About this ebook
One woman’s haunting sixteen-year account of her youth when she and her family lived closer than anyone to Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber.
As a child in Lincoln, Montana, Jamie Gehring and her family shared their land, their home, and their dinner table with a hermit with a penchant for murder. But they had no idea that the odd recluse living in the adjacent cabin was anything more than a disheveled man who brought young Jamie painted rocks as gifts. Ted was simply Ted, and erratic behavior, surprise visits, and chilling events while she was riding horses or helping her dad at his sawmill were dismissed because he was “just the odd hermit.” In fact, he was much more—Ted eluded the FBI for seventeen years while mailing explosives to strangers, earning the infamous title of Unabomber.
In Gehring’s investigative quest twenty-five years later to reclaim a piece of her childhood and to answer the questions, why, how, she recalls what were once innocent memories and odd circumstances that become less puzzling in hindsight.
The innocence of her youth robbed, Gehring needed to reconcile her lived experience with the evil that hid in plain sight. In this book, through years of research probing Ted’s personal history, his writings, his secret coded crime journals, her own correspondence with him in his Supermax prison cell, plus interviews with others close to Kaczynski, Gehring unearths the complexity, mystery, and tragedy of her childhood with the madman in the woods. And she discovers a shocking revelation—she and her family were in Kaczynski’s crosshairs.
A work of intricately braided research, journalism, and personal memories, this book is a chilling response to the question: Do you really know your neighbor?
Praise for Madman in the Woods
“Combining the observations of a one-time close neighbor with extensive research and empathy for the many lives affected, Jamie Gehring’s book might well be the best attempt yet to understand the strange life and mind of my brother, Theodore J. Kaczynski.” —David Kaczynski,?author of?Every Last Tie: The Story of the Unabomber and His Family
“A captivating look at Ted Kaczynski—the Unabomber—from a perspective that no one else on the planet has.?It is insightful, unique, and fascinating!? A must read for all true crime fans and anyone who loves to know the real story behind the story.” —Jim Clemente, retired FBI supervisory special agent/profiler and writer/producer of the Audible Original Series Where the Devil Belongs
As a child in Lincoln, Montana, Jamie Gehring and her family shared their land, their home, and their dinner table with a hermit with a penchant for murder. But they had no idea that the odd recluse living in the adjacent cabin was anything more than a disheveled man who brought young Jamie painted rocks as gifts. Ted was simply Ted, and erratic behavior, surprise visits, and chilling events while she was riding horses or helping her dad at his sawmill were dismissed because he was “just the odd hermit.” In fact, he was much more—Ted eluded the FBI for seventeen years while mailing explosives to strangers, earning the infamous title of Unabomber.
In Gehring’s investigative quest twenty-five years later to reclaim a piece of her childhood and to answer the questions, why, how, she recalls what were once innocent memories and odd circumstances that become less puzzling in hindsight.
The innocence of her youth robbed, Gehring needed to reconcile her lived experience with the evil that hid in plain sight. In this book, through years of research probing Ted’s personal history, his writings, his secret coded crime journals, her own correspondence with him in his Supermax prison cell, plus interviews with others close to Kaczynski, Gehring unearths the complexity, mystery, and tragedy of her childhood with the madman in the woods. And she discovers a shocking revelation—she and her family were in Kaczynski’s crosshairs.
A work of intricately braided research, journalism, and personal memories, this book is a chilling response to the question: Do you really know your neighbor?
Praise for Madman in the Woods
“Combining the observations of a one-time close neighbor with extensive research and empathy for the many lives affected, Jamie Gehring’s book might well be the best attempt yet to understand the strange life and mind of my brother, Theodore J. Kaczynski.” —David Kaczynski,?author of?Every Last Tie: The Story of the Unabomber and His Family
“A captivating look at Ted Kaczynski—the Unabomber—from a perspective that no one else on the planet has.?It is insightful, unique, and fascinating!? A must read for all true crime fans and anyone who loves to know the real story behind the story.” —Jim Clemente, retired FBI supervisory special agent/profiler and writer/producer of the Audible Original Series Where the Devil Belongs
About the author
Jamie Gehring is a Montana native who grew up sharing a backyard with Ted Kaczynski, the man widely known as the Unabomber. She was featured in Netflix’s Unabomber: In His Own Words where she discussed her family’s role in Ted’s capture.
Her narrative nonfiction debut, Madman in the Woods: Life Next Door to the Unabomber has been covered in publications such asElle, New York Post, Slate, A & E True Crime, Oxygen True Crime, 5280, and in podcasts including The Last Podcast on the Left, True Crime Garage, Once Upon a Crime, LA Not So Confidential, Mind Over Murder, and True Murder.
She recently was shortlisted for the CrimeCon True Crime Awards for “Best New True Crime Author.” Other accolades include a 2022 PenCraft Book Award for literary excellence in Nonfiction/Memoir, a 2022 Shelf Unbound Best Indie Book award for Notable Indie, and first place winner of the Firebird Book Awards in Memoir/Nonfiction.
Jamie holds a BA in visual communications and spent the first half of her career in finance. She currently lives in Denver, Colorado with her husband, three children, and two cats.
Her narrative nonfiction debut, Madman in the Woods: Life Next Door to the Unabomber has been covered in publications such asElle, New York Post, Slate, A & E True Crime, Oxygen True Crime, 5280, and in podcasts including The Last Podcast on the Left, True Crime Garage, Once Upon a Crime, LA Not So Confidential, Mind Over Murder, and True Murder.
She recently was shortlisted for the CrimeCon True Crime Awards for “Best New True Crime Author.” Other accolades include a 2022 PenCraft Book Award for literary excellence in Nonfiction/Memoir, a 2022 Shelf Unbound Best Indie Book award for Notable Indie, and first place winner of the Firebird Book Awards in Memoir/Nonfiction.
Jamie holds a BA in visual communications and spent the first half of her career in finance. She currently lives in Denver, Colorado with her husband, three children, and two cats.
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