On 5 May 1982, Judy Smith got a package postmarked from Provo, Utah, and bearing seven US$1 Eugene O'Neill stamps. The package was addressed to Smith's boss, Vanderbilt University computer-science professor Patrick Fischer.
Smith opened the package. It exploded, severely injuring her upper body and face. Fifteen years later, Fischer's questions about the episode haven't gone away.
On Wednesday, jury selection will begin for the trial of Theodore Kaczynski, the man suspected of targeting Fischer and maiming Smith. Although Kaczynski is uncharged in the Fischer-Smith attack, Fischer, for one, hopes the trial will go far beyond shedding light on the former mathematician's guilt or innocence.
"I'd like to know why I was selected as a victim or target," Fischer said in an interview last week. "Somehow I got in a high-risk pool, but I don't know how it happened."
As the trial unfolds, it may for the first time publicly answer how and why the Unabomber selected victims, beginning with his first attack on 25 May 1978.
On that day, a passerby found a package on the campus of the University of Illinois Chicago Circle campus. The package bore a return address for a Northwestern University faculty member, Buckley Crist. When the package was returned to Crist, he turned it over to a security guard. The guard opened the package and it exploded, causing minor injuries.
Fifteen more Unabom attacks followed:
9 May 1979, a graduate student at Northwestern found a cigar box on a table. When he opened the box, it exploded. The student suffered cuts and burns.
15 November 1979, a bomb caused a fire to break out on a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Washington, DC. The pilot declared an emergency and diverted the flight without injury.
10 June 1980, Percy Wood, then president of United Airlines, was severely injured when he opened a mail bomb. The package featured the words "book rate," and a week before, Wood had received a letter telling him he would receive a complimentary copy of the book Ice Brothers."
On 8 October 1980, a student at the University of Utah found a large package in a campus building. He called police, and a bomb squad "disrupted" the package in a restroom.
On 5 May 1982, Janet Smith opened the bomb sent to Patrick Fischer in Nashville, Tennessee.
2 July 1982, Diogenes Angelakos, director of the Electronics Research Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, found a device in a classroom that looked like construction testing equipment. When he lifted it by the handle, it exploded. He suffered serious injuries.
15 May 1985, Berkeley graduate student John Hauser found a black ring binder on a file box. When he lifted the binder, the box's contents exploded, blowing off four fingers on his right hand and seriously damaging his right arm.
16 May 1985, employees at Boeing Aircraft in Auburn, Washington, received a package postmarked from Oakland, California. Suspecting it was a bomb, they turned it over to police, who disarmed it.
15 November 1985, James McConnell, a professor at the University of Michigan, received a package postmarked from Salt Lake City. An enveloped attached to the package explained it was a doctoral dissertation from a "Ralph C. Kloppenburg." When McConnell opened the package, it exploded. Both McConnell and teaching assistant Nick Suino were injured.
11 December 1985, Sacramento computer-store owner Hugh Scrutton discovered what appeared to be a piece of wood with protruding nails outside his business. When he picked it up, it exploded, killing him. This is one of the attacks for which Kaczynski is charged.
20 February 1987, Gary Wright was driving outside his family-owned computer store in Salt Lake City when he noticed a piece of wood with protruding nails. When he lifted it, it exploded, hurling him several feet backward and causing moderate injuries.
22 June 1993, University of California, San Francisco, geneticist Charles Epstein opened a padded envelope that arrived at his home in Tiburon, California. It exploded, blowing off several fingers and inflicting fractures, shrapnel wounds, and permanent nerve damage. Kaczynski is formally charged with this bombing.
24 June 1993, David Gelernter, professor of computer science at Yale, opened a padded package that had arrived at his office. When it exploded, Gelernter lost several fingers, sustained multiple fractures, and suffered partial loss of sight in one eye. Kaczynski is formally charged with this bombing.
10 December 1994, Thomas Mosser, an advertising executive in New Jersey, opened a package at his home. It exploded and killed him. Kaczynski faces charges in New Jersey for this attack.
24 April 1995, a package arrived at the California Forestry Association in Sacramento, addressed to its former president, William Dennison. The new president, Gilbert Murray, opened the package, It exploded, killing him. Kaczynski is charged in Sacramento with his death.
