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Sources: Evidence links Birmingham, Atlanta bombings
Some similarities found
February 27, 1998
Rudolph
Web posted at: 2:08 p.m. EST (1908 GMT)In this story:
- Steel plates match
- Nail link revealed
- Report: Plan to combine investigations opposed
- Related stories and sites
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- There is physical evidence linking the fugitive suspect in last month's deadly bombing at an Alabama women's clinic to bombs at the 1996 Olympics and at an Atlanta clinic, federal law enforcement sources told CNN on Friday. The evidence consists of steel plates and nails used in the bombs' construction, the sources said.
The plates in the Atlanta bombs, the sources said, were cut from steel found at a metal-working plant in Franklin, North Carolina, that employed a friend of the suspect -- Eric Robert Rudolph -- who is a carpenter by trade.
The metal plates apparently were designed to shape the direction of shrapnel dispersed by the explosion.
The sources did not identify the plant but Jan Unger, an employee at Franklin Machine Co., the only steel fabricator in the town listed in telephone listings, said Friday that FBI agents had inspected its premises. "We have cooperated with them fully," Unger said.
Components similar to the ones used in the bombings of:
Rudolph, 31, is charged with planting a bomb that killed an off-duty police officer working as a security guard last month at a Birmingham, Alabama, clinic where abortions are performed. Agents continue to hunt for him in rural western North Carolina.
The January 29 blast at the New Woman All Women Clinic in Birmingham also severely injured a nurse. It is the only bombing for which Rudolph has been charged.
Nail link revealed
The bomb at Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park in July 1996 killed one person and injured more than 100. Seven people were injured in January 1997 when two bombs went off at the Sandy Springs Professional Building, a women's clinic near Atlanta where abortions are performed.
Investigators earlier had hypothesized that the same person or people might have been behind the two Atlanta incidents and a third bombing in the area which occurred in February 1997 at "The Otherside Lounge," a gay nightclub.
In addition to the plates, investigators found that nails used in the Birmingham bombing matched nails used in the two bombs at the Atlanta women's clinic. Identical nails were found in a Murphy, North Carolina, storage shed rented by Rudolph.
That particular batch of nails "was produced and sold in a small area," according to a federal agent who declined to be identified.
Report: Plan to combine investigations opposed
In November, investigators announced that steel plates were used in all the Atlanta bombs.
The Olympic Park and clinic bombs were one-eighth-inch thick, but cut to different sizes, while the nightclub bomber used quarter-inch-thick steel.
The nails in the Birmingham and Atlanta clinic bombs do not appear to match the nails used in the Olympic Park bomb, officials said.
FBI Director Louis Freeh has proposed merging the bombing investigations into one inquiry led by agent Terry Turchie, who led the Unabomber probe, The New York Times said.
The merger was put on hold after investigators with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms complained that they had been pushed aside by the FBI, the newspaper said.
Correspondent Kitty Pilgrim contributed to this report.
Related stories:
- Report: Nitro traces found in suspect's truck - February 18, 1998
- Bombing suspect still on the run, despite tips - February 16, 1998
- Search shifts for suspect in clinic bombing - February 16, 1998
- Arrest warrant issued in Birmingham clinic bombing - February 14, 1998
- Shovel could provide some clues in Birmingham bombing - February 13, 1998
- Search for clinic bomb witness expands to Georgia - February 11, 1998
- Search for bombing clinic witness intensifies - February 10, 1998
- FBI says Rudolph sighting was a false alarm - February 10, 1998
- Agents seize bombing witness' pickup truck - February 9, 1998
Related sites:
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- Federal Bureau of Investigation
- Jefferson County Sheriff's Department
- U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
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