Local law enforcement lend a hand with security
By Lisa Majors-Duff
As soon as Sheriff Jimmy Ashe heard the report that one of the FBI's 10 Most Wanted fugitives had been captured in Murphy, he knew his colleagues in Cherokee County would need help.
Eric Robert Rudolph, 36, who evaded an FBI manhunt for five years, was apprehended at about 4:30 a.m. Saturday, May 31, by rookie Murphy Police Officer Jeff Postell.
As was the case when the manhunt began in 1998, hundreds of law enforcement officers and even more media representatives descended on Murphy Saturday morning. Security and crowd control in the small town became an immediate concern for Sheriff Keith Lovin.
"Considering the events of Saturday morning and knowing that Rudolph would be housed for a time in the Cherokee County jail, I called Sheriff Lovin and offered my assistance," Ashe said.
Eight officers from his department volunteered to travel to Cherokee County and assist in areas where additional manpower was needed, Ashe said. In addition to keeping the "media circus" corralled, officers paid special attention to the anti-government faction that came to town to show support for the Olympic bombing suspect.
"We helped maintain security and assisted as we could," Ashe said. "There were no major difficulties."
Once Rudolph was placed in his cell, Cherokee County authorities made the decision to place the suspect under a 24-hour watch. It was here that Ashe got his best look at the man the FBI has accused of killing two people in Atlanta and Birmingham, Ala., in separate bombings.
"I stayed in the room a couple of hours," Ashe said. "I didn't talk to him, but he was talking to a lot of other people."
In his discussions with authorities, Rudolph revealed the locations of at least two campsites he'd lived during the last five years. Jackson County officers were called upon to secure these sites while the FBI searched for evidence, Ashe said.
After the decision was made to move Rudolph to Asheville for a hearing before Federal Court Judge Lacy Thornburg, members of Jackson County's Tactical Team were asked to provide mobile security from the Cherokee County Jail to the Andrews-Murphy Airport, where a helicopter awaited.
"Numerous agencies assisted, and we were glad to help," said Ashe.
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Rudolph lived in Jackson County during the 1980s after his mother moved her three sons and one daughter from Homestead, Fla., to the mountains following her husband's death.
Patricia Rudolph first moved to Macon County's Nantahala community but later rented a house on Maple Street in Sylva. At one point Eric Rudolph occasionally stayed at an apartment rented downtown by his older brother, Danny, in an space above the Jewelry Outlet.
In 1989 "Pat," as she was known to friends in Sylva, was president of the Jackson County Visual Arts Association and helped initiate the grand opening of Gallery One Art Studio on Main Street.
Frequently Eric Rudolph accompanied his mother to the upstairs studio, and it was there that art instructor Ray Menze gave him drawing lessons.
But JCVAA members like Menze, the current president, remember Eric Rudolph more for his skills with a hammer than a charcoal pencil.
"Eric and his older brother, Danny, were fine carpenters, great craftsmen," said Perry Kelly, JCVAA member and retired Western Carolina University art professor. "Danny and Eric did a lot of work converting that space into a gallery, straightened up the windows and fixed the ceiling.
"They did a perfect job; they were very meticulous," Kelly said. "Their brother, Jamie, was the more artistic one; he took after his mother, who painted watercolors."
Jamie Rudolph took art classes at Western Carolina University. A high school dropout, Eric Rudolph went on to receive his GED and attended WCU during the fall 1985 and spring 1986 semesters.
"Eric was very pleasant, but more reserved, less outgoing than Danny," Kelly said. "We talked a lot about art and other things. But for all the time I knew the family I never heard any of the religious extremism or fanatical views that people claim they had."
On more than one occasion during the past five years the FBI inspected Eric Rudolph's carpentry work at Gallery One, paying special attention to the nails he used.
The explosive used in the Olympic bombing was smokeless gunpowder with a shrapnel of 6-pounds of nails. The two bombs at the Atlanta abortion clinic contained more than 3 1/2 pounds of flooring nails, while the bomb at the Atlanta nightclub contained 6 1/2 pounds of galvanized nails.
Appearing in a Birmingham, Ala., federal courtroom Tuesday, June 3, Eric Rudolph pleaded innocent to charges in the 1998 abortion clinic bombing there.
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Rudolph
