The Capture of Eric Rudolph

May 31, 2003
Eric Rudolph Captured
FBI Press Release
Special Agent in Charge Chris Swecker, Charlotte Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation, announced today the capture and arrest of Eric Robert Rudolph by local authorities in Murphy, North Carolina (NC). The arrest occurred at 4:30 am, by the Cherokee County Sheriff's Department without incident. Rudolph was located pilfering through a dumpster in the Murphy, North Carolina area. Rudolph's identity was confirmed by FBI fingerprint comparison at 7:47 am, through the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Center in Clarksburg, West Virginia.

May 31, 2003
Eric Rudolph background
The Asheville Citizen-Times
ANDREWS -- Eric Robert Rudolph, Western North Carolina's most notorious resident, lived in the region virtually unnoticed for nearly two decades. Born in Florida, Rudolph's family moved to WNC in the early 1980s after his father died. Rudolph's mother, Patricia, chose to raise her three boys and a daughter in the remote - but postcard beautiful - Nantahala community in northwestern Macon County. It was then that Rudolph started learning the skills that enabled him to elude capture for five years, authorities say.

June 1, 2003
Manhunt for Rudolph ends
5 years after vanishing into the mountains,
the man accused of four bombings is in custody
By Craig Jarvis and Becky Johnson / The News & Observer
MURPHY -- A rookie policeman found Eric Robert Rudolph crouched behind a grocery store in this Western North Carolina mountain town Saturday morning, ending a manhunt that lasted five years and cost millions of dollars.

June 1, 2003
Federal Agents Comb Woods in Bomb Suspect Probe
By Tim Whitmire / The Associated Press
MURPHY, N.C. -- With suspected Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph finally in custody, federal agents in camouflage headed into the rural North Carolina woods Sunday to begin retracing his steps and determine whether he had help evading authorities during the five years he lived on the run. At a federal court hearing Monday in Asheville, authorities will decide whether Rudolph should be taken to Atlanta or Birmingham, Ala., where he is a suspect in a bombing at an abortion clinic that killed a police officer.

June 1, 2003
Brother Severed Hand
At Ladson Home In '98
By Phillip Caston / The Post And Courier
A few weeks after the start of the manhunt for Eric Rudolph, it became clear that he had a tie to the Lowcountry. Shortly after Rudolph was listed as the main suspect in the Jan. 28, 1998, bombing of a Birmingham, Ala., abortion clinic, the fugitive's brother, Daniel K. Rudolph, made a graphic, bizarre videotape in his garage on Beverly Drive in Ladson. In the footage -- shot March 11, 1998 -- Rudolph applied a tourniquet to his left arm and said, "This is for the FBI and the media." Rudolph, then 37, severed his left hand with a circular saw.

June 2, 2003
Mother of Rudolph says he's innocent
USA TODAY
SARASOTA, Fla. — Patricia Rudolph began the 12-hour drive Sunday from her home here to Asheville, N.C., where Rudolph, 36, is expected to be arraigned in federal court today. His mother, 75, believes Rudolph is innocent of killing two people and wounding more than 150 others in four bombings in Atlanta and Birmingham, Ala., from 1996 to 1998. And if she has any doubt, she said, she will know when she sees him. "Eric never was a good liar," she said Sunday in an interview with USA TODAY.

June 2, 2003
Rudolph to Be Tried in Alabama
By Paul Nowell / The Associated Press
ASHEVILLE, N.C. -- Eric Rudolph was taken to this western North Carolina city under heavy guard Monday to face accusations that he was the Olympic park bomber, and in Washington, authorities announced he would be tried first in another bombing in Alabama. He arrived at the federal courthouse at about 8:30 a.m., surrounded by 40 heavily armed officers. Authorities said it was decided that he would face trial first in Birmingham, Ala., where an abortion clinic was bombed in 1998, then in Atlanta, site of the 1996 Olympic bombing and other blasts linked to Rudolph.

June 3, 2003
Bomb Suspect Eric Rudolph Returns to Ala.
The Associated Press
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Eric Rudolph, the former fugitive accused of four bombings in Alabama and Georgia, returned in shackles to face trial here for a deadly blast that authorities say first linked him to all the attacks. Evidence gathered after the Birmingham bombing of an abortion clinic on Jan. 29, 1998, led to Rudolph being identified as the lone suspect in all the explosions, which killed two people and injured more than 150.

June 3, 2003
Rudolph Pleads Innocent to Abortion Clinic Bombing
USA Today
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Olympic bombing suspect Eric Rudolph pleaded innocent Tuesday in a deadly blast at a Birmingham abortion clinic. Rudolph, wearing a red jail shirt and pants with his feet shackled but his hands free, pleaded innocent before federal Magistrate Judge Michael Putnam for the 1998 bombing of New Woman All Women Health Care, where an off-duty police officer was killed and a clinic nurse critically injured. He could face the death penalty.

June 4, 2003
Feds Finish Search Of Rudolph Campsite
The Associated Press
MURPHY, North Carolina -- Federal agents finished their searches of two campsites where suspected serial bomber Eric Rudolph is believed to have spent much of his five years on the run. Dozens of bags of evidence have been sent to the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia, and a scaled-down force of 30 agents remained in the western North Carolina mountains, agent Chris Swecker said Wednesday.

June 5, 2003
U.S. Attorney To Ask For Death In Rudolph Case
By Taylor Bright / Times Record News
The U.S. Attorney's office will ask for the death penalty in the case of Eric Rudolph. Alice Martin, U.S. attorney for the northern district of Alabama, said Wednesday her office will seek the death penalty in the bombing case. "We will make application seeking the death penalty and send it to the Department of Justice next week," Martin said.

July 11, 2003
Prosecutors Can Seek Rudolph's Death
By Jon Ostendorff /Asheville Citizen Times
A federal judge on Friday said he would allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Eric Robert Rudolph. The hearing was one of many legal formalities in the Rudolph case and the U.S. attorney general still will make the final call on the death penalty, a former federal prosecutor said. Rudolph, who has been in jail in Birmingham, Ala., since June 2., attended the hearing despite indications from his attorneys and court papers that he would remain in jail.

July 12, 2003
Eric Rudolph Pleads Not Guilty
By Bob Johnson / The Associated Press
BIRMINGHAM -- Serial bombing suspect Eric Robert Rudolph pleaded innocent Friday to a new indictment in a fatal abortion clinic blast that would allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty. That wording was not included in the original indictment to which Rudolph pleaded innocent a little more than a month ago. Although local prosecutors have indicated they want to seek the ultimate punishment, the final decision rests with Attorney General John Ashcroft.

July 19, 2003
Family visits Rudolph in Alabama
The Associated Press
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Serial bombing suspect Eric Robert Rudolph's mother and brothers spent about 45 minutes visiting him in jail, where he awaits trial in the 1998 fatal bombing of a Birmingham women's clinic. Sheriff's spokesman Randy Christian said the 36-year-old Rudolph had no physical contact with his family. Rudolph's mother, Patricia, two brothers and a sister-in- law saw him through a plastic window at the Jefferson County Jail. They talked to him through a telephone at 2 p.m. Friday, Christian said. The visit lasted about 45 minutes, according to Hube Dodd, a Rudolph attorney.

July 28, 2003
Federal Judge Delays Eric Rudolph Trial Until 2004
CNN.com
ATLANTA, Georgia -- The trial of accused bomber Eric Robert Rudolph has been delayed at least until the beginning of 2004, according to an order from the trial judge. The order issued Monday by Federal District Judge C. Lynwood Smith in Birmingham says "it is unreasonable to expect counsel for either party to be ready [for] trial in August, much less during calendar year 2003."

August 13, 2003
Injured Abortion Clinic "Nurse" Gets $115M
The Associated Press
A nurse severely injured in a 1998 bombing at an abortion clinic won a $115 million judgment Wednesday in her lawsuit against suspect Eric Rudolph. Circuit Court Judge Helen Shores Lee awarded $5 million more than had been requested in the lawsuit filed by Emily Lyons and her husband, Jeff Lyons. The fact that Rudolph didn't respond to the lawsuit does not mean he admitted guilt in the clinic bombing, said Richard Jaffe, Rudolph's attorney in the criminal case. Rudolph had no way to defend himself in the civil case while in jail awaiting criminal trials, Jaffe said.

January 31, 2004
Rudolph Defense Seeks Change of Venue
CNN.com
Attorneys for accused bomber Eric Rudolph late Friday filed a change of venue motion, arguing their client cannot get a fair trial in Birmingham, Alabama, or anywhere in the northern district of that state. The defense team said that since the Birmingham bombing took place on January 29, 1998, there had been such overwhelming media coverage -- some of which it called "sensationalistic and based, in part, on inaccurate information from law enforcement" -- that it made finding a fair and impartial jury impossible.

June 18, 2004
Prosecutors Seek to Keep Bombing Trial in Birmingham
Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, GA.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Prosecutors asked a judge Friday to keep Eric Rudolph's first trial in Birmingham, disputing defense claims that media coverage of a deadly abortion clinic bombing made a fair trial impossible. The government's request was filed ahead of a hearing planned for next week on a defense request to move the case outside of north Alabama. Separately, prosecutors also asked a court to make defense attorneys file more of their motions in open court rather than as sealed documents available only to the judge and the defense.

June 22, 2004
Deal Reached on Trial for Eric Rudolph
ABC News
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- A federal judge approved a plan Tuesday to try serial bombing suspect Eric Rudolph in Birmingham but pick jurors from throughout northern Alabama, instead of just a three-county area around the state's largest city. U.S. District Judge Lynwood Smith approved the joint proposal that had been agreed to by defense attorneys and federal prosecutors. Rudolph had been seeking a change of venue. Rudolph told the judge he understood and approved of the agreement to try him in Birmingham but expand the jury pool. Rudolph is scheduled for trial Aug. 2. Smith said he will rule soon on a defense motion to delay the trial for as long as a year.

June 24, 2004
Judge Postponed Rudolph Trial Until Next Year
Jury selection to begin March 2005
By Henry Schuster - Senior Producer / CNN.com
A federal judge postponed until next year the trial of accused bomber Eric Rudolph, which had been set to begin August 2. U.S. District Court Judge Lynwood Smith on Thursday released an order setting jury selection to begin in March, with the expectation that opening statements will begin May 24. Also earlier this week, the judge said that he preferred not to sequester the jury, but would listen to arguments about protecting the identity of jurors. Smith said he expects the trial to last two to three months.

June 29, 2004
Park Bomb Victims Can Sue Olympic Organizers, Court Rules
CNN.com
ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- Georgia's Supreme Court ruled Monday that victims of the 1996 Olympic Park bombing, who claim inadequate security contributed to the tragedy, can continue with a lawsuit against the organizers of the games. In a unanimous decision, justices upheld a state appeals court ruling, which found that the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games was not immune from liability under state law. The case now goes back to the trial court.

The Trial of Eric Rudolph

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