Harvard graduate Ted Kaczynski, the so-call Unabomber whose 20-plus known victims include five in California (including two deaths), upgraded his alumni directory entry to include these “awards”: “Eight life sentences, issued by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, 1998.”

The directory was updated as part of the 50th reunion of Kaczynski’s class and a Harvard spokesman said the imprisoned felon submitted his own entry, which listed his occupation as “prisoner.”

While fellow ’62 graduate Gary Peterson thought “it’s funny. He’s more famous than anyone else in our class,” the Harvard Alumni Association was not similarly amused. “While all members of the class who submit entries are included, we regret publishing Kaczynski's references to his convictions and apologize for any distress that it may have caused others,” the alumni association said in a statement.

Susan Mosser, the widow of one of Kaczynski’s victims, said she was “disappointed in Harvard.” Her husband, 50-year-old advertising executive Thomas Mosser, was killed in  1994 when a package exploded in their New Jersey home. “Kaczynski is a con artist,” she said. “He’s a serial killer; he’s a murderer. . . . Everything is a game for him to push people’s buttons.”

Kaczynski was arrested in 1996 and pleaded guilty two years later in a deal that locked him up for the rest of his life but allowed him to avoid the death penalty.

–Ken Broder

To Learn More:

Harvard Alumni Group Apologizes for Unabomber Entry in Directory (by Dylan Stableford, The Sideshow blog at Yahoo News)

Unabomber Submits Update to Harvard Alumni Book (by Denise Lavoie, Associated Press)