On this day, April 8, in 2005, Eric Rudolph agreed to plead guilty to a series of bombings, including the fatal bombing at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. For more than five years, Rudolph managed to elude a $24 million manhunt involving hundreds of law enforcement officers before he was found behind a grocery store in the tiny mountain town of Murphy, N.C.
He was clean-shaven and police believe Rudolph was receiving help. In Murphy, T-shirts and coffee mugs read, “Run Rudolph, Run.”
In addition to the Olympic blast in Atlanta, Rudolph pleaded to bombing a gay bar and two abortion clinics. His bombs, made of dynamite surrounded by nails, killed two people and injured more than a hundred.
Rudolph, now 44, was sentenced to four life sentences and is in the Supermax prison in Colorado.
– Scott McCabe
Scott McCabe
