those um visits but in writing the book I got to sit down with my mom and um you know she was able
to really detail what that looked like and what that felt like which was very compelling because
you know in those early years as you were saying you know through the years he was probably deep into his psychosis
when he was coming by and asking the time and such but when he first came to Lincoln he made it very clear in in
these journals that his motivation for choosing this lifestyle was Revenge even in 1971 so
that was still very present but he still had the the appearance of the Berkeley Professor a bit he
didn't you know he didn't quite look like the man that was pulled from his cabin in 1996 completely disheveled with
his clothes rotting off and you know stood on his face so in the early years when Ted would come over it was he was
always a bit strange and I you know the my first memory of him I don't when I really truly look at them I wasn't
scared I wasn't there was there was no fear present when he was at the house or um you know when he came over to help my
dad and things like that but definitely as the years went on those visits became
much more alarming and did your parents try to keep him at a distance at some point yes they did in you know my so my
mom and my father did get divorced in the80s and my dad remarried um and my stepmother was not
didn't have quite the relationship with Ted as my mom did and so there was definitely a change in that Dynamic when
Ted would come over it just wasn't quite the same he wasn't coming over for dinner at that point
he was you know there I talk about in the book there was a day where he actually worked on my dad's
Sawmill and my my stepmother Wendy was his boss and it made for um a pretty difficult day of of labor for for all of
them the dynamic definitely changed in our you know in our family over the years um and you know Ted wasn't Ted
wasn't quite as friendly with my parents and there were plenty of disagreements between my father and Ted especially in
the 90s as you know as as Ted's reign of terar continued and of course as as his
mental illness probably deepened so we talk about disagreements with your father in Ted but there was some strange
things going on that at the time probably seemed very strange and maybe random but then later knowing who Ted
actually is you have to have your suspicions that maybe Ted was involved or or the the the sole uh perpetrator of
some of these items so let's let's talk about two strange events in particular would be there was some kind of sabotage
at your your father's Sawmill which I I believe that was covered in one of the maybe the Netflix special and then
your this is incredibly terrible but your your the family dog your family dog uh was poison at some point yeah so
there were plenty of um acts of sabotage in the Lincoln area that I uncovered while writing this book and of course I
can't say for sure that Ted was responsible for all of them but there were a few definitely that um he
admitted to and one of those yes was the sabotage of my father's Sawmill it was sanded which just means that you know
somebody had put sand into the gas tank and um we didn't know at the time who that was my dad initially had he did
have some suspicion that it may be Ted and had confided in one of our neighbors like oh I just I don't he said I don't
trust him I don't know why and the neighbor Chris you know was like oh Ted couldn't do that think about
it like he's just an eccentric hermit my dad finally kind of accepted that and moved on I will be honest when yes when
he was arrested of course we were like oh you know that was most likely Ted but I didn't know that it was absolutely
100% Ted kazinski until participating in the Netflix document Tre and hearing the
interview that's on that Dock and Ted is is bragging about it and admitting to it
and saying you know that he I think he calls my dad an [ __ ] and says something like I have this neighbor
Butch Garing who's an [ __ ] or something like that and uh you know my my goal was to put him out of business
and so hearing that and hearing what you know what he did could finally you know
provide some like concrete closure and you know um my dad has passed away and I I really wish that he was able to hear
that because it would have have really you know confirmed a lot of a lot of his thoughts through the years I mean
obviously the arrest was a big wakeup call for everybody and um had solved some some mysteries for sure but that
specifically wasn't uncovered until the documentary aired so yeah that was one and then there was another pretty
horrific event I mean when um when I was writing this book I had interviewed other neighbors and was hearing all of
these horrific stories of other pets in the area being poisoned and pets being stabbed and horrible deaths and such our
dog had been our dog Wy had been poisoned and had a pretty slow death but at the time the veterinarian had
confirmed that it was strick nine that the dog had ingested and as horrible as that was um
you know and there I definitely had um some I guess concerns that it was Ted kazinski you know there was strick nine
F found at his home when um the FBI searched the cabin it wasn't again until I was writing this that I found a letter
that Ted admits to killing a dog a neighbor's dog that was sneaking into his garden at night I
think that was I mean it was a difficult moment for me for sure because I know this sounds really odd
but knowing a a killer as a child is I mean to put it lightly a a very strange experience and a hard thing
to reconcile as an adult because I I do have these softer memories of him and I saw him through this different l and I
trusted him as a little kid and finding these things out and knowing seeing the concrete evidence of really what he was
capable of and really what danger we were in living so close to him um was was just a really hard part
of this whole [Music] process [Music] this show is sponsored by better help do you look forward to the holidays maybe
you struggle with seasonal Blues this time of year can be a lot and it's natural to feel some sadness or even
anxiety about it but adding something new and positive to your life can counteract some of those feelings
therapy can be a bright spot something to look forward to to make you feel grounded and to give you the tools to
manage everything going on if you're thinking of starting therapy give better help a try it's entirely online designed
to be convenient flexible and suited to your schedule just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a
licensed therapist and switch therapist at any time for no additional charge find your bright spot this season with
betterhelp visit betterhelp.com garage today to get 10% off your first month that's better help HP ./
garage Rosetta Stone is the language learning program with a lasting impact I've been using their rap to learn
French and it's not just about memorizing words but actually having real conversations and it's not just
French they offer 25 languages right now Rosetta Stone has an awesome holiday deal 50% off their lifetime membership
every language unlimited access forever for anyone keen on diving deep into a new language check out rosettastone.com
it's a game changer when it comes to teaching kids and teens about money practice makes
perfect that's where green light comes in with a debit card and money app of their own kids learn to earn save spend
wisely and invest parents send instant money transfers create custom chores and automate allowance while kids track
their spending set savings goals and practice money skills they can use today and for Life get one month free when you
sign up at greenlight.com slmp podcast Angie's List is now Angie and we've heard a lot of theories about why I
thought it was an Eco move for your worse less paper no it was so you could say it faster no it's to be more iconic
must be a tech thing but those aren't quite right it's because now you can compare upfront prices book a service
instantly and even get your project handled from start to finish sounds easy it is and it makes us so much more than
just a list get started at angie.com that's ngi or download the app [Music] today all right let's get back to Nick's
interview with Jamie the author of madman in the woods talking about unibomber Ted kazinski yeah I can hear
the the inner struggle that you have there and it's something that I can't you know nobody can take away from you
or or nobody can relieve you of that but it's something I really wish that it's one of those situations where that's
what separates you from Ted That's What Separates Me and You and a whole bunch of other people from somebody like Ted
where you have enough compassion in your heart and empathy that for somebody that
you can look back on somebody as terrible as this man is and as horrible his as his deeds were and as evil as he
was that you can still you still look back and go he wasn't always bad or there was
some good in him or or there was something that you saw that wasn't Pure Evil and he he would never feel that way
for any of us right and so it's it's hard to really kind of wrap your head around that but when we talk about the
destruction to your father saw and the a dog being poisoned maybe he poisoned other dogs as
well you know Ted was so his makeup especially the older he got to me was just somebody that was so
incredibly jealous spiteful and hellbent on Revenge I think it rings true when we
hear him say years later oh this man that I live next to he was an [ __ ] and I and I happily uh put sand in in
The Sawmill and and and tried to take down his operation because that's who he is he's hell been on Revenge and he he
personally feels oh I bested that man I won in the in the end I won even though I didn't play fair even though I played
dirty and oh by the way we were in some weird competition that this other guy was even unaware of and I was jealous of
him for reasons that he would never even know or understand but oh in the end it
doesn't matter because I won I bested him that's really to me what a lot of his destruction and chaos and death that
he caused was all about and and so many people and this we talk about difficult to wrap your head around so many people
you see them on the Internet go oh if anybody would take the time to read his Manifesto you would realize how
brilliant and how smart and forward thinking this guy was and I read the manifesto and the whole time I'm sitting
there thinking yeah he sent bombs to people and and with total Rec regard for any human life we are lucky that he
would only killed the number that he killed the number could have been so much higher just just just based off a
circumstance that was out of Ted's control and so you sit there and you read his Manifesto and you go this guy
is a walking contradiction to everything that he put in these papers there's no Brilliance there nobody's arguing that
he has 167 IQ but I would argue what kind of real Brilliance and beliefs did this guy have other than the the core of
it all at the core of it all I see a a a weak man who has no self-respect and has shunned himself
from his family by his own choice but blames his family that he doesn't fit in with them just like he blamed your
family that he didn't fit in with you he's hellbent on jealousy and revenge and and spitefulness to that that led
him down this horrible dark destructive path now the other thing too though you you you mentioned that there were weird
meetings in the woods with Ted or or hearing strange noises at night yeah there was um multiple events when um I
was really small that I I was about five when it first started happening I was laying in my bed and my bedroom faced
kind of the mountain side and behind our home there were some old cars um and my dad had an old olds
mobile he was planning on fixing and his boat and various um pieces and parts for
The Sawmill and things like that and that was very close to my bedroom window and I would start hearing something
outside of my window and it wasn't it wasn't an animal I knew that much would hear like rustling I would hear metal
clinging against each other I would and I started to hear very light whistling I
would always sleep with my bedroom window open because even as a little kid I really loved the the wind and the
smell of the Pines I started waking up to this these noises outside and I was terrified and I would run into my dad's
bedroom and yell you know there's a monster outside and my dad of course would be like oh no it's just your
overactive imagination climb into bed and I was like no dad there's really somebody out there and I think he did
appease me a few times and would like walk over to my room and be like no nobody's here you know and come back in
as you do with little kids but you know as Ted writes in his journals he was foraging for scraps and and pieces to
put in his bombs and and much of the reason he was untraceable for so long because he wasn't buying supplies
anywhere that could be traced for his bombs he was finding the majority of the metal and of course wood that he was
using around his home knowing that now as an adult and knowing that I was hearing really I was really hearing a
monster outside my window was um I I think it was just a real Moment of clarity for me and finally as an
adult I I could kind of put that to rest and and too like know that I was I was right and I knew something was a Miss I
but you know I was just a kid so that you know although a a scary experience um you know was it was really kind of I
suppose empowering for me as an adult to write about it and know that that I that
I had the intuition um to know that something was wrong so yeah that was that was one experience and then there
was another one as I was much older it was actually just the year prior to Ted's arrest that I I was taking a walk
through our Woods which I did all the time and um you know I I was rounding a corner
almost collided with Ted and here we are both alone in the woods together and he
is much more at this point like the man that you saw being uh pulled out of his cabin in 1996 you know he's describe him
a little bit for us yeah so he's completely disheveled he's got you know holes in his clothing he's got soot I he
always had soot on his face dirt under his fingernails but at this point his his eyes were really
bulging he um just seemed like almost you know agitated and frantic his just demeanor was completely
different from kind of the shy reserved eccentric hermit that I initially had known as a little kid um and so just his
appearance was much more frightening you know there was gray in his beard his hair was sticking up all over the place
and you know the of course at this point I understood a bit more about the world
around me than I did when I was four and so being alone in the woods with him was
frightening on its own but also there was just something about him that really scared me at that point and you know
it's just one of those those moments where the hair on the back of your neck is sticking up and you know you're
scared for for a reason um it's intuition and so you know we both said hello as best as possible turned around
he went back his way I went back to my house and the entire time I was running back to the home as soon as I knew that
he couldn't see me anymore or thought he couldn't see me and was looking over my
shoulder to make sure he wasn't behind me um so that was one of those other you know really frightening experiences as
an adult looking back on that and thinking how differently that could have gone I mean he was he was killing he was
maming he was you know he had been um a domestic terrorist for for almost two decades at
that point you talk about being scared you're meeting him in the woods and now forgive me for a little bit uh I'm might
use a little language that that we don't want but uh you know one of his journals
one thing that struck me when researching Ted and his crimes and his life and his lifestyle a little bit was
in one of his journals and I don't know if this was made up for the media or if this is
real and you may know but it was referenced that he at one point was sitting in the woods with his rifle
considering shooting the neighbor's daughter I think he even says something extremely vulgar like I I thought about
killing the [ __ ] or or shooting the little [ __ ] was he talking about you and is that true do do we know if that's
true so you're right about that and um I do talk about that in my men in the woods it was one of the more difficult
things for me to write about and the the way it happened is that yes Ted was in the woods with his rifle and um
in that 10 by 12 cabin on in Lincoln Montana he did have rifles he had a pistol that he had made
him self and as you as you know when he was arrested he also had a bomb that was
packaged and ready to be sent so there were plenty of terrifying things within that cabin and within those woods and on
one particular day Ted was out um in our again our shared backyard with his rifle and since our land surrounded his
my stepmother and my little sister who was only two at the time was they were out doing some chores and kind of
reeding the ground and my stepmother just felt something she felt something ominous she she felt a presence and you
know you're in the in the middle of the woods and you think you're in Montana it's maybe a mountain lion there's a
predator of some sort so she grabbed her daughter got her in the truck and they left well she didn't think about this um
again until after Ted's arrest and in those journals which my my especially my father was very involved in the
investigation but they were able to read some of those and my stepmother rememberers reading that Ted had a rifle
pointed on her and yes he was kind of vacillating between my stepmother and my little sister who's a
toddler really contemplating killing them and yes you're right while he's looking through
the scope and thinking about you know killing close range he's in his journals later talking about if he killed the you
know [ __ ] one then [ __ ] two would be left on the mountain side I mean just the way that he talks about it is
horrific and for obvious reasons that was really really difficult to to write about of course of course and and I mean
it doesn't get any scarier than that now your father we have him playing a role in taking
down Ted we have FBI Max null says that your father was the eyes and ears of a portion of their investigation can you
tell us about your father's role and and maybe anything you witnessed or or learned about after the fact yes this
the uniom case um was you know very sensitive for for many reasons but because of Ted's
isolation and because of the environment he lived in he's surrounded by trees he's surrounded by mountains and trees
and and hardly anybody lives out there he knew he being Max null knew that he was going to need some help and my
father ended up being that person and of course the the FBI had to First determine if they could trust my father
and that didn't take that didn't take very long it just took a conversation my dad ended up yes being kind of the eyes
and ears because any other person around the cabin would have raised suspicion during that
time when Max null was planning the investigation and you know really trying to figure out how they were going to
arrest this man it was you know they were looking back on Ruby Ridge and Waco and they didn't want they didn't want
any casualties they didn't want you know Ted to be killed and they didn't want OB
obviously the FBI to be harmed and so they had to be really strategic and um my father was as you
said the eyes and ears he would report back to Max you know if there was smoke coming out of the gyy or if um there
were footsteps coming out of the cabin things like that in the beginning uh and then um as the investigation continued
the FBI was having a really difficult time getting images um even aerial images and so um you know my dad
actually went and walked the grounds walked around Ted's cabin with his handheld video camera and taped the
terrain for the f FBI in preparation of the arrest so they knew exactly what it looked like so that that was definitely
as even my dad would admit uh a very scary part of the investigation because my dad knew at that point they had
shared with him you know they they they slowly um kind of told him what they were suspecting Ted of but initially it
was they were just looking into Ted kazinski for writing some threatening letters and then it did come out that in
fact they thought he was the unibomber so my dad knew at that point when he was walking around Ted's cabin with this and
you think about in the 9s what a handheld video camera looked like it wasn't like your small little iPhone and
so he's walking around this serial Killer's home in the middle of the woods where he and he knows that he has rifles
he hunts he doesn't know all of the contents of his cabin but he was terrified and but he knew that he had no
other choice and um he couldn't see one more person hurt so he did it yeah and Jamie I want to thank you so much for
talking with us about your wonderful book your fascinating book madman in the woods the uh life next door to the
unibomber I there's really dozens of things that we could go into that you do go into in your book and it's a
fascinating read so I want to congratulate you on that one thing I want to leave a little bit of a
cliffhanger for everybody out there in listener land is um I'm sure everybody will be dying to know what happened when
you wrote to Ted in prison H after his arrest but we won't give that answer here today instead why don't we tell
everybody where they can find this incredible book yeah well thank you for the kind words on the book I really do
appreciate that my book can be found basically anywhere you buy your books any brick and mortar that you like to
shop at but also of course online Amazon um Barnes & Noble and then of course my
website as well Jamie gar.com wonderful thank you again for joining us and congratulations on the book and I hope
to come back and talk to us again sometime thank you so much [Music] [Music] old Ted kazinski madman in the woods
fascinating stuff Colonel do we have any recommended reading for the beautiful listeners of course we do here captain
we're going to be recommending madman in the woods life next door to the unibomber by Our Guest Jamie as a child
in Lincoln Montana growing up her family shared their land their home and their dinner table with a Hermit with a
penchant for murder and that of course was Ted kazinski the unibomber check out her book her fantastically intriguing
book madman in the woods life next door to the unibomber you can find that great
title and many more on our recommended page at true Crim garage.com join us back here in the garage next week and
until then be good be kind and don't [Music] litter [Music] when it comes to teaching kids and teens
about money practice makes perfect that's where green light comes in with a debit card and money app of their own
kids learn to earn save spend wisely and invest parents send instant money transfers create custom chores and
automate allowance while kids track their spending set savings goals and practice money skills they can use today
and for Life get one month free when you sign up at greenlight.com slmp podcast

Madman in the Woods ////// 597

Part 1 of 1

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com (http://www.truecrimegarage.com/)

Unfortunately serial killers and terrorists are in a lot of ways similar to the rest of us but of course with drastic differences. But one of the ways that they are like the rest of us they have family, friends and neighbors. This week we are joined in the Garage by someone who knows this much better than any of us. Jamie Gehring grew up a friendly neighbor to both a serial killer and terrorist. Ted Kaczynski better known as the Unabomber eluded capture and terrorized us for 17 years while the FBI tried desperately to track him down. Meanwhile he was making and sending bombs from a small shack in Lincoln, Montana. Join us for a cold beer and some intriguing conversation with someone who grew up right next door to hell.

Beer of the Week - 7 Years by Breton Brewing Company

Garage Grade - 4 out of 5 bottle caps

This week’s recommended reading is Madman in the Woods by Jamie Gehring

Join in the conversation on our blog at www.truecrimegarage.com (http://www.truecrimegarage.com/)

Our show - True Crime Garage “Off the Record” is available only on Stitcher Premium. For a FREE month of listening go to http://stitcherpremium.com/truecrimegarage and use promo code GARAGE

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com (https://pcm.adswizz.com) for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Brief Summary

Jamie Gar discusses her childhood next to Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and the impact on her life in rural Montana.

Key points

Growing Up Next to Evil. Jamie shares her chilling experience of living next to Ted Kazinski, the Unabomber.
A Tight-Knit Community. Jamie describes the rural Montana community and her family's connection to Ted.
The Unabomber's Strange Visits. Jamie recalls her family's interactions with Ted Kazinski during her childhood.
The Family Dog's Tragic Fate. The author reveals the poisoning of their family dog, linking it to Ted Kazinski's actions.
A Frightening Encounter in the Woods. The author recounts a chilling moment of nearly colliding with Ted in the woods.
The Role of the Author's Father. The author's father played a crucial role in the investigation against Ted Kazinski.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It's quite the interesting life that you had.

Nick's introduction to Jamie's story.

4:26WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

More from True Crime Garage TV

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.