04x10 - Chasing the Olympic b*mber Part 2

[bunniefuu]

- We get a call regarding
an unattended backpack.

I was on my hands and knees

and I could hear
the ticking of a clock.

It's a b*mb.

- Then there was another
b*mb that goes off.

- He pulls a switch.

- The bad guy actually waited
for the proper moment

to cause as much harm and death
as he could when it detonated.

- He's willing to k*ll.
He's committed.

- Someone notices someone
walking away from the scene.

- Now we have a suspect.

- That launched probably
one of the most extensive

manhunts and fugitive
investigations in
the FBI's history.

- Time is of the essence.
People are dying

and we don't know where the next
bombs are going to go off.

In the FBI we make
a lot of headlines.

Drug busts, mob stings...

...t*rror1st takedowns.

We understand why people
want to tell stories about us.

- Mark it.
- Freeze!

- FBI.
- FBI!
- Action!

But they don't know
the half of it.

What really goes down?

We save that for each other

when we're talking
agent to agent.

This is FBI True.

- So we've had
Centennial Park bombing...

...women's clinic bombing...

...l*sbian bar bombing.

- And then one in Alabama.

The Birmingham
ab*rtion clinic b*mb.

- This clinic had received
some threats

and some phone calls
and so forth.

The members of the Birmingham
police department were hired

to provide security
for the opening and closing

of the clinic each day.

Officer Sanderson was
the officer working that day.

He met Emily Lyons,

who was a nurse there
at the clinic.

And they together walked up

to open up the clinic that day.

- The police officer who was
doing security

was k*lled, and a nurse
was seriously wounded.

The nurse was looking
right at the device

based on the debris that hit her
in the face and blinded her.

She had severe injuries
from looking right at it.

Thank God, she lived.

This was a little bit different
than the other bombs

in that this was a remote-
controlled, detonated device.

- Our b*mber
is across the street.

- How do we know that, Bill?
- Well, because in order to fire

this device off, the radio
frequency only goes
a certain distance.

So you can't be,
you know, real far away

and have it go off.

- The device was sitting in a
fake plant by the front door.

That means that the bad guy
is there within sight

watching and actually waited

for the proper moment
to cause as much harm and death
as he could when it detonated.

- The b*mber, the individual
doing this actually

was waiting for the officer.

- Correct.
- And the other person
to get close.

And when that officer was at
the closest possible place,

that b*mber made
the decision to ignite.

- He pulls a switch.

- If your goal in this was
to shut the clinic down

or to shut me down,
it didn't work.

It's not going to work.

The clinics will stay open.

The workers will
continue to come.

Patients will continue to come.

- As you know, we've invited
two of your colleagues,

Ron and Chris, to share
their part of the case.

Here they are.

Hey, guys.
- Hey.

- Good to see you.

Grab a chair.

Ron, when did you become
involved, in what capacity?

- One of my primary missions

was to do profiles, behavioral
assessments of bombers.

Ron Tunkel is a
retired special agent

criminal profiler with the A*F.

He was detailed
to the FBI for 17 years.

- Bombers like this tend to be
lone solitary offenders.

- And he fit the classic
definition of a domestic
t*rror1st.

Chris Swecker
served for 24 years

as a special agent with the FB.

He retired as assistant
director

with responsibility
over all FBI criminal
investigations.

- And one of the things
that we relied

heavily on was the profiling,

the written profiles that I
studied, they became our Bible.

- We had an idea
of the type of individual.

A note of hypervigilance

or what some people
might call paranoia.

He's committed.

Anti-government, anti-ab*rtion,

anti-h*m*.

- What kind of clues were you
given access to,

to make a more detailed
assessment of this target?

- Certainly, the anti-personnel
nature of the device,

the shrapnel.

Added metal, ball bearings
in this case,

nails, that are designed
to increase the lethality.

He's willing to k*ll,

willing to accept
the consequences.

Certainly he's going to be
the object of a massive manhunt

and investigation
by the federal agencies.

But after the bombing
in Birmingham,

the witnesses
who heard the expl*si*n,

seeing people
either standing there

staring that way or running,

a man is methodically walking
away from the expl*si*n.

Which the witnesses
thought was odd.

- And he gets into
a pickup truck.

The witness gets
the license number

and calls 911.

- So we have
the license plate number.

They research it, they trace it,
it comes back to North Carolina.

And like I always say,
sometimes God loves cops

because now we have a name,

Eric Robert Rudolph.

And lo and behold, finally,
once and for all,
we have a suspect,

but now we've got to catch him.

- So at this point, guys,
we have a witness that
was able to grab a tag.

- The FBI very quickly

looks at the license tag,
gets a name,

Eric Robert Rudolph,
and a location.

Murphy, North Carolina.

First thing they do
is pick up the phone

and call the sheriff
up in Cherokee County.

They know their people
in their counties.

They knew of him and they
were ready to go.

They were ready to launch right
then and there to his trailer

and make the arrest.

The FBI told them to hold off.

By the time the agents and the
SWAT team got to his trailer,

it was very obvious that
he had left in a big hurry.

The FBI made a tactical error.

Somebody had leaked
some of the information,
so he had already left.

- They basically
froze the premises.

There was food there,

there were receipts
for some fast food.

He had rented a blockbuster
movie the night before.

They did a very thorough search.

- And the other thing there was
some other additional evidence

that was with expl*sive
material that was found.

Materials that were used

commonly with the wiring
and the triggering

of the bombs that were
consistent all the way through.

- So, we have evidence that
from a technical standpoint

that bombs were made the same.

- In a forensic way.
- Right.

- But also matching the bombings
to this individual.

And that's why they
needed to take their time

searching the trailer,
but also launch the manhunt
right then and there.

- What does that
manhunt look like?

- A lot of people,
local sheriff, police chiefs,

surrounding sheriffs, A*F,

park rangers,

the Georgia Bureau
of Investigation,

the State Bureau
of Investigation.

I mean, it was a cast
of thousands.

It was a very, very intense,

very extensive manhunt.

The personality profile

convinced everybody
that he was still there.

A couple days after

the FBI had missed him
at his trailer,

his car was found...

...and it was in the Nantahala
National Forest area.

The immediate assumption
was that he was in those woods,

that he had
a campsite back there.

He was, some would say,
a survivalist.

And he was extremely familiar
with the terrain and the area.

So advantage Rudolph
at that point.

- What's the environment like
that we believe Rudolph was in?

- This is a very remote,

mountainous region
of North Carolina.

- This is a vast
national forest.

Just heavy trees,
heavy underbrush.

And you can be literally feet
from a person and not see him.

- Eric was trained from the army
in escape and evasion.

I was amazed

looking at the country
and thinking,

we're never going
to find the guy here.

There's snakes,
poisonous snakes,

mosquitoes, ticks,

all kinds of things
that the pursuing agents

I think we tend to forget about

just the environmental hazards
they had facing them.
- Wow.

- Talking to some of the locals
I've talked to, many of them,

I'm from North Carolina.

It was almost
like a w*r zone.

Choppers flying overhead,
people in cammies,

you know, kitted out,

with tactical weapons, tramping
through the woods on the trails,

off the trails, dogs.

It felt, you know, almost like
an occupational army

had taken over Murphy
and topped into that area.

- Chris, you're from that area

and you're familiar with where
Rudolph had escaped to.

What's the atmosphere like?

- That's the far reaches
of western North Carolina.

So that area,
in Cherokee County and Murphy,

there's a strain
of anti-government

throughout that whole area.

There were people
who were obvious sympathizers.

- Do you think Eric Rudolph has
a lot of friends around here?

- All over the United
States, I'd say.

- Do you think
you would be pleased

if Eric Rudolph were
never caught?

- I'd rather not have
no comment on that.

Somebody fired into
our command post,

and that was an intense
investigation,

because an agent
had almost been shot.

The round landed right
next to his head.

And you had to think, well,

somebody's willing to sh**t
into the command post,

is he in alliance
with Eric Rudolph?

Does somebody like this
know where he is?

Is he working
with other people?

- Who was the individual
that shot

and was it a sympathizer, or...?

- It was a local,
kind of a local ne'er-do-well

who shared the ideology,
local supporter.

You know, even
rank-and-file people

were somewhat sympathetic

because Eric Rudolph
was anti-ab*rtion.

This is a very
conservative area.

Quite a few people, they're
anti-ab*rtion, anti-g*y,

so, there was sympathy
for Eric Rudolph.

There were T-shirts that said,
"Run, Eric, run!"

being sold in the local stores.

♪ Run, Rudolph, run

♪ Or the FBI's gonna
sh**t you with their g*n ♪♪

- He had this folk hero status.

He was this heroic survivalist.

In interviews
of Eric's close friends,

we found out that
he had spent his earlier years

camping and playing hide
and seek in those mountains,

elaborate w*r games
they used to play

where they would
run out in the hills.

Eric had roots
in Christian identity,

extremist beliefs.

After the bombing
in the g*y bar in Atlanta,

he sends a note
targeting the sodomites.

Pages are highlighted,
verses are highlighted.

And in the margins he had
written "anti-h*m*."

So, he espouses that
he's against h*m*,

yet he has a good and close
relationship with his brother,

who's openly g*y at the time.

We kind of distilled
all of that down

into what we thought
was the core of his issue.

And this is a very
angry young man.

Narcissistic traits
and characteristics.

And but... the anger that
needed to be expressed.

We felt that these causes:
anti-ab*rtion,

anti-h*m*,

anti-big government,
they were convenient postures

or positions for him to take

to nobly express
his violent intentions

and allow him to vent his anger

and hostility and desire to k*ll

and cloak it in the mantle
of nobility of a higher cause.

- There were still a lot
of people that thought

he can't be in that area.
Nobody's caught him.

After five years, he's either
dead or he's somewhere else.

I mean, there were hundreds,
literally hundreds

of law enforcement,
various law enforcement agents
and officers there.

But we knew we couldn't
sustain that...

And going forward,
it was going to slim down.

And that slimmed-down version
of it looked like five agents.

We relied on the local
sheriff's departments.

There were four in the area,
several police departments,

forest rangers,
North Carolina Wildlife.

We had hired scouts from the
Eastern band of the Cherokees.

They were walking the trails.

Some local hunters
were still walking the trails.

The idea was, we still
have to suppress him,

even though we've dwindled down,
we gotta let him know
we're still out there.

- Then, yeah,
he's still in the area.

We've got a sighting.

We've got a recent sighting,
and he's in the area.

So we have a lead at the point
of the investigation

where Rudolph approaches
a store owner.

- Nordman, who runs a very
remote general store

is a bit of a
survivalist as well.

He was pretty much to himself.

- Eric had actually camped
by Nordman's residence,

surveilling it...

...figuring out when he could
approach him safely.

He's hungry and he's running
out of supplies.

Eric approached Nordman
one day at his remote home.

They had a conversation and
Eric wanted to borrow his truck.

And he wanted Nordman
to get him some supplies.

Mr. Nordman was very frightened.

Eric took the truck nonetheless.

He hardwired it, I think.

And it was that truck
that he used

to get the supplies
to his camp.

And it was left there.

- It's possible that the truck
may have been driven

some distance out
of the forest area,

and later back in again
to where it was found.

- This was the wow moment

because now we knew we had
an actual sighting.

We felt part of his method

of success involved
intensive surveillance

of the sites he attacked,

and the command post, there
was a ridge line above it

and a ridge line
on the other side.

And we thought, you know,
sooner or later,

he's going to be very curious

and he's going to want to know
what's going on.

So we said that he might be
surveilling us,

and to have forward observers
on the opposite ridge,

observing the ridge where
we thought he would be

to see if they
would pick him up.

- So, May 31st, 2003,

a young rookie officer

with the Murphy Police
Department

is driving on
his rounds at night

and he goes behind
a grocery store.

He sees something. He thought it
was a deer initially,

and he realized it was a person.

He was moving outside
behind a dumpster.

He stopped and confronted him.

Jeffrey Postell,
who was the officer,

decided to detain him
until he could identify him.

I get a phone call early in the
morning, it's Rick Schwein,

who's the supervisory
FBI special agent.

Back in Murphy, another deputy
comes up on the scene.

That deputy grew up in Murphy.

Thought he recognized him
as Eric Rudolph,

but it was a
tentative identification.

On the phone, Rick says,
"I think we have Eric Rudolph.

You probably need
to get out there."

They take him down
to the sheriff's department

fingerprint him,
and then he basically says,

"You got me, I'm Eric Rudolph."

I've already got a go-bag
packed and in my car

because we knew
this day would come.

And so I jumped in the car

and I immediately took off
for Murphy, North Carolina,

which is about a 3.5 hour
drive from my house.

I did it in about


I made it there in record time.

You know, this only happens
once or twice in your career.

I mean, he's a top-ten fugitive.

He's got a $1,000,000
price on his head.

It's a good feeling.

This morning at 4:30
in the morning,

an alert Murphy police officer

noticed something unusual going
on behind the Value Village

Shopping Center here in Murphy.

He investigated,
he called for backup,

and ultimately arrested
Eric Robert Rudolph

at about 4:30 AM this morning.

Eric Rudolph
is no longer phantom,
no longer shadow.

Finally captured, he's skin
and bones and not much more.

- During the debrief
of Eric Rudolph,

he gave information
about his two campsites.

That took some time.
We drew maps.

We knew there was about


hidden somewhere.

We suspected there were
booby traps as well.

We didn't want anybody
to get hurt.

So the prosecutor made a
bargain with Rudolph's attorney

that they would take the death
penalty off the table

if he would disclose
the locations of the dynamite,

which he did.

So he hadn't given up on

continuing to try
to k*ll people.

It was a deep sense
of satisfaction

and knowing that
a plan had come together.

And it turns out
we were actually right,

because the FBI
had taken a lot of heat.

You know, the occupational army

five years out, and still
couldn't catch him.

For all practical purposes,
he had outwitted the government.

But not really.
He got caught.

- My overwhelming feeling
with the closure

of all this is
just the gratitude.

I just think of all
the experiences,

not only myself but everybody
that was in the park that night,

and escaped
severe injury or death.

I'm profoundly grateful

this time of the year,
every year.

And I think about those things.

- We're glad you're still
here, brother.

- And, you know, I've been
blessed with another day.

Many more days.

At 1:20 a.m. on July 27th,

I was the luckiest FBI agent
in the country, for sure.