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Rudolph avoids death penalty with plea agreement in four bombings

Rudolph Avoids Death Penalty

By Jon Ostendorff / Asheville Citizen-Times

MURPHY -- Jack Thompson was at his nightly post Friday, feet propped up and leaning back in a chair in a corner of the Murphy Police Department.

The former Cherokee County sheriff got a call from a friend early in the afternoon who told him to change channels from his NASCAR race and switch to CNN. Eric Rudolph, the friend said, was going to plead guilty to bombings in Alabama and Georgia.

Thompson, the top lawman in the county when Rudolph became Western North Carolina’s most famous fugitive, reluctantly turned the channel.

“I would have rather watched my NASCAR,” said the 74-year-old. “But I was surprised. I never thought he’d be one to give up.”

The government’s deal

The deal that led Rudolph to give up will spare him his life, U.S. Justice Department officials said Friday in announcing they had reached an agreement with the man once held up as the ultimate anti-government extremist.

The fugitive who claims he lived on the land for five years as authorities searched in vain agreed to plead guilty and admit setting off a deadly bomb at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and three other blasts. The deal will leave him with four consecutive life sentences.

“The many victims of Eric Rudolph’s terrorist attacks ... can rest assured that Rudolph will spend the rest of his life behind bars,” U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said.

Hearings have been scheduled in Birmingham, Ala., and Atlanta on Wednesday, where Rudolph is scheduled to admit his guilt. He will have no possibility of parole.

Defense lawyer Bill Bowen did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Asheville attorney Sean Devereux, who represented Rudolph during the suspect’s brief court appearance in Asheville shortly after his capture, said he’s surprised Rudolph agreed to plead.

“He didn’t strike me as someone who was afraid of a trial or the consequences,” Devereux said. “He struck me as a pretty stubborn guy.”

Rudolph, as part of the deal, disclosed to the government the existence and locations of more than 250 pounds of dynamite buried in several sites in Western North Carolina. Three were near populated areas, including one location where Rudolph buried a fully constructed dynamite bomb with a detached detonator, the Justice Department said.

Rudolph described the locations of those dangerous materials and provided other information necessary for the government disable the explosives.

Because of the information, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the FBI dispatched teams to locate the dynamite and hidden bomb.

Neighbors who live near the Old Block Plant between Marble and Murphy said they heard an explosion Monday that rattled windows in the area.

The search teams — with the assistance of other federal agencies and state and local law enforcement in WNC — found the bomb hidden close to a road, homes and businesses.

‘He deserves everything he gets’

Before his capture, Rudolph had became an almost mythic figure to fellow radicals, inspiring two country-western songs and a T-shirt that bore the words “Run Rudolph Run.”

But Friday in Murphy, residents reacted with surprise, apathy and not much sympathy.

“I understand what he believes in, but the way he went about it was completely wrong,” said Paul Tefft, 43, who has lived in Murphy most of his life and said he absolutely believes Rudolph is guilty. “I personally don’t believe in abortion, but he went about it the wrong way.”

Tefft and his wife, Dana, were downtown picking up a prescription when they heard the news. Dana Tefft and others expressed doubt that Rudolph was guilty or that he’d acted alone.

“He may have done one,” Dana Tefft, 45, said, “But I honestly feel he was framed for the other ones.”

Down the street at the Downtown Pizza Co., Sandy Brown of Hayesville said she would have been interested to see a trial.

“I wasn’t sure they had enough evidence to really connect everything,” said Brown, 33, between bites of dinner with her husband and children.

A couple of tables over, Murphy resident Nancy Lane, eating with her husband and a couple of friends, had heard enough of Rudolph to last her for good.

“I got so sick and tired of the media acting like the people in the Murphy area are a bunch of hillbillies (when Rudolph was caught),” said Lane, 57, a Realtor. “Nobody was hiding him. Who cares? Justice will prevail.”

Just outside of town at field No. 1 of the Coneheeta ballpark, David Hughes, 43, of Murphy, was keeping score during the ballgame between the Martin’s Creek Dodgers and the Murphy Blue Jays. Rudolph doesn’t have his or many people’s sympathy, Hughes said.

“Personally, I think that he deserves everything he gets. The guy obviously committed some heinous crimes,” Hughes said, one eye on the score sheet and the other on his son, 7-year-old Hayden of the Blue Jays, who were leading going into the bottom of the second. “He’s not a local person and most of the local people don’t support him and it’s been portrayed otherwise. I wish he would have gotten the electric chair.”

‘It’s history now’

Thompson, sheriff from 1986-98, spends most afternoons at the police department discussing the events of the day and staying close to his friends in law enforcement. He would have likely been a government witness in the trial against Rudolph.

He said he would have been interested in some of the details about Rudolph that a trial could have provided — especially the details of a night just after the Rudolph was officially named as a suspect.

Thompson had information that Rudolph was staying in a mobile home. He offered to surround the place but the FBI asked him to wait. Rudolph escaped.

Thompson said he’ll never know whether action that night could have changed history. Rudolph stayed on the run until 2003. He was captured behind a Murphy grocery store while digging through a Dumpster.

For Thompson, the entire event is now firmly in the past.

“It’s history now,” he said. “It’s not closure for me.”

He said Rudolph’s reported agreement to plead might not be what the victims need.

“The victims, the woman that got so badly beaten up and the wife of that cop in Birmingham, are the ones that need the closure. It may not be a closure to them.”


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Posted by Editor at April 9, 2005 09:00 AM