After eluding a massive manhunt, suspected 1996 Atlanta Olympics-bomber Eric Rudolph was arrested early this morning in a remote town in the western North Carolina mountains.
 Booking photo for Eric Rudolph |
Rudolph, on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list, also has been charged with attacks on a ‘gay’ nightclub in Atlanta, an office building north of the city and an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Ala., where a police officer was killed.
The July 27, 1996, explosion at Atlanta’s crowded Centennial Olympic Park killed one woman and injured 111 other people.
Announcing the arrest today, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft called Rudolph “the most notorious American fugitive on the FBI’s most wanted list.”
“This sends a clear message that we will never cease in our efforts to hunt down all terrorists, foreign or domestic, and stop them from harming the innocent,” Ashcroft said.
A 22-year-old Murphy police officer on routine patrol discovered Rudolph at 4:30 a.m. near a dumpster behind a shopping center, according to the Asheville, N.C., Citizen-Times. Murphy Mayor Bill Hughes said the officer, J.S. Postell, held the man at gunpoint and told him he looked like the suspected bomber, but the man denied it.
 Eric Rudolph (FBI file photo) |
Chris Swecker, who heads the FBI in North Carolina, said agents confirmed Rudolph’s identity through a fingerprint match, the Charlotte Observer reported.
“They looked at scars. They looked at him. They knew what he looked like. They did his fingerprints,” Swecker said.
Rudolph had not been seen since July 1998 after he allegedly stole supplies from a North Carolina store. Authorities spent years combing the mountains for the 36-year-old army veteran.
The FBI links Rudolph to a white supremacist movement called Christian Identity. Messages attributed to the “Army of God” were found with some of the four bombings he was charged with planting.
Rev. Patrick Garrett of Murphy Church of God said he wouldn’t be surprised if there were sympathizers in and around Murphy who had helped hide Rudolph, the Charlotte paper said.
“There are people on the fringe who would probably cross that line and help,” he said.
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