Unabomber's Items Will Be Auctioned to Compensate Victims

U.S. Marshals

Kaczynski's typewriter

How would you like to have one of Ted Kaczynski's personal documents? Wait, you wouldn't? Well, why not? Doesn't everyone want to own a treasured item from one of America's most "celebrated" killers? (If you answered any one of these questions with "no," you're still sane, don't fret.) The U.S. Marshals seem to think you do, and after a lengthy court battle it has been decided that the Unabomber's items will be auctioned online to compensate his victims.

Over 60 items will be auctioned off online in an attempt to, as U.S. Marshal Albert Nájer stated "... use the technology that Kaczynski railed against in his various manifestos to sell artifacts of his life. The proceeds will go to his victims and, in a very small way, offset some of the hardships they have suffered."

Kaczynski, if you will recall, was responsible for three deaths and 23 injuries.

From a U.S. Marshals press release issued earlier today:

The auction will run from May 18 to June 2. The online catalog, which will include approximately 60 lots of property, will be on the Web at www.gsaauctions.gov beginning May 18. Items to be sold include personal documents, such as driver's licenses, birth certificates, deeds, checks, academic transcripts, photos, and his handwritten codes; typewriters; tools; clothing; watches; several hundred books; and more than 20,000 pages of written documents, including the original handwritten and typewritten versions of the 'Unabom Manifesto.'

U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell approved the sale last August, claiming that the proceeds of the auction would be applied to the $15 million in restitution Kaczynski has been ordered to pay his victims. Items excluded from the sale include the materials Kaczynski used to make the bombs, yet the notorious "Unabom Manifesto" has been included.

Dr. Charles Epstein, a victim of the bombings, told CNN in 2009, "I regard him as the essence of evil." And as of May 18, you can take a piece of that evil home with you.

Photos of the items up for auction can be viewed here.

[atimm@villagevoice.com]