FBI Checks Kaczynski Medical History

Federal agents are investigating whether Unabomber suspect Theodore J. Kaczynski ever sought or received psychiatric treatment for depression, a source familiar with the investigation said Tuesday.

Based on the discovery of a bottle of a prescription antidepressant medication in Kaczynski’s cabin, the FBI is attempting to locate any doctors who may have prescribed drugs or provided therapy to the former UC Berkeley math professor, the source said.

The Unabomber, in the rambling 35,000-word manifesto that was published last year, frequently cited depression as a symptom of society’s illness in the technological age. “Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed, modern society gives them antidepressant drugs,” the serial bomber complained.

“Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them unhappy, then gives them drugs to take away their unhappiness,” he writes. “Science fiction? It is already happening to some extent in our own society.

“Antidepressants are a means of modifying an individual’s internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable.”

Investigators, who are trying to piece together Kaczynski’s whereabouts during the Unabomber’s 17-year bombing career, also hope to receive help from a document labeled “AUTOBIOGRAPHY” found during the 10-day search.

A federal grand jury is expected to convene today in Great Falls, Mont., to consider whether to indict Kaczynski on a charge of possession of unregistered explosives stemming from the discovery of a partially made pipe bomb in his cabin.

Given the complexity of the 18-year Unabomber case, an indictment on a single explosives charge would enable authorities to keep Kaczynski in custody while they complete their investigation. He has been jailed in Helena since the search of his cabin started April 3, and prosecutors have until May 3 to indict him, release him or obtain an extension.

Kaczynski’s attorneys, however, filed a motion Monday seeking dismissal of the case and the return of Kaczynski’s property on the grounds that leaks of information by federal officials and widespread coverage of the case had “poisoned the entire population of grand jurors within the United States against Mr. Kaczynski.”

The leaks make it impossible for him to receive a fair grand jury hearing or trial, federal public defenders Michael Donahoe and Anthony R. Gallagher argued, asking for a hearing so they could call reporters and editors and a top Justice Department official as witnesses to discuss the leaks.

Defense lawyers often ask that a trial be shifted to a different jurisdiction because of publicity--a type of motion judges usually reject. Motions to block a grand jury on the basis of publicity are considerably rarer. The motion could, however, delay action by the grand jury.

Most of the news leaks in the case so far have centered on key items found in Kaczynski’s remote mountain shack. At the end of searching Monday, U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell made public an inventory of more than 850 items found in the cabin--including the “AUTOBIOGRAPHY” document and the bottle of the antidepressant drug Trazodone.

Federal officials would not divulge whether it was a psychiatrist or family practitioner who prescribed the pills or how long ago the prescription was filled. It is not even clear whether Kaczynski took the drug.

Nevertheless, one source said investigators want to know whether Kaczynski ever received psychiatric help.

Trazodone was widely used in 1980s as an antidepressant for people suffering from depression but who did not require hospitalization, medical authorities said.

In recent years, it has largely been replaced by Prozac, which does not have Trazodone’s side effect of causing drowsiness. Trazodone is now sometimes prescribed in smaller doses as a sleeping pill for people with chronic sleeping problems.

Paddock reported from Helena, Mont., and Ostrow from Washington. Times medical writer Terence Monmaney contributed to this story.