Metesky planted dozens of homemade bombs in theaters, terminals, and libraries between 1940 and 1956 to avenge a workplace injury and denied disability claim from Consolidated Edison. Investigators used an early form of criminal profiling, developed by psychiatrist James Brussel, to narrow the search, leading police to Metesky's Connecticut home where he calmly confessed and was later found unfit to stand trial.
George Metesky, a former Con Edison employee, had suffered an on-the-job injury in 1931 and believed the company had cheated him out of disability compensation. Rather than sue, he waged a decades-long, deeply personal war against the utility and the public spaces of New York City, planting pipe bombs in phone booths, subway stations, and famously inside a seat at Radio City Music Hall.
His letters to newspapers, signed 'F.P.' for 'Fair Play,' taunted police and Con Edison while revealing an obsessive, grammatically precise mind. Psychiatrist James Brussel produced a strikingly accurate profile: a heavyset, middle-aged Eastern European Catholic man, unmarried, living with siblings, who would be wearing a buttoned double-breasted suit when arrested.
A clerical worker at Con Edison, cross-referencing old disability complaint files per Brussel's hunch, found Metesky's decades-old grievance letter with matching florid language. Police arrived at his Waterbury, Connecticut home on March 9, 1957, and Metesky, wearing pajamas, went upstairs and returned wearing the double-breasted suit Brussel had predicted, then admitted everything.