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| Eric Robert Rudolph was arrested May 31, 2003, after five years
on the run in the North Carolina wilderness. (Photo by AP)
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‘Sodomites’ among targets as string of bombings shook Southern cities
• July 27, 1996: Centennial Olympic Park bombed. A pipe bomb packed with nails and concealed in a military backpack explodes at 1:20 a.m. in Centennial Olympic Park, killing one and injuring more than 100.
• January 16, 1997: Atlanta abortion clinic bombed. Two bombs explode at an abortion clinic in North Atlanta's Sandy Springs Professional Building, injuring seven.
• Feb. 21, 1997: The Otherside bombed. A bomb packed with nails explodes into the patio of the Otherside Lounge at 9:50 p.m., injuring five. A second device is found in the club's parking lot and detonated by police without further injuries.
• Feb. 22, 1997: "Army of God" claims bombs. In a letter mailed to four Atlanta news agencies, a group calling itself the "Army of God" claims responsibility for the Sandy Springs and Otherside bombings and promised to target "sodomites" and those who "participate in the murder of children."
• Feb. 23, 1997: Community responds. Gay leaders speak out against the bombings in a press conference at the Georgia capitol, while the Lesbian Avengers and other street activists stage a rally at police barricades around the Otherside bomb site.
• Feb. 28, 1997: Otherside reopens. Otherside owners Bev McMahon and Dana Ford reopen the club a week after the bombing, although reporters outnumber patrons the first night.
• March 1, 1997: Rally For Peace. Over 1,000 people gather at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center in Atlanta for a "Rally For Peace," to celebrate unity in the face of the bombings.
• June 9, 1997: Three Atlanta bombings officially linked. FBI officials announce that they have combined their investigations to form the Atlanta Bomb Task Force.
• Jan. 29, 1998: Birmingham abortion clinic bombed. In the first fatal abortion clinic bombing in America, a device packed with nails explodes on the steps of the New Woman All Women Clinic in Birmingham, Ala., killing an off-duty police officer and critically injuring a nurse.
• Jan. 30, 1998: Rudolph wanted as witness. A U.S. District Court issues a "material witness" warrant for Eric Robert Rudolph after a witness reports seeing a man in a "silly" wig leaving the scene of the Birmingham bombing in a 1989 gray Nissan pickup truck registered to Rudolph.
• Feb. 2, 1998: "Army of God" claims B'ham bomb. Two news agencies in Atlanta receive a letter claiming responsibility for the Birmingham bomb. Postmarked only hours after the blast, the letter is signed by the "Army of God" and bears "striking similarities" to the letter claiming the Atlanta bombings, according to law enforcement officials.
• Feb. 7, 1998: Rudolph's truck found. Law enforcement officers discover Rudolph's gray pickup truck mired in mud in woods near his last known home in Murphy, N.C. Officials continue a massive manhunt through western North Carolina and extreme north Georgia.
• Feb. 14, 1998: Suspect named in Birmingham bombing. The FBI officially names Eric Rudolph a "suspect" in the Jan. 29 Birmingham clinic bombing because bomb-sniffing dogs detected possible explosive residue in Rudolph's truck, storage locker and mobile home.
• Oct. 14, 1998: Feds charge Rudolph with ATL bombs. Federal officials announce that they have formally charged Eric Robert Rudolph with five counts of "malicious use of an explosive" for the string of bombings that terrorized Atlanta. Rudolph had already been charged with the Birmingham abortion clinic bombing.
• July 11, 1998: Rudolph seen in North Carolina. In the last known sighting of Rudolph before his capture, a health food store owner comes forward to say Rudolph asked him for food on July 7; when he later refused, Rudolph returned July 9 to take food and a pick-up truck, which was found abandoned in the Nantahala Wilderness.
• June 2000: Feds close Andrews headquarters. The Southeast Bomb Task Force closes its headquarters in Andrews, N.C., two years after it opened. Law enforcement officials said they will continue to search for Rudolph in the area.
• Nov. 15, 2000: Rudolph officially indicted. Federal grand juries in Atlanta and Birmingham officially indict Eric Rudolph in the four bombings, although he remains at-large with a $1 million reward for information leading to his arrest.
• Feb. 21, 2002: Fifth anniversary of Otherside bombing. Five years after the Otherside was bombed, the club has closed down due to financial difficulties after several reincarnations. The owners say they are finally making peace with the past, while Atlanta’s gay leaders say the bombing has had a lasting effect on how they approach security for big events like June’s Gay Pride festival.
• May 31, 2003: Rudolph arrested. A rookie police officer on routine patrol stops a man going through trash outside a grocery store in Murphy, N.C. Arrested without incident, he turns out to be Eric Rudolph, last seen in July 1998.
• June 2, 2003: Birmingham to get first trial. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft says Rudolph will first stand trial in Birmingham for the bombing there, with a trial for the Atlanta bombings to follow here.
• April 6, 2005: Jury selection begins in Birmingham. Some 500 potential jurors receive questionnaires; opening arguments are not expected until June.
• April 8, 2005: Rudolph to plead guilty. The Department of Justice confirms that Rudolph has agreed to plead guilty to the four bombings in exchange for four life sentences.
• April 13, 2005: Courts accept guilty plea. In courtrooms packed with victims and media, Rudolph officially enters his guilty pleas before federal judges in Atlanta and Birmingham.
Laura Douglas-Brown |
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HOME > NEWS > LOCAL
By: LAURA DOUGLAS-BROWN
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It seemed like an answer to her prayers.
Last week, Beverly McMahon was attending Wednesday morning bible study at her
church in Atlanta when she brought up a topic that haunted her family for more
than eight years.
“I mentioned Eric Rudolph, and said I just wish it would go away,”
McMahon recalled. “And the next thing I know, I see this on TV —
it was incredible.”
Two days later, McMahon was sitting in a hotel in North Carolina, where she
traveled to help with a line-dancing workshop for senior citizens, when she
glanced at a lobby television tuned to CNN.
The cable network reported that Eric Robert Rudolph, 38, would plead guilty
to a string of bombings that shook the Southeast in the late 1990s, including
the 1997 attack on McMahon’s gay Atlanta nightclub, the Otherside Lounge.
“I just said, ‘wow,’” McMahon said. “And then
I cried.”
A week after McMahon expressed her wish in bible study, she and her partner
of 22 years, Dana Ford, sat with other bombing victims in federal court in Atlanta
on April 13 as Rudolph officially entered his guilty plea to eight charges stemming
from three bombings here.
“He’s impacted so many lives, and I just want to be here to finish
it and close the door,” Ford said. “I want to truly move on without
anything left hanging.”
The attack on Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park on July 27, 1996, killed
one and injured more than 100. The Jan. 16, 1997, bombing of an Atlanta abortion
clinic injured seven. The Feb. 21, 1997, bombing of the Otherside Lounge, the
now-defunct Atlanta gay bar, injured five.
“Today, Eric Rudolph’s reign of terror ended in courts of law and
justice,” said David E. Nahmias, U.S. attorney for the northern district
of Georgia, at a press conference following the plea hearing Wednesday.
During the hearing, Rudolph — wearing an open-collared blue shirt and
sports coat — sat stone-faced, occasionally rocking slightly in his chair,
as U.S. District Judge Charles Pannell questioned him about whether he understood
the charges against him and entered into the plea agreement voluntarily.
“Are you pleading guilty out of your own free will because you are guilty?”
Pannell asked.
“Yes,” Rudolph replied.
Earlier in the day, Rudolph appeared in federal court in Birmingham, Ala.,
to plead guilty to the Jan. 29, 1998, bombing of an abortion clinic there that
killed an off-duty police officer and critically injured a nurse.
Rudolph’s decision to plead guilty became public April 8, two days after
jury selection got underway in the Birmingham case, the first to go to trial.
The process was expected to take months, with opening arguments tentatively
scheduled for early June.
As part of the plea agreement, Rudolph revealed the locations of more than
250 pounds of dynamite, including one bomb with a detached detonator, buried
in western N.C., according to the Department of Justice.
After a massive five-year manhunt centered on the western North Carolina wilderness,
Rudolph — then included on the FBI’s “10 Most Wanted”
list with a $1 million reward on his head — was brought in by a rookie
police officer who was on routine patrol May 31, 2003, when he spotted Rudolph
foraging for food in a trash bin behind a grocery store in Murphy, N.C.
“After so many years ducking and hiding and eating crappy foods you tend
to let your guard down, and this is what led to my capture in Murphy in 2003,”
Rudolph said in an 11-page statement released after the hearing in Atlanta.
The document focused mainly on abortion, which Rudolph called “the vomitorium
of modernity,” and also denounced homosexuality as an “aberrant
sexual behavior” with which gays “should not attempt to infect the
rest of society.”
The statement concluded with Rudolph’s defiant declaration that while
media may say that he is “finished,” “I say to you people
that by the grace of God I am still here — a little bloodied, but emphatically
unbowed.”
Rudolph agreed to plead guilty to each of the attacks to avoid the death penalty.
He waived all appeals and will receive four consecutive life sentences without
the possibility of parole, plus 120 years, and will be required to make “full
restitution” to his victims.
As Rudolph has been declared indigent, the plea agreement specifies that any
money he might earn from ...
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