Al Ravenna/Library of Congress George Metesky, the “Mad Bomber,” stands behind bars in Waterbury, Connecticut after his arrest. January 1957.
In the spring of 1973, a man was released from New York’s Matteawan Hospital for the Criminally Insane, ready to slip back into society after a nearly two-decade exile. That man was George Metesky, better known as the “Mad Bomber,” who had once terrorized the city of New York for about 16 years in his bizarre and violent quest for justice.
Starting in November 1940, George Metesky planted dozens of bombs, injuring at least 15 people in the process. All the while, the Mad Bomber kept the police, particularly Inspector Howard Finney of the bomb squad, scurrying throughout the city to investigate his explosives, from random phone booths to the New York Public Library, Grand Central Station, and Radio City Music Hall. Shockingly, Metesky wasn’t caught until 1957…