1
00:00:00,840 --> 00:00:04,320
Speaker 1: Flashpoint is released weekly and brought to you absolutely free,

2
00:00:04,760 --> 00:00:09,080
Speaker 1: but for ad free listening, early access and exclusive bonuses,

3
00:00:09,440 --> 00:00:13,480
Speaker 1: subscribe to Tenderfoot Plus at tenderfootplus dot com or on

4
00:00:13,520 --> 00:00:14,480
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts.

5
00:00:17,239 --> 00:00:20,759
Speaker 2: You're listening to Flashpoint, a production of tenderfoot TV and

6
00:00:20,840 --> 00:00:25,200
Speaker 2: association with iHeartMedia. The views and opinions expressed in this

7
00:00:25,239 --> 00:00:29,360
Speaker 2: podcast are solely those of the individuals participating in the podcast.

8
00:00:30,080 --> 00:00:33,159
Speaker 2: This podcast also contains subject matter which may not be

9
00:00:33,240 --> 00:00:36,519
Speaker 2: suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.

10
00:00:40,520 --> 00:00:41,080
Speaker 3: Can't wait for.

11
00:00:43,520 --> 00:00:45,440
Speaker 4: So roodles?

12
00:00:45,479 --> 00:00:45,760
Speaker 3: First.

13
00:00:50,720 --> 00:00:53,760
Speaker 1: I'm in the car with my producer, Doug Mattica and

14
00:00:53,800 --> 00:00:57,560
Speaker 1: Paul Wolf, our local guide for the weekend. Doug and

15
00:00:57,600 --> 00:00:59,480
Speaker 1: I just drove through the night to meet up with Paul.

16
00:01:00,360 --> 00:01:03,680
Speaker 1: We're clearly outsiders here, so we need a local to

17
00:01:03,720 --> 00:01:06,600
Speaker 1: show us around. We wanted to spend some real time

18
00:01:06,640 --> 00:01:10,120
Speaker 1: in this part of Appalachia where Rudolph grew up, explore

19
00:01:10,160 --> 00:01:13,759
Speaker 1: the region and talk with people who might have known him,

20
00:01:13,880 --> 00:01:17,240
Speaker 1: and with Paul's help, try to understand where and how

21
00:01:17,280 --> 00:01:18,399
Speaker 1: he hid from authorities.

22
00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:22,360
Speaker 5: That's a fascinating landscape, Gesso. Where we're going to be

23
00:01:22,400 --> 00:01:26,479
Speaker 5: heading up to the Upper Nanahala is remote even by

24
00:01:26,520 --> 00:01:27,400
Speaker 5: local standards.

25
00:01:28,600 --> 00:01:32,279
Speaker 1: We're driving through a town called Topton. It's just outside Murphy,

26
00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:35,680
Speaker 1: North Carolina. Paul fell in love with this area and

27
00:01:35,720 --> 00:01:38,880
Speaker 1: moved here more than thirty years ago. Since then, he's

28
00:01:38,920 --> 00:01:41,400
Speaker 1: been a backpacking guide and a shaman of sorts to

29
00:01:41,520 --> 00:01:47,360
Speaker 1: series hikers exploring Appalachia. Likely to historically speaking, this is

30
00:01:47,440 --> 00:01:49,280
Speaker 1: in fact where people go to hye.

31
00:01:49,720 --> 00:01:52,080
Speaker 5: And even some of those encounters where people might see you,

32
00:01:52,760 --> 00:01:54,680
Speaker 5: most soaks here aren't going to pay much attention for

33
00:01:54,760 --> 00:01:56,720
Speaker 5: that if you didn't want to be found. This is

34
00:01:56,760 --> 00:01:59,880
Speaker 5: a great spot, and especially knowing a bit about it.

35
00:02:00,040 --> 00:02:02,320
Speaker 1: We passed by a tiny church that has maybe six

36
00:02:02,360 --> 00:02:06,560
Speaker 1: recipes inside, then a few homes, and then a few

37
00:02:06,560 --> 00:02:09,040
Speaker 1: dogs emerge from those homes and chase after our car.

38
00:02:09,480 --> 00:02:11,880
Speaker 5: Just keep driving, just keep driving, Just keep.

39
00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:12,440
Speaker 3: On his nail.

40
00:02:13,080 --> 00:02:16,120
Speaker 1: Weirdly, nobody comes outside to hear what the commotion is

41
00:02:16,120 --> 00:02:16,520
Speaker 1: all about.

42
00:02:16,960 --> 00:02:21,080
Speaker 5: Here Partridge Creek, Yal, there's a no trustbus must take

43
00:02:21,120 --> 00:02:22,320
Speaker 5: a pause here for a second.

44
00:02:23,240 --> 00:02:26,480
Speaker 1: A single lane gravel road called Partridge Creek dead ends

45
00:02:26,480 --> 00:02:28,919
Speaker 1: with a ranch style home with a wood frame and

46
00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:29,880
Speaker 1: aluminum siding.

47
00:02:30,919 --> 00:02:32,840
Speaker 5: So imagine this twenty years ago folks.

48
00:02:33,639 --> 00:02:34,840
Speaker 6: I wonder who lives there now.

49
00:02:36,760 --> 00:02:39,560
Speaker 1: This was Eric Rudolph's home in nineteen eighty two, when

50
00:02:39,560 --> 00:02:41,959
Speaker 1: he was just sixteen years old. He and his family

51
00:02:41,960 --> 00:02:45,600
Speaker 1: moved here from Florida. Next Door is Tom Brandham's home,

52
00:02:45,840 --> 00:02:49,000
Speaker 1: a family friend of the Rudolph's. Tom met the family

53
00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:51,720
Speaker 1: at their church in Florida, and after he moved to Topton,

54
00:02:52,240 --> 00:02:56,120
Speaker 1: the family eventually followed. They bought the seven acre lot

55
00:02:56,160 --> 00:02:58,799
Speaker 1: next to Tom's and Eric Rudolph and his brother Dan

56
00:02:59,080 --> 00:03:01,239
Speaker 1: built out the existence trailer on the property to be

57
00:03:01,320 --> 00:03:02,040
Speaker 1: the family home.

58
00:03:02,440 --> 00:03:05,160
Speaker 5: Boy, that's all homesteaded. Looks like you played on the

59
00:03:05,160 --> 00:03:06,600
Speaker 5: block for that place himself.

60
00:03:07,400 --> 00:03:10,000
Speaker 1: Tom still lives here. His home looks like it's in

61
00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:12,480
Speaker 1: the middle of a junkyard. There are half a dozen

62
00:03:12,520 --> 00:03:15,959
Speaker 1: cars in scrap metal lining the property. It almost looks

63
00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:16,880
Speaker 1: like a paintball course.

64
00:03:17,240 --> 00:03:20,239
Speaker 5: See the karate target practice dummy in the garden.

65
00:03:21,160 --> 00:03:25,160
Speaker 1: This part of North Carolina is extremely remote. Access to

66
00:03:25,240 --> 00:03:30,520
Speaker 1: cell service, let alone internet is limited. It's isolated. An

67
00:03:30,520 --> 00:03:35,160
Speaker 1: isolation like that breeds distrust. If you're not around people

68
00:03:35,160 --> 00:03:37,920
Speaker 1: that are different from you on a regular basis, they

69
00:03:37,960 --> 00:03:43,160
Speaker 1: become other, something to be suspicious of, even feared you.

70
00:03:43,160 --> 00:03:45,480
Speaker 5: Gotta think if you bought property up a cove like this,

71
00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:47,600
Speaker 5: you didn't really want to have neighbors.

72
00:03:49,560 --> 00:03:51,560
Speaker 1: After hiking and driving around for the better part of

73
00:03:51,600 --> 00:03:55,280
Speaker 1: the day, we stumbled upon a trash depository. That's where

74
00:03:55,280 --> 00:03:57,120
Speaker 1: you take your trash when you don't have a garbage

75
00:03:57,120 --> 00:04:00,200
Speaker 1: truck coming to your house every week. A woman was

76
00:04:00,200 --> 00:04:03,680
Speaker 1: posted up behind glass and a tiny little nook monitoring

77
00:04:03,680 --> 00:04:07,160
Speaker 1: the facility here. How long have you worked here?

78
00:04:08,160 --> 00:04:08,800
Speaker 3: Three years?

79
00:04:09,160 --> 00:04:10,280
Speaker 7: How far here do you live?

80
00:04:11,080 --> 00:04:11,600
Speaker 6: Just took the.

81
00:04:11,560 --> 00:04:16,440
Speaker 8: Road, Yeah, been living here for forty eight years, same place.

82
00:04:16,839 --> 00:04:18,120
Speaker 5: It's a small community.

83
00:04:18,520 --> 00:04:22,920
Speaker 8: Everybody knows everybody what they do when they're going to

84
00:04:23,000 --> 00:04:25,400
Speaker 8: do it, and they just keep their mouth shut.

85
00:04:28,760 --> 00:04:31,320
Speaker 4: About twenty years ago during all the manhat when the

86
00:04:31,440 --> 00:04:34,080
Speaker 4: FBI had staged over here, and we're just kind of

87
00:04:34,120 --> 00:04:37,120
Speaker 4: we're looking around and seeing if anybody was around and

88
00:04:37,120 --> 00:04:38,240
Speaker 4: had any stories around that.

89
00:04:38,160 --> 00:04:40,120
Speaker 3: Stuff about Rudolph.

90
00:04:40,160 --> 00:04:42,480
Speaker 7: Yeah, oh yeah, you were around.

91
00:04:42,600 --> 00:04:43,760
Speaker 4: Yeah live here.

92
00:04:44,080 --> 00:04:48,839
Speaker 8: I was in school. This is a big deal, Eh,

93
00:04:50,760 --> 00:04:52,719
Speaker 8: just another day.

94
00:04:53,880 --> 00:04:56,600
Speaker 6: Do you know the family? Yes? How well?

95
00:04:58,320 --> 00:04:58,760
Speaker 4: Mhmm.

96
00:04:59,440 --> 00:05:01,560
Speaker 8: When they say you mean, they'd say hi, And you know,

97
00:05:01,640 --> 00:05:05,359
Speaker 8: when all this I spoke back and that was it

98
00:05:05,560 --> 00:05:06,560
Speaker 8: to me. It was funny.

99
00:05:06,960 --> 00:05:07,680
Speaker 6: What do you mean by that?

100
00:05:08,400 --> 00:05:12,920
Speaker 8: It's just funny because I couldn't catch one man, I said, what,

101
00:05:13,360 --> 00:05:17,400
Speaker 8: excuse my language, what dumb ice is correct?

102
00:05:17,480 --> 00:05:17,680
Speaker 3: Yeah?

103
00:05:17,680 --> 00:05:21,320
Speaker 8: That fb I come to my dad's house and asked

104
00:05:21,360 --> 00:05:26,240
Speaker 8: him where the caves was. My dad said, I ain't

105
00:05:26,279 --> 00:05:27,560
Speaker 8: gonna tell you a damn thing.

106
00:05:27,839 --> 00:05:29,680
Speaker 3: Right, and they said.

107
00:05:30,080 --> 00:05:32,560
Speaker 8: He said, if Rudolf comes to my portrait now, I

108
00:05:32,560 --> 00:05:33,120
Speaker 8: had feed him.

109
00:05:34,120 --> 00:05:35,240
Speaker 7: Everybody helped him.

110
00:05:37,160 --> 00:05:37,400
Speaker 8: To me.

111
00:05:37,480 --> 00:05:38,240
Speaker 5: He didn't do it.

112
00:05:38,920 --> 00:05:41,440
Speaker 1: What do you mean he didn't blow up that place?

113
00:05:42,000 --> 00:06:04,799
Speaker 9: Who didn't I don't know, but not him, not him.

114
00:06:04,839 --> 00:06:14,480
Speaker 1: Episode five murmurations Alabama abortion clinic bombing suspect Eric Rudolph

115
00:06:14,600 --> 00:06:17,480
Speaker 1: is still on the loops. Investigators think he's taken refuge

116
00:06:17,480 --> 00:06:20,120
Speaker 1: in caves and old mines in a densely forested part

117
00:06:20,160 --> 00:06:25,200
Speaker 1: of North Carolina. It's early spring, nineteen ninety eight. Eric

118
00:06:25,279 --> 00:06:27,000
Speaker 1: Rudolph has been on the run since the bombing at

119
00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:30,240
Speaker 1: the Birmingham abortion clinic in January of ninety eight.

120
00:06:31,080 --> 00:06:32,960
Speaker 3: You know, he dreamed about this as a young man.

121
00:06:33,040 --> 00:06:35,760
Speaker 3: He am against the world, and now it's come true,

122
00:06:35,800 --> 00:06:37,440
Speaker 3: and hey, he's enjoying him.

123
00:06:37,640 --> 00:06:39,160
Speaker 10: It's a nineteen nineties man.

124
00:06:39,320 --> 00:06:41,159
Speaker 11: I'm looking for an eighteen nineties man.

125
00:06:42,520 --> 00:06:45,400
Speaker 12: We were trying to be very systematic about our search,

126
00:06:45,640 --> 00:06:48,400
Speaker 12: and as with any search, there's a start point, right,

127
00:06:48,600 --> 00:06:50,000
Speaker 12: so there was his trailer.

128
00:06:51,240 --> 00:06:54,080
Speaker 1: Rick Schwine was an FBI supervisor in the nineteen nineties

129
00:06:54,160 --> 00:06:56,960
Speaker 1: at the Western North Carolina Branch and was assigned to

130
00:06:57,000 --> 00:06:59,719
Speaker 1: the search for Eric Rudolph. He was one of the

131
00:06:59,760 --> 00:07:02,920
Speaker 1: few who was somewhat familiar with this territory in North Carolina.

132
00:07:03,400 --> 00:07:06,200
Speaker 12: And it's like throwing a pebble into a pond and

133
00:07:06,240 --> 00:07:08,400
Speaker 12: you see the rings, right, So you start with the

134
00:07:08,440 --> 00:07:11,920
Speaker 12: closest rings first and then you work your way out.

135
00:07:13,560 --> 00:07:17,160
Speaker 1: This first ring for investigators was around Rudolph's trailer, the

136
00:07:17,200 --> 00:07:18,880
Speaker 1: one he fled from when his name was released to

137
00:07:18,920 --> 00:07:22,320
Speaker 1: the public. The second ring included the Partridge Creek home

138
00:07:22,720 --> 00:07:27,720
Speaker 1: that we drove past earlier, next to Tom Brandham's property.

139
00:07:28,600 --> 00:07:31,360
Speaker 12: And we used a lot of different techniques, whether it

140
00:07:31,480 --> 00:07:35,840
Speaker 12: was you know, helicopters with infrared capability at night looking

141
00:07:35,880 --> 00:07:39,640
Speaker 12: for heat signatures, or it was use of man trackers,

142
00:07:39,720 --> 00:07:44,760
Speaker 12: you know, people that had specialty skills in tracking human beings,

143
00:07:44,880 --> 00:07:48,560
Speaker 12: whether it was scent dogs, especially trained dogs. But Rudolph

144
00:07:48,600 --> 00:07:52,720
Speaker 12: had some training, so he knew how to avoid those techniques.

145
00:07:53,440 --> 00:07:55,720
Speaker 12: There was an instant where we just missed him and

146
00:07:55,720 --> 00:07:59,000
Speaker 12: Andrews he had forded a river and he was foraging

147
00:07:59,120 --> 00:08:01,440
Speaker 12: and he was close to the man post and agents

148
00:08:01,440 --> 00:08:04,240
Speaker 12: came upon him. He could hear us, he could see us.

149
00:08:04,360 --> 00:08:07,240
Speaker 12: It's plausible that tackle teams walked right by him and

150
00:08:08,120 --> 00:08:11,880
Speaker 12: didn't see him. That's the nature of that environment. And

151
00:08:12,080 --> 00:08:15,520
Speaker 12: it's not because of lack of trying or lack of skill.

152
00:08:16,000 --> 00:08:18,200
Speaker 12: It's hide and seek on a whole different level.

153
00:08:19,440 --> 00:08:22,080
Speaker 1: And for most of the investigators on the ground, especially

154
00:08:22,080 --> 00:08:26,360
Speaker 1: the FEDS, this region was foreign territory. This was not

155
00:08:26,480 --> 00:08:28,720
Speaker 1: their home, this was not their land.

156
00:08:31,560 --> 00:08:32,280
Speaker 7: It's rugged.

157
00:08:32,520 --> 00:08:37,959
Speaker 12: There are lots of vast tracks of land that's not improved,

158
00:08:38,240 --> 00:08:44,200
Speaker 12: no roads, very few trails overgrown. The rhododendrum slicks are

159
00:08:44,240 --> 00:08:47,760
Speaker 12: really tough. There's a lot of elevation change. You know,

160
00:08:47,800 --> 00:08:50,760
Speaker 12: you'll be walking along and then there'll be a sheer cliff.

161
00:08:51,679 --> 00:08:54,240
Speaker 12: One of the guys on my team slipped and fortunately

162
00:08:54,240 --> 00:08:56,440
Speaker 12: got his weapon up and caught between two trees and

163
00:08:56,480 --> 00:09:00,440
Speaker 12: it prevented him from going off a forty foot drip off.

164
00:09:01,559 --> 00:09:02,920
Speaker 7: You know, people would get stung by.

165
00:09:02,920 --> 00:09:07,440
Speaker 12: Bees or these ground, duelling wasps, there were poisonous snakes

166
00:09:07,440 --> 00:09:11,559
Speaker 12: that we would run across. We would occasionally walk across

167
00:09:11,600 --> 00:09:16,760
Speaker 12: the black bear, So just a lot of hazards. On

168
00:09:16,800 --> 00:09:19,200
Speaker 12: the other hand, it's an easy place to sustain yourself

169
00:09:19,360 --> 00:09:22,600
Speaker 12: right There are a lot of people that have sustenance gardens.

170
00:09:22,679 --> 00:09:25,040
Speaker 12: There's a lot of stuff that you can forage and eat,

171
00:09:25,160 --> 00:09:29,240
Speaker 12: you can hunt, there's lots of shelter out there. So

172
00:09:29,880 --> 00:09:33,680
Speaker 12: not an impossible place to sustain yourself, but a difficult

173
00:09:33,720 --> 00:09:34,400
Speaker 12: place to search.

174
00:09:35,640 --> 00:09:36,640
Speaker 4: He has the edge.

175
00:09:37,000 --> 00:09:40,120
Speaker 3: They may have the helicopters, they've got the technology, but.

176
00:09:40,160 --> 00:09:42,800
Speaker 11: He's got to know how and the experience in the

177
00:09:42,840 --> 00:09:44,800
Speaker 11: area that they're totally inapting.

178
00:10:00,120 --> 00:10:03,000
Speaker 5: So he learned to stay between the lines of drift,

179
00:10:03,160 --> 00:10:05,360
Speaker 5: which in this area is pretty easy.

180
00:10:06,720 --> 00:10:09,319
Speaker 1: Between the lines of drift is really just another way

181
00:10:09,360 --> 00:10:13,520
Speaker 1: of saying off the beaten path. Paul Wolf has hiked

182
00:10:13,520 --> 00:10:16,720
Speaker 1: these trails countless times. He's a professor who teaches at

183
00:10:16,760 --> 00:10:20,080
Speaker 1: Southwestern Community College in western North Carolina, where he's the

184
00:10:20,080 --> 00:10:24,400
Speaker 1: Outdoor Leadership Program director. The Eric Rudolph story is one

185
00:10:24,440 --> 00:10:27,560
Speaker 1: that he's very familiar with, one that he saw unfold

186
00:10:27,600 --> 00:10:31,440
Speaker 1: as a local and now decades later he likes to

187
00:10:31,480 --> 00:10:33,160
Speaker 1: retrace those steps that Rudolph took.

188
00:10:34,400 --> 00:10:37,680
Speaker 5: I've been hiking leading groups in this area for over

189
00:10:37,720 --> 00:10:40,400
Speaker 5: twenty five years now, and I still discover stuff that

190
00:10:40,440 --> 00:10:43,360
Speaker 5: I didn't know was there. You can be close, you

191
00:10:43,480 --> 00:10:45,960
Speaker 5: just have to be several steps off because people are

192
00:10:46,040 --> 00:10:48,600
Speaker 5: going to take the path of least resistance so they

193
00:10:48,600 --> 00:10:50,959
Speaker 5: can just go around you. How many times do you

194
00:10:51,000 --> 00:10:53,840
Speaker 5: think he just sat there and watched folks He'd had

195
00:10:53,840 --> 00:10:57,800
Speaker 5: those Clowes encounters with hunters, same thing, Keep still lie down.

196
00:10:58,400 --> 00:11:01,480
Speaker 5: If you're not looking for someone, you're not going.

197
00:11:01,440 --> 00:11:01,840
Speaker 3: To see it.

198
00:11:02,720 --> 00:11:05,920
Speaker 5: There is a home field advantage to having grown up

199
00:11:05,960 --> 00:11:09,040
Speaker 5: and lived hunted, And if he really was out there

200
00:11:09,040 --> 00:11:12,040
Speaker 5: looking for clandestine spots to grow weed, he would know

201
00:11:12,080 --> 00:11:14,400
Speaker 5: of the back of that stuff more than anybody.

202
00:11:18,320 --> 00:11:19,040
Speaker 4: He grew up here.

203
00:11:19,080 --> 00:11:19,920
Speaker 6: This is home to him.

204
00:11:19,960 --> 00:11:20,960
Speaker 3: This is his playground.

205
00:11:21,400 --> 00:11:25,800
Speaker 10: It's tough, it's rugged, and it's vast, and right now

206
00:11:25,800 --> 00:11:30,640
Speaker 10: he's got the upper hand because he knows these woods.

207
00:11:30,040 --> 00:11:32,640
Speaker 1: And he also knew these people.

208
00:11:33,280 --> 00:11:37,600
Speaker 5: But folks here a good folks in general, fiercely independent, proud,

209
00:11:37,840 --> 00:11:41,160
Speaker 5: you know, God fearing, church going, conservative in general, but

210
00:11:41,760 --> 00:11:44,959
Speaker 5: people in general are nice and friendly. Anyone will help

211
00:11:45,000 --> 00:11:47,400
Speaker 5: you out. That's one of my first experiences here with

212
00:11:47,480 --> 00:11:49,439
Speaker 5: my car broken down. A person came out in a

213
00:11:49,480 --> 00:11:52,320
Speaker 5: snowstorm and helped get me going. And when I asked

214
00:11:52,360 --> 00:11:53,920
Speaker 5: what I could do for him, he said, just help

215
00:11:54,240 --> 00:11:58,440
Speaker 5: return the favor to somebody something. Zoning and regulations are

216
00:11:58,640 --> 00:12:01,040
Speaker 5: drowned upon. People like to do what they want with

217
00:12:01,080 --> 00:12:03,319
Speaker 5: their land, and you know, don't like government and other

218
00:12:03,360 --> 00:12:04,200
Speaker 5: folks telling you.

219
00:12:05,720 --> 00:12:07,560
Speaker 12: I think there were a small group of people in

220
00:12:07,600 --> 00:12:14,720
Speaker 12: western North Carolina that empathized with him. A lot of

221
00:12:14,760 --> 00:12:18,760
Speaker 12: the federal land out there was taken from people to

222
00:12:18,800 --> 00:12:22,560
Speaker 12: create those national forests, the Pisken and Anhala National Forests,

223
00:12:22,920 --> 00:12:25,600
Speaker 12: So there are families out there that lost their farmland

224
00:12:25,679 --> 00:12:29,439
Speaker 12: or lost their homesteads, so there is sort of a mistrust.

225
00:12:30,080 --> 00:12:32,720
Speaker 12: And then there were anti government groups out there. There

226
00:12:32,760 --> 00:12:37,120
Speaker 12: were you know, supremacist groups and Christian identity groups that

227
00:12:37,160 --> 00:12:40,840
Speaker 12: were active in the search area. Rudolph had kind of

228
00:12:40,920 --> 00:12:44,679
Speaker 12: bounced around some of those groups, knew some of those people,

229
00:12:45,320 --> 00:12:48,040
Speaker 12: you know, I think there was that balancing act of, hey,

230
00:12:48,040 --> 00:12:51,280
Speaker 12: we need to gain the trust of people in that area.

231
00:12:54,120 --> 00:12:56,000
Speaker 1: Rick connected us with a very good friend he worked

232
00:12:56,000 --> 00:12:59,160
Speaker 1: with during the search, a former at THEIE agent named

233
00:12:59,240 --> 00:13:02,839
Speaker 1: Terry Turci. Before the Rudolph case, Terry was the leader

234
00:13:02,840 --> 00:13:06,000
Speaker 1: of the FBI's task force for the unibomber Ted Kazinski.

235
00:13:06,920 --> 00:13:10,160
Speaker 1: Terry spent four years building that case for trial, but

236
00:13:10,280 --> 00:13:13,640
Speaker 1: ultimately the unibomber pled guilty to avoid the death sentence

237
00:13:14,200 --> 00:13:16,959
Speaker 1: and was sent to eighty X Florence, a maximum security

238
00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:21,360
Speaker 1: prison in Florence, Colorado. Terry returned home very much, looking

239
00:13:21,360 --> 00:13:23,160
Speaker 1: forward to spending time with his wife and kids back

240
00:13:23,160 --> 00:13:26,880
Speaker 1: in San Francisco. However, two days later he was told

241
00:13:26,920 --> 00:13:29,280
Speaker 1: to get on a plane and was designated the inspector

242
00:13:29,280 --> 00:13:31,079
Speaker 1: in charge of the Eric Rudolph manhunt.

243
00:13:31,440 --> 00:13:33,439
Speaker 11: One of the very first things we did, take off

244
00:13:33,480 --> 00:13:37,440
Speaker 11: the camouflage, get rid of the FBI caps, and let

245
00:13:37,480 --> 00:13:40,600
Speaker 11: these people know who you are, and give them your

246
00:13:40,679 --> 00:13:44,280
Speaker 11: card and say, look, don't think that you're calling the

247
00:13:44,280 --> 00:13:45,240
Speaker 11: great Big government.

248
00:13:45,280 --> 00:13:48,679
Speaker 3: If you see something, If you go out one morning and.

249
00:13:48,679 --> 00:13:52,160
Speaker 11: You see somebody out in your pasture that doesn't belong there,

250
00:13:53,320 --> 00:13:57,760
Speaker 11: call us. These are our names. Call us, and we

251
00:13:57,840 --> 00:14:02,760
Speaker 11: will come out here. And that made it personal, and

252
00:14:02,840 --> 00:14:06,240
Speaker 11: that helped us to start getting the information we needed.

253
00:14:07,400 --> 00:14:10,520
Speaker 1: On May fifth, nineteen ninety eight, nearly four months into

254
00:14:10,520 --> 00:14:13,640
Speaker 1: the search, a press conference was held announcing that Eric

255
00:14:13,720 --> 00:14:15,959
Speaker 1: Rudolf had been added to the FBI's ten Most Wanted

256
00:14:15,960 --> 00:14:17,960
Speaker 1: list with a one million dollar reward.

257
00:14:18,880 --> 00:14:22,200
Speaker 12: You know, there's a flood of people, and then over time,

258
00:14:22,320 --> 00:14:25,920
Speaker 12: you know, that gets scaled back because it's expensive. And

259
00:14:26,000 --> 00:14:28,800
Speaker 12: while there were a lot of sightings, there wasn't anything

260
00:14:28,840 --> 00:14:32,200
Speaker 12: that was so credible and so actionable that you could

261
00:14:32,240 --> 00:14:35,400
Speaker 12: throw that kind of resource behind it and have a

262
00:14:35,400 --> 00:14:39,800
Speaker 12: successful outcome. Just kept getting whittled back and whittled back

263
00:14:39,800 --> 00:14:40,600
Speaker 12: and whittled back.

264
00:14:41,240 --> 00:14:44,480
Speaker 1: And at the same time, investigators in Birmingham and Atlanta

265
00:14:44,600 --> 00:14:47,040
Speaker 1: were working hard to pull together all the physical evidence

266
00:14:47,120 --> 00:14:49,320
Speaker 1: to make a criminal case against Rudolph so that he

267
00:14:49,360 --> 00:14:50,880
Speaker 1: could be charged and convicted.

268
00:14:51,400 --> 00:14:55,200
Speaker 12: As time passed, there were a group of us, myself included,

269
00:14:55,280 --> 00:14:57,480
Speaker 12: that thought he was still alive. He was probably spending

270
00:14:57,800 --> 00:15:00,600
Speaker 12: a lot of time in western North Carolin, if not

271
00:15:00,640 --> 00:15:02,400
Speaker 12: all of his time, and that you spent a lot

272
00:15:02,400 --> 00:15:02,800
Speaker 12: of time in.

273
00:15:02,720 --> 00:15:06,160
Speaker 7: The woods, but not everybody believed that.

274
00:15:07,680 --> 00:15:10,080
Speaker 10: It's hard to find something that ain't there probably some

275
00:15:10,160 --> 00:15:13,400
Speaker 10: more drinking drinks than little umbrellas on top, and he

276
00:15:13,480 --> 00:15:15,880
Speaker 10: could be somewhere six foot down.

277
00:15:15,960 --> 00:15:18,760
Speaker 5: Everything that we know about him leads just to believe

278
00:15:18,800 --> 00:15:20,320
Speaker 5: that he will not leave this area.

279
00:15:20,640 --> 00:15:22,600
Speaker 1: You sit there and you wonder where could he be?

280
00:15:22,720 --> 00:15:24,360
Speaker 4: Is he dead now? Is he still around here?

281
00:15:24,360 --> 00:15:25,440
Speaker 1: He has been able to get out.

282
00:15:26,680 --> 00:15:29,640
Speaker 12: There were people that thought he went overseas. A lot

283
00:15:29,680 --> 00:15:31,680
Speaker 12: of people thought that he had died. And you know,

284
00:15:31,720 --> 00:15:35,520
Speaker 12: every time we found human remains in the search area,

285
00:15:35,720 --> 00:15:39,800
Speaker 12: we made sure they weren't Eric Rudolph's. I thought there

286
00:15:39,800 --> 00:15:45,360
Speaker 12: were enough indicators, enough sightings, enough odd things. For example,

287
00:15:45,840 --> 00:15:48,960
Speaker 12: a house gets broken into the stereo equipment and the

288
00:15:49,000 --> 00:15:55,920
Speaker 12: television is left, but clothing, a big wash, fasing, you know,

289
00:15:56,000 --> 00:15:58,760
Speaker 12: things that you would need to survive outside. Those are

290
00:15:58,800 --> 00:16:02,000
Speaker 12: the things that were taken. And oddly there were no fingerprints.

291
00:16:02,040 --> 00:16:04,360
Speaker 12: All the prints had been white. So there were things

292
00:16:04,400 --> 00:16:08,000
Speaker 12: like that that we investigated that led me to believe

293
00:16:08,080 --> 00:16:09,920
Speaker 12: that he was probably still alive.

294
00:16:11,920 --> 00:16:15,240
Speaker 1: And Rick was right. As law enforcement was beginning to

295
00:16:15,280 --> 00:16:19,880
Speaker 1: experience investigation fatigue, Eric Rudolph was often just a stone's

296
00:16:19,880 --> 00:16:24,760
Speaker 1: throw away, laughing at them. Then, in July of nineteen

297
00:16:24,840 --> 00:16:27,600
Speaker 1: ninety eight, two months after Eric Rudolph landed on the

298
00:16:27,640 --> 00:16:32,040
Speaker 1: FBI's ten most Wanted List, FBI agent Terry Turci gets

299
00:16:32,040 --> 00:16:36,160
Speaker 1: a call. A local resident named George Nordman contacted a

300
00:16:36,200 --> 00:16:38,800
Speaker 1: deputy and asked for law enforcement to come to his

301
00:16:38,840 --> 00:16:39,600
Speaker 1: home for a visit.

302
00:16:40,400 --> 00:16:43,320
Speaker 11: Nordman did not like, did not trust the US government.

303
00:16:43,320 --> 00:16:45,760
Speaker 11: He just was one of those people who just had

304
00:16:45,800 --> 00:16:46,920
Speaker 11: a lot of reasons.

305
00:16:46,520 --> 00:16:47,040
Speaker 3: He felt.

306
00:16:48,280 --> 00:16:52,840
Speaker 1: For weeks, Nordman noticed that things were just off around

307
00:16:52,880 --> 00:16:56,000
Speaker 1: his house. There were fewer eggs being laid by his hens,

308
00:16:56,760 --> 00:16:59,360
Speaker 1: some of his food was missing, things were out of

309
00:16:59,360 --> 00:17:02,240
Speaker 1: place inside his home, not quite where he put them.

310
00:17:02,320 --> 00:17:04,440
Speaker 3: Last he said, I'm.

311
00:17:04,160 --> 00:17:06,880
Speaker 11: Here to tell you that I got home from work

312
00:17:06,920 --> 00:17:11,760
Speaker 11: the other day. Eric Rudolph was in my house. He

313
00:17:11,880 --> 00:17:12,600
Speaker 11: was having.

314
00:17:12,359 --> 00:17:13,520
Speaker 3: Something to eat.

315
00:17:14,160 --> 00:17:16,440
Speaker 11: She knew I had a lot of supplies there from

316
00:17:16,440 --> 00:17:19,600
Speaker 11: the health boot store. And here's what he said to me.

317
00:17:21,000 --> 00:17:23,040
Speaker 11: He said, what I want to do, George, is I

318
00:17:23,720 --> 00:17:27,920
Speaker 11: need a truck. And Norman happened to have every car

319
00:17:28,119 --> 00:17:30,240
Speaker 11: or truck that he'd ever bought for his kids or

320
00:17:30,240 --> 00:17:30,920
Speaker 11: anybody else.

321
00:17:31,200 --> 00:17:33,119
Speaker 3: You know, once it wore out, he just left it

322
00:17:33,119 --> 00:17:33,920
Speaker 3: in the driveway.

323
00:17:34,440 --> 00:17:38,439
Speaker 11: So, you know, Eric wanted one of these cars, and

324
00:17:38,520 --> 00:17:39,879
Speaker 11: he wanted George to give.

325
00:17:39,800 --> 00:17:40,679
Speaker 3: Him a lot of food.

326
00:17:41,320 --> 00:17:44,240
Speaker 11: And he said, well, I'll do is when I leave

327
00:17:44,280 --> 00:17:47,600
Speaker 11: here in the truck, I'll tie you up, put a

328
00:17:47,640 --> 00:17:49,679
Speaker 11: gag in your mouth, and I'll do all these things,

329
00:17:49,880 --> 00:17:51,960
Speaker 11: and then you could tell the authorities that you had

330
00:17:51,960 --> 00:17:56,160
Speaker 11: no choice. And Nordonman said, I don't. I don't think

331
00:17:56,200 --> 00:17:59,919
Speaker 11: I want to do that. So they went back and forth.

332
00:18:00,320 --> 00:18:03,199
Speaker 11: Finally Rudolph said, well, okay, I'll get rested up here

333
00:18:03,240 --> 00:18:04,200
Speaker 11: and then i'll leave again.

334
00:18:04,280 --> 00:18:06,000
Speaker 3: But I've got to get out of here. I know

335
00:18:06,080 --> 00:18:07,200
Speaker 3: I can't stay very long.

336
00:18:07,680 --> 00:18:10,360
Speaker 11: Well, Nortman got up the next day and he went

337
00:18:10,720 --> 00:18:12,800
Speaker 11: to work, and before he left, he said, yeah, I

338
00:18:12,840 --> 00:18:13,640
Speaker 11: want you to leave.

339
00:18:14,520 --> 00:18:16,520
Speaker 3: You got to leave. I don't want any part of this.

340
00:18:17,680 --> 00:18:20,520
Speaker 11: And while he was at work that day Friday, Nortman

341
00:18:20,600 --> 00:18:22,920
Speaker 11: made up his mind that looked, you know, I thought

342
00:18:23,000 --> 00:18:26,840
Speaker 11: Rudolph was innocent, but now I don't think so. And

343
00:18:26,920 --> 00:18:29,480
Speaker 11: regardless of how I feel politically, I got to tell

344
00:18:29,560 --> 00:18:34,400
Speaker 11: somebody when he came back Rudolf had left that Rudolph

345
00:18:34,440 --> 00:18:35,119
Speaker 11: took a truck.

346
00:18:35,200 --> 00:18:50,639
Speaker 12: Anyway, Rudolph had been pressured by the army of federal

347
00:18:50,680 --> 00:18:52,840
Speaker 12: agents out there that were searching for him. He was

348
00:18:52,880 --> 00:18:55,960
Speaker 12: burning more calories than he could intake. He had been

349
00:18:56,040 --> 00:19:00,679
Speaker 12: running out of food, and he was pretty successful evading us.

350
00:19:00,760 --> 00:19:03,200
Speaker 12: He was very successful in evading us, but I think

351
00:19:03,240 --> 00:19:06,240
Speaker 12: the pressure that we put on him had put him

352
00:19:06,280 --> 00:19:10,600
Speaker 12: in an unhealthy deficit from a calorie standpoint, and he

353
00:19:10,760 --> 00:19:15,480
Speaker 12: made a decision to break cover that reinvigorated the manhunt.

354
00:19:15,840 --> 00:19:19,520
Speaker 12: I was part of a tactical team swat team that

355
00:19:20,160 --> 00:19:24,680
Speaker 12: scouted the area around Norman's place, and we actually found

356
00:19:24,960 --> 00:19:28,919
Speaker 12: the spot that Rudolph had surveiled. He sat there for

357
00:19:28,920 --> 00:19:31,600
Speaker 12: a couple of days and watched Norman's place before he

358
00:19:31,640 --> 00:19:36,119
Speaker 12: approached him, and he buried some trash to conceal that

359
00:19:36,200 --> 00:19:38,560
Speaker 12: he had been there, and we were able to obtain

360
00:19:38,600 --> 00:19:39,560
Speaker 12: his fingerprint up.

361
00:19:39,560 --> 00:19:41,879
Speaker 7: The rappers, the food rappers that he buried.

362
00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:44,520
Speaker 12: So it gave us a new start point, if you will,

363
00:19:44,640 --> 00:19:46,679
Speaker 12: and allowed us to get back on his trail.

364
00:19:49,119 --> 00:19:52,600
Speaker 1: Two days after Nordman spoke to federal authorities, his truck

365
00:19:52,600 --> 00:19:55,560
Speaker 1: that Eric Rudolf had stolen was found. There was a

366
00:19:55,600 --> 00:19:59,280
Speaker 1: note inside the windshield that read truck broke down trouble

367
00:20:00,160 --> 00:20:03,560
Speaker 1: Please contact George Nordman at better Way Health food Store Andrews,

368
00:20:03,560 --> 00:20:09,000
Speaker 1: North Carolina. The handwriting was not Nordman's and dynamite residue

369
00:20:09,040 --> 00:20:13,400
Speaker 1: was found on the steering wheel. The task force felt vindicated.

370
00:20:14,240 --> 00:20:16,439
Speaker 1: Their belief that Eric Rudolph was still in those woods

371
00:20:16,720 --> 00:20:22,159
Speaker 1: was confirmed. Following the Nordman tip, over two hundred federal

372
00:20:22,160 --> 00:20:25,160
Speaker 1: agents descended on the area. They now had a scent

373
00:20:25,240 --> 00:20:29,560
Speaker 1: to follow, and around this time, the FBI also officially

374
00:20:29,640 --> 00:20:32,920
Speaker 1: charged Eric Robert Rudolph with all four bombings to date.

375
00:20:36,440 --> 00:20:38,679
Speaker 3: How far out could this possibly give?

376
00:20:38,800 --> 00:20:41,840
Speaker 5: We will continue until we find it, but.

377
00:20:41,840 --> 00:20:43,879
Speaker 1: That's a large footprint to make in an area that

378
00:20:43,920 --> 00:20:45,840
Speaker 1: doesn't always take kindly to outsiders.

379
00:20:46,359 --> 00:20:48,760
Speaker 9: How long can the residents of this area be expected

380
00:20:48,760 --> 00:20:50,639
Speaker 9: to be patient with what they have to go with.

381
00:20:50,960 --> 00:20:53,560
Speaker 7: We're going to have to be here until we find him.

382
00:20:53,760 --> 00:20:54,960
Speaker 1: They just got people to leave.

383
00:20:55,480 --> 00:20:57,800
Speaker 3: They're ready for their small town to be back to

384
00:20:57,840 --> 00:20:58,560
Speaker 3: the small town.

385
00:20:58,920 --> 00:20:59,960
Speaker 1: They're tired of it.

386
00:21:01,960 --> 00:21:03,360
Speaker 7: The presence was massive.

387
00:21:03,680 --> 00:21:06,919
Speaker 12: It was you know, SWAT teams from the southeast, the

388
00:21:06,960 --> 00:21:11,640
Speaker 12: FBI's hostage Rescue Team, there were Georgia Bureau of Investigation

389
00:21:11,880 --> 00:21:16,600
Speaker 12: agents that came up, and it really was several hundred

390
00:21:16,880 --> 00:21:21,359
Speaker 12: law enforcement officers working out of National Guard armories and

391
00:21:21,920 --> 00:21:34,160
Speaker 12: camp sites physically hunting for him.

392
00:21:34,200 --> 00:21:36,560
Speaker 5: Here at Apple Tree Group Camp. This was a National

393
00:21:36,560 --> 00:21:40,880
Speaker 5: Forest Group campground. There are four designated sites here. Two

394
00:21:40,920 --> 00:21:43,120
Speaker 5: of the sites hold up to twenty five people. Two

395
00:21:43,119 --> 00:21:45,000
Speaker 5: of the sites hold up to fifty.

396
00:21:45,800 --> 00:21:48,320
Speaker 1: Apple Tree Group camp housed over two hundred agents during

397
00:21:48,359 --> 00:21:50,520
Speaker 1: the height of the search, eighty of whom were sent

398
00:21:50,520 --> 00:21:53,280
Speaker 1: into the mountains every day to actively search for Rudolph.

399
00:21:53,840 --> 00:21:55,760
Speaker 1: Our guide Paul, showed us around the site.

400
00:21:55,920 --> 00:21:58,719
Speaker 5: The FBI was spending over sixteen thousand dollars a night

401
00:21:58,760 --> 00:22:01,680
Speaker 5: and andrews for lodging and meals because most of the

402
00:22:01,720 --> 00:22:04,359
Speaker 5: folks drove in then came back out here to the

403
00:22:04,400 --> 00:22:08,320
Speaker 5: base of operations in the daytime. We are three miles

404
00:22:08,320 --> 00:22:12,080
Speaker 5: from Nordman's house. We're half a mile from one of

405
00:22:12,240 --> 00:22:15,960
Speaker 5: Eric's on the move campsites where they did track dogs

406
00:22:15,960 --> 00:22:19,280
Speaker 5: back to Eric was intentional tried to lead him over here,

407
00:22:19,359 --> 00:22:21,440
Speaker 5: to keep him on this side of the gap. So

408
00:22:21,600 --> 00:22:23,240
Speaker 5: it was a very smart move.

409
00:22:24,000 --> 00:22:30,000
Speaker 1: Hundreds of investigators, infrared, helicopters, dogs. How much more was

410
00:22:30,040 --> 00:22:32,480
Speaker 1: needed to find one man and we.

411
00:22:32,400 --> 00:22:34,800
Speaker 7: Want to leave no stone unturned.

412
00:22:35,480 --> 00:22:39,960
Speaker 8: I encourage anyone who has information regarding mister Rudolph's whereabouts

413
00:22:40,600 --> 00:22:41,439
Speaker 8: to come forward.

414
00:22:42,160 --> 00:22:45,240
Speaker 1: It's a my street. They have an impossible job by like.

415
00:22:47,560 --> 00:22:50,560
Speaker 1: At this point, Rudolph had likely been watching the base

416
00:22:50,600 --> 00:22:53,639
Speaker 1: camp for months. He might have even known some of

417
00:22:53,640 --> 00:22:57,520
Speaker 1: the investigators by name. This is eerily similar to the

418
00:22:57,520 --> 00:23:01,480
Speaker 1: bombing at the clinic in Birmingham. Rudolph sat at a distance,

419
00:23:02,160 --> 00:23:08,479
Speaker 1: watching and waiting, and then eventually pressed the button. In

420
00:23:08,520 --> 00:23:11,280
Speaker 1: this case, he was fully immersed in a long term

421
00:23:11,320 --> 00:23:14,800
Speaker 1: game of hide and seek, of cat and mouse, and

422
00:23:14,920 --> 00:23:17,879
Speaker 1: later we would learn it was a game that he

423
00:23:17,960 --> 00:23:18,480
Speaker 1: lived for.

424
00:23:23,720 --> 00:23:27,159
Speaker 12: I personally believe he got assistance. I don't think it

425
00:23:27,320 --> 00:23:31,479
Speaker 12: was consistent. I think it was here and there. But

426
00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:34,639
Speaker 12: he has a unique personality type where you know, he

427
00:23:34,680 --> 00:23:38,159
Speaker 12: didn't really need a lot of human interaction. But I

428
00:23:38,200 --> 00:23:42,200
Speaker 12: do think that he had people that periodically assisted him.

429
00:23:42,400 --> 00:23:44,600
Speaker 12: You know, you can sustain yourself for a while, but

430
00:23:44,680 --> 00:23:47,640
Speaker 12: we had some really severe winners during that time period.

431
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:49,879
Speaker 12: It's just hard for me to believe that he didn't

432
00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:51,200
Speaker 12: have some help.

433
00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:55,439
Speaker 8: You can look at something and find the beauty, or

434
00:23:55,480 --> 00:23:58,120
Speaker 8: you can look at something and find the bad. There

435
00:23:58,119 --> 00:24:01,520
Speaker 8: are two sides to every story, of course, there's two

436
00:24:01,520 --> 00:24:04,639
Speaker 8: sides to Eric Rudolph.

437
00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:04,320
Speaker 5: Good and bad.

438
00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:06,119
Speaker 1: It boils down to good and bad.

439
00:24:07,400 --> 00:24:09,720
Speaker 12: You would see the signs you'd see the Run Rudolph

440
00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:14,920
Speaker 12: run signs and T shirts and bumper stickers, see the

441
00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:16,399
Speaker 12: marquees and some of the business.

442
00:24:16,520 --> 00:24:17,280
Speaker 7: You know, pray for.

443
00:24:17,359 --> 00:24:21,199
Speaker 12: Eric Rudolf, Eric Rudolf Heid and Steek champion. You know,

444
00:24:21,280 --> 00:24:24,359
Speaker 12: fill in the blank number of days Rudolph had a

445
00:24:24,359 --> 00:24:26,520
Speaker 12: little bit of a full hero status.

446
00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:30,280
Speaker 1: Folks have long assumed that Eric Rudolf had to help,

447
00:24:31,400 --> 00:24:34,800
Speaker 1: that the locals were somehow in league with him. Earlier

448
00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:37,080
Speaker 1: in this episode, we talked to a random stranger who

449
00:24:37,119 --> 00:24:41,440
Speaker 1: empathized with him nearly thirty years later. That says a lot.

450
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:45,840
Speaker 1: He has not been proven guilty. I don't even begin

451
00:24:45,880 --> 00:24:46,920
Speaker 1: to speculate on it.

452
00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 10: If he was to come down out of these woods, yeah,

453
00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:52,720
Speaker 10: hungry Alpheed and my meal, I'll never tell on him.

454
00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:55,560
Speaker 10: They got to prove something to me more than that.

455
00:24:55,680 --> 00:24:58,280
Speaker 10: Wore I turn a man in at my age. I'll

456
00:24:58,320 --> 00:25:02,800
Speaker 10: guarantee I wouldn't turn him into reward. That's not right.

457
00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:06,639
Speaker 10: He's going to have something to prove a man's done

458
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:07,240
Speaker 10: something wrong.

459
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:18,640
Speaker 1: I'm spun upside down and sideways standing here.

460
00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:20,840
Speaker 4: With you, and you explain it as we walk through it,

461
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:21,560
Speaker 4: drive through it.

462
00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:24,719
Speaker 1: As the sun began to set on the Nana Hla Forest.

463
00:25:25,119 --> 00:25:28,160
Speaker 1: We felt a chill in the November air. We said

464
00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:30,200
Speaker 1: goodbye to Paul and headed back to our cabin, back

465
00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:34,119
Speaker 1: toward Murphy for the night. That evening, I decided to

466
00:25:34,119 --> 00:25:37,000
Speaker 1: give Tom Brandham a call. Tom was friends with the

467
00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:40,639
Speaker 1: Rudolph family back in Florida, and later the family followed

468
00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:43,240
Speaker 1: his path to North Carolina, where they moved in right

469
00:25:43,280 --> 00:25:46,920
Speaker 1: next door. Tom was very much a father figure to

470
00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:50,480
Speaker 1: Eric Rudolf. He still lives in the same home. He's

471
00:25:50,520 --> 00:25:55,280
Speaker 1: the one with the scrapyard homestead that we drove past earlier. Surprisingly,

472
00:25:56,080 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 1: he answered.

473
00:25:57,840 --> 00:25:59,760
Speaker 3: What kind of color vehicle do you have?

474
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:03,280
Speaker 6: Why is that?

475
00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:06,240
Speaker 3: Well? I'm asking because one came up here and I

476
00:26:06,280 --> 00:26:07,119
Speaker 3: was wondering if it was you.

477
00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:09,080
Speaker 6: Do you get a lot of people up there?

478
00:26:09,800 --> 00:26:13,920
Speaker 3: Not really. Yeah, it's very quiet here. It's always I've

479
00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:17,440
Speaker 3: been here fifty years, fifty years, and it's always been

480
00:26:17,520 --> 00:26:21,439
Speaker 3: this way. I haven't talked with him or anyone in

481
00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:25,399
Speaker 3: the family at all all these years. They never contacted me,

482
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:28,920
Speaker 3: and I haven't contacted them. We had a falling out

483
00:26:29,119 --> 00:26:31,919
Speaker 3: back in those days for different reasons, but it was

484
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:35,040
Speaker 3: good for me because otherwise the FBI would have really

485
00:26:35,040 --> 00:26:37,360
Speaker 3: put me through the Wringer figure. And I was totally

486
00:26:37,359 --> 00:26:39,280
Speaker 3: involved with everything that he was doing.

487
00:26:40,160 --> 00:26:44,359
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty four, federal agents rated Branham's house and

488
00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:48,560
Speaker 1: found illegal weapons in explosives in eighteen year old Eric

489
00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:51,040
Speaker 1: Rudolf was at Tom's house when it happened.

490
00:26:51,920 --> 00:26:55,320
Speaker 3: I was protected by the Lord, actually that the Holy

491
00:26:55,400 --> 00:26:59,119
Speaker 3: Spirit protected me from they trying to put me away

492
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:03,880
Speaker 3: for like thirty years, having some something that seemed gotten dynamite.

493
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:08,639
Speaker 3: All those years, different stuff I've collected, done, shows, restored

494
00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:11,800
Speaker 3: plea market, just the case of war. That's what I

495
00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:15,000
Speaker 3: was doing. And Eric was all involved with, you know,

496
00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:17,840
Speaker 3: war games and all that kind of stuff, and the

497
00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:22,639
Speaker 3: teenage years here, you know, we were figuring, you know,

498
00:27:22,760 --> 00:27:25,760
Speaker 3: we're gonna have to do something to resist whatever whoever

499
00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:30,359
Speaker 3: the Russians or whoever it would be. Ideas is what

500
00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:31,119
Speaker 3: it amounted to.

501
00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:35,880
Speaker 1: The weapons conviction was later overturned, but Tom says Eric

502
00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:36,880
Speaker 1: saw something that day.

503
00:27:38,359 --> 00:27:42,320
Speaker 3: There's a whole lot more hidden outside that could ever found,

504
00:27:42,960 --> 00:27:46,359
Speaker 3: and it was all in case of war. But Eric

505
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:50,800
Speaker 3: after that, after Eric saw what these government people were

506
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:56,080
Speaker 3: doing here in his house, I think that really tweaked

507
00:27:56,080 --> 00:28:03,879
Speaker 3: Derek him hate the government. He was more. He always

508
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:07,000
Speaker 3: wanted to be somebody famous. Eric wanted to be like

509
00:28:07,040 --> 00:28:11,919
Speaker 3: a famous officer, famous general, or something that he could be.

510
00:28:13,840 --> 00:28:16,679
Speaker 3: You knew that he was very very knowledgeable about the

511
00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 3: board between the States, the Confederates and all that, very

512
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:24,639
Speaker 3: knowledgeable about it. They were heroes to him, the Confederates.

513
00:28:25,040 --> 00:28:27,640
Speaker 3: He wanted to be somebody famous like that. But when

514
00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:30,800
Speaker 3: he went in the military, Eric told me himself, the

515
00:28:31,040 --> 00:28:35,080
Speaker 3: black officers or sergeants whoever, they realized just looking at

516
00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:37,479
Speaker 3: him he was a white racist. So they made him

517
00:28:37,520 --> 00:28:41,520
Speaker 3: do all kinds of crap work. And Eric told me

518
00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:43,680
Speaker 3: himself the only way get out of was just keep

519
00:28:43,720 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 3: smoking dope right there openly, and they finally got rid

520
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:52,120
Speaker 3: of him because of it. He wouldn't stop. There's one

521
00:28:52,160 --> 00:28:54,720
Speaker 3: way of getting out, you know. He fantasized it was

522
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:57,480
Speaker 3: going to be in the military and all, but it's

523
00:28:57,560 --> 00:29:01,680
Speaker 3: been taking over at this point, but perverted people in

524
00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:06,160
Speaker 3: homosexual monsters and running the whole operation in the military.

525
00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:10,200
Speaker 3: Now we're just we're being destroyed as a nation that way.

526
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:16,480
Speaker 1: Of course, Tom Brandham is overtly homophobic, racist, in anti government,

527
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:19,560
Speaker 1: and he had no reservations expressing those sentiments to me,

528
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:22,960
Speaker 1: he owns that shit with pride. I'm not sure why

529
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:25,760
Speaker 1: he'd think I might share his thinking, or maybe he

530
00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:26,480
Speaker 1: just doesn't care.

531
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:28,680
Speaker 3: There's a whole lot more I could tell him. There's

532
00:29:28,720 --> 00:29:32,920
Speaker 3: only like one or two people I've told other things

533
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:37,520
Speaker 3: about Danny's page for whatever the hell he hated God.

534
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:41,520
Speaker 1: Brandam told me that Eric Rudolf's older brother Dan was

535
00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:45,360
Speaker 1: always a troublemaker. Dan currently lives down in Bradenton, Florida

536
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:48,480
Speaker 1: with his mother Pat and I sent him a few letters,

537
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:53,120
Speaker 1: tried call him the house, but he didn't respond, and

538
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:57,640
Speaker 1: during the manhunt for his brother, Dan did something pretty extreme.

539
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:01,600
Speaker 3: Danny goes into Roge and he had a try a

540
00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:06,840
Speaker 3: camera set up on a tripod and Mary's got his

541
00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:12,160
Speaker 3: radio arms saw he's got the video going. He rolls

542
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:16,000
Speaker 3: up to sleep, puts his arm under the machine and

543
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 3: says this is for the FBI and the media and

544
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:25,360
Speaker 3: cuts his left hand off at the wrist right there

545
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:30,200
Speaker 3: here and go, oh, you have a terrible moan, but

546
00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:34,720
Speaker 3: clean off immediately put a tourniquet on. He had all

547
00:30:34,760 --> 00:30:38,000
Speaker 3: this figured out ahead of time. Stop the bleeding. He

548
00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:40,800
Speaker 3: went out to his vehicle and drove to the hospital,

549
00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:45,640
Speaker 3: left his hand there on the table where the saw was,

550
00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:50,240
Speaker 3: and they sent someone back to retrieve the hand, which

551
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:52,560
Speaker 3: they did, and they reattached it.

552
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 6: Why do you think Dan cut off his hand?

553
00:30:58,080 --> 00:31:01,320
Speaker 3: Why would you cut off your hand for who? For what?

554
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:05,680
Speaker 3: Because the media was on the road with cameras looking

555
00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 3: and the FBI was asking you questions. That isn't a

556
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 3: reason to cut off her hand. The reason he cut

557
00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:16,360
Speaker 3: off his hand was because, well, yeah, it says in

558
00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:19,560
Speaker 3: the Bible it's the right hand offend he cut it off. Well,

559
00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:23,200
Speaker 3: Danny was raised that way biblically. Any cut off his

560
00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:25,680
Speaker 3: hand because he was so involved with it all. And

561
00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 3: I think the FBI knows it, because the FBI isn't

562
00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:32,720
Speaker 3: that's they didn't know Danny was involved. But I'm sure

563
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:36,440
Speaker 3: they got they got word from higher up to leave

564
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:41,520
Speaker 3: that guy alone, because if they started trying to prosecute

565
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 3: Danny for being involved, the public would just rise up

566
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:48,880
Speaker 3: and say, look what you do to look what you

567
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 3: made this boy do. Cut off his hand.

568
00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 6: So you think Dan was involved in the bombs, He's.

569
00:31:57,000 --> 00:32:01,240
Speaker 3: Involved with everything Danny was involved with. I mean, why

570
00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:03,200
Speaker 3: would you tell off your hand for one thing? I

571
00:32:03,200 --> 00:32:05,840
Speaker 3: mean there's some good dude evidence right there. You might

572
00:32:05,880 --> 00:32:09,280
Speaker 3: say your inclination like he was involved, I think for

573
00:32:09,400 --> 00:32:14,680
Speaker 3: sure anyway, So there's a whole lot more about Danny

574
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:17,160
Speaker 3: and not going to bring it up. Wouldn't tell you

575
00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:20,600
Speaker 3: or Atpi or Meaty or anybody just because cutting off

576
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:24,480
Speaker 3: his hand he paid for. He's gone. He doesn't need

577
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:26,000
Speaker 3: to be going to Dan prison.

578
00:32:29,400 --> 00:32:36,280
Speaker 1: Was Dan involved? I don't know, but it's possible. Tom

579
00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:39,560
Speaker 1: Brandham is the first person we've met who actually knew

580
00:32:39,640 --> 00:32:44,920
Speaker 1: Eric Rudolph for years, very formative years. The two of

581
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:47,880
Speaker 1: them were close. Brandon was like a father to him,

582
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:51,520
Speaker 1: and Rudolph was always very close with his brother Dan.

583
00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:57,240
Speaker 1: They were best friends. They did nearly everything together. The

584
00:32:57,280 --> 00:33:00,640
Speaker 1: people in our immediate orbit, they strongly and who we

585
00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:04,040
Speaker 1: are and what we think, whether they want to or not,

586
00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:11,640
Speaker 1: for better or worse. Have you ever seen a murmuration

587
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:15,840
Speaker 1: of starlings. It's this massive flock of birds that huddle

588
00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:18,760
Speaker 1: together in flight and swirl in the air like a blanket.

589
00:33:19,880 --> 00:33:23,760
Speaker 1: They're mesmerizing to watch, and when you get a little closer,

590
00:33:24,160 --> 00:33:25,920
Speaker 1: when you start to hear the murmuring sound they get

591
00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:30,400
Speaker 1: their name from. They're also haunting, but The thing about

592
00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:34,400
Speaker 1: starling murmurations is that in these flocks of sometimes thousands

593
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:37,960
Speaker 1: and thousands of birds, no individual bird in the group

594
00:33:38,520 --> 00:33:40,840
Speaker 1: is ever taking its cues from more than six or

595
00:33:40,840 --> 00:33:46,160
Speaker 1: seven other birds in their immediate vicinity. Ever, there's no leader,

596
00:33:46,840 --> 00:33:51,480
Speaker 1: there's no organizing principle or directive at work beyond stay

597
00:33:51,560 --> 00:33:55,560
Speaker 1: warm and survive. But they move with such fluidity that

598
00:33:55,640 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 1: from a distance they appear to be a single organism.

599
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:05,560
Speaker 1: But here's the other thing. These murmurations are blind. They're

600
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:09,520
Speaker 1: a hive mind, let loose and flying free. They wreak

601
00:34:09,600 --> 00:34:14,880
Speaker 1: havoc on nature, on cities, on technology. They cause car wrecks,

602
00:34:15,320 --> 00:34:19,759
Speaker 1: sometimes massive pile ups. They completely ravage the foliage and

603
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:23,680
Speaker 1: the trees. If you're underneath the swarm, it feels like

604
00:34:23,680 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 1: an air invasion. It is an air invasion because they

605
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:33,759
Speaker 1: shit everywhere, and I mean everywhere, and sometimes with the

606
00:34:33,840 --> 00:34:36,960
Speaker 1: really giant murmurations, like the one that shuts down the

607
00:34:36,960 --> 00:34:39,920
Speaker 1: city of Rome every summer, they can even block out

608
00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:55,719
Speaker 1: the sun, the whole world going black next time on flashpoint.

609
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:57,840
Speaker 4: So I was assigned to the overnight shift, So I

610
00:34:57,880 --> 00:34:59,720
Speaker 4: worked from ten at night to six in the morning.

611
00:35:00,320 --> 00:35:02,280
Speaker 4: Then it was a pain in the butt of a shift,

612
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:04,320
Speaker 4: and I will tell you I hated it, and frankly,

613
00:35:04,320 --> 00:35:08,520
Speaker 4: be honest, we didn't nothing ever happened. And this night

614
00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:11,520
Speaker 4: I went into the Valley Village shopping center and as

615
00:35:11,560 --> 00:35:13,359
Speaker 4: I came around the left side of the building, I

616
00:35:13,480 --> 00:35:18,239
Speaker 4: activated my right alley spotlight. I observed a silhouette of

617
00:35:18,239 --> 00:35:21,839
Speaker 4: somebody kind of crouched down in the road, and I

618
00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:25,040
Speaker 4: immediately recognized that there appeared to be some type of

619
00:35:25,120 --> 00:35:28,160
Speaker 4: a large object that was kind of slung over the

620
00:35:28,160 --> 00:35:32,120
Speaker 4: individual's upper torso, but it looked like a weapon, and

621
00:35:32,200 --> 00:35:35,600
Speaker 4: I exited my patrol car, took cover behind my door

622
00:35:36,520 --> 00:35:40,319
Speaker 4: with my weapon drawn, and began giving commands to who

623
00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:41,480
Speaker 4: this individual was.

624
00:35:58,800 --> 00:36:03,040
Speaker 1: Flashpoint as a production Tenderfoot TV in association with iHeartMedia.

625
00:36:03,920 --> 00:36:08,640
Speaker 1: I'm Your Host. Cole Lcassio, Donald Albright, and Payne Lindsay

626
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:14,520
Speaker 1: are executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV. Flashpoint was created, written,

627
00:36:14,640 --> 00:36:18,440
Speaker 1: and executive produced by Doug Mattica and myself on behalf

628
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:22,880
Speaker 1: of seven nine ninety seven. Lead producer is Alex Espastadt,

629
00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:28,120
Speaker 1: along with producers Jamie Albright and Meredith Stadman. Our associate

630
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:33,760
Speaker 1: producer is witt Lukassio, Editing by Alex Espastad with additional

631
00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:38,480
Speaker 1: editing by Liam Luxon and Sidney Evans. Supervising producer is

632
00:36:38,520 --> 00:36:44,239
Speaker 1: Tracy Kaplan. Artwork by Station sixteen. Original music by Jay

633
00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:49,759
Speaker 1: Ragsdale mixed by Dayton Cole. Thank you to Orrin Rosenbaum

634
00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:52,920
Speaker 1: and the team at Uta Beck Media and Marketing and

635
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 1: the Nord Group. Special thanks to Angela Kew, Tyleie Revied,

636
00:36:57,600 --> 00:37:02,360
Speaker 1: Mattica and Tim Livingston. Special thanks to Matthew D. Taylor

637
00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:06,239
Speaker 1: for his discussion with us about Starling murmerations from his

638
00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:12,440
Speaker 1: first book, Scripture. People. For more podcasts like Flashpoint, search

639
00:37:12,480 --> 00:37:16,319
Speaker 1: Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app, or visit us

640
00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:27,240
Speaker 1: at tenderfoot dot tv. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening

641
00:37:27,239 --> 00:37:30,400
Speaker 1: to this episode of Flashpoint. This series is released weekly

642
00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:35,640
Speaker 1: absolutely free, but for ad free listening, early access and

643
00:37:35,719 --> 00:37:39,400
Speaker 1: exclusive bonuses, you can subscribe to Tenderfoot Plus on Apple

644
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:43,560
Speaker 1: Podcasts or at tenderfootplus dot com