George Metesky

George Peter Metesky (November 2, 1903 – May 23, 1994), better known as the Mad Bomber, was an American electrician and mechanic who terrorized New York City for 16 years in the 1940s and 1950s with explosives that he planted in theaters, terminals, libraries and offices. Bombs were left in phone booths, storage lockers and restrooms in public buildings, including Grand Central Terminal, Pennsylvania Station, Radio City Music Hall, the New York Public Library, the Port Authority Bus Terminal and the RCA Building, and in the New York City Subway. Metesky also bombed movie theaters, where he cut into seat upholstery and slipped his explosive devices inside.

Angry and resentful about events surrounding a workplace injury suffered years earlier, Metesky planted at least 33 bombs, of which 22 exploded, injuring 15 people. The hunt for the bomber enlisted an early use of offender profiling. He was apprehended based on clues given in letters he wrote to a newspaper. He was found legally insane and committed to a state mental hospital.

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Industrial injury

Following World War I, Metesky joined the U.S. Marines, serving as a specialist electrician at the United States Consulate in Shanghai. Returning home, he went to work as a mechanic for a subsidiary of the Consolidated Edison utility company and lived in Waterbury, Connecticut, with his two unmarried sisters. In 1931, Metesky was working as a generator wiper at the company's Hell Gate generating plant when a boiler backfire produced a blast of hot gases. The blast knocked Metesky down and the fumes filled his lungs, choking him. The accident left him disabled and, after collecting 26 weeks of sick pay, he lost his job. According to claims disputed by Consolidated Edison, the accident led to pneumonia that in turn developed into tuberculosis. A claim for workers' compensation was denied because he waited too long to file it. Three appeals of the denial were also rejected, the last in 1936. He developed a hatred for the company's attorneys and for the three co-workers whose testimony in his compensation case he believed was perjured in favor of the company.

He planted his first bomb on November 16, 1940, leaving it on a window sill at the Consolidated Edison power plant at 170 West 64th Street in Manhattan.

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