HE was a notorious serial killer who mailed and planted homemade bombs in a bid to spread anarchy.
Yet the terrifying “Unabomber” Theodore Kaczynski was a popular pen pal, inspiring reams of correspondence from adoring male and female fans as he languished in a jail cell.
Some letter-writers shared their secrets, others helped the former Berkeley maths professor order books, and several confessed sexual desires for the murderer.
But one letter led to the most unlikely love story.
Joy Richards was living in Montana when she read Kaczynski’s manifesto, which asserted that his bombings were vital to highlight the erosion of human freedom caused by modern technology.
She thought it was wonderful. As the pair became close confidants, “Ted” cut off his most amorous female admirers to pursue a romance with his “lady love”.
His letters from a University of Michigan archive, published by Yahoo News, provide an insight into Kaczynski’s life behind bars.
He talks about his support for Hillary Clinton, his shock over 9/11 and curiosity over al-Qaeda and his unfamiliarity with YouTube and the latest advances on the internet.
When another penpal asks to be his “second lady love”, he replies: “I’ve put that question to Lady Love #1, and she says ‘no’”.
Later he told the penpal he had to cut off contact, because she kept addressing him as “sweetheart”. He faithfully copied out all his other correspondence by hand to share with Joy.
He talks about wanting to marry Joy, calling her “perfect” and “an angel”. But matters weren’t so simple for the object of his affection. Horrified friends and family shunned her after they discovered her terrible secret passion for a killer.
The lovebirds began communicating after Kaczynski’s arrest in 1996, and first met in late 1999, when she visited him under the guise of being a journalist. Only his legal team and people he already knew were allowed to see him. Joy was eventually added to his approved visitors list, but they were always separated, unable to touch or kiss.
In 2004, tragedy struck their strange fairytale. Joy was diagnosed with cancer at just 50 years old. Kaczynski was distraught.
“If she dies, it will break my heart because I love this woman,” he wrote to another correspondent.
Joy had to stop working as a teacher and moved in with friends. She became increasingly religious, something the atheist Kaczynski ponders at length in a letter to a doctor in 2006.
Her letters trailed off. It was agony for the convicted killer, helpless in his Colorado prison. Doctors told Joy she had months to live, although Kaczynski noted she seemed resigned to her death when doctors told her she had months to live.
In one of his final letters to Joy, he says he has Christmas presents for her but doesn’t know where to send them.
“I love this woman truly, even though her love for me has cooled,” he wrote to a friend.
In her final days, Joy was reconciled with her family, although they did not help with her funeral arrangements. Friends said she had rejected his killings, but still loved him.
On the day of her death, Kaczynski made his final gesture of love, as usual, through his words.
He sent a male penpal to visit his true love. The musician friend put headphones on Joy and played a piece of music Kaczynski had written for Joy and the man had performed on his synthesiser.
Joy’s brother let Kaczynski know of her death through a letter a week after her death, saying he had told her the prisoner had been writing. The serial killer thanked him. “I wouldn’t have wanted her to die thinking I had let her down.”
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