Eric Rudolph, the suspected serial bomber who had eluded authorities for more than five years while apparently hiding in the rugged wilderness of the Great Smoky Mountains, was captured here early Saturday behind a food store.
More than 200 federal, state and local authorities at one time had scoured Nantahala National Forest in Cherokee County in the search for Rudolph, 36, a former Army rifleman and right-wing extremist charged with four bombings in Georgia and Alabama that killed two people and injured more than 100 others.
Authorities hailed his arrest as the culmination of a relentless effort by law-enforcement agencies to track down one of America’s most wanted fugitives.
But he was taken into custody by a rookie police officer who had no idea the man he came across about 3:30 a.m. behind a Save-A-Lot Food Store was Rudolph. Police believe he was foraging for food.
“Just in a day’s work,” said Officer Jeff Postell, 21, who has been on the Murphy police force less than a year. “I’m just glad I was out there doing my job.”
Rudolph faces charges in the fatal bombing in 1996 at Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park and is a suspect in a 1998 bombing at an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Ala., that killed a police officer, as well as 1997 bombings at a gay nightclub in Atlanta and an office building near Atlanta that housed an abortion clinic. He is believed to have fled to western North Carolina after the Birmingham bombing, which also left a nurse blind in one eye.
Rudolph, whose pickup was allegedly seen at the clinic at the time of the blast, became a suspect at that time.
The explosion during the Olympic Games about a year after the Oklahoma City bombing was a shocker that authorities immediately treated as an act of terrorism. A knapsack containing nails and screws detonated during a concert, killing Alice Hawthorne.
Security guard Richard Jewell was named by a newspaper as a suspect but cleared by the FBI three months later. His lawyer said Saturday that Jewell felt a pang of deja vu when he heard of Rudolph’s arrest.
“It’s bringing back a lot of bad memories for Richard,” said attorney Lin Wood.
“He’s not going to make public statements and pass judgment on someone who’s only been arrested,” he said. “Or else we’d be guilty of the same thing that happened to Richard in Atlanta.”
Postell, the Murphy police officer, said he spotted someone lurking by a delivery dock, turned off his police cruiser’s headlights and pulled over. When the man saw the police car, he ran behind a stack of milk crates. With his service revolver drawn, Postell said he approached the man and ordered him to the ground. The man did not resist.
Dressed in blue work pants, gym shoes and a camouflage jacket and carrying a backpack, the suspect had no ID and initially told officers his name was Jerry Wilson and gave a fake date of birth, Cherokee County Sheriff Kevin Lovin said. But a sheriff’s deputy recognized Rudolph from wanted posters, Lovin said. Rudolph later give his real name, the sheriff said, and fingerprints confirmed his identity.
FBI Special Agent Chris Swecker said Rudolph would appear Monday before a district judge in Asheville and then be taken to Atlanta or Birmingham for trial.
For two years after the bombing in Birmingham, which killed Police Officer Robert “Sande” Sanderson, federal authorities used helicopters and high-tech equipment to search the Nantahala National Forest, a rugged 530,000 acres of mountains with peaks as high as 5,000 feet, towering 400-year-old pine trees, cascading waterfalls and whitewater rivers.
But as his trail faded and leads dried up despite a $1 million reward, federal officials in late 1999 began to publicly speculate that Rudolph had fled or had died in the mountains, his body buried in one of the more than 300 caves hidden in the woods.
Within months, the Southeast Bomb Task Force, made up of agents from the FBI and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, began withdrawing officers and resources, and eventually shut down the command center in nearby Andrews that had once been the headquarters for the huge hunt. Rudolph, a carpenter and mountaineer who spent his youth in Cherokee County learning survival skills and paramilitary tactics, became a local legend.
People in Cherokee County often clashed with the federal agents, both in how the search was conducted and whether Rudolph could survive in the mountains. Hunters said there was ample food, water and shelter for an experienced outdoorsman to survive in the wilderness. The difficulty, they said, most likely would be the isolation.
“We always believed that he was in the mountains, and my son and I often went looking for him. We had planned to split the $1 million reward,” said John Nava, 41, who said he hikes and camps in the mountains regularly. “It is easy to survive out there. There are so many empty cabins around here that are fully stocked with food and supplies, and everybody keeps the key under the doormat. He wouldn’t even have to break in.”
Though Rudolph’s motives for the bombings in which he is accused have not been determined, authorities said they think he was driven by extreme anti-government, anti-abortion and anti-gay sentiment.
It is not difficult to find Rudolph sympathizers in Andrews, Murphy or the Nantahala community, where his family moved from Florida when Eric was 14 and where they still live. In one breath some residents say the bombings were wrong and in the next they say that they probably would not have turned him in.
Authorities had long believed that a few people were helping Rudolph, though officials have gone to great lengths to paint him as a killer rather than a hero pursuing a cause. Agents emphasized that the bombing at the Olympics and the New Woman All Women Health Care Center in Birmingham resulted in deaths and injuries.
But anti-abortion sentiment and distrust of the federal government run high in this region.
There had been strong animosity over the FBI presence in the region. The lack of cooperation was evident in July 1998 when a storekeeper waited two days to tell authorities about his encounter with Rudolph.
The fugitive had gone to an Andrews health-food store and paid the owner with five $100 bills for a six-month supply of canned tuna, peanut butter and other non-perishable food items. He also stole a pickup truck that was found near Murphy. It was the last encounter authorities know about, but few people believe it was the last time anyone had seen Rudolph.
Mayor Bill Hughes insisted that Rudolph’s views do not reflect those of the majority of people in Cherokee County.
“During the last two years, there was very little mention of him. And after Sept. 11, he pretty much was forgotten. Life had returned to normal, as far as Rudolph was concerned,” Hughes said. “But we never thought anyone was helping him. . . . He probably just got tired of running and got careless.”
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The suspect
Name: Eric Robert Rudolph
Age: 36; born Sept. 19, 1966
Occupations: Carpenter, roofer, handyman
Charged with: Four bombings, including the explosion at Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park in 1996. In all, the explosions have killed two and wounded more than 100.
Family and background: One of five children, he was born in Florida, but the family moved to western North Carolina not long after his father died of cancer in 1981. He is an Army veteran and a survivalist.
In 1998, his brother Daniel videotaped himself intentionally sawing off his hand to protest the FBI’s handling and media coverage of his fugitive brother’s case.
Beliefs: In a school essay, Rudolph argued that the Holocaust was a hoax. He is anti-abortion and is believed to adhere to Christian Identity, a white supremacist religion that is anti-gay, anti-Semitic and anti-foreigner.
