Unabomber victims to split $232K from auction

SACRAMENTO, California - A federal judge in Sacramento has approved the payment of $232,000 to the victims and survivors of Theodore Kaczynski, a sum raised through a court-ordered auction of the Unabomber's tools and other possessions.

The Sacramento Bee reported Monday that U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell last week ordered the funds dispersed among two widows of men killed by Kaczynski, the wife of a man severely injured and an injured computer store worker.

The U.S. Marshals Service and the General Services Administration conducted the online auction of Kaczynski's typewriter, sweat shirt and other belongings in June. In all, 58 items were auctioned.

Kaczynski's personal journals fetched $40,676; the iconic hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses depicted in police sketch artist renderings brought in $20,025, and his handwritten "manifesto" -- a 35,000-word screed against modern technologies seeking to justify his crimes -- sold for $20,053. Other items included $22,003 for the Smith Corona typewriter seized from the cabin and $17,780 for his autobiography.

Measuring instruments and hand tools sold for $2,603, a hatchet and small handheld knives sold for $1,662, and a long black knife brought in $3,060. On the auction website, those items all carried an explanatory note saying that Kaczynski's construction of Unabom explosive devices was all done by hand without assistance of power tools and using where possible wood and metal scraps obtained from trash.

Most of the money went to the widow of New Jersey advertising executive Thomas Mosser.

Kaczynski pleaded guilty in 1994 to killing three people and injuring 23 with a bomb-planting spree that spanned nearly two decades.

He is serving a life sentence in Colorado.