Beyond Reasonable Doubt (2017–…): Season 1, Episode 5 - The Atlanta Bomber - full transcript

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Please keep a safe distance,

nothing to see.

I was only 18 yards from the backpack.

This was the largest pipe bomb

in US history.

NASA contacted us.

This might be the break we needed.

The description

matches the NASA analysis.

Right then...

boom!



I see people screaming,

people in pain.

Get out now.

You shoot at one cop, you've shot at all of us.

And we're going to stop you.

In the summer of 1996

Atlanta was hosting not only the Olympics,

but the Centennial Olympics.

It was a time that we set out

to make America proud.

You've got nations from all over the world

coming together in one location.

Tens of thousands of people every day

visit Centennial Park.



Party of the century, baby.

Yeah, yeah.

So, there's always the potential

of terrorist activity.

My job was working in an under-cover capacity.

I was making my last pass through the park.

And I was approached

by a security guard...

- Hey, Richard. - Richard Jewell.

Richard pointed to a green backpack

underneath a bench.

We had dealt with a number of suspicious packages.

What the hell is that?

And none of these situations

turned out to be anything.

There is a bomb

in Centennial Park.

You have 30 minutes.

What I didn't know,

there was a call made

to the 911 center.

I think we better call it in.

I wish we had had that information.

We've got a suspect package

underneath the tower near a bench.

When they arrived,

one of them cracked the end of the bag,

just a very very small area.

They backed away from the bag,

and asked me to use my cell phone.

At that point in my mind, I'm thinking,

"Well, there's a little more to this."

We were in the process of clearing people out.

Nothing to see here!

Move back.

I was only 18 yards from the backpack...

when, all of a sudden...

All I see is chaos.

I see people screaming,

people in pain.

People severely injured.

I was a supervisor

of our Anti-Terrorist Unit.

I hear radio traffic...

there had been an explosion

in Centennial Olympic Park

and we had multiple officers down.

I'm hoping nobody I knew has gotten killed.

Believe me it was a bomb!

Let's go please.

We get there, there's trauma everywhere.

It was the largest thing I'd ever seen.

We had over a hundred people injured.

One lady, kneeled down

and felt to see if I could feel a pulse.

I didn't feel a pulse.

Alice Hawthorne, she was killed instantaneously.

I was very angry that someone

would come in there and disrupt the games.

I thought that was the most cowardly thing

that I've ever seen.

This was a terrible tragedy.

Whoever this was, put a bomb down in the park,

he ended up wounding a hundred people

and killing Alice Hawthorne.

I was employed by ATF as a forensic chemist.

Within 30 minutes

I got a call and I was at Centennial Park.

I was actually assigned

to work the immediate explosive area.

We tried to collect all of the evidence that's possible.

The smallest piece you find

might have a mark on it

that's readily identifiable

that you didn't find on anything else.

My role at the Olympics at that time

is as an advisor should something happen.

We were concerned about the rain coming in

and washing away valuable evidence,

some residues.

So, we put a tent over the crater area.

Everything is given its own number and own location

and at a later time,

we're able to know exactly

where the pieces were found.

So you just never know what piece of evidence

is actually gonna solve the case.

We collected over 500 bags of evidence.

And then it was flown to FBI laboratory

in Washington DC.

People couldn't believe that it actually happened.

And wanted to see whoever was responsible

caught very quickly.

The bombing at Centennial Olympic Park

was an evil act of terror.

We will spare no effort

to find out who was responsible for this murderous act.

We will track them down.

We will bring them to justice.

We will see that they are punished.

Discussions began on who the bomber might be,

what cause he could be representing,

what country he might be from.

There were so many targets,

it could have been somebody

that just didn't like the Olympics.

It could have been an international group

that wanted to free a prisoner.

It could have been somebody

that was targeting law enforcement.

We had a warning call from the bomber

saying there was a bomb in the park,

and he had 30 minutes.

There is a bomb in Centennial Park.

You have 30 minutes.

We did a timeline

and the bomb detonated around 21 minutes.

You have 30 minutes.

He might have been using that

to sucker law enforcement

and first responders into the scene.

We had tens of thousands of witnesses

that were in the park.

We made an appeal for cameras

and were hoping people might get a picture

of somebody carrying the bomb.

Thousands of pictures and videotape came in.

Special Agent Stone,

we've picked something up you might find of interest.

One of the video tapes we received

actually showed a person

sitting on the end of the bench

where the bomb detonated.

It was a shadowy figure,

you could make out no detail,

looked like he was wearing a hoodie,

and had a pack between his legs.

Because we couldn't identify,

he became known as "Blob Man".

No amount of enhancement could change it,

it was just a "Blob Man".

We needed a way to increase clarity.

So, the decision was made to contact NASA.

Can you give me the number

of the photo enhancement Division.

They had more expertise than anybody

to enhance the photographs.

Five, four, three, two, one.

We have ignition.

We have lift-off.

In 1996 I was a solar astronomer

at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Centre.

The FBI was aware

that we had launched the Hubble Space Craft

to observe the night sky.

Those images were blurry.

We had techniques for de-blurring those images.

The FBI thought we might be able

to help them identify who the bomber might be.

See if you can enhance that.

The one key video they had,

it was very noisy, very dark,

difficult to see anything.

We made it clear to them

we're going to have to develop new things

to clean up these videos.

This was going to take weeks, if not longer.

Probably too long.

We were hoping it would take

a shorter period of time

because we had a lot of pressure

to identify who the bomber was.

Our lab director told us, you know,

drop everything, and help these guys.

And we were perfectly willing to do it.

We realized, you know,

this was a thing of national importance

and we were ready, willing and able

to do whatever we could.

After the Olympic Park bombing,

there were frequent meetings

and briefings at a very high level.

Teams of ATF, FBI and GBI agents.

There was nothing that we would not have done

that was legal

in trying to solve that crime.

We used every potential resource that was out there

to apply technology,

to provide forensic techniques

to solve that crime.

The intent of gathering the evidence

was to try to reconstruct the bomb.

The way it was constructed was in effect

a signature of who that bomber was.

We had a few grains

of the powder from the crime scene

to help us decide what kind of explosive

was actually used.

The explosive used was a mixture

of number nine and number seven

Accurate Arms Smokeless Ball Powder.

Smokeless powder

is the propellant that is used in bullets.

Smokeless powder isn't controlled

in the United States.

And you can go to any hunting supply house

and buy the smokeless powder.

We also had a Westclock timer.

An Eveready 12-volt lantern battery.

Dual conductor wire.

A Radioshack product.

600 8D cut nails.

Three pipes, 12 inches in length,

two inches in diameter.

When we complete our forensic examinations

and we're comfortable

that we know all of the components

that are in that particular device,

we will build a mock up device.

You know where certain components are placed

based on where they go when the bomb goes off.

Whatever's over here on a certain point,

it takes off in that direction

instead of going in the other direction.

So that helps you place it in the right area.

We built a mock up as best as we can.

It was determined this was the largest pipe bomb

in US history.

We had a lot of forensics,

none of them were unique identifiers to an individual.

With the exception of the steel plate.

The bomb is mounted on a steel plate,

which was used as a directional device,

very similar to

a Claymore mine that the military uses.

That's not your average thing

that you would find with a pipe bomb.

The plate sends the shrapnel

in the direction the bomber wants it to go.

It was designed to kill and maim

as many people as it could.

We were possibly looking for a military suspect

or a suspect who had a military background.

Someone called in and recommended,

look at Richard Jewell.

Richard Jewell was the security guard

who actually found the bomb.

He had made statements to the effect

that if something was going to happen at the Olympics,

he wanted to be involved in it.

What did the FBI ask you?

Can you categorically say that you did not do this?

- I did not do it.

- Where were you at one o'clock on that morning?

- I was out there just like all the other officers.

Did you do it?

No sir, I didn't do it.

I did not think that he could possibly

have been the guy that made that device.

If he had enough sense to build that device,

he's going to have two or three skyscrapers

between him and this device when it blows up.

He's not going to be right there close by

where he could have got caught with nails and shrapnel.

Following an intensive investigation by the FBI,

Richard was cleared.

He was no longer a suspect.

We still had to find a viable suspect.

You've got a mad bomber out there,

it was just a matter of time

before there'd be another bombing.

On January 16th in 1997

that would have been my first day

as the special agent in charge

for ATF in Atlanta.

I was looking for a peaceful transition.

Excited,

interested to meet my counterparts

and begin the work of the highest-ranking position

I was gonna hold in my law enforcement career.

But one of them said, "Welcome aboard!

We've just had a bombing

in an abortion clinic in Sandy Springs."

An explosion blew out the windows

at a North Atlanta family planning clinic.

News had come over...

I was sitting there with my supervisor

and he said "Well, you need to, uh,

roll out there and see what's going on."

No one has claimed credit for these explosions.

Fire-fighters and local police

were already on the scene.

Okay, we've got some nut set a bomb off,

let's see if we can figure out who did this.

At this point, responding people had been told to meet

on the other side of the building

away from the crime scene.

So, I walked back around.

And I got on the phone, "John, this is Mike,"

and right then...boom.

Get back! Get back!

Let's go.

My god.

What the hell was that?

Hey, Control, we've just had another explosion

down here at the center.

We've had two bombs detonated

in an abortion clinic in Sandy Springs.

When we examined the placement of the two devices,

those of us who had served in the military

recognized it as a classic L shaped ambush.

It appeared that the bomber

had some kind of exposure or training

on how to set an effective ambush.

The bomber knew that the first bomb

would draw in law enforcement responders.

That they would not position themselves

on top of the evidence.

And so, 90 degrees around the back of the building,

which would seem a nice secure area

that's where he buried the second device

by the dumpster.

So, we knew now that someone was gunning for us.

And his intention by putting shrapnel in that device

was to kill, injure and maim those law enforcement

and public safety responders.

It was real hard,

because this guy was trying to kill us.

Believe me it's like when you get shot at,

it makes it a real personal experience.

I went into a rage.

How dare they...

You shoot at me, you have shot at everybody.

You shoot at one cop, you've shot at all of us.

And we're gonna stop you, whatever it takes.

When I arrived at the scene,

just the crater alone told me

it was a high explosive.

It went through four inches of concrete.

You don't get that with a pipe bomb

with low explosive in it.

I started getting a headache,

which kind of indicated to me

it was probably going to be dynamite

because dynamite tends to give you a headache.

I took all the evidence to the lab.

We had an instrument,

a thing called an EGIS machine.

Conventional analysis in the lab 15 minutes.

Analysis on the EGIS, nine seconds.

It come out as ethylene glycol dinitrate

which is the common ingredient of dynamite.

It's only used in dynamite.

Because we were aware of the Olympics bombing

and we were waiting for NASA

to see if they would be helpful

with that photograph,

now we're starting to make a mental comparison.

We have an alarm clock device...

and we have cut nails although of different size.

On the other side, we have different explosives,

different packaging, different deployment.

But it's not iron clad that we had a common bomber.

So, we have to investigate further.

Shortly after AFT

had the evidence back in their laboratory...

Lloyd Erwin did call me.

We have a metal plate in this device.

This metal plate was a similar type,

same thickness as the one used in Centennial Park.

The FBI metallurgist

did extensive amount of work on the two metal plates.

He travelled to different steel manufacturing plants.

He gathered hundreds and hundreds pages of data.

It was decided to do a atomic-level test on the steel.

If you have two pieces of metal

that came from the same production

or manufacturing company

those would have a very unique chemical profile,

and so if you analyze those

you could actually pin point,

what time, where and when they were produced,

and if they came from the same batch.

The metal plate from the Sandy Springs device,

and the metal plate from the Olympic Park bomb,

was determined to be

analytically indistinguishable from each other.

There's no doubt in my mind at this point

that we're dealing with a serial bomber.

We believe there is enough similarity

between the devices

that at this point

we believe they're very likely to be linked together.

We have a bomber on the loose.

We didn't know where he might strike next.

I get a call that there's been a bombing

at a gay nightclub in Atlanta,

The Otherside Lounge.

There was an explosion.

And all of a sudden, you hear... bam!

One lady had a nail stuck in her right arm.

There had been some injuries,

but there were no fatalities.

Good news.

The explosive was quickly identified

as being dynamite.

It was the same type of dynamite

that was used in the Sandy Springs bombing.

The mood is of great concern.

Not only do we clearly have a serial bomber,

but they're on a very high-frequency of attack.

So, we had a truly unknown subject

about whom we knew nothing

other than their bomb making and ambush skills.

Various media outlets received letters

claiming credit for the abortion clinic

and the gay bar,

the Otherside Lounge.

We knew immediately the letters were genuine

because the letters were mailed

before the bombing of the Other Side Lounge.

It was obvious that he wanted to taunt us.

That we couldn't catch him

and the next abortion clinic might not be empty.

He signs it with the date 4/19/93.

Four 19 is like a magic date.

It's when Waco, Texas happened.

Four 19 is the date Timothy McVeigh chose.

That was a rallying date for the militia.

That tells us a great deal

about the motivations of this person.

The letters were signed Army of God,

a term that had come out

in the anti-abortion movement.

The Army of God investigations

never turned up an army

but did turn up individuals.

We were convinced we were dealing with

a lone wolf bomber, not a group.

In the investigation, we had several long shots.

The Blob Man photograph

and NASA was one of them.

NASA contacted us...

said that they had developed a software

for enhancement and clarification.

This might be the break we needed.

Story, we got a great view of you

from the elbow camera.

Really nice.

Roger that Story.

The Hubble technology

that initially led the FBI to come to NASA

ultimately we didn't use.

We had been working for months

developing the technology to help us,

stabilize and ultimately clean up these videos.

You have to remember this was 20 years ago

when video wasn't digital,

video was on videotape.

There were no smartphones, there wasn't digital,

there wasn't high def.

This was VHS tape, we had a lot to deal with.

Blurring the speckly noise, the image motion.

When we first started trying to stabilize these images

we did it basically by hand.

We would say take the second image,

move it over two pixels, move it up one...

'Yeah, that's...' and we'd blink,

'Yeah, that's a little better fit.'

And it was like an eye test, you know,

was A better than B?

And after doing this

and going nearly blind for weeks

we decided, no,

we have to have the computer do this.

We invented the process,

we called it VISR video image stabilization

and registration,

that compares one image to another

and figures out, how the second one,

has to be transformed,

to match up with the first one.

Exactly what angle do we need to rotate it?

Exactly how much bigger do we have to make it?

Exactly how much do we have to shift it?

We need to figure out to a small fraction of a pixel,

how much do you have to move this image,

to make it match as best as possible to the other one?

Once it's stabilized

you can add those images together,

because they all match.

Get rid of that fuzzy noise,

and you've got a clean clear image.

The backpack video

by adding together 400 images,

went from where you really

can't even tell it's a backpack,

to you can make out details in the backpack.

We cleaned up the image of the Blob Man,

it's not a lot of images,

probably only one or two seconds.

But it was enough

that we brought out details about him.

You could make out his height and weight,

5' 11" and 185 pounds or so.

He was wearing thigh length khaki shorts,

ankle high boots, with light colored socks.

A dark shirt,

and it looked like he had something on his head,

a hood or a beret,

and it becomes very apparent then,

and only then, that he's a white male.

They created for us a cutout that said

you must be this tall

and just that shoe size

and just that pair of boots.

We knew everything about "Blob Man"

except who he was.

And once we knew who he was

we stood ready to convict him

but couldn't do it 'til we knew who he was.

I'm informed that there's been another bombing

in Birmingham, Alabama

of an abortion clinic, two hours away.

All the way back.

We do have one confirmed fatality.

A police officer has been killed.

A nurse has been severely injured.

This bombing is probably

connected to our bombings.

It's the fulfilment of the promise.

The next abortion clinic might not be empty.

As everyone is running toward the explosion

to see what happened,

we find something, very, very important.

An alert medical student sees a person

almost nonchalantly walking the other way.

And somehow intuits that this person

must be involved in the bombing in some way.

Sees him get into a grey Nissan pickup,

he writes down the license plate,

the person goes in the wind.

The description that he gives matches the NASA analysis

of the Blob Man photograph.

The plate comes back...

Thank you.

to an Eric Robert Rudolph.

That's a eureka moment.

For the first time,

I allow myself to say something out loud.

I went, 'Yes!'

Now the game had changed.

He was no longer a "blob man."

No longer was some unknown subject hunting us.

We were now on a path to hunting them.

Whoa.

Having been involved with the bombing investigations

exclusively for 18 months...

I was elated.

Now we know who he is,

we can get him located

and get him arrested.

His registration came back

to an apartment in Asheville, North Carolina.

So when we arrived at the apartment complex,

we quickly learned that Eric Rudolph

did not live at the apartment any more.

But we got a picture of Eric...

wearing clothing that resembled

certain clothing that had been observed

in one of the previous bombings in Atlanta.

He's the right size,

the right shape, the right color.

We have someone that was followed

from a bomb site...

to North Carolina.

That area was a known hotbed

for anti-government sentiment.

Eric had circled in that orbit.

He's been in the military,

trained in ambush techniques.

A lone wolf, keeps to himself.

And you can feel the pieces starting to drop together.

We ran him through

multiple governmental sources.

He doesn't have charge accounts.

He didn't use credit cards.

He has no police record.

He didn't worry about social security, taxes.

This man is off the grid.

Unseeable and unseen.

Eric Robert Rudolph -

police say his pickup truck

was seen driving away from the Birmingham clinic

just after the bomb went off.

The decision had been made

that we would go public with Eric Rudolph's name.

An old friend of Eric's contacted us

and said that Eric's primary occupation

was he was a pot grower.

Naturally, in 1996,

it's a cash-only business.

Eric had survival skills,

ranging from gathering food,

to weapons,

to establishing hiding places.

The last he knew, Eric was living

in the Murphy, North Carolina area.

We get to Murphy

and there's an excitement,

we think we have him now.

It was about 8:30 in the evening.

Dark.

And we were hoping that we would certainly

have the element of surprise.

There were lights on inside the trailer.

So, we had the benefit of the cover of darkness.

The one thing that we found strange

was being that it was a cold January night,

the front door was open.

It was a serious tactical situation.

He could have been

lying in wait with firearms.

He could have had the place rigged with explosives.

So we decided to

put the property under surveillance

and sit and wait.

So night passed

and no one came, no one left.

He had fled.

Once agents entered the trailer,

they could tell that he had packed hastily.

We find his Bible,

we find some of his notes.

But there's a moment of deep disappointment.

Because somehow once again,

he slips out of our grasp.

And then, we received a phone call

that Eric Rudolph's truck had been found.

Not far from his trailer.

The investigators step back from the truck

and they look around them.

Eric had gone to ground in the Nantahal National Forest.

It's a double growth, triple growth forest,

in which the mountain laurels

grow underneath the dogwoods,

which grow underneath the pine trees.

It's almost impenetrable.

Throw a doll in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean

and then go find it.

That's how hard it was.

After it was determined the trailer was safe,

evidence recovery teams went through the trailer

looking for anything that could be related

to the bombings in Atlanta.

We take the dog in.

The first place he hit on was an area of a carpet.

We cut out a piece of carpet,

did a quick vapor test with our EGIS machine,

and every one of them gave us

a positive reading

for ethylene glycol dinitrate,

which shocked me because, man,

that's what we're looking for.

That means that we got dynamite residues in his house.

I went out on the search

of the storage building he had rented.

We found a VHS tape,

one-year anniversary of the Olympic Park bombing.

Cut masonry nails from Ace Hardware.

Agents went to that

and discovered Eric bought a lot of components

in the bombs.

Everything we find is drawing the web of evidence

tighter and tighter around Eric Rudolph.

The steel plates...

the explosives.

We're able to link everything to him.

Charges are filed,

charging him with three bombings in Atlanta

and the bombing in Birmingham, Alabama.

Today the federal government

is charging Eric Robert Rudolph

with the bombings in the 1996 Summer Olympic Games.

We had a case that when confronted

by the forensic evidence,

he would have no option but to plead guilty.

All we need is somebody to come in and stand trial.

A massive manhunt is underway to find Rudolph.

Eric knew the area we were searching

like the back of his hand.

I spent countless hours

working on this investigation

and hundreds of other FBI, ATF agents,

GBI agents, North Carolina SBI agents,

Sheriff's Department deputies,

we all spent so many hours on this man hunt.

This was a major effort by all the agencies to find him.

The hunt went on for over five years.

We had unlimited resources

and yet we couldn't catch him.

Over time, there were no sightings,

there was no fresh information.

There was no contact.

All of our patrols gave us nothing.

He had won in that we couldn't catch him.

We had won from the standpoint

no more bombs went off.

It's like playing to a draw.

We knew he did it,

we could prove he did it but we can't capture him.

He could hide for the rest of his life.

Unfortunately, 9/11 occurred,

Eric fell by the wayside.

The task force was disbanded

but I still felt he was up there.

The FBI case agent felt he was still up there.

But again, we just couldn't find him.

On the night of May 31st 2003,

I was a rookie police officer

for the Murphy, North Carolina Police Department.

I was the only patrol officer on duty after 2 AM.

Typically, at those hours,

I began checking my businesses and shopping centers.

And as I began coming around the side of the building,

I could see an individual's silhouette.

It looked like he was carrying

some type of a long weapon.

I had no idea who I had just rolled up on.

Sir!

Sir...!

I immediately got on the radio

and called for back-up.

Sir? Sir!

Hands where I can see them, sir!

It was scary because you don't know

what this individual's intent was.

Sir!

Get out!

Sir!

Get out here now!

The individual emerged.

Get on the ground now!

He got down on the ground face first.

One of the responding officers

shined his flashlight in his face

and he says, he has a really uncanny resemblance

to Eric Rudolph.

I'd been on the force for 10 months

and Eric Rudolph's name

had been brought up several times.

He was still on the FBI's Top Ten Most Wanted.

What went through my mind was,

what if this is really him?

Tell me your name, sir.

Sir, tell me your name.

Tell us who you really are.

And he says in the coldest,

darkest look possible,

"I'm Eric Robert Rudolph and you've got me."

I called them and said, you know, what's happened?

"Got him? Is it confirmed?"

"Yes, we have him."

And I was elated by that,

all those people from all those agencies

worked so hard to gather all that evidence

and now it would come into play...

and he would answer for his crimes.

The US Attorney, Dave Nahmias called me

and he said, we can seek the death penalty for him.

You are a victim.

And it's Federal law that you will contact the victims

and ask their opinion about that.

And I said Dave, I don't feel like I'm a victim,

I was just doing my job.

Every unit in the lab

spent a tremendous amount of time

working on this particular case.

Everyone did an excellent job.

It's a great feeling to know

that a serial bomber was captured.

I mean, was he capable of doing another bomb?

Absolutely.

It was fun at times.

It was heartbreaking at times.

But I think I helped keep the guy

from killing other people,

so that's always a good feeling.