Research often spawns more research. While writing one of my AtoZ2021 posts, Notorious Prisoners - Orphan and Prodigy, which I initially titled Alcatraz Prisoners, I mentioned the Unabomber. Curious about any updates on the captured prisoner, I then learned that he is housed in Colorado at Alcatraz East where they have a museum containing a display of items about the now 75-year-old Ted Kaczynski. (More questions led me to even more research: according to Wikipedia, his original hand-written 35k word manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future, was auctioned off along with typed copies and the typewriters to raise money for his victims.)
Among the items on display in the exhibit at the Alcatraz East Crime Museum that focuses on the Unabomber are his passport photos. Also included in the display is a postal scale that the Unabomber used to determine postage for mailing his packages. The scale was discovered in his Montana cabin along with a finished bomb ready to be mailed. The arrest of the Unabomber was made without incident when a forest service agent and FBI agents approached his cabin and stated they were doing a property survey and might need to cut down a tree.
Also on display at the museum is a wanted poster for Belle Starr, reward: $750.00. An American outlaw, Myra Maybelle Shirley Reed Starr associated with the James-Younger Gang and other outlaws. Convicted of horse theft in 1883, she was fatally shot in 1889. The case was never officially solved.
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| 1933 Hudson Essex Terraplane 8 (thomasironworks.com) |
I was in college when he was first captured. It was all over the news.
ReplyDeleteA day of relief when that occurred, Jamie.
DeleteFascinating - I agree, it's easy to disappear down that wormhole into a land of never-ending research. As interesting as it is, it doesn't get you closer to finishing the writing after a while!
ReplyDeletehttps://iainkellywriting.com/2021/04/24/the-state-trilogy-a-z-guide-u/
So true, Iain. Even for this article, one topic kept attracting me to another until I was reading about horse thieves and bank robbers.
DeleteSo strange to build a unabomber museum at a prison. Even stranger to think the unabomber is now 75 years old!
ReplyDeleteNeat car.
My “U” song for the day:
http://tao-talk.com/2021/04/24/a2z-2021-jethro-tull-songs-day-21-up-to-me-from-aqualung/
Not sure who's idea it was to add the museum, Jade. Sounds like it gets lots of traffic, though.
DeleteAh, the research rabbit hole...
ReplyDeleteBut so much fun, Wendy. That's what makes it double-trouble.
DeleteI've never hear of a museum dedicated to someone who is still alive.
ReplyDeleteI did visit the Mob Museum when I went to Las Vegas. It was interesting although strange at the same time.
Weekends In Maine
Hopefully, this museum isn't actually dedicated to him, only a place to display some of his "stuff". That's about the extent of attention he should receive. Never say the Mob Museum in Vegas, does it include stage performers who also had their fingers in the shadier side of entertainment?
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