WASHINGTON – To most people, Theodore Kaczynski’s bomb-making tools are meaningless relics from a life devoted to mayhem.
To Janine Vaccarello, chief operating officer at the National Museum of Crime Punishment in Washington, they’re priceless.
For a mere $1,766 at an online government auction that ended Thursday, Vaccarello’s museum was the winning bidder for Kaczynski’s black and white passport photos, along with the wood saw and Hanson Model 1509 scale that the man known as the Unabomber used in his deadly attacks.
Carried out under court order by the U.S. Marshals Service and the General Services Administration, the auction was revenge of a sort for the victims and the families terrorized by Kaczynski’s acts of violence that left three people dead and 23 injured from 1978 to 1995.
In all, collectors paid more than $200,000 for 58 items seized during the raid of Kaczynski’s remote Montana cabin in 1996. The money goes to victims and their families.
In Washington, Vaccarello monitored the auction all day long.
“There is something strange about describing emotions of happiness and a criminal artifact in the same sentence,” Vaccarello said. “I am happy that the funds raised are going to victims and I am happy that our museum can add
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