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Search for clinic bomb witness expands to Georgia
Car with Tennessee license sought
February 11, 1998
A specially trained bloodhound from Texas tries to pick up Rudolph's scent in Helen, Georgia
Web posted at: 2:42 p.m. EST (1942 GMT) In this story:
BLAIRSVILLE, Georgia (CNN) -- The area being searched for a witness in last month's fatal bombing of a woman's clinic was expanded after he reportedly was seen in north Georgia, law enforcement sources said Wednesday.
Scores of gun-toting officers have scoured the mountainous area where North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee converge, searching for North Carolina resident Eric Robert Rudolph, 31. A pickup truck belonging to him was found abandoned over the weekend south of Murphy, North Carolina, about 30 miles north of Blairsville.
Rudolph was last seen the night after the January 29 bombing, renting a video in Murphy.
Bloodhounds on the trail
A clerk at a Circle K convenience store reported seeing Rudolph get into a white 1989 Volkswagen Jetta with a woman driver on Tuesday in Blairsville, Georgia, the sources said.
Rudolph The car, which has not been reported stolen, had the Tennessee license plate 433-QPD. Tennessee officials said it is registered to a woman in Farner, Tennessee, about 15 miles south of Tellico Plains, where Rudolph did carpentry work last summer.
The clerk called authorities just as investigators with bloodhound tracking dogs arrived at the Georgia store, the sources said. The dogs were following Rudolph's scent, picked up from his abandoned pickup truck in North Carolina, the sources said.
In addition, a law enforcement official confirmed that sniffer dogs may have found an explosive residue in Rudolph's pickup truck and in a mini-warehouse that he had rented in the Murphy area.
Rudolph's family questioned
Also Wednesday, Brian Lett, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said that agents have interviewed Rudolph's three brothers, sister and mother. "It was kind of like, 'We don't hear from him much, and we don't keep in contact with him,'" Lett said.
Rudolph, who spent 18 months as an Army infantryman in the late 1980s, was discharged for "conduct-related reasons," according to a military source. "He was not compatible with military service," the source said, without elaborating.
Federal agents said the reported sighting in Blairsville was one of many they have checked since the bombing at the New Woman All Women Clinic in Birmingham, Alabama. The clinic, which provides abortions and family planning services, reopened one week after the blast.
The bomb killed Robert Sanderson, 35, a police officer working as a security guard, and severely injured nurse Emily Lyons, 41. She remains hospitalized in serious condition.
A group called the Army of God has claimed responsibility for the bombing.
Correspondent Brian Cabell contributed to this report.
Related stories:
- Search for bombing clinic witness intensifies - February 10, 1998
- Door-to-door search for clinic bombing witness - February 9, 1998
- Authorities find truck of man sought as bombing witness - February 8, 1998
- Agents search home of material witness in Birmingham bombing - February 4, 1998
- 'Army of God' letters claim responsibility for clinic bombing - February 2, 1998
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