Retired FBI agent James R. Fitzgerald was the man who led the FBI on an 18-year manhunt for one of modern history’s most notorious criminalsâ€â€—Theodore John Kaczynski (The Unabomber). With the capture of the Unabomber, the two-decade-long terror came to an end, but it also had an impact on Fitzgerald’s marriage with Ellie Fitzgerald.
The Unabomber Case Created Difficulties in Marriage
In 1976, James Fitzgerald married Ellie Fitzgerald, and they had three sons. However, the nature of his work, particularly the Unabomber case, hampered his family. His job required him to travel to various locations and spend days away from home.
This hurt his marriage with his wife. As a result, after his team solved the case, he and his wife divorced. They divorced amicably and chose to co-parent their children.
My new partner- Natalie Schilling
Fitzgerald was brought back to the public’s attention in 2017 by the Discovery series Manhunt: Unabomber. The series was based on actual events surrounding the Unabomber’s unmasking. Natalie Schilling, his new fiancée, was also featured.
Sam Worthing played Fitzgerald, and Natalie Schilling, who assisted Fitzgerald in deciphering Kaczynski’s writing, was played by Lynn Collins.
Natalie is a linguist at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, focusing on ethnic, stylistic, and gender-based variation in American English dialects and Forensic Linguistics.
Schilling and Fitzgerald haven’t married yet, despite the lack of media coverage.
They were frequently spotted at press events for shows like Manhunt and Criminal Minds. Their first public appearance was in September 2014 at a Criminal Minds press event.
How did he manage to apprehend Kaczynski?
Ted Kaczynski, aka Theodore John Kaczynski, was a deft domestic terrorist and math genius. He never left evidence of his mailed bombs, which killed three people and injured twenty-three others between 1978 and 1995. However, he purposefully left misleading clues in them and referred to them as his manifesto.
The detailed examination of the manifestos led to identifying the criminal mastermind. Fitzgerald deduced specific facts about the cold-blooded murderer from his manifestos, such as the fact that the Unabomber was ‘obsessively careful’ in writing, frequently causing minor mistakes, such as a coma after a sentence or an exclamation mark that should have been a question mark.
The findings were broadcast live on national television for the entire world to see. Ted Kaczynski’s sister-in-law eventually recognized the writings and revealed his identity to the FBI. Her husband didn’t believe her at first, but the phrase that finally persuaded him was a quote, “cool-headed logician,” a word Ted used in college.
After the Unabomber, Fitzgerald took a more relaxed approach to his career. On April 3, 1996, Kaczynski was apprehended after finding his cabin. He is serving eight life sentences without the possibility of parole.
Following the famous capture, the FBI profiler assisted in developing training programs and tools to improve the FBI’s threat assessment capabilities. He also remained relatively unnoticed by the media, only going so far as to work as a consultant on crime series such as Criminal Minds and Sleepy Hollow.
