MAN BEHIND THE MASK

By DAVID S. JACKSON SACRAMENTO

When he enters the courtroom, all conversation stops. Everyone stares as the man accused of conducting an 18-year campaign of terror as the Unabomber walks to his seat. Even the prosecutors stop shuffling their papers to sneak a glance. But anyone expecting the self-confident strut of a killer who once branded his victims "dumb" and the FBI "a joke" will be disappointed. Ted Kaczynski's courtroom demeanor is almost timid. From the way he sits in his chair, hands folded, to the deferential behavior he shows his attorneys, he moves with the exaggerated politeness of a guest who doesn't quite know how to act in someone else's home.

Behind that placid exterior, however, is a stubborn defiance that could spell disaster for his defense. This week, as jury selection got under way in Sacramento, Calif., for his trial on federal charges of killing two men and seriously wounding two others with package bombs, Kaczynski's defense strategy is in turmoil. The first public sign of trouble was the Harvard graduate's abrupt refusal to be examined by prosecution psychiatrists. But Time has learned that he initially resisted examination by even his own doctors. This stance might be endorsed by the "Unabomber Manifesto," which denounces anyone who attempts to "control human behavior," but it could seriously jeopardize his attorneys' efforts to save his life. They had planned to argue that Kaczynski suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, which made him incapable of the intent necessary for him to be held legally responsible for the crimes. But now U.S. District Court Judge Garland Burrell Jr. is weighing a prosecution request to bar all expert psychiatric testimony, leaving his defense in tatters.

Historically, defendants who claim insanity or mental disease in federal trials rarely succeed. But if the jury in this case is allowed to hear details about paranoid schizophrenia, they may see some disturbing parallels with Kaczynski's life. For example, psychiatrists say true schizophrenics often resist diagnosis. "They don't like to think of themselves as mentally ill," says Dr. Ira Glick, a professor of psychiatry at Stanford. "They'd think something else caused their problems, like bad parenting or bad government or too many drugs--anything but being labeled crazy." Kaczynski has lashed out at both his parents and government.

The mystery illness that sent Kaczynski to the hospital when he was only 10 months old could take on new significance. Some researchers believe that schizophrenia could come from a virus that strikes pregnant mothers and infants, causing brain damage that usually doesn't become fully apparent until the teens or early 20s. Kaczynski's family has said he was always an antisocial child and that his behavior got worse as he got older. At 26, he abruptly resigned from a prestigious teaching post at the University of California, Berkeley, and dropped out of society. The first Unabom attack occurred three days after his 36th birthday.

Schizophrenia is an irreversible disease whose symptoms can be curbed but not cured by drugs, according to experts. Is it possible for someone to suffer from paranoid schizophrenia and function for 18 years? Says Glick: "If you pull yourself out of society, live alone and are not married or dating, you can go a long time."

From their first contact with the FBI, the family warned that Kaczynski had severe mental problems. And three months after his arrest on April 3, 1996, at his mountainside cabin outside Lincoln, Mont., family attorney Anthony Bisceglie cited Kaczynski's mental illness as a reason the government should not seek the death penalty. "In his correspondence, Ted projects his own feelings of anger, depression and powerlessness onto society at large--a society of which he has never really been a member," Bisceglie wrote lead prosecutor Robert Cleary. "He blames these ill effects on a wide variety of external factors, including childhood classmates, teachers and his family as well as the media, chemical and electronic mind control, education, science and technology.

For those who survived attacks by the Unabomber, the prospect of a trial evokes feelings ranging from dread to relief. University of Colorado engineering professor John Hauser, who was an Air Force pilot and aspiring astronaut when he was injured in a May 1985 bombing at Berkeley, says the arrest of a suspect and the halt to the bombings meant more to him than the trial. "If having the trial over means that I could fly jets again and pursue those paths, I'd say, 'Hey, great! Cool!'" he told TIME. "But it's not going to bring my hand back or the use of my arm. So the trial doesn't matter all that much. I'm not going to regain what I've lost."

See our Unabomber report at time.com