The 17-year mail-bomb trail that began with a package in Chicago

The package was found in May 1978 at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

It was the first in a series.

It was a bomb, though it was found before it detonated.

The case became known as the Unabomber case, a portmanteau of "university" and "airline bomber."

Over 17 years, the bombs killed three people and injured 23 others across the United States.

The attacks targeted universities, airlines, and technology-related businesses.

A theory circulating online — not a fact established by the record — frames the perpetrator as a misunderstood genius.

The documented record shows a campaign of mailed explosives.

The identity of the sender of the first package is not in the record.

Not because the investigation lacked leads.

Not because the package was unremarkable.

But because the record simply does not establish who mailed it that day.

So the trail begins with a package.

One package, found on a campus, in a city, in a year.

What it contained would not be fully understood for nearly two decades.

What it began would not end until three people were dead.

That is the weight of a single parcel.

Curiosity is the right response: how does one package ignite a 17-year manhunt?

It starts here, in Chicago, in May 1978.

The package was the first.

1978–1987: THE FIRST BOMBS

It starts here, in Chicago, in May 1978.

The package was found at the University of Illinois at Chicago. It was the first.

Over the next years, the bombs came in packages. They were mailed or hand-delivered.

They were built from wood, metal, and household materials. They looked ordinary. They were not.

The targets were specific: universities, airlines, and technology-related businesses. The case would take its name from those first two categories.

The attacks escalated. In 1985, a computer store owner was killed. He was the first fatality.

Not the last. But the first.

Then, between 1987 and 1993, the bombs stopped. A pause. A silence that lasted years.

The exact number of bombs in this period is not specified in the record. What is known is the pattern: the packages, the materials, the targets.

Each bomb was a message. Each package was a question no one could answer yet.

The investigators examined the wood. They examined the metal. They examined the household materials.

They found a signature, but not a name.

The pause was not an end. It was a breath.