FBI TRUE

- We get a call regarding an unattended backpack.

I was on my hands and knees

and I could hear the ticking of a clock.

It's a bomb.

- Then there was another bomb that goes off.

He pulls a switch.

- The bad guy actually waited for the proper moment

to cause as much harm and death as he could when it detonated.

- He's willing to kill. He's committed.

- Someone notices someone walking away from the scene.

Now we have a suspect.

- That launched probably one of the most extensive

manhunts and fugitive investigations in the FBI's history.

- Time is of the essence. People are dying

and we don't know where the next bombs are going to go off.

: In the FBI we make a lot of headlines.

Drug busts, mob stings...

...terrorist takedowns.

We understand why people want to tell stories about us.

- Mark it. - Freeze!

- FBI. - FBI! - Action!

But they don't know the half of it.

What really goes down?

We save that for each other

when we're talking agent to agent.

This is FBI True.

- So we've had Centennial Park bombing...

...women's clinic bombing...

...lesbian bar bombing.

And then one in Alabama.

The Birmingham abortion clinic bomb.

- This clinic had received some threats

and some phone calls and so forth.

The members of the Birmingham police department were hired

to provide security for the opening and closing

of the clinic each day.

Officer Sanderson was the officer working that day.

He met Emily Lyons,

who was a nurse there at the clinic.

And they together walked up

to open up the clinic that day.

- The police officer who was doing security

was killed, and a nurse was seriously wounded.

The nurse was looking right at the device

based on the debris that hit her in the face and blinded her.

She had severe injuries from looking right at it.

Thank God, she lived.

This was a little bit different than the other bombs

in that this was a remote- controlled, detonated device.

- Our bomber is across the street.

- How do we know that, Bill? - Well, because in order to fire

this device off, the radio frequency only goes a certain distance.

So you can't be, you know, real far away

and have it go off.

- The device was sitting in a fake plant by the front door.

That means that the bad guy is there within sight

watching and actually waited

for the proper moment to cause as much harm and death as he could when it detonated.

- The bomber, the individual doing this actually

was waiting for the officer.

- Correct. - And the other person to get close.

And when that officer was at the closest possible place,

that bomber made the decision to ignite.

He pulls a switch.

- If your goal in this was to shut the clinic down

or to shut me down, it didn't work.

It's not going to work.

The clinics will stay open.

The workers will continue to come.

Patients will continue to come.

- As you know, we've invited two of your colleagues,

Ron and Chris, to share their part of the case.

Here they are.

Hey, guys. - Hey.

Good to see you.

Grab a chair.

Ron, when did you become involved, in what capacity?

One of my primary missions

was to do profiles, behavioral assessments of bombers.

: Ron Tunkel is a retired special agent

criminal profiler with the ATF.

He was detailed to the FBI for 17 years.

- Bombers like this tend to be lone solitary offenders.

- And he fit the classic definition of a domestic terrorist.

: Chris Swecker served for 24 years

as a special agent with the FB.

He retired as assistant director

with responsibility over all FBI criminal investigations.

- And one of the things that we relied

heavily on was the profiling,

the written profiles that I studied, they became our Bible.

- We had an idea of the type of individual.

A note of hypervigilance

or what some people might call paranoia.

He's committed.

Anti-government, anti-abortion,

anti-homosexuality.

- What kind of clues were you given access to,

to make a more detailed assessment of this target?

- Certainly, the anti-personnel nature of the device,

the shrapnel.

Added metal, ball bearings in this case,

nails, that are designed to increase the lethality.

He's willing to kill,

willing to accept the consequences.

Certainly he's going to be the object of a massive manhunt

and investigation by the federal agencies.

But after the bombing in Birmingham,

the witnesses who heard the explosion,

seeing people either standing there

staring that way or running,

a man is methodically walking away from the explosion.

Which the witnesses thought was odd.

- And he gets into a pickup truck.

The witness gets the license number

and calls 911.

- So we have the license plate number.

They research it, they trace it, it comes back to North Carolina.

And like I always say, sometimes God loves cops

because now we have a name,

Eric Robert Rudolph.

And lo and behold, finally, once and for all, we have a suspect,

but now we've got to catch him.

- So at this point, guys, we have a witness that was able to grab a tag.

The FBI very quickly

looks at the license tag, gets a name,

Eric Robert Rudolph, and a location.

Murphy, North Carolina.

First thing they do is pick up the phone

and call the sheriff up in Cherokee County.

They know their people in their counties.

They knew of him and they were ready to go.

They were ready to launch right then and there to his trailer

and make the arrest.

The FBI told them to hold off.

By the time the agents and the SWAT team got to his trailer,

it was very obvious that he had left in a big hurry.

The FBI made a tactical error.

Somebody had leaked some of the information, so he had already left.

- They basically froze the premises.

There was food there,

there were receipts for some fast food.

He had rented a blockbuster movie the night before.

They did a very thorough search.

- And the other thing there was some other additional evidence

that was with explosive material that was found.

Materials that were used

commonly with the wiring and the triggering

of the bombs that were consistent all the way through.

- So, we have evidence that from a technical standpoint

that bombs were made the same.

- In a forensic way. - Right.

- But also matching the bombings to this individual.

And that's why they needed to take their time

searching the trailer, but also launch the manhunt right then and there.

- What does that manhunt look like?

- A lot of people, local sheriff, police chiefs,

surrounding sheriffs, ATF,

park rangers,

the Georgia Bureau of Investigation,

the State Bureau of Investigation.

I mean, it was a cast of thousands.

It was a very, very intense,

very extensive manhunt.

The personality profile

convinced everybody that he was still there.

A couple days after

the FBI had missed him at his trailer,

his car was found...

...and it was in the Nantahala National Forest area.

The immediate assumption was that he was in those woods,

that he had a campsite back there.

He was, some would say, a survivalist.

And he was extremely familiar with the terrain and the area.

So advantage Rudolph at that point.

- What's the environment like that we believe Rudolph was in?

This is a very remote,

mountainous region of North Carolina.

- This is a vast national forest.

Just heavy trees, heavy underbrush.

And you can be literally feet from a person and not see him.

- Eric was trained from the army in escape and evasion.

I was amazed

looking at the country and thinking,

we're never going to find the guy here.

There's snakes, poisonous snakes,

mosquitoes, ticks,

all kinds of things that the pursuing agents

I think we tend to forget about

just the environmental hazards they had facing them. - Wow.

- Talking to some of the locals I've talked to, many of them,

I'm from North Carolina.

It was almost like a war zone.

Choppers flying overhead, people in cammies,

you know, kitted out,

with tactical weapons, tramping through the woods on the trails,