Eric Rudolph Caught?

[Turbulence]

(CNN) -- Eric Robert Rudolph -- the man charged with the 1996 Olympics bombing and other blasts that killed two people, wounded many others and terrorized the Southeast -- may have been captured in North Carolina, a law enforcement official told CNN.

Cherokee County Sheriff Keith Lovin confirmed a deputy arrested a man believed to Rudolph without a struggle after he was found behind a business in the western North Carolina town of Murphy. The sheriff said the man appeared to be homeless.

Deputies are waiting for fingerprint information for a positive confirmation of the man's identity. FBI agents are on their way to the scene.

Rudolph, now 36, has eluded law officers for years. He was first listed on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted List" when his pick-up truck was found abandoned near the scene of the bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama, women's clinic on January 29, 1998. A police officer was killed and a nurse was seriously injured in that blast. (Timeline: Events in Rudolph's life)

Rudolph also was wanted in connection with the July 1996 bombing at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta. An Albany, Georgia, woman was killed and more than 100 people were hurt. (1997 Special Report: The Olympic Park bombing)

He was also being sought for the double bombing outside a suburban Atlanta women's clinic in January 1997 and another at a gay nightclub in February 1997. There were several injuries in the incidents, but no one was killed.

Federal investigators have long believed Rudolph was hiding in the Nantahala National Forest of western North Carolina where he spent his teenage and young adult years.

The Southeast Bomb Task Force -- formed to investigate the bombings -- kept a presence in the area, at times with as many as 200 federal agents combing a 500,000 acre mountainous and heavily-wooded area.



I could have sworn we'd never see him again. I imagined him sipping an umbrella-drink in a tropical locale and laughing at all of this searching...Hopefully we got the last laugh...

[nccanes]

Amazing news (if it's him).

I thought he might just have died in the Mtns.

Did you think that some one was financing his tropical vacation?

[talkingcanes]

It's all over cable news. Guess they still have to confirm his identity. I'm sure the FBI were thinking they'd never catch him either. I thought he had died in some cave, but if it's him, somebody or somebodies had to have been helping him, IMO.

[SouthernHockeyChick]

This is awesome, if it's him. I was living in the Asheville/Brevard/Boone area during some of the times the FBI was really searching for him and I remember seeing agents in their big ole Black Ford Expeditions all over the place. I met up with a few agents one day in a restaurant when we were out on a hiking trip way west of Asheville with a friend who drives an Expedition. I remember one was asking us about his Expedition....about what on earth you would ever need to use the 4WD Lo gear for. Cracked me up. He was a bit of a city guy to say the least.

I sure hope this is him. It would be one less psycho roaming the forests.

[tommy]

They found him in Murphy, NC... Just a few months ago, someone from the choir in my church got a job at the police department in Murphy, so he was involved in all of this. How weird is that?

[Jeff O Rocks]

I can't believe he eluded the FBI for years and gets caught going to a dumpster!! He is smart I will say that for him..they said they had identified him through a fingerprint!!

[Shell]

excellent to hear!! We do a lot of camping in western Carolina and that always kind of freaked me out lol. Glad you guys posted as I haven't seen the news since Thursday since we've been camping in western NC this weekend. :)

[Jeff O Rocks]

excellent to hear!! We do a lot of camping in western Carolina and that always kind of freaked me out lol. Glad you guys posted as I haven't seen the news since Thursday since we've been camping in western NC this weekend. :)

I know it is a relief to you...you never know what someone like that might do...depending on their desperation!! :eek:

Hope you guys had fun!! :spin:

[Canesluver]

I'm glad he's finally been captured, but answer me this: Why is it that whenever something happens in North Carolina that makes national news, it has to happen in some hick town? I mean, really! Do they have to choose the person missing the most teeth, wearing a K-Mart house dress, saying, "I don't think he done all that stuff they say. He ain't so bad. We don't need no gov'ment tellin' us what to do." :roll:

[Jeff O Rocks]

I'm glad he's finally been captured, but answer me this: Why is it that whenever something happens in North Carolina that makes national news, it has to happen in some hick town? I mean, really! Do they have to choose the person missing the most teeth, wearing a K-Mart house dress, saying, "I don't think he done all that stuff they say. He ain't so bad. We don't need no gov'ment tellin' us what to do." :roll:

One woman was particularly embarrassing..not because she was missing teeth, because she said she didn't help him but she would have and he shouldn't be punished cause abortion clinics are wrong!! :crazy: I am not criticizing all mountain people, cause my mom and dad were born and raised there, but they do look like idiots making statements like that!

[nccanes]

I'm glad he's finally been captured, but answer me this: Why is it that whenever something happens in North Carolina that makes national news, it has to happen in some hick town? I mean, really! Do they have to choose the person missing the most teeth, wearing a K-Mart house dress, saying, "I don't think he done all that stuff they say. He ain't so bad. We don't need no gov'ment tellin' us what to do." :roll:

One woman was particularly embarrassing..not because she was missing teeth, because she said she didn't help him but she would have and he shouldn't be punished cause abortion clinics are wrong!! :crazy: I am not criticizing all mountain people, cause my mom and dad were born and raised there, but they do look like idiots making statements like that!

Sadly, I imagine that they media talked to several people before deciding to feature this "authentic" mountain woman.

Last year during the playoffs, I went to the ESA during lunch to pick up our add'l tickets for some games during the Montreal series. The lobby was quite busy with people doing the same. There was a camera crew there from ABC11 and they were wandering around talking to people. Ed Crump approached me and he said they were doing a story about Mother's Day and the economic impact to the area and asked if I would be visiting any of the surrounding businesses to celebrate Mother's Day in addition to attending the game. I said "no, we have a big tailgate planned and will be going to the game - that's enough for me". Then he said "so you aren't going to be dining at a restaurant?". I said "no, we have a big tailgate planned and will be going to the game - that's enough for me". He said - "okay thanks" and walked away with his camera man (he'd not been filming).

Now, he could have included my comments in his story as someone who wasn't going to be spending add'l dollars on local businesses, but instead he wandered around until he found someone to support "the story".

I suspect that's what happened in Murphy. Sad really.

[talkingcanes]

I'm glad he's finally been captured, but answer me this: Why is it that whenever something happens in North Carolina that makes national news, it has to happen in some hick town? I mean, really! Do they have to choose the person missing the most teeth, wearing a K-Mart house dress, saying, "I don't think he done all that stuff they say. He ain't so bad. We don't need no gov'ment tellin' us what to do." :roll:

One woman was particularly embarrassing..not because she was missing teeth, because she said she didn't help him but she would have and he shouldn't be punished cause abortion clinics are wrong!! :crazy: I am not criticizing all mountain people, cause my mom and dad were born and raised there, but they do look like idiots making statements like that!

Sadly, I imagine that they media talked to several people before deciding to feature this "authentic" mountain woman.

Last year during the playoffs, I went to the ESA during lunch to pick up our add'l tickets for some games during the Montreal series. The lobby was quite busy with people doing the same. There was a camera crew there from ABC11 and they were wandering around talking to people. Ed Crump approached me and he said they were doing a story about Mother's Day and the economic impact to the area and asked if I would be visiting any of the surrounding businesses to celebrate Mother's Day in addition to attending the game. I said "no, we have a big tailgate planned and will be going to the game - that's enough for me". Then he said "so you aren't going to be dining at a restaurant?". I said "no, we have a big tailgate planned and will be going to the game - that's enough for me". He said - "okay thanks" and walked away with his camera man (he'd not been filming).

Now, he could have included my comments in his story as someone who wasn't going to be spending add'l dollars on local businesses, but instead he wandered around until he found someone to support "the story".

I suspect that's what happened in Murphy. Sad really.


I completely agree. I think no matter the story and no matter the state and no matter the ethnic group involved, the media seeks the "worst" spokesperson they can find. Whoever suits their stereotype on the issue and/or in the area is their choice.

[Jeff O Rocks]

It is sad Eileen....I think most of the time, they hear ONLY want they want to hear.... :roll:

[rons#1fan]

Reading the paper today, I was quite surprised about how the township of Murphy were backing Rudolph up. Generalization; "he didn't do anything wrong"...yet he's against abortion but it's okay to kill. Figure that out ???

I believe he had to have help...he didn't look that bad when they found him. Even one of the grocers said if he knew he was still in the area he would have gotten food to him or welcomed him in the store. These folks are really scary.

[Turbulence]

http://www.foxnews.com/images/92168/72_22_rudolph_eric.jpg<--Eric Rudolph http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:5qlK_dSnP6UC:www.ifilm.com/image/stills/people/181505_i_1_a_.jpg<--Ben Stiller
:crazy: Anyone else see this similarity?

[Shell]

How He Stayed Hidden

Eric Rudolph evaded capture for five long years in the woods of western North Carolina. A fugitive’s survival strategy

By Arian Campo-Flores and Catharine Skipp
NEWSWEEK

June 16 issue — For the first few years on the lam, alone in the North Carolina woods and fearful of being discovered, Eric Robert Rudolph claims he lived off the fat of the land. He moved around constantly, surviving on a diet of acorns and salamanders. “I just swallowed them whole, like sushi,” he bragged to police officers who held him after his arrest last week.

SGT. LESTER WHITE, a detention officer with the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Department, spent hours talking with Rudolph during his initial days in custody. White told NEWSWEEK that Rudolph, accused of setting off deadly bombs at abortion clinics, a gay club and the 1996 Olympics, was surprisingly forthcoming about his five years running from the law. He asked for a Bible and fresh fruit, and regaled his captors with stories of life as a fugitive. Though authorities are searching his former hiding spots to determine if he had help along the way, Rudolph gave the impression that he was always alone. At times, he claimed, the solitude got to him. He said he hadn’t been with a woman in so many years, even “the bears started looking good.”

His lawyers may soon wish he had kept quiet just a little longer. Rudolph is now in a jail cell in Birmingham, Ala., where he will stand trial for the 1998 bombing of a women’s clinic that killed an off-duty police officer. (He’ll then be shipped off to Atlanta for the Olympics bombing trial.) Richard Jaffe, one of his court-appointed attorneys, insists that Rudolph is innocent, and says that he has been unfairly portrayed as an anti- government militant and Christian extremist. “We intend to challenge that, right now and throughout,” he told reporters. Rudolph’s flight, he says, shouldn’t be taken as a sign of guilt. “There are all kinds of reasons why people get scared and run and hide. I don’t know what I would do if I was the subject of a nationwide manhunt.”

In his jailhouse ruminations, Rudolph—who did not admit to any crime—described in detail how he went to great lengths to avoid capture. According to Sergeant White, Rudolph said he eventually began hunting deer, bear and turkeys, using a .223-caliber rifle. He rarely fished in the abundant creeks, he said, because he feared that the roar of the rushing water would drown out the sounds of approaching footsteps. In the winters he wore boots, in the summers, running shoes. He made occasional trips to the nearby town of Andrews to steal corn and soybeans. He scrounged for books to pass the hours (found at one of his campsites: “Incident at Big Sky: The True Story of Sheriff Johnny France and the Capture of the Mountain Men”). “He had to look at it just like it was a long, long camping trip,” says White, paraphrasing Rudolph.

There were close calls. Rudolph said one day he was perched atop a grain bin when a group of hunters with a dog passed nearby. The dog began trotting over toward him—only to be hit by a car. Another time, he said, he fell into an icy creek and had to build a fire to dry his clothes.

Those who spoke with Rudolph during his custody in North Carolina said he seemed as though he’d grown weary of life alone in the mountains, and had started taking risks. He made more frequent trips into town to pick through trash cans behind supermarkets and fast-food joints. “He said there was nothing better than a half-eaten taco,” recalls one officer. Some have speculated that Rudolph eventually resigned himself to capture. White wondered the same thing himself, and asked Rudolph straight out: after all he’d been through, was he relieved it was finally over? The former fugitive, who may face the death penalty in two states, had a blunt, simple answer: no.
© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.