After five years on the lam, Eric Rudolph was captured. Prosecutors in Georgia and Alabama jockeyed to have the first crack at taking him to trial, convicting him and, as they planned, sentencing him to death. It was decided that Birmingham had better evidence, and a reliable witness in Jermaine Hughes. Jurors had been assembled and questioned. But Rudolph had one bargaining chip: the location of 200 pounds of stolen dynamite. On the eve of his trial he made a decision to save his own life. He would reveal the location of the explosives, and plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence. The “great outdoorsman” would spend the rest of his life in a tiny underground cell, in the most secure of all American prisons.
Rudolph would be forgotten by many. After all, his four bombings killed far fewer people than guns kill every day in America now. But the words he used, the beliefs he espoused, live on. They were considered crackpot at the time of his bombings. They live today in courtrooms, statehouses and the U.S. Capitol.
American Shrapnel is an eight-part series from Alabama Media Group. It starts with the biggest pipe bomb the FBI had ever seen. It ends in a dumpster, after the largest manhunt in U.S. history. This is the story of Eric Rudolph and the rise of American rage. Available on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
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