Hey, history lovers. I'm Mike Rosenwald with Retropod, a show about the past, rediscovered.

In 1956, six decades before Florida man was arrested for allegedly mailing bombs to critics of

President Donald Trump, three members of New York City's bomb squad went to see a psychiatrist. They weren't patience,

but they were desperate. For 16 years, a man known only as the mad bomber had been detonating

pipe bombs around the city in movie theaters at Grand Central Station, the New York Public Library.

Dozens of people were severely wounded by more than 20 bombs.

Without any hard evidence to go on, the detectives went to see the shrink, an unheard of

investigatory tactic back then, now known as criminal profiling.

In his book, Incendiary, historian Michael Connell wrote that if physical evidence could not

lead the police to a suspect, maybe emotional insights could.

And so, upon the desk of Dr. James A. Brussels, the deputy commissioner of the New York State

Department of Mental Hygiene, Captain Howard Finney laid out what little evidence investigators

had to go on.

Photographs of bombs that didn't detonate.

Crime scene reports.

And most importantly, letters

the bomber had sent to newspapers, signed his FP, that railed against the world, but mostly

the electric company, Con Ed.

Brussels studied the evidence for more than two hours.

Then, Cannell wrote, he turned to Captain Finney and described his fugitive,

right down to the cut of his jacket.

The bomber, Brussels said, was a paranoid schizophrenic

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