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Speaker 2: You're listening to Flashpoint, a production of tenderfoot TV and

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Speaker 2: podcast are solely those of the individuals participating in the podcast.

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Speaker 2: This podcast also contains subject matter which may not be

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Speaker 2: suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 3: Oh this is really important. Another explosion downtown. Yeah, I

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Speaker 3: see a guy walking from that direction and he had

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Speaker 3: a wig and it was like, what was that explosion?

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Speaker 3: And you know, I walked outside him.

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Speaker 4: What kind of thing?

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Speaker 3: And this guy he was short with here a long week?

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Speaker 3: What color the wig was like?

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Speaker 5: Brown color?

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Speaker 1: This is from a transcript of the nine one one

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Speaker 1: call made by Jermaine Hughes, a UAB law student, just

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Speaker 1: moments after a huge explosion in a Birmingham abortion clinic

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Speaker 1: shook the entire downtown area on January twenty ninth, nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety eight. The same explosion that killed a police officer,

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Speaker 1: Robert Sanderson, and critically injured a nurse Emily Lyons. Hughes

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Speaker 1: made the call from a phone and a McDonald's near

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Speaker 1: the clinic.

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Speaker 4: Was he what or black?

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Speaker 3: He's he's what guy?

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Speaker 1: What did he have all?

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Speaker 5: Sagan?

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Speaker 6: What did he have all?

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Speaker 3: I was following him in a burst. He had on

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Speaker 3: flannel or something. I'm not exactly sure.

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Speaker 1: This call went on for a while, with the nine

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Speaker 1: one one operator and Hughes talking past each other. At

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Speaker 1: one point, the operator even scolded him, you can't even

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Speaker 1: what he had all met Mabe, you.

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Speaker 6: Cannot remember a clothing description.

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Speaker 3: No, I don't remember, Coles kind of exasperated right now.

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Speaker 6: Hughes's frustration was building.

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Speaker 1: At one point, he lost the connection and called back,

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Speaker 1: still trying to convince someone to believe him, when suddenly

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Speaker 1: he saw a man walking down twentieth Street who looked familiar.

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Speaker 3: I got him.

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Speaker 4: Where is he?

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Speaker 3: I got him? I think this is him.

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Speaker 6: Is he on foot?

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Speaker 3: Yes, he's on foot, Yes, blood glasses on. He's walking

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Speaker 3: into the woods toward Vulcan.

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Speaker 1: It's safe to say most of the customers that this

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Speaker 1: McDonald's were listening intently to Hughes's side of this phone call.

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Speaker 1: One of them, a lawyer, named Jeff Tickle put aside

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Speaker 1: his breakfast to help. Tickle started calling out a description

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Speaker 1: for Hughes to give the nine to one one operator.

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Speaker 1: The man they had seen had changed his appearance, now

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Speaker 1: in a green and black plaid shirt, jeans, and brown boots. Together,

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Speaker 1: they stood inside the McDonald's, watching through the giant picture

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Speaker 1: window as the mysterious figure wandered off the road and

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Speaker 1: into a wooded area.

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Speaker 3: I can't see him now. I can't believe I'm standing here.

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Speaker 3: There's not a cop here by now.

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Speaker 6: Darrell sail be there in just a minute.

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Speaker 1: Tickle got in his car and drove a long valley

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Speaker 1: avenue looking for the individual. He eventually pulled to a

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Speaker 1: side street to discover the same man loading gear into

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Speaker 1: a gray niece on pickup. He trailed it and when

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Speaker 1: he got a clear view, he wrote down its tag

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Speaker 1: k n D one one one seven. He didn't know

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Speaker 1: it at the time, but he just stumbled upon the

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Speaker 1: key to unveiling the mysterious figure behind the Cereal bombings.

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Speaker 1: Episode four From a McDonald's payphone.

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Speaker 7: I had arranged to meet a Birmingham news reporter.

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Speaker 5: She covered the federal courts.

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Speaker 7: She just wanted to catch up on my first like

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Speaker 7: five months in office and how things were going. And

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Speaker 7: as I got in the car, the radio said that

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Speaker 7: there was a traffic problem initially on south side and

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Speaker 7: to steer clear of tenth Avenue South. But then shortly

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Speaker 7: thereafter they came back and said that there were a

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Speaker 7: report that there had been a bomb explode.

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Speaker 1: Doug Jones is a figure of note in Alabama politics.

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Speaker 1: His tenure as a US Senator spanned from twenty eighteen

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Speaker 1: to twenty twenty one, a period in which he was

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Speaker 1: thrust into the limelight as the first Democratic senator in

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Speaker 1: the state of Alabama in twenty five years. But Doug

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Speaker 1: Jones led a reputable career long before making the Senate.

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Speaker 6: His roots were in law.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety eight, when the Birmingham abortion clinic bombing

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Speaker 1: took place, he was a US attorney working high profile

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Speaker 1: litigation cases.

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Speaker 7: I parked my car because they had all of tenth

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Speaker 7: Street South cardened off with Tate, and the police officer

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Speaker 7: that was standing there obviously recognized me, and I said,

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Speaker 7: I know what's going on. What's happened? He said, well,

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Speaker 7: we've had the bomb explode at the clinic. We got

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Speaker 7: a police officer down. He's dead. There's a nurse who's

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Speaker 7: been severely injured. I don't know if she'll make it

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Speaker 7: or not, but we just got her in the ambulance

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Speaker 7: and they took off and I'm looking and I just

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Speaker 7: looked literally to my immediate left, and there was the

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Speaker 7: clinic building and you could see the awning had been destroyed,

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Speaker 7: windows had been broken out. It was a mess, you know.

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Speaker 7: I like to say sometimes it looked like images that

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Speaker 7: you would have seen through some bombing on another part

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Speaker 7: of the world.

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Speaker 5: And the body of.

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Speaker 7: The police officer was there, and I started moving that

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Speaker 7: way because there was no one around that police officer's body,

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Speaker 7: and I instinctively started moving that way, and I said, well,

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Speaker 7: we've got to do something. And then I had a

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Speaker 7: hand grab my shoulder and stop me. He said, Doug,

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Speaker 7: you can't go up there. I said, why not. He's

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Speaker 7: you know, we seem like we've got to do something,

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Speaker 7: and he said, look, we're concerned that there could be

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Speaker 7: a secondary device and we can't go up there.

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Speaker 5: For a while, the FBI atf.

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Speaker 7: Birmingham Police were all coming in with their mobile units

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Speaker 7: and agents, keeping the area cleared, staying away from the scene,

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Speaker 7: all coming, setting up radio, setting up things in the

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Speaker 7: command post.

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Speaker 5: The most significant.

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Speaker 7: Part of that day for me was establishing the joint

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Speaker 7: Task Force to investigate this case. I talked to the

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Speaker 7: Attorney General. She had a preference for having the FBI

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Speaker 7: take complete charge, and I said, you know, with all

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Speaker 7: due respect, we've got a Birmingham police officer down. I

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Speaker 7: want a ATF to take charge of doing all the

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Speaker 7: forensics on the bomb. Do your thing and tell me

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Speaker 7: what exploded. Get all that forensics to me for the FBI.

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Speaker 7: You do what the FBI does best. You track down suspects,

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Speaker 7: you track down witnesses, you do fingerprints, you do whatever DNA,

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Speaker 7: if there is anything, whatever analysis that you need to do.

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Speaker 5: You help get the search warrants.

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Speaker 7: And I said, the third thing is I know that

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Speaker 7: there's often some friction between state and federal, but I

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Speaker 7: want the Birmingham police to be a full partner here.

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Speaker 7: They lost one of their own. We established that task force.

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Speaker 7: It became known in the FBI files as Sandbomb, named

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Speaker 7: after Sandy Sanderson, the police officer who died, and that

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Speaker 7: task force, I think together did a pretty remarkable job.

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Speaker 1: And this time with bomb something was different. The bomber

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Speaker 1: didn't just up and vanish before the explosion.

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Speaker 7: Jermaine Hughes was the freshman African American student from you know,

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Speaker 7: kind of a small town in Alabama, and he was

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Speaker 7: doing his laundry, if I recall correctly, he was doing

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Speaker 7: the laundry in the basement of the dorm and he

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Speaker 7: heard the bomb explode, and when he looked out of

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Speaker 7: his window, you could see some smoke and some those

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Speaker 7: things coming from over the hill where the clinic was,

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Speaker 7: and some people moving that way. But yet there was

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Speaker 7: one individual that appeared to have some kind of disguise.

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Speaker 5: On, according to Germaine, and was not running but walking

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Speaker 5: very hurriedly away.

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Speaker 7: From the scene. And he just thought to himself, there's

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Speaker 7: something wrong with this picture. There's just something wrong with

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Speaker 7: that person, and left his laundry then decided to go

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Speaker 7: look and see for himself, not at the scene, but

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Speaker 7: that individual he saw, and he followed him some. At

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Speaker 7: one point he walked near him and Jermaine kind of

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Speaker 7: pretended he had a problem with his car, But then

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Speaker 7: he loses him and he gets in his car and

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Speaker 7: he drives around to try to see what he could find.

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Speaker 7: And he goes over Red Mountain and there's a McDonald

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Speaker 7: sitting on the other side. Now, he calls nine to

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Speaker 7: one to one, starts trying to describe what he saw.

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Speaker 7: And there he is there, he is right outside here,

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Speaker 7: and Jeff Tickle, who's a lawyer in Birmingham, is sitting

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Speaker 7: right there having breakfast and hears him and he helps

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Speaker 7: him describe what this man is wearing at the time.

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Speaker 7: Before he gets to the intersection, he cuts through the

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Speaker 7: woods and vanishes. So Jermaine finishes his call and he

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Speaker 7: and Jeff Tickle get in their separate vehicles.

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Speaker 5: They went in different places looking.

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Speaker 7: Jeff saw him get in a truck, a gray Nissan

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Speaker 7: pickup truck, and took a McDonald's coffee cup and wrote

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Speaker 7: the tag number of the pickup truck down.

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Speaker 1: Now law enforcement had to lead. They had a prime suspect.

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Speaker 1: And what's more, forensics had determined that this bomb was

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Speaker 1: detonated remotely, which meant the bomber was watching and deciding

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Speaker 1: when to detonate. This time, the bomber wanted to choose

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Speaker 1: his victims, wanted to see his victims suffer, wanted to

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Speaker 1: see the damage he inflicted.

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Speaker 7: The tag number we ran and was registered to Eric Rudolph,

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Speaker 7: Eric Robert Rudolph. They initially put out what the color

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Speaker 7: bolo be on the lookout for the gray Nissan pickup truck.

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Speaker 7: We knew it was North Carolina plate, so they started looking.

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Speaker 1: Doug Jones and his team had no clue who Eric

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Speaker 1: Rudolph was.

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Speaker 6: No one did.

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Speaker 1: He wasn't a suspect on anyone's list, and the truth

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Speaker 1: is there was no list.

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Speaker 6: This was the first real lead in the investigation.

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Speaker 7: So at some point in that day they tracked his

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Speaker 7: driver's license down. We had no id that the driver

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Speaker 7: of that vehicle was in fact Eric Rudolph.

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Speaker 5: The only thing that we knew is that.

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Speaker 7: Eric Rudolph's truck we believe was involved in this bombing.

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Speaker 7: And and candidly, we were very sensitive about what had

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Speaker 7: happened in Atlanta. In Atlanta, Richard Jewell became a suspect.

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Speaker 5: It was leaked.

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Speaker 7: There was an incredible intense focus on Richard Jewell, and

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Speaker 7: as it turns out, there was nothing to that. We

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Speaker 7: didn't want to repeat that, and we took extra cautions

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Speaker 7: to try to not to do that.

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Speaker 1: Jermaine Hughes and Jeff Tickle may have seen Rudolph fleeing

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Speaker 1: the scene, but as far as law enforcement was learning,

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Speaker 1: Eric Robert Rudolph was a ghost. Aside from his current

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Speaker 1: driver's license, his vehicle registration in an eight year old

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Speaker 1: military record, Rudolph had no paper trail. He owned no property,

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Speaker 1: he paid no taxes, he never voted, he had no

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Speaker 1: bank accounts, and he had never used a credit card.

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Speaker 1: He had no criminal record, not even a speeding ticket.

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Speaker 1: And now, following the Birmingham clinic bombing, there were more

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Speaker 1: than five agencies involved, including the FBI. That's a lot

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Speaker 1: of cooks in the kitchen, which makes it that much

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Speaker 1: harder to keep the lid on tight.

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Speaker 7: There was a lot of stress on everybody in the FBI.

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Speaker 7: They were already under tremendous pressure to solve the Atlanta

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Speaker 7: Park cases and the women's clinic and the gay nightclub

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Speaker 7: in Atlanta.

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Speaker 5: They were under.

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Speaker 7: Tremendous pressure there, and that is another reason why I

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Speaker 7: wanted to make sure that this case stayed here.

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Speaker 5: I didn't have those pressures.

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Speaker 7: But yeah, we butted heads a few times.

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Speaker 1: This is not an uncommon problem, and in this case,

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Speaker 1: it did work itself out, but not before a few

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Speaker 1: bumps in the road.

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Speaker 5: We spent a day or two trying to find him.

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Speaker 5: We couldn't find.

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Speaker 7: Him, so we decided that we did not have enough

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Speaker 7: because we did not have a good idea on the individual,

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Speaker 7: only the truck. So the only other available option to

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Speaker 7: us to make sure we brought him in for questioning

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Speaker 7: was a material witness warrant and we were able to

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Speaker 7: package that together to say, this person we believe has

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Speaker 7: material information about this crime that was committed in Birmingham, Alabama.

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Speaker 5: We have been unable to locate him.

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Speaker 7: We don't have any reason to think that he would

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Speaker 7: cooperate with us, and so we want the ability to

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Speaker 7: arrest him and hold him should we be able to

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Speaker 7: find him.

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Speaker 1: At this point, based on the directional plates found in

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Speaker 1: each of the bombs, law enforcement was fairly certain that

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Speaker 1: these different bombings were connected. But how does that information

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Speaker 1: help you find a suspect. Here's former US Attorney Ken

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Speaker 1: Alexander again.

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Speaker 8: Well, there's been a change in law enforcement since the Olympics,

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Speaker 8: and I think part of it has results of the

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Speaker 8: Olympic bombing. There was talk at the time though that

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Speaker 8: the recording by the bomber that there's a bomb Cinceennial Park,

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Speaker 8: there is.

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Speaker 1: A bomb in any old farm, you have a thirty minute.

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Speaker 8: There's talk of playing that, as you can imagine, and

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Speaker 8: if you had played that message right after the bombing,

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Speaker 8: that voice, that recording would have essentially gone virally. Everybody

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Speaker 8: in the world would have heard it. I've got to

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Speaker 8: think that at the time, had that been played right

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Speaker 8: off the bat, that there's a pretty good chance erk

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Speaker 8: Rudoff would have been ideed much earlier. But that just

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Speaker 8: wasn't the way that law enforcement generally operated at the time.

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Speaker 8: By contrast, if you fast forward to the Boston marathon bombing, there,

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Speaker 8: when you had pictures of the two brothers, those went

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Speaker 8: out immediately and people started identifying who the brothers were.

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Speaker 8: That allowed the case to be solved a lot faster.

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Speaker 8: So there's been a morphing in law enforcement of bringing

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Speaker 8: the public in to help with an investigation as supposed

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Speaker 8: to push in the public aside. If that morphing had

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Speaker 8: taken place already, there's a chance we would have found

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Speaker 8: Eric Rudoff far earlier than we did.

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Speaker 4: Vic Ocorn called me up and said, hey, we've got

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Speaker 4: a solid lead on this Birmingham bombing that had occurred

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Speaker 4: earlier that day. He said a witness had got a

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Speaker 4: personal description, a vehicle description, and they'd got a tag number,

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Speaker 4: a license plate number. And I figured, since he's called me,

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Speaker 4: the tag probably came back to somewhere in western North Carolina.

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Speaker 1: FBI agent Jim Russell was one of just a few

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Speaker 1: agents responsible for the western side of North Carolina back

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Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety eight. He mostly investigated violent crimes in

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Speaker 1: the area's expanse of National Forests and Cherokee Indian reservations.

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Speaker 4: And he said they had already run the tag and

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Speaker 4: got an address as a registration, and it came back

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Speaker 4: to an apartment complex in Asheville, North Carolina. This is

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Speaker 4: close to Quentin time, close to five. So my other

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Speaker 4: new agent partner, Rex Roden Rex and I went out

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Speaker 4: to that location.

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Speaker 1: Western North Carolina is hill country Russia's forests, with steep

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Speaker 1: terrain and rushing rivers running through the valleys. The forest

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Speaker 1: is overwhelming, it kind of swallows you. Everything is isolated,

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Speaker 1: even neighbors, and there's a libertarian sort of independence that

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Speaker 1: doesn't quite mesh with the idea of a society. The

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Speaker 1: people here are straightforward resistant to nuance, but sometimes nuance

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Speaker 1: is really important.

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Speaker 6: The devil is in the details.

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Speaker 1: The apartment that Jim Russell and his partner Rex went

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Speaker 1: to investigate was a sixty four unit apartment complex called

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Speaker 1: Skyland Heights in Nashville.

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Speaker 4: The truck was not in the parking lot, so we

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Speaker 4: went to the manager's office and she was just getting

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Speaker 4: ready to leave, and we asked her if she had

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Speaker 4: a tenant by the name of Eric Rudolph staying there

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Speaker 4: at the complex. And she says, that name doesn't ring

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Speaker 4: a bell. I don't know everybody, but I'll be happy

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Speaker 4: to check. And she went through all the old tenancies

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Speaker 4: of the apartment complex. He says, the only person I

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Speaker 4: found here is a Patricia Rudolph. I asked her if

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Speaker 4: can we look at the application, and I noticed on

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Speaker 4: there that there was an emergency contact name a number

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Speaker 4: for Moura Roads in Hendersonville, North Carolina, which is about

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Speaker 4: fifteen to twenty miles south of Asheville, and there was

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Speaker 4: an emergency contact number. And when I called that number,

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Speaker 4: her husband, Keith picked up the phone. I started talking

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Speaker 4: to Keith and I asked him what he knew about

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Speaker 4: and was he somehow related to Eric Rudolph and he said, yes,

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Speaker 4: that's my brother in law. It's Moura's brother. He said,

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Speaker 4: I'm not too shocked that the FBI has called me.

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Speaker 4: What did he do now? And I said, well, there's

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Speaker 4: some indication that he might have had something to do

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Speaker 4: with the bombing that happened in Burma. And he said, well,

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Speaker 4: I don't want to talk in front of Moura.

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Speaker 1: Mara is Rudolf's older sister. Little was known about her then,

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Speaker 1: little is known about her now.

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Speaker 4: She was cooperative to an extent, but she didn't want

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Speaker 4: to believe that he could have done something like that,

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Speaker 4: and so she was more reticent. I believe we got

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Speaker 4: much more information out of Keith because Keith didn't like him.

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Speaker 4: Keith didn't like Eric Keith. They just didn't get along.

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Speaker 4: So we arranged to meet him at a shop that

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Speaker 4: was like a bicycle shop.

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Speaker 1: Jim Russell, his partner, and Keith huddled into a car

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Speaker 1: in that bicycle shop parking lot.

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Speaker 4: The first thing we asked is do you know where

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Speaker 4: Eric is at now? Where is he currently living? And

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Speaker 4: he said he had no specific location for him. Eric

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Speaker 4: was very secretive about his whereabouts, always had been. If

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Speaker 4: I had to guess. I think he's probably living in

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Speaker 4: Western North Carolina, in Topton, North Carolina, which is his

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Speaker 4: boy hit home.

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Speaker 1: Topton's located about two and a half hours from Atlanta,

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Speaker 1: going up I seventy five to five seventy five to

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Speaker 1: get there. Like all of western North Carolina, it's beautiful

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Speaker 1: but remote. Billboard screaming of Jesus, guns and pharmaceuticals are rampant,

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Speaker 1: and they're not always advertised on the separate billboards. The

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Speaker 1: area gets a lot of vacationers with folks coming to

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Speaker 1: visit the Nanahala National Forest. But not to be disturbed

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Speaker 1: are the residents of Topton. People in this region don't

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Speaker 1: go in for a lot of bullshit and outsiders they

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Speaker 1: bring a lot of bullshit.

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Speaker 4: And I said, does he you know, is he married?

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Speaker 4: Does he have girlfriends? Does he have friends? He says no,

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Speaker 4: He's a loner. He's always been a loner. He tends

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Speaker 4: to irritate people. He's very racist, he's very sexist. He

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Speaker 4: is anti government. And as he's clicking off these terms

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Speaker 4: to describe Eric Rudolph Rex and I were just kind

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Speaker 4: of look at each other. Nothing he's saying is eliminating

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Speaker 4: Eric as being a possible suspect. All those indications are

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Speaker 4: taking off the right boxes that we are on the

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Speaker 4: trail of the right person.

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Speaker 6: Keith said.

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Speaker 1: The last time he and Mars saw her brother was

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Speaker 1: the week prior when he came to their son's basketball game.

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Speaker 1: Rudolph is late to the game and left immediately after

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Speaker 1: in a gray Nissan pickup truck with a white camper top.

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Speaker 4: And he said, and that's typical. He never tells us

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Speaker 4: he's coming. He just will show up, you know. We said,

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Speaker 4: is there a telephone number for him? He said, if

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Speaker 4: he has his phone, he doesn't give us any information.

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Speaker 4: Everything is a one way street with Eric.

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Speaker 1: He's a ghost, not only to law enforcement, but to

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Speaker 1: his family as well.

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Speaker 4: I developed a good working relationship and a friendship with

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Speaker 4: the SBI special agent that worked in the Topton Andrews,

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Speaker 4: North Carolina area, by the name of Tom Fry. Tom

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Speaker 4: Fry had been a State Bureau of Investigation agent out there

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Speaker 4: for maybe at least fifteen years. So every bad guy,

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Speaker 4: every drug dealer, Tom pretty much knew. And Tom had

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Speaker 4: never heard of Eric Rudolph. So he says, I'm going

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Speaker 4: to do some record checks and I'll meet you in

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Speaker 4: the morning. It's very rural, very isolated. It's in some beautiful,

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Speaker 4: beautiful mountains. I don't even think there's a traffic light,

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Speaker 4: you know, very two lane, windy roads. People as a

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Speaker 4: general rule that can be cooperative to the FBI, but

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Speaker 4: there's a lot of anti federal government sediment out there.

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Speaker 4: Tom and I had gotten up there early. We were

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Speaker 4: going to his last known address where he had grown up.

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Speaker 4: You know, it was a good investigative technique that we

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Speaker 4: have used in the past. Out there is you know,

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Speaker 4: it seems like the guy who delivers the mail knows

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Speaker 4: a lot about a lot of people. Tom and I

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Speaker 4: we were just trying to catch up with this rural

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Speaker 4: delivery mail truck for a while, and we finally got

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Speaker 4: up with him, and then he said, nah, I know

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Speaker 4: Eric Rudolph. I haven't seen him in a long time.

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Speaker 4: But if anybody was a friend of Eric Rudolf, it's

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Speaker 4: Randy Cochran, the every buddy's in high school. You know,

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Speaker 4: it might be a good idea for you to get

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Speaker 4: touched with Randy. He said, that'd be my best guess

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Speaker 4: of trying to find out where Eric is living right now.

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Speaker 4: By the time we got up to his house. I'm

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Speaker 4: thinking it's around six o'clock in the evening, and I

400
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Speaker 4: didn't know who he was at the time, but he

401
00:24:02,840 --> 00:24:05,200
Speaker 4: opens the door and I said, you know, it's Jim

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Speaker 4: Russell FBI, Tom fry SBI. We're wanting to ask you

403
00:24:08,520 --> 00:24:10,639
Speaker 4: about And before we could even get the word eye,

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00:24:10,640 --> 00:24:12,440
Speaker 4: he says, oh, you guys would probably hear about Eric,

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Speaker 4: and I said, Eric Cooch said Eric Rudolph, and Tom

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Speaker 4: and I are dumbfounded at this point where he just

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00:24:20,240 --> 00:24:22,880
Speaker 4: kind of looked at each other and we said, well,

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Speaker 4: why would you think we're here about Eric Rudolph And

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00:24:26,160 --> 00:24:30,200
Speaker 4: he said, well, because he's all over the news. Tom

410
00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:34,399
Speaker 4: and I were like, and he said, and if you

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Speaker 4: want to come in, and there's a press conference going

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Speaker 4: on right now, you can watch.

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Speaker 9: You have issue the warrant for a mister Eric Robert Rudolph.

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Speaker 9: This is a material witness warm and no one should

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Speaker 9: jump to any conclusions about the fact that we are

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Speaker 9: looking to question mister Rudolph.

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Speaker 4: No one told us that there was a press conference

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Speaker 4: coming and that they were just gonna send that out

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Speaker 4: to all the airwaves, and we were upset, you know,

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Speaker 4: everything was hey, this is confidential. We don't want to

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Speaker 4: spook him. We're trying to find out where he's living

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Speaker 4: without letting everybody know why.

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Speaker 1: No one could have known at the time, but that

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Speaker 1: press conference could have very well been responsible for what

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Speaker 1: would become years of searching.

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Speaker 4: We further talked to Randy, saying, Okay, do you have

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Speaker 4: a phone, do you have an address for him? Where's

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Speaker 4: he living? And that's when Randy said, I don't have

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Speaker 4: a specific address, but I have a feeling or a

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Speaker 4: hunch that he's in Murphy, North Carolina, which was kind

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Speaker 4: of on the border of Tennessee and North Carolina. And

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Speaker 4: so Tom had a real good relationship with the sheriff

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Speaker 4: of Cherokee County, Jack Thompson. So he called Jack and

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Speaker 4: he said, well, I'll go back into the office. I'll

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00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:10,720
Speaker 4: run some records checks and see if I can find

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00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:15,520
Speaker 4: out anything for Eric Rudolph. So we started heading there

437
00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:19,000
Speaker 4: and Tom called Sheriff Thompson again and the sheriff said, yeah,

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Speaker 4: I've got electricity and water records that he's renting a

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00:26:23,320 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 4: trailer here in Murphy and it's current. So he says,

440
00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:31,879
Speaker 4: and I can run out there right now. Jim and

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00:26:31,920 --> 00:26:35,439
Speaker 4: I said, no, Sheriff, let us get there. Let us

442
00:26:35,840 --> 00:26:39,720
Speaker 4: do this approach to him tactically. If he's the guy

443
00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:43,560
Speaker 4: that committed a bombing. There's several reasons why I didn't

444
00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:45,439
Speaker 4: want Sheriff Jack Thompson just go up a knock on

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00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:48,359
Speaker 4: his front door. And so it was decided that John

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00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:51,320
Speaker 4: and I would put our tactical gear on and Tom

447
00:26:51,359 --> 00:26:54,360
Speaker 4: Fry would drive us in his car to the end

448
00:26:54,680 --> 00:26:56,760
Speaker 4: of the driveway that goes to his trailer.

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00:26:58,320 --> 00:26:59,280
Speaker 5: We make a.

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00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:03,359
Speaker 4: Tactical chuck the driveway. It was several hundred yards in

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00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:06,639
Speaker 4: before we even saw the trailer. The lights were on,

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00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:10,159
Speaker 4: which I thought, that's a great sign. But there's like

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00:27:10,200 --> 00:27:16,480
Speaker 4: a parking space next to the trailer, no truck. John

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00:27:16,600 --> 00:27:18,600
Speaker 4: just watched the road. Well, I do a three sixty

455
00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:22,439
Speaker 4: around the trailer, make sure the truck wasn't parked behind

456
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:25,120
Speaker 4: the trailer like he was hiding it, and or see

457
00:27:25,119 --> 00:27:28,280
Speaker 4: if he was visible within any of the windows as

458
00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:32,199
Speaker 4: I went around the trailer. So I did that, no

459
00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:36,680
Speaker 4: truck behind the trailer and no one home. That was

460
00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:39,640
Speaker 4: the offeshit moment is like, you know, we'd hoped he'd

461
00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:42,679
Speaker 4: been there. So we sat up in the woods all

462
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:46,199
Speaker 4: night waiting for Eric to come home. They kept the

463
00:27:46,240 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 4: surveillance of the trailer for three more days, but at

464
00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:50,440
Speaker 4: that point he was gone.

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00:27:50,880 --> 00:27:51,080
Speaker 3: You know.

466
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:52,960
Speaker 4: There was just no idea where it could have been.

467
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:56,800
Speaker 4: It was apparent that he'd left in a hurry. He

468
00:27:56,880 --> 00:28:00,560
Speaker 4: had over one thousand dollars in one hundred dollar bills

469
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:03,920
Speaker 4: taped behind a picture in the wall of his bedroom,

470
00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:06,600
Speaker 4: so he didn't stop to take that. You know, this

471
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:10,920
Speaker 4: was January in western North Carolina. It was cold, and

472
00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:13,280
Speaker 4: when I first got to the trailer, I noticed that

473
00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:16,240
Speaker 4: the screen door was shut, but the front door was

474
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:18,639
Speaker 4: wide open. Yeah, I mean, you're just losing heat the

475
00:28:18,680 --> 00:28:23,080
Speaker 4: way that indicated to me. So based upon other things,

476
00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:25,000
Speaker 4: I think he just got out of there as.

477
00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:25,720
Speaker 5: Quick as he could.

478
00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:32,720
Speaker 6: Next time on.

479
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:38,320
Speaker 2: Flashpoint, yeah, I come to my dad's holes and I asked.

480
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:42,960
Speaker 5: Him where the cads was. My dad said, I ain't

481
00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:44,240
Speaker 5: going to tell you to him thing.

482
00:28:45,840 --> 00:28:46,440
Speaker 3: They said.

483
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:49,160
Speaker 8: He said, if Rudolph come to my poor trut now,

484
00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:49,840
Speaker 8: I'd feed him.

485
00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:55,640
Speaker 3: Everybody helped him, may he didn't do it.

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00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 1: Flashpoint is a production of Tenderfoot TV in association with iHeartMedia.

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00:29:17,320 --> 00:29:21,640
Speaker 1: I'm your host Cole La Caassio, Donald Albright and Payne

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00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:26,760
Speaker 1: Lindsay are executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV. Flashpoint

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00:29:26,800 --> 00:29:30,480
Speaker 1: was created, written, and executive produced by Doug Mattica and

490
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 1: myself on behalf of seven nine nine seven. Lead producer

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00:29:35,200 --> 00:29:39,680
Speaker 1: is Alex Espastad, along with producers Jamie Albright and Meredith Stadman.

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00:29:40,840 --> 00:29:43,040
Speaker 6: Our associate producer is witt Lukassio.

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00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:48,320
Speaker 1: Editing by Alex Espastad with additional editing by Liam Luxon

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00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:54,520
Speaker 1: and Sidney Evans. Supervising producer is Tracy Kaplan. Artwork by

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00:29:54,520 --> 00:29:59,960
Speaker 1: Station sixteen, original music by Jay Ragsdale, mixed by Day

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00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 1: and Cole. Thank you to Orrin Rosenbaum and the team

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00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:06,880
Speaker 1: at Uta Beck Media and Marketing and the Nord Group.

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00:30:08,080 --> 00:30:12,640
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Angela q, Tylie Revive Matica and Tim Livingston.

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00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:18,040
Speaker 1: For more podcasts like Flashpoint, search Tenderfoot TV on your

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00:30:18,040 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 1: favorite podcast app, or visit us at tenderfoot dot tv.

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00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:37,520
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to this episode of Flashpoint.

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00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:41,960
Speaker 1: This series is released weekly absolutely free, but for ad

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00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:46,400
Speaker 1: free listening, early access and exclusive bonuses, you can subscribe

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00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 1: to Tenderfoot plus on Apple Podcasts or at tenderfootplus dot com,