Suspect Was Near Mail Drop Kaczynski In Sacramento When Bombs Sent

Federal law enforcement officials said Sunday that agents on the trail of the Unabomber have uncovered hotel records that place Theodore John Kaczynski in Sacramento, Calif., on the same days that some of the Unabomber’s package bombs were mailed from that city.

The officials said the hotel records provide the first supportive if slender evidence linking Kaczynski, the reclusive former mathematics professor arrested in Montana last week, to any of the 16 explosions in the Unabomber’s almost 18-year string of attacks. Investigators already have begun building what one law enforcement official described as an “overwhelming” circumstantial case against Kaczynski based on materials seized at his Montana cabin.

That evidence includes an aging manual typewriter on which he is believed to have written the 35,000-word anti-technology manifesto published last year.

It also includes components of package bombs identical in design and construction to the Unabomber’s finely crafted explosive devices. Kaczynski was charged last week with illegal possession of explosive materials.

Officials would not say exactly when Kaczynski had visited Sacramento or where he had stayed. But Unabomber investigators said the hotel records tie him to dates they had established before Kaczynski became their prime suspect.

They determined when the bomber had been in Sacramento through postmarks on fragments of the bomb packages and on the envelopes of writings to news organizations.

Several bombs were mailed from Sacramento.

Authorities theorize that Kaczynski, if he is the bomber, traveled on buses, carrying his finished bombs with him and staying at low-cost, out-of-the-way lodgings to avoid detection. They further speculate that once in the city he chose for sending the devices, he carefully installed the batteries needed to trigger the bombs and sealed the packages, then mailed them.

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This sidebar appeared with the story: WHAT’S NEXT Tony Bisceglie, the lawyer who helped Kaczynski’s family contact the FBI, will hold a news conference at 10 a.m. today in Washington, D.C. U.S. attorneys from California, New Jersey, Montana and Utah are scheduled to meet today in Washington, D.C., to discuss where to hold the Unabomber trial.