THE
PURSUIT AND CAPTURE OF ERIC RUDOLPH
Part 2 of an Interview with FBI Exec Chris Swecker
05/18/05
|
Garbage dumpster
in North Carolina where Rudolph was arrested. REUTERS/Tami Chappell |
FBI Executive Chris Swecker resumes his discussion of the case.
What
did Rudolph look like when he was captured?
Mr. Swecker: He was thin, much thinner than when he first went into the mountains, but in very good shape. He talked about being very sick in the first winter, malnourished. After that, things kind of steadied for him.
Rudolph
was finally caught foraging for food at a grocery store dumpster. How
else did he gather food?
Mr. Swecker: A number of ways. His campsite
had a lot of storage. He had a bunch of 55-gallon barrels buried in the
ground, full of grain, soy, and oats. There was a granary about four
miles from there, and he would go there at night. He said he always traveled
at night. He would get a backpack of grain or whatever else and bring
it back. He filled up these 55-gallon barrels and he said it was pretty
good eating, actually. He also foraged around some of the restaurants,
got the patterns down. He knew when vegetables were going to be put out
on the loading dock. He knew how to live off the land, but he also knew
how to live off the local restaurants and grocery stores.
How
did he survive the winters?
Mr. Swecker: There
are so many cabins up there that nobody goes anywhere near because they are
owned by people out of town. I think it is very likely that he not only had
campsites and caves, but he was also spending some time in those cabins.
He knew exactly which cabins he could go into—he had them scouted out
way ahead of time.
Would
you call him a survivalist?
Mr. Swecker: Absolutely. He was anticipating a great conflict and he had clearly lined up caves and campsites where he could go. He had a number of hiding places, and he knew the mountains so well he could navigate them at night.
What
were Rudolph’s motives for the bombings?
Mr. Swecker: He
had borrowed ideas from a lot of different places and formed his own
personal ideology. He clearly was anti-government and anti-abortion,
anti-gay, ‘anti’ a lot of things. The bombings really sprang from his own unique biases and prejudices. He had his own way of looking at the world and didn’t
get along with a lot of people.
When he pled guilty, a defiant Rudolph said he
had no remorse or regrets. Was he that way
at his capture?
Mr. Swecker: Not
at all. When he was arrested he was actually pretty
compliant and subdued. Almost relieved in a sense.
His attitude was, ‘You got me.’ And that was part of our plan. We stepped back and let the local and state authorities do the talking and questioning, and that helped put Rudolph at ease. Later, when they put him on the plane to go to Atlanta, he had tears in his eyes. As he saw those mountains receding in the background, he probably realized he would never see them again. I think at that point, it wasn’t
defiance. It was defeat. He knew he was defeated.
Link: Part 1 of the interview