Federal officials on Thursday charged a man they suspect of being the notorious and elusive Unabomber. Named for a tendency to target airlines and universities, the Unabomber is suspected in a series of mail bombings that have killed three people and maimed 23 over the past 18 years.

The man, Theodore Kaczynski, 53, of Lincoln, Mont., was charged with illegal possession of bomb-making materials and denied bond. Federal officials needed to charge him with something to buy time to build a case against him.

It was the man's family who led the FBI to Kaczynski. In March, as his mother was getting ready to sell the family home in Lombard, Ill., she discovered some of her son's old papers. She noticed the writing was similar to the anti-technology ramblings of the Unabomber. (The New York Times published one of the Unabomber's letters last fall.) She told her other son, David. Though torn by family loyalty, he notified the FBI.

Kaczynski fits the FBI profile of the Unabomber: He's a middle-aged white male who is well-educated, unemployed and a loner.