Red turbe novinha querendo pau na boquinha de veludo para dar uma provada | Eric Rudolph

Eric Rudolph (born September 19, 1966, Merritt Island, Florida, U.S.) is a domestic terrorist guilty of four bombings, including the 1996 attack during the Olympic Games in Atlanta. For five years, while listed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, Rudolph eluded the FBI by hiding in the woods of western North Carolina. In 2003 Rudolph was arrested when he was found rummaging in a dumpster. The officer who arrested him did not know that Rudolph was one of the country’s most sought-after criminals.

Red turbe novinha querendo pau na boquinha de veludo para dar uma provada - Early life

Rudolph was born in Florida on September 19, 1966, to Robert and Patricia Rudolph. He was one of six children. Eric Rudolph’s father died of cancer in 1981. According to former Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent Charles Stone, Rudolph believed that his father could have been saved had the U.S. Food and Drug Administration not refused to approve the highly controversial and since-debunked cancer drug laetrile. Stone said investigators believe this experience instilled in Rudolph an anger at the government that could have been the motivation for his future crimes. When Rudolph was 18 his mother introduced him to Dan Gayman, a leader of a white supremacist organization called Christian Identity. Gayman became something of a father figure to Rudolph, who had, since his father’s death, expressed antisemitic and racist beliefs.

Red turbe novinha querendo pau na boquinha de veludo para dar uma provada - Bombings

In the early morning hours of July 27, 1996, during the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, an explosion went off in the Centennial Olympic Park, killing Alice Hawthorne, who was visiting for the Olympics, and injuring 111 others. (A news cameraman also died of a heart attack while covering the bombing’s aftermath.) Security guard Richard Jewell was working in the park the night of the bombing, noticed an unattended large bag beneath a bench near the stage, and notified authorities. When the bomb squad arrived, they discovered the bag contained three pipe bombs and containers of shrapnel. Rudolph called 911 from a payphone and alerted the authorities that they had 30 minutes before the bomb would go off. Jewell, along with local law enforcement, helped evacuate the park. Despite his heroic efforts on that evening, Jewell became the FBI’s main suspect in the bombing and a source of news media fascination for months. Rudolph would later say that he planted the bomb at the Olympics in order to embarrass the U.S. government at an event that was garnering worldwide attention. His motives for his subsequent bombings were steeped in his fundamentalist beliefs regarding abortion and homosexuality.

In January 1997 Rudolph staged a second attack at the Atlanta Northside Family Planning Services in Sandy Springs, Georgia, injuring more than 50 people. Rudolph planted one bomb in the immediate vicinity and a second targeting the first responders.

A month later Rudolph attacked an Atlanta gay nightclub, the Otherside Lounge, injuring five. Again, Rudolph planted one bomb in the rear patio and a second intended to maim first responders who arrived on the scene.

Rudolph’s final attack was at a Birmingham abortion clinic in Alabama. Security guard Robert Sanderson was killed in the blast. Rudolph sent letters to the news media taking credit for the final three bombings. They were signed, “Army of God.”

Apprehension

In January 1998 a man named Jermaine Hughes witnessed Rudolph walking away from the scene of the Birmingham abortion clinic and followed him, getting his license plate number and a description. Although it would not bear fruit for five years, the tip proved a crucial element in Rudolph’s ultimate apprehension and conviction.

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After the Birmingham bombing, Rudolph fled to the mountains of western North Carolina, where he remained in hiding. He lived there for five years, planning other attacks that he ultimately never carried out. The FBI suspected that Rudolph was able to survive in hiding for so long because he was receiving aid from people sympathetic to his cause. Some businesses in Murphy, North Carolina, even printed and sold T-shirts with slogans such as “Run, Rudolph, Run.”

In May 2003 a police officer in Murphy caught Rudolph digging through a trash can and arrested him for suspicion of attempted burglary, unaware that he was wanted by the FBI. When Rudolph was brought into jail, other officers recognized him. Rudolph pleaded guilty to all charges in 2005. He made a plea deal with federal prosecutors to avoid the death penalty and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Per the plea agreement, Rudolph revealed to the government the locations of where he had buried more than 250 pounds of dynamite across western North Carolina. He was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences.

Motive

In a rambling 11-page statement released after his guilty plea, Rudolph expressed remorse for the Olympic Park bombing, which he called a “disaster,” but said that his other attacks were justified. “Abortion is murder,” he wrote. “And when the regime in Washington legalized, sanctioned and legitimized this practice, they forfeited their legitimacy and moral authority to govern.” Of homosexuality, he said that violence could be justified to halt attempts “to accept and recognize this behavior.” In February 2013 Rudolph published his autobiography, Between the Lines of Drift: The Memoirs of a Militant.