Source: Birmingham suspect owned bomb-making book

The FBI released these photos of Rudolph

February 25, 1998
Web posted at: 10:30 p.m. EST (0330 GMT)

MURPHY, North Carolina (CNN) -- Federal agents found a book on building bombs in a storage unit rented by Eric Rudolph, the suspect in the Birmingham, Alabama, women's clinic bombing who continues to elude authorities, CNN has learned.

In addition, new details are emerging about Rudolph's life: CNN has learned he had a connection with a movement that has been called "a racist religion of white supremacy."

Rudolph is a suspect in the January 29 bombing of the New Woman All Women Health Care Clinic, where abortions are performed. The bombing killed an off-duty police officer and critically wounded a nurse.

Federal agents found a book titled "How to Build Bombs of Mass Destruction" in a storage unit rented by Rudolph near Murphy, according to a source familiar with the search.

Rudolph's boyhood home in Nantahala, North Carolina

Agents spent four days in early February searching the storage unit, and hauled away several truckloads of Rudolph's belongings, including books. Many of the volumes were religious, according to the source.

On Tuesday, CNN confirmed that nails found in the storage unit matched nails used as shrapnel in a bomb that exploded at a suburban Atlanta women's clinic in January 1997.

Authorities found Rudolph's passport among his belongings and believe he is still in the United States, a source said.

Links to Christian Identity movement

A 31-year-old carpenter, the suspect had a direct link with a religious group that Klanwatch and the Anti-Defamation League say is part of the Christian Identity movement, CNN has learned.

Brian Levin, of the Center on Hate and Extremism at Richard Stockton College, said Christian Identity is a racist religion of white supremacy.

Nails found in Rudolph's storage shed match the type used in one of the Atlanta bombings.

"Identity adherents tend to be vehemently anti-gay, anti-Semitic and opposed to abortion and interracial marriages," Levin said.

When Rudolph was 18, he moved with his mother and a brother to Schell, Missouri, where the family lived for about six months with members of the Church of Israel, the wife of the church's leader told CNN.

"Mr. Rudolph was here about 13 years ago. He was a teen-ager. We have not seen him since," said Mrs. Dan Gayman, whose husband founded the church in 1973.

Gayman said she and her husband "didn't know them before they came."

"We helped them out. She was a widow lady. She stayed here until they got on their feet," she said.

ATF: Sitting in the woods Rudolph's 'cup of tea'

Dozens of federal agents have spent almost four weeks searching the mountains around Murphy, where Rudolph spent most of his life. They suspect he could be hiding in the heavily wooded area.

"That seems to be his cup of tea, sitting in the woods," said Brian Lett, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Law enforcement interviews with people who knew Rudolph revealed that he dislikes big cities and prefers sleeping in a car rather than checking into a motel. Investigators said Rudolph also is known to usually carry a pistol.

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Related stories:

• Nails link Birmingham suspect to Atlanta bombing - February 24, 1998
• Rudolph's family backs out of news conference - February 19, 1998
• Report: Nitro traces found in suspect's truck - February 18, 1998
• Search shifts for suspect in clinic bombing - February 16, 1998
• Arrest warrant issued in Birmingham clinic bombing - February 14, 1998

Related sites:

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• FBI - Witness to Birmingham Clinic Bombing
• Jefferson County Sheriff's Department
• U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms

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