The Forest Is His Ally

By SYLVESTER MONROE

What becomes a legend most? Mystery and elusiveness--and keeping several steps ahead of the law. Six months ago, when federal agents identified Eric Robert Rudolph as the man they believe responsible for the Jan. 29 bombing of an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Ala., that killed an off-duty police officer and severely wounded a nurse, they were confident they would arrest the itinerant carpenter within a matter of days. But like a latter-day, albeit sinister, Robin Hood eluding the Sheriff of Nottingham, Rudolph, 31, a former private in the 101st Airborne skilled at surviving in the wilderness, vanished into the mountainous woods of southwestern North Carolina. And despite being wanted for questioning in the Olympic bombing and two other Atlanta explosions, he is inexplicably becoming a local celebrity, an anti-hero evoking sympathy and ensconced in his very own Sherwood Forest.

Few enticements and entrapments have worked: a place on the FBI's ten-most-wanted list and a manhunt stretching as far as Denver have produced nothing. A $1 million reward has found no takers. Until two weeks ago, Rudolph had not been seen since the day after the bombing, when he rented the video Kull the Conqueror, stocked up on raisins, trail mix and batteries and bought $11 worth of burgers and fries from the Burger King in his hometown of Murphy, N.C. The trail had gone stone cold. And then on July 11, George Nordmann, 71, owner of the Better Way health-food store in downtown Andrews, only about 10 miles from Murphy, confessed to a Macon County sheriff's deputy that Rudolph had come to his house asking for food four days before. "Homer, you're not going to believe this," deputy Kenny Cope told his boss, Sheriff Homer Holbrooks, "but I've got a man at the house who had contact with Eric Rudolph." "You're sh______ me," Holbrooks retorted. The deputy insisted it was no joke.

Nordmann, who had known Rudolph from years ago, told authorities that the suspect's appearance has changed considerably. Sporting a beard and a ponytail and dressed in a camouflage outfit and gloves, Rudolph reportedly told Nordmann, "Look at me. I look like a hippie." He also told Nordmann that he had lost weight, pulling on his baggy trousers to demonstrate how he'd lost about six inches off his waistline. "Being on the run like this, I'm starving to death," he reportedly said, telling Nordmann he had been surviving on green beans and oatmeal.

During that meeting, which lasted about 30 minutes on Tuesday, July 7, Nordmann told police that Rudolph also tried to convince him he was innocent. The next day Nordmann went to his store and stayed the night there because he was worried about the encounter with Rudolph and about returning home. While he was gone, police believe Rudolph returned to Nordmann's house either late that night or Thursday and took 50 to 75 lbs. of food, including canned green beans, beets, corn, tuna fish, raisins and a large bag of wheat bran. He carried it away in Nordmann's 1977 Nissan pickup truck, which the store owner discovered missing when he returned home on Thursday. Police later found the truck at a nearby campground with a handwritten note from Rudolph inside. The contents of the note have not been released. At home, Nordmann found five $100 bills, presumably left by Rudolph as payment for the food.

Nordmann nevertheless struggled with his knowledge of the encounter. Described by neighbors as a deeply religious Roman Catholic father of 11 children, he once taught woodshop briefly at the local high school and considers himself a good citizen. But he also felt the local boy's protestations of innocence may have some weight. Finally, after thinking things over, he decided to tell police of his meeting. "It was very traumatic for him," said the Georgia Bureau of Investigation forensic artist who drew the updated composite sketch of Rudolph from Nordmann's description. "He was concerned about what the Lord might do to him for helping this fugitive."

Federal agents and local police were encouraged by the new leads Nordmann provided. The story reaffirmed what they had thought from the beginning--that Rudolph had not left the rugged mountain terrain of the southern Appalachians. "When you've gone five or six months without seeing or knowing he's there, it's gratifying to get some confirmation," says Joe Lewis, the special agent in charge of the Birmingham FBI office. "We've now confirmed what we felt all along," says Woody Enderson, the Atlanta FBI agent in charge of the Southeast Bomb Task Force. After the latest sighting, the task force was doubled to more than 200 agents and officers, who worked around the clock last week searching a 30-sq.-mi. area in the Nantahala National Forest. Operating out of a two-story building half a block from Nordmann's health-food store, the task force has also taken over an entire campground in the national forest, cordoning off nearly an entire mountain at the height of the summer tourist season. Searchers are now rappelling from helicopters to the highest slopes and ridges in their manhunt.

Through all this, Rudolph the woodsman has the advantage. The heavily armed teams of two, three and four searching the deep woods have to keep in contact by bouncing messages off a plane patrolling the skies. It is the only way to overcome the mountains that interfere with radio transmission. At night, helicopters equipped with infrared sensors help investigators detect movement. However, the rock face, retaining heat from the sun, often gives off false readings.

Among many people of the mountains, Rudolph is being given the benefit of the doubt. "If Eric Rudolph is in these mountains, they ain't going to find him," says a lifelong resident of the area who says she would not turn him in. "They're city people. I am more worried for him than those people. They have bothered us a lot more than he ever will. He's from here. I'd never turn him in for a million dollars and have to live with it for the rest of my life." At the Nantahala Volunteer Fire department, where Friday-night Bingo games pay out $10,000, a poster boasts RUDOLPH PLAYS HERE, and the owner of Lake's End Store is changing the sign outside her mountainside grocery and cafe to read ERIC ATE HERE. Says J.D. Prince, who plans to build a 100,000-sq.-ft. indoor flea market called the Hillbilly Mall in Nantahala near Andrews: "He ain't going to hurt none of us. Nobody has proven he has done anything yet. If people here knew in their mind that he was guilty, they'd help the FBI find him. The problem is they don't know for sure."

Agents, on the other hand, believe they are after the right man, and they believe he is armed and extremely dangerous. After hearing reports that Rudolph had asked Nordmann about the location of the federal agents, officials brought in bomb-sniffing dogs to patrol the perimeter of the task-force headquarters. They are also concerned about booby traps in the area. But their greatest nemesis is Rudolph's greatest ally: the deep and dark forest that has protected him so well.

--With reporting by Timothy Roche/Andrews

With reporting by Timothy Roche/Andrews