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Grand jury to hear serial bomber case in Montana

HELENA: Serial bombing suspect Theodore Kaczynski will remain in jail at least until April 17 after a decision to convene a grand jury to weigh evidence in his case, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office said on Friday.

Kaczynski, who made a brief court appearance on Thursday, is not yet charged with any of the notorious Unabomber crimes, which killed three people and wounded 23 over 17 years.

He was ordered held on charges of possessing bomb-making equipment after the FBI testified it found four partially completed bombs and bomb-making equipment in his remote cabin, where a search continued.

Besides the partially assembled bombs, the FBI found binders filled with bomb sketches and other notes, and all the trappings of a laboratory to concoct deadly explosives, including pipes, electric wires and chemicals, according to court documents.

Kaczynski, 53, who holds a degree from Harvard and a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Michigan, will be held in Lewis and Clark County jail at least until the grand jury begins meeting in Great Falls, Montana, said the spokeswoman, who asked not to be identified.

Michael Donahoe, Kaczynski's publicly appointed lawyer, waived his client's right to a preliminary hearing or bail hearing on charges that he possessed the material needed to build a bomb, the spokeswoman said.

The cabin is located near the tiny town of Lincoln, 60 miles (100 km) northwest of Helena, the state capital.

In Washington, a top Justice Department official said FBI agents are conducting tests to determine whether a manual typewriter found in the cabin matches one used by the Unabomber.

Investigators believe the Unabomber used the same manual typewriter for nearly all his writings, including a 35,000-word, anti-technology manifesto published last year by the Washington Post and New York Times.

During a search of Kaczynski's cabin, FBI agents found two manual typewriters, law enforcement officials said. They said it would be a significant breakthrough in the case for them to match the typewriter.

Residents who saw the bearded recluse when he occasionally rode his bicycle five miles (eight km) into Lincoln for groceries and seeds to grow his own food recalled him as a man of few words who read voraciously from the town's public library.

The operators of a rural postal mail delivery service told the Helena Independent Record they occasionally gave Kaczynski rides into Helena but denied that the suspect could have slipped a bomb into the outgoing mail.

"There's no way he could have gotten close to the mail," said Eileen Lundberg of Lincoln Stage. "It was never within his reach or accessibility ever."

The mysterious Unabomber has been one of America's most-wanted criminals since he began his spree of mail bombings with an attack at Northwestern University in 1978 that injured a security guard. His nickname stems from his early attacks against universities and airlines.

The most recent of the 16 attacks came in April 1995, when the president of a forestry industry lobbying group was killed in his Sacramento, California, office.

Investigators got their breakthrough tip from the suspect's brother, who found writings similar to the Unabomber manifesto while preparing the family's suburban Chicago home for sale.-Reuter