Chapter 1

Who is Eric Robert Rudolph? Arresting officer Jeff Postell found him cooperative and respectful. His Nantahala ninth grade teacher, Angie Bateman, recalls him only because of one essay he wrote in her class. Doyle Grant knew Eric as a polite and competent carpenter who worked on the Grant home. According to an interview Grant gave the New York Times, "It was always ‘Yes, ma’am’ and "Yes, sir.’ I never heard a swear word out of him."

Another man, John Glenn, who hired the 18 or 19-year-old Eric, along with a brother and a friend, to work on his home tells a very different story. "He was a lousy carpenter. He was a poor student, a bad soldier, and an incompetent bomb maker. He built a bomb to try to kill hundreds of people and only killed two. I would say he wasn’t even good at that. The only thing I would say was he was a good survivalist."

Who is this person who allegedly set off four bombs that took 2 lives and wounded more than 150 others?

A ninth grade dropout and a college student, an anti-government dissident who enlisted and served 18 months in the army; everything about this man is paradoxical.

To begin to understand the complex mass of contradictions that is Eric Rudolph, you need to go back. Way back …

Eric was the fifth of Patricia and Robert Rudolph’s six children. Even his birth was unusual. He was born at home in Merritt Island, Florida on Sept. 19, 1966. Robert was an aircraft mechanic. Perhaps the first seeds of distrust of authority were sown when Eric was in his early teens. Robert was diagnosed with Melanoma, a deadly strain of skin cancer. While fighting for his life, there appeared to be one drug that the family believed might have helped—Laetrile. Sadly, it was not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The family tried to obtain the drug by legal means in this country. They failed. They did finally succeed in getting it from Mexico but either their faith was misplaced in the "wonder cure" or it was too late.

When the cancer took his father in 1981, young Eric must have felt betrayed by the government. Perhaps the seeds of discontent with a government that fails to help some of those who need it most were already flourishing in his fertile mind. By all accounts, both parents had a lack of total trust in "the system."

His mother, Patricia, was a free thinker, a product of the "Beatnik" era. She prided herself on being an intellectual. In an interview with USA Today, she described herself as "a pacifist", an "anarchist", "anti-government" and a "Christian."

Patricia grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When and where she met and married Robert Rudolph remains unknown to the public. She was at least in her late teens or twenties. Obviously, she was always seeking answers in religion. As a young woman, she entered a Catholic convent and became a novice, the first step towards becoming a nun. She left before her final vows. Perhaps it was then that she began her quest for a faith that would fulfill her needs. She obviously included her children on that religious quest. She also brought her family up to look beyond the obvious. Nowhere is there any record of her using violent means to accomplish her goals. She believes her son could not be guilty of the things he is accused of because, "He was not taught violence at home."

She fears the government will fabricate the evidence against Eric. "What they are trying to do is build a case. They are matching nails and crazy things like that. Well, who doesn’t have nails in their garage? Why do you think they are building this case? Because he made them look like the fools they are."

Patricia never had much faith in the government. She passed that heritage to her children. But then during the 60’s and 70’s, whose faith in the government wasn’t severely shaken? The Kennedy assassination and the Warren Commission caused many people, with a lot stronger faith in the federal powers that be, to shake their heads in disbelief.

Then there was Watergate. Who of us that lived through that period doesn’t remember our president, the highest official in the land, lying and stonewalling the investigation until even the stupidest supporter had to realize the truth? Add that to the fact that all of Richard Nixon’s henchmen went to prison—granted it was a country club type setting for most—and all he did was resign.