As a man who turned in his own brother to the Federal Bureau of Investigations as one of the most feared serial killers of the 20th century, David Kaczynski is a man who knows a lot about the frailty of human life.

Kaczynski, whose brother of Ted Kaczynski was convicted of a string of mail bombings credited to “The Unabomber,” spoke to a group of about 30 people Monday in the Public Events room of Eggers Hall. The director of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty, he spent the majority of his time telling his brother’s story and advocating his vehement stance against capital punishment.

“I realized that if I did nothing and Ted killed again, I would not be able to live with myself,” Kaczynski said.

He described his realization that his troubled brother, who at that time had cut off all contact with his family, was one of the most infamous terrorists in American history. To suspect Ted Kaczynski, who previously told his brother that he was living on only $0.12 a day from inside his Montana shack, proved to be a difficult possibility for David Kaczynski to consider, he said.

“I thought he didn’t have it in him,” he said. “I thought that I knew the man.”

From the initial moment that his wife brought up the possibility to his first experience on the Internet reading the Washington Post’s publication of the Unabomber’s manifesto, David Kaczynski said that not even the agonizing realization that he had to go to the authorities to stop his brother could prepare himself for the problems they experienced after the FBI began actively investigating his reclusive sibling.

“I took a very unexpected trip with my family through the Department of Justice,” David Kaczynski said.

As the FBI’s investigation into Ted Kaczynski grew deeper, he said officials made him several promises, including the assurance that no one would ever know that it was he who led authorities to his brother, that Ted Kaczynski would not be arrested without at least 24 hours notification to him and that no one would interview his elderly mother, who had been in and out of the hospital, until he spoke with her first.

“How do I tell my mom that her estranged son was a serial killer and that her other son had talked to the FBI to turn him in, possibly for execution,” he said.

Although his mother proved to be completely understanding, David Kaczynski said that the FBI broke every promise that it made to him. He told of watching the live coverage of his brother’s arrest without prior warning and of listening as Tom Brokaw announced to the world that he was the one who turned his own brother in.

“This private family trauma had exploded into national news,” David Kaczynski said.

Amar Deol, a junior political science major, said that David Kaczynski did a great job of illustrating all points of the argument on the death penalty before showing his reasoning.

“It wasn’t really what I was expecting, but then again I don’t know what I was expecting,” Deol said.

He agreed with David Kaczynski on his assessment of the death penalty.

“This is not an overdue library book,” Deol said. “If you get it wrong, then it is a loss of human life.”

David Kaczynski said that thankfully his brother, whom he considers mentally ill, did not get the death penalty, although federal prosecutors did seek it. This outcome is not a regular occurrence, however, as there are many on death row now who are either mentally ill or outright innocent, and do not deserve to die. It is because of this, he added, that he has taken such a stance against a justice system that makes mistakes and therefore should not be absolutely trusted with human lives.

“Human systems are fallible,” David Kaczynski said. “People make mistakes. I don’t know how anyone can get past that.”

Published on April 22, 2002 at 12:00 pm