CHICAGO (Reuters) – The Chicago office of the FBI is asking for DNA samples from "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski in connection with an investigation into an unsolved 1982 crime in which seven people died after taking Tylenol capsules laced with potassium cyanide, FBI officials said on Thursday.
"As part of our re-examination of the evidence developed in connection with the 1982 Tylenol poisonings, we have attempted to secure DNA samples from numerous individuals, including Ted Kaczynski," said a statement provided by the Chicago FBI office.
"To date, Mr. Kaczynski has declined to voluntarily provide this sample."
The office said the investigation into the Tylenol murders continues. No arrests have been made and no charges have been filed.
In a handwritten motion filed in federal court aimed at halting the online auction of items taken from his Montana cabin in 1996, Kaczynski wrote that he did agree to provide a sample, provided that "the FBI would satisfy a certain condition that is not relevant here."
Kaczynski wrote in the motion, filed May 9, that he had "never even possessed any potassium cyanide."
He wrote that certain evidence seized from his cabin may be important to resolving the issue, and asked that the government refrain from disposing of certain items, including diaries, other writings and anything of a possible chemical nature.
The U.S. Attorney's office in Sacramento has filed a motion asking that Kaczyinski's request be denied.
Kaczynski, 68, became one of America's most notorious criminals by killing three people and wounding 29 with homemade bombs sent by post from 1978 to 1995.
A former mathematics professor, he withdrew from society in the early 1970s and became a modern day Luddite, with radical, anti-technology views.
Among the items taken from his remote cabin and included in the auction is his original handwritten version of a manifesto mailed to newspapers in 1995 that railed against the evils of modern technology.
The auction of Kaczynski items began on Wednesday and ends June 2, with a high bid of $12,025 for the manifesto.
James Lewis has been the only suspect in the unsolved 1982 Tylenol case, in which seven people in Chicago died after ingesting extra-strength Tylenol laced with cyanide.
Lewis denied having tampered with Tylenol but admitted sending an extortion letter demanding $1 million from drug maker Johnson & Johnson to "stop the killing," and he served 13 years in prison.
Lewis, released on parole in 1995, remains the only person ever linked to the crimes by police.
Lewis' Cambridge, Massachusetts, home was searched by federal investigators in February 2009, and he provided his DNA last year, but nothing has come of the investigation.
Tylenol had been the top-selling non-aspirin painkiller in the United States but sales plummeted after the incident. The crisis led to a new tamper-resistant containers for over-the-counter drugs and Tylenol sales eventually rebounded.
Kaczynski, who grew up in Chicago, is in a federal penitentiary in Florence, Colorado.
(Additional reporting by Andrew Stern; Editing by Jerry Norton)
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