All within the summer of 1996, Atlanta became a city bustling with celebration, excitement, and terror. When the terror began, the Summer Olympic Games were fiercely underway, and Atlanta, which was hosting that year’s Games, saw thousands gather together for parties and celebrations. On the night of July 27th, a backpack was placed near a bench in Centennial Olympic Park, where thousands were gathered to celebrate the Olympic Games. Contained within the backpack was an IED, a pipe bomb to be specific, which, upon detonation, killed one person and injured over one hundred others. Luckily, Richard Jewell, a security guard who was at the scene, noticed the bomb and had quickly begun an evacuation, keeping the casualties to a minimum. However, Jewell was viewed by the FBI as the primary suspect of the incident, allowing the true culprit to get away completely unnoticed. The media then jumped on this suspicion, exacerbating the situation by completely antagonizing Jewell in the eyes of the public and making the bombing appear as an isolated incident. It wasn’t until two years later that the actual criminal, Eric Robert Rudolph, was even suspected, and by then he was already onto his fourth bombing.
In January of 1998, Rudolph executed his fourth, and final, bombing. His target was an abortion clinic in Birmingham, but, unfortunately for him, he was seen. Two witnesses, Jeffrey Tickal and Jermaine Hughes, had been at a nearby McDonald's when they heard the blast. The two then noticed Rudolph as he casually walked away from the scene, immediately arousing suspicion. Tickal and Hughes followed after Rudolph to his car, recorded Rudolph’s license plate number, and even pursued him on the road. They then gave Rudolph’s licence plate number to local law enforcement, allowing the FBI to identify Rudolph and tie him to the Olympic Park bombing using forensic evidence. Rudolph was placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, and with that a manhunt had just begun.
But Eric Rudolph was a survivalist, and a good one at that. Having served in the army and received military training, Rudolph knew how to survive out in the woods, allowing him to evade the FBI for five long years. In the woods of North Carolina, where he had grown up, Rudolph mapped out caves and campsites for his use, memorized the terrain so well that he could navigate around even in the darkness of night, took shelter in unoccupied cabins during winters, stored barrels of grain that he stole from a nearby granary, and studied the patterns of local restaurants so that he could forage for scraps. The FBI and local law enforcement did manage to keep the pressure on him, however, forcing Rudolph to hold back on using the 250 pounds of dynamite he had stashed away.
Finally, in May of 2003, in a lucky break, a police officer came across Rudolph as he was scavenging for scraps in a trash bin behind a grocery store in Murphy, North Carolina. Caught and defeated, Rudolph acted surprisingly compliant when he was arrested. Rudolph was then interrogated by law enforcement, which is when he gave his methods for avoiding the FBI. He also admitted to being anti-government, anti-gay, and anti-abortion, explaining his motives for bombing the abortion clinic in Birmingham, and also the other abortion clinic and the gay bar, both of which were in Atlanta, in the years prior. Now, Rudolph is living out the rest of his days in jail, where he is serving multiple life sentences.
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