2008 Woodie Awards
Rudolph Pleads Guilty to Olympic Bombing
Eric Rudolph pleaded guilty this past week to the tragic 1996 Olympic bombing.
Genesis Whitlock
Issue date: 4/22/05 Section: News
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Eric Rudolph voluntarily entered a plea of "guilty" before a judge on April 13 regarding his responsibility for the fatal bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and for three other blasts, a move which allows him to escape the death penalty.
While Rudolph had faced death row, his plea deal granted him four consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. As an additional stipulation of the deal, Rudolph informed the authorities of a location in the North Carolina mountains that hid more than 250 pounds of dynamite.
Rudolph, an anti-government extremist, is thought to be a follower of a white supremacist religion that promotes an anti-abortion, anti-gay, and anti-Semitic ideology. He was charged with a series of blasts in the late 1990's throughout Georgia and Alabama, leaving 2 killed and more than 120 injured.
Rudolph's Olympic bombing, which killed one woman and injured more than 100, was caused by a backpack bomb that sent shrapnel, nails, and screws through a crowd watching a rock concert. In the next two years, Rudolph purportedly bombed a lesbian nightclub and two abortion clinics in Birmingham and in Atlanta. The Birmingham incident killed an off-duty cop and severely wounded a clinic nurse.
Rudolph, a former soldier, then went into hiding in western North Carolina for more than five years, using survival techniques he learned in the military. He remained on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list, until he was captured after being sighted while scavenging for food near a grocery store in North Carolina in 2003.
Attorney General John Ashcroft had been given approval to seek the death penalty for Rudolph, predicting that the trial would be "relatively short and straightforward." However, the government extended the plea to Rudolph so as to learn the whereabouts of the explosives, which would not have happened if the case had gone to trial. Government officials note that the explosives were located "relatively near populated areas."
Rudolph is still being held in custody in Birmingham.
While Rudolph had faced death row, his plea deal granted him four consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. As an additional stipulation of the deal, Rudolph informed the authorities of a location in the North Carolina mountains that hid more than 250 pounds of dynamite.
Rudolph, an anti-government extremist, is thought to be a follower of a white supremacist religion that promotes an anti-abortion, anti-gay, and anti-Semitic ideology. He was charged with a series of blasts in the late 1990's throughout Georgia and Alabama, leaving 2 killed and more than 120 injured.
Rudolph's Olympic bombing, which killed one woman and injured more than 100, was caused by a backpack bomb that sent shrapnel, nails, and screws through a crowd watching a rock concert. In the next two years, Rudolph purportedly bombed a lesbian nightclub and two abortion clinics in Birmingham and in Atlanta. The Birmingham incident killed an off-duty cop and severely wounded a clinic nurse.
Rudolph, a former soldier, then went into hiding in western North Carolina for more than five years, using survival techniques he learned in the military. He remained on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list, until he was captured after being sighted while scavenging for food near a grocery store in North Carolina in 2003.
Attorney General John Ashcroft had been given approval to seek the death penalty for Rudolph, predicting that the trial would be "relatively short and straightforward." However, the government extended the plea to Rudolph so as to learn the whereabouts of the explosives, which would not have happened if the case had gone to trial. Government officials note that the explosives were located "relatively near populated areas."
Rudolph is still being held in custody in Birmingham.