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		How mad was Ted Kaczynski? The unabomber was not like most other serial killers. But the demons that drove him were every bit as lethal. BY ROS DAVIDSON | One reason why it may take as long as a month to select a jury in the trial of Unabomber suspect Ted Kaczynski is that the jurors all have to be "death penalty qualified" -- willing to impose the death penalty if Kaczynski is found guilty. Kaczynski, 55, faces federal charges relating to four of the 16 Unabomber attacks which occurred from 1979 to 1995. The former maths professor has pleaded not guilty on all counts, but in light of the evidence against him, speculation has turned less on his guilt or innocence than on why he did it, and whether he will ultimately plead insanity. But is the Unabomber any more or less insane than other serial killers of the recent past? What makes his actions and motivations different from others? Salon spoke with Jack Levin, director of the Program for the Study of Violence and Conflict at Northeastern University in Boston, and coauthor of more than a dozen books, including "Overkill: Mass Murder and Serial Killing Exposed" (1994, Insight Books) and most recently "Killer on Campus" (1996, Avon). The Unabomber killed three people and clearly had hoped to kill many more in his 17-year bombing campaign. Do you see him differently than other serial murderers you have studied? Yes. Most serial killers are sexual sadists. They kill for the fun and the pleasure, and they do it through intimate physical contact. Typically, they don't distance themselves from their victims, like the Unabomber did, because their greatest pleasure is to literally squeeze the last gasp from their dying victim's body. Like Ted Bundy? Ted Bundy, Kenneth Bianci the Hillside Strangler, John Wayne Gacy, who killed 33 boys and men in Illinois ... ... Jack the Ripper? Jack the Ripper also used intimate physical contact. These killers typically slash and sodomize, dismember, strangle, and they do it because it makes them feel so good. It gives them a feeling of superiority that they don't seem to be able to get by behaving themselves. But the Unabomber was quite different in that he distanced himself, in some cases by thousands of miles, from his victims. And he didn't know them. That's pretty typical of serial killers. They usually target absolute strangers. Very few know their victims at all well. They don't kill their relatives. Typically they have a small circle of relatives and friends who they don't harm. Somehow they have this incredible ability to dehumanize strangers so they can do anything they want to them with moral impunity. Is there a serial murderer who compares with the Unabomber? There have been other bombers, for example, George Metesky, the New York mad bomber of the 1940s and '50s. He was a middle-aged man who roamed the city blowing up people with bombs. Did he mail them? No, he planted them. So he also never saw his victims. He had these homemade bombs and he left letters with the newspapers after each incident. Did the have the semblance of a normal life? A job? Yes, and that's typical, too. Most serial murderers kill on a part-time basis. It's a hobby, not a career. Often they have a wife and a family; they play with their children, attend religious services and hold a full-time job. Then on Saturday night they go out to play the game of murder the way other guys go out and play cards. For Kaczynski, allegedly the Unabomber, it was full time. He took voluminous notes. That's true. Kaczynski was quite different in that respect. His whole life became devoted to his killing spree. I think his motivation was a lot more like that of a mass murderer than a serial killer. What's the difference? A mass murderer kills a large number of people simultaneously, like George Hennard, who killed 23 people at the Luby's cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, in October 1991. He took out an AK-47 and opened fire after ramming his pickup truck through the plate glass window. Or Colin Ferguson, the Long Island Railroad commuter killer. What distinguishes them, apart from the fact that they do it all at once? How do you see Ted Kaczynski as a mass murderer? Their motivation is revenge. Serial killers typically have fun; they are sexual sadists who want to feel superior to their victims. Mass murderers want to get even with all the people they feel are responsible for their problems and miseries. Kaczynski's writings suggest that he saw technology as responsible for preventing mankind from being truly free -- like he was getting revenge on anyone associated with technology for screwing things up. And I think that as a young man he was genuinely concerned about what we now call postmodern, high-tech society. It was a longtime concern that became a fatal preoccupation. N E X T+P A G E+| A social conscience turns into murderous rage