The Forest Is His Ally

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What becomes a legend most? Mystery and elusiveness--and keeping several steps ahead of the law. Six months ago, when federal agents identified Eric Robert Rudolph as the man they believe responsible for the Jan. 29 bombing of an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Ala., that killed an off-duty police officer and severely wounded a nurse, they were confident they would arrest the itinerant carpenter within a matter of days. But like a latter-day, albeit sinister, Robin Hood eluding the Sheriff of Nottingham, Rudolph, 31, a former private in the 101st Airborne skilled at surviving in the wilderness, vanished into the mountainous woods of southwestern North Carolina. And despite being wanted for questioning in the Olympic bombing and two other Atlanta explosions, he is inexplicably becoming a local celebrity, an anti-hero evoking sympathy and ensconced in his very own Sherwood Forest.

Few enticements and entrapments have worked: a place on the FBI's ten-most-wanted list and a manhunt stretching as far as Denver have produced nothing. A $1 million reward has found no takers. Until two weeks ago, Rudolph had not been seen since the day after the bombing, when he rented the video Kull the Conqueror, stocked up on raisins, trail mix and batteries and bought $11 worth of burgers and fries from the Burger King in his hometown of Murphy, N.C. The trail had gone stone cold. And then on July 11, George Nordmann, 71, owner of the Better Way health-food store in downtown Andrews, only about 10 miles from Murphy, confessed to a Macon County sheriff's deputy that Rudolph had come to his house asking for food four days before. "Homer, you're not going to believe this," deputy Kenny Cope told his boss, Sheriff Homer Holbrooks, "but I've got a man at the house who had contact with Eric Rudolph." "You're sh______ me," Holbrooks retorted. The deputy insisted it was no joke.

Nordmann, who had known Rudolph from years ago, told authorities that the suspect's appearance has changed considerably. Sporting a beard and a ponytail and dressed in a camouflage outfit and gloves, Rudolph reportedly told Nordmann, "Look at me. I look like a hippie." He also told Nordmann that he had lost weight, pulling on his baggy trousers to demonstrate how he'd lost about six inches off his waistline. "Being on the run like this, I'm starving to death," he reportedly said, telling Nordmann he had been surviving on green beans and oatmeal.

During that meeting, which lasted about 30 minutes on Tuesday, July 7, Nordmann told police that Rudolph also tried to convince him he was innocent. The next day Nordmann went to his store and stayed the night there because he was worried about the encounter with Rudolph and about returning home. While he was gone, police believe Rudolph returned to Nordmann's house either late that night or Thursday and took 50 to 75 lbs. of food, including canned green beans, beets, corn, tuna fish, raisins and a large bag of wheat bran. He carried it away in Nordmann's 1977 Nissan pickup truck, which the store owner discovered missing when he returned home on Thursday. Police later found the truck at a nearby campground with a handwritten note from Rudolph inside. The contents of the note have not been released. At home, Nordmann found five $100 bills, presumably left by Rudolph as payment for the food.