Ch. 8: Wilderness of the Human Spirit

Summary

American Shrapnel — Ch. 8: Wilderness of the Human Spirit

Podcast: American Shrapnel
Host: Alabama Media Group
Date: September 3, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode examines the climactic aftermath of the Eric Robert Rudolph manhunt, trial, and sentencing. It reflects on justice, survival, and the cultural-political forces that allowed such violence to fester—and that still fuel similar hate today. Pulitzer winner John Archibald and journalist Becca Andrews revisit the day survivors faced Rudolph in court, the legal and ethical wrangling behind his plea deal, and the chilling legacy of his ideology in today’s America.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Confronting the Attacker in Court (01:29–06:20)

• Emily Lyons, survivor of the Birmingham abortion clinic bombing, addresses Rudolph in a powerful victim impact statement. She refuses to let her trauma be his victory:

  • “You damaged my body, but you did not instill the fear in me you hoped for... I found a voice inside me I did not know existed. And you are the one who brought it out.” — Emily Lyons (02:45)
  • Lyons’ infamous gesture: "She flipped him the bird with two hands. Double barrel. People in the courtroom laughed, and the judge was none too pleased. But Emily Lyons did not give a shit." — John Archibald (03:54)

• Diane Derzis, clinic owner, also confronts Rudolph:

  • “We are not your victims. We are the victors here.” — Diane Derzis (04:46)
  • She stresses the symbolic importance of denying him martyrdom through a death sentence.

2. The Arrest and Legal Strategy (06:23–11:52)

• The Capture (May 31, 2003)

  • Rudolph, after five years evading authorities, is caught scavenging for food (rotten bananas) by rookie cop Jeff Postel.
  • Political, prosecutorial, and legal landscapes have all shifted since the bombing years.

• Venue Wrangling

  • Prosecutors in Birmingham and Atlanta vie to try the case first. Alabama pushes its strong eyewitness evidence (Jermaine Hughes); the Atlanta cases are hamstrung by tainted investigations from the Richard Jewell fiasco.
  • “We had the strongest case… and we thought that was Birmingham.” — Alice Martin (09:29)

• Weaknesses and Doubts

  • Despite public confidence, even mock juries failed to reliably convict Rudolph, revealing deep regional ambivalence about the crimes (12:00).

3. Plea Deal: Bombs, Justice, and Public Safety (13:14–24:36)

• Death Penalty vs Public Safety

  • Rudolph had stolen 250 pounds of dynamite—most still unaccounted for. The risk to the public was immense; prosecutors barter the death penalty in exchange for Rudolph’s cooperation in locating explosives.
  • “Nitroglycerin dynamite… becomes unstable… could set it off. So we went to the attorney general and said... We think it's a matter of public safety if you will take the death penalty off the table and let him plead to life without parole.” — Mike Wisenant (17:07)

• Discovery of More Bombs

  • The search finds fully constructed bombs and large stashes of dynamite in the mountains, some dangerously close to public areas.
  • Bomb squads detonate the uncovered cache: “It blew a hole in the ground about the size of an Olympic swimming pool.” — Mike Wisenant (23:25)

• Last-Minute Drama

  • As the plea deal is about to be finalized, Rudolph briefly feigns rejection — “I just want to see how you react.” — Paul Kish (24:08)

• Survivor Reflections

  • Emily Lyons expresses disappointment that Rudolph escaped execution. “I wanted him dead.” — John Archibald (21:19)
  • Deborah Rudolph (his former sister-in-law) believes prison is a harsher, more fitting punishment for someone who valued freedom above all (26:46).

4. The Prison Years & Ongoing Influence (25:00–34:00)

• Supermax Life

  • Rudolph is imprisoned at ADX Florence’s “bomber's row,” alongside notorious figures like the Unabomber and Ramzi Yousef.
  • “He was still a bit shocked… But being locked in a supermax is a different, different thing." — Paul Kish (25:45)

• Enduring Harm and Propaganda

  • The plea deal's lack of finality allows Rudolph to write manifestos, fueling new generations of extremists.
  • “It has allowed him to spew his rhetoric… to stoke the flames of his hate for radicals who still see him as a crusader.” — John Archibald (28:26)

• Mainstreaming of Extremism

  • Once fringe, the Christian nationalist, white supremacist ideologies Rudolph espoused are recognized as increasingly mainstream in U.S. politics.
  • “White supremacist nationalism is on the rise... This Christian nationalism... had not really emerged center stage yet. Of course, now, you know, everybody accepts it.” — Joyce Vance (29:26)

• Counterfactuals & Contemporary Warnings

  • Had the attacks—and trial—unfolded today, Rudolph might have been celebrated on the far-right, with political campaigns, defense funds, and “weaponized” partisan narratives (30:22).
  • The collapse of abortion rights and the rise in political violence evoke new fears: “Now the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade... Rudolph has argued he's been vindicated... But President Trump continues to decimate abortion rights.” — Becca Andrews (31:08)

5. Judge Linwood Smith’s Sentencing Rebuke (35:48–37:54)

• Judge Smith delivers a searing reflection on Rudolph's crimes and philosophy:
  • “Instead, you carefully calculated and crafted your crimes, and you committed them in cold blood... All too often, however, these gifts are misused. In the name of faith you hate. For the professed purpose of saving human life, you have killed. Those are riddles I cannot resolve... you retreated to a literal state of nature in the North Carolina mountains, but it was also a figurative wilderness of the human spirit. Those are not acts to be proud of...” — Judge Linwood Smith (35:48)

6. The Blob Man Returns: Who Wins? (37:54–End)

• "Blob men"—the amorphous, hard-to-recognize agents of hate—are a recurring motif. They exist not just on the margins but are finding legitimacy in institutions and power structures.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Emily Lyons, facing her attacker:
  “You damaged my body, but you did not instill the fear in me you hoped for… I found a voice inside me I did not know existed. And you are the one who brought it out.” (02:45)
  “Do I look afraid? … I have more guts in my broken little finger than you have in your entire body.” (02:45–03:36)

• Diane Derzis on surviving terror:
  “We are not your victims. We are the victors here.” (04:46)

• Mike Wisenant on the scale of the threat:
  “It blew a hole in the ground about the size of an Olympic swimming pool.” (23:25)

• Joyce Vance on the rise of Christian nationalism:
  “White supremacist nationalism is on the rise in this country. This Christian nationalism... had not really emerged center stage yet. Of course, now, you know, everybody accepts it.” (29:26)

• Judge Linwood Smith’s rebuke:
  “In the name of faith you hate. For the professed purpose of saving human life, you have killed. Those are riddles I cannot resolve... it was also a figurative wilderness of the human spirit. Those are not acts to be proud of or to boast about…” (35:48)

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Significant Timestamps

• Emily Lyons’ Victim Impact Statement: 01:52–04:20
• Diane Derzis’ Statement: 04:30–05:10
• Arrest and Legal Debates: 06:23–11:52
• Death Penalty/Plea Deal Discussions: 13:14–24:36
• Discovery and Destruction of Dynamite: 18:48–23:38
• Judge Smith’s Sentencing Remarks: 35:48–37:54
• Final Reflections on Extremism: 29:07, 31:08, 33:03

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Tone and Style

The episode blends survivor grit, prosecutorial pragmatism, and pointed cultural analysis. The language is direct, unsparing at times, and unafraid to blend dark humor with grim facts (“Emily Lyons did not give a shit”; “He flipped the bird with two hands. Double barrel.”).

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Concluding Reflections

“American Shrapnel” draws a jagged line from the era of Eric Rudolph’s violence to the present—where the ideologies he embodied are no longer fringe but increasingly mainstream and emboldened. Justice, survivor resilience, and the ongoing threat of domestic terrorism are all at stake. The episode closes with a powerful sense of unfinished business: “Eric Rudolph is in a hole under a mountain, but America is in its own prison. And I wonder who the victors are today.” (31:08)

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Listen if you want to understand:

• The personal and collective costs of extremism
• How legal strategy intersects with public safety in domestic terror cases
• The frightening ways yesterday’s fringe has become today’s mainstream
• What survival, resilience, and resistance look like in the aftermath of terror

Transcript

[Paul Kish]

The Conjuring Last Rites on September 5th. The Conjuring Last Rites only in theater.

[John Archibald]

September 5th.

[Paul Kish]

Rated R.

[Alice Martin]

The election has come and gone. Now we're in a new era. It can be easy to get discouraged, frustrated, but you can't afford not to pay attention. You need trustworthy, independent journalism to cut through the noise and hold power to account. I'm Mary Harris, host of What Next from Slate.com we are a daily news podcast with a kind of transparent, smart, yet tongue in cheek analysis you can only find at Slate. Follow and listen to what Next wherever you get your podcasts.

[John Archibald]

I'm going back to Birmingham.

[Alice Martin]

Gotta hear Long Live a Sing Musty Way.

[John Archibald]

Take me back.

[Becca Andrews]

To where I first left everything.

[John Archibald]

In the summer of 2005, more than seven years and 20 surgeries after Eric Rudolph pressed a button on his homemade detonator and forever changed her life, Emily Lyons faced her bomber in a Birmingham, Alabama courtroom. He was being sentenced in connection with the bomb that maimed her that killed police officer Sandy Sanderson. She spoke to Rudolph directly.

[Emily Lyons]

We tend to think of a terrorist as someone in a foreign country who dresses differently, looks different, and speaks a different language. Thank you for drawing attention to the homegrown terrorist in our own backyard.

[Becca Andrews]

Rudolph had agreed to plead guilty to save his own life. She goaded him, defiant.

[Emily Lyons]

It is easy to be brave when holding the good end of a shotgun, or in this case, the remote control of a bomb. When it was your turn to face death, you weren't so brave anymore. You will not marry or have children. You will never breathe the fresh mountain air or feel the warm sunshine on your face. Your only camping trip will be to your underground cave in Colorado. You may still have a pulse, but you are dead.

[John Archibald]

Emily wanted a reaction. She challenged him.

[Emily Lyons]

Look at me, Eric. Do I look afraid? You damaged my body, but you did not instill the fear in me you hoped for. My left eye was torn out, my right eye damaged, and my eardrum ruptured. But I can still see and hear the efforts of people like you who try to control the rest of us. I had a breathing tube for so long that it caused a horrific sore throat and I can no longer speak loudly. But you did not get the silence you longed for. I found a voice inside me I did not know existed. And you are the one who brought it out. My legs were shattered, but I was able to walk in a March in Washington, D.C. for freedom of choice.

[Becca Andrews]

That's when Emily Lyons did the only thing there is to do in that situation.

[Alice Martin]

A hole.

[Emily Lyons]

The Size of fist was torn in my abdomen and large sections of my intestines were removed. But I have more guts in my broken little finger than you have in your entire body. The joint in my middle finger had to be fused, an injury I have longed to show you.

[John Archibald]

She flipped him the bird with two hands. Double barrel. People in the courtroom laughed, and the judge was none too pleased. But Emily Lyons did not give a shit.

[Emily Lyons]

Life knocks everybody down. What counts is how you stand up afterwards. You are nothing more than a schoolyard bully, and I am not afraid to stand up to you. I am living proof of your failure. I am still here.

[Becca Andrews]

With that, the court reporter made note of this. Mrs. Lyons winked at the defendant. She winked, and she was done with him.

[John Archibald]

Diane Derzis, owner of the bombed clinic, spoke next about the bomber's decision to save himself, to live the rest of his life in an underground cell in supermax in Colorado.

[Becca Andrews]

She wanted to look directly at him, to speak directly to him.

[Alice Martin]

We are not your victims. We are the victors here. And I'm not sorry. You're not going to leave this world with a needle in your arm, because that would be too easy for someone who, like yourself, enjoys the country and grass under their feet.

[John Archibald]

She looks back on that now after so much has changed. And it felt good.

[Alice Martin]

It felt good because I think I saw something in his eye.

[Becca Andrews]

It was hard work getting to this place, this point in time. So much violence and suffering in years gone by. There was still a lot of court wrangling to come, and not everyone was happy with the deals that landed him there. But it seemed, in the moment, like justice prevailed. It seemed like reason, wonder. It seemed like it was all over.

[John Archibald]

But it wasn't.

[Becca Andrews]

I'm Becca Andrews, and this is American Shrapnel, a story of plotting and violence and some things that may actually turn out to be far worse.

[John Archibald]

I'm John Archibald. It's a story of an American bomber, but it's also the story of America. We'll get to that part, but first let's go back to that day. A rookie cop named Jeff Postel caught Rudolph diving in a dumpster. Let's examine how he got to this place, to this courtroom in Alabama, where the survivors of Eric Rudolph's violence finally faced him down.

[Becca Andrews]

Back to May 31, 2003, when Postel caught Rudolph trying to score a pile of rotting bananas in the middle of the night.

[John Archibald]

Rudolph had been on the land for five years, and a lot had changed. Nine, 11 upended everything, and thoughts of Rudolph slipped from America's consciousness.

[Becca Andrews]

George W. Bush had replaced Bill Clinton as president, and Bush appointed Alice Martin to replace Doug Jones as U.S. attorney in North Alabama. Georgia federal prosecutor David Namius had come to coordinate terrorism cases nationally for the Justice Department in Washington.

[John Archibald]

People, jobs, priorities and politics had shifted. Though some people, like Mike Wisnet, Birmingham's lead prosecutor in the case where Lyons and Derzes faced their bomber, kept plugging along. By the morning of the arrest, they'd all been snapped to attention.

[Alice Martin]

I'm Alice Martin. I was the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama from 2001 to 2009. A sunny Saturday, May 31st of 2003. I had a 10, 11 and a 12 year old. And we were outside and my husband came to the door and he said, you're going to want to see this. He said, they've caught Rudolph. And I said, girls, Dad's going to need to take care of you. I need to go to work. And so my first thought was we needed to be prepared to argue that Birmingham was the best venue to start the prosecution of Rudolph.

[Becca Andrews]

David Namias got a similar call from Justice.

[David Namius]

I got a call one Saturday morning from the head of, well, the then deputy Assistant Attorney General in the criminal division, Alice Fisher, who said, hey, they caught Rudolph. And we would call each other on Fridays and Saturdays because of whatever horrible potential international terrorism threat we thought had happened or was happening. So I thought she was joking and had something else. And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah. And she said, no, really, it was in North Carolina. And then we had to decide where kind of who would take the lead on the prosecution.

[John Archibald]

Wiset took it like one would expect of him. Matter of fact, I got a call.

[Mike Wisenant]

Early in the morning. I was still asleep, and one of the agents told me that they've got Rudolph. And I said, great.

[John Archibald]

The search was over, but not the work. The wrangling began. It was not always pretty.

[Becca Andrews]

Vets in Alabama wanted to try their case first. They pointed to the mishandling of the Richard Jewell case in Atlanta, saying it wasted time and tainted the cases. They held up Jermaine Hughes, their star witness, as an ace in the hole, along with Jeff Tickle, who wrote Rudolph's tag number on a McDonald's cup the day of the bombing.

[Alice Martin]

We had the strongest case. We had an eyewitness. We had a strong witness. You know, he was identified as the, as a suspect very rapidly after that bombing. As a result of Mr. Hughes's being such a wonderful citizen and following somebody that looked suspicious after a bomb exploded that was remarkable. And then the tag number was given in and all of that work. So, you know, it's always best to start off with your strongest case. I think that's going to try the cleanest. And we thought that was Birmingham.

[John Archibald]

The feds still stick to the company line that everybody worked as a team, but it's clear some feathers are still ruffled. Nami has said there are a bunch of reasons that Birmingham was picked, including the notion that the Justice Department was so full of Atlantans that they didn't want to seem like they were playing favorites.

[David Namius]

It was a big fight because Birmingham wanted to be first, Atlanta wanted to be first. And I think there was a view that you didn't want to make it look like, you know, they were slanted toward Atlanta. So the decision was made to let Birmingham go first. But with coordination and support from the Atlanta U.S. attorney's office, Richard Jaffe, a.

[Becca Andrews]

Birmingham lawyer with experience trying death penalty cases, was appointed within days to lead Rudolph's defense. His office is less than a mile from the bombed abortion clinic. And he thinks it's pretty obvious why the feds chose Birmingham. Because the Georgia cases were problematic.

[John Archibald]

I know this, that those weren't strong cases. The strongest case and the best case was the one here in Birmingham, which are fighting words.

[David Namius]

Still, Jaffe's the defense attorney in Birmingham. Yeah, you know, people are full of shit all the time.

[John Archibald]

These guys had strong feelings. Namius argues that Birmingham's case had problems of its own, that there was a motive question because Rudolph hadn't really talked much about abortion before the bombings. He questioned whether there would be difficulty connecting Rudolph to the forensic evidence.

[David Namius]

You know, there were different cases. Birmingham's case, they had this good kind of eyewitness identification, and. And that was kind of it.

[Becca Andrews]

There was a lot of sparring, and.

[John Archibald]

I can't help but think a lot of it was based on fear that they would screw this thing up.

[Emily Lyons]

They had done mock trials. They had four of them, four different groups, and three out of four would not have convicted him because we're in the south, and it was just an abortion clinic.

[John Archibald]

If you really think about it, if you analyze it, this was the most.

[Mike Wisenant]

Wanted fugitive in the history of the.

[John Archibald]

Country, as far as I know. And these were some of the most heinous acts.

[Mike Wisenant]

And they were in.

[John Archibald]

They were in two states, and there were four bombings.

[Mike Wisenant]

And they'd already spent millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars to find him and then prosecute him.

[John Archibald]

If there weren't proof problems somewhere, why would the government settle and resolve the case.

[Becca Andrews]

There may have been legal questions of proof or certainty, but there was something else too, and it may have saved Rudolph's life.

[John Archibald]

It was dynamite bundle and safe. With Expedia, you were made to follow your favorite band. And from the front row, we were made to quietly save you. More Expedia made to travel Savings vary and subject to availability. Flight inclusive packages are atoll protected.

[Alice Martin]

Anytime a baby is harmed, we want to hold someone responsible.

[John Archibald]

I didn't have anything to hide.

[Alice Martin]

They're saying she was murdered.

[John Archibald]

This case, you almost couldn't make it up.

[Becca Andrews]

Ashley and Albert Doublebot were living out their dream when they brought their baby home. But their time as parents would be anything but normal. From the Atlanta Journal Constitution. This is the 11th season of Breakdown. Three days in May. Out now wherever you get your podcasts.

[John Archibald]

A lot of things changed in the two years between the arrest and the trial. Judy Clark was appointed to defend Rudolph, and Richard Jaffe and his team stepped back after his stint at Justice. David namius was appointed U.S. attorney in North Georgia. Feds who had refused to consider taking the death penalty off the table negotiating with terrorists began to rethink that Rudolph.

[Becca Andrews]

Had stolen 250 pounds of nitroglycerin dynamite from the Austin Powder Company back in North Carolina. He used less than 20 pounds for three of his four bombs, which meant there was a lot more still out there, even as preparations for his trial began.

[John Archibald]

It was April of 2005, and Rudolph's new lawyer came to Mike Wisenet.

[Mike Wisenant]

We were striking a jury in Birmingham and Judy Clark said, is there anything that we can do to save his life? I said, one thing that might, that the attorney general might consider is we never found his bomb factory. Where did he build his bombs? And does he have any more bombs or any more dynamite? So she said, let me talk to him.

[Becca Andrews]

Paul Kish, Rudolph's lawyer in the Georgia cases, went to see his client.

[Paul Kish]

So the key was to get see if Eric wanted to plead guilty. In other words, you know, a person who had lived on the wilds, who had lived his life by his own code for all these years, was essentially going to, and these are my words here, lock himself in the ground for the rest of his days. So that was the challenge with Eric. It had to be his. We could give him the option. We created the option with an awful lot of hard work, but it had to be his idea.

[John Archibald]

The terms were simple.

[Paul Kish]

We'll tell you where the nitroglycerin is. We'll have our guy admit he did all four. You ain't going to talk to him other than that.

[John Archibald]

And the dynamite was a hell of a bargaining chip. How much was still out there?

[Paul Kish]

Shit, ton. That's a technical term. I think it was about 200 and some pounds.

[Becca Andrews]

Clark got back to the prosecutors quickly with surprising news from Rudolph. A possible deal.

[Mike Wisenant]

He said that he would tell us where the dynamite was hidden. He said he had bombs hidden in a residential area. And he had the dynamite was in an area where the bear hunting season was about to begin. And he said hunters would be in that area.

[John Archibald]

Martin, the prosecutor in Alabama, had been vocal about wanting to take Rudolph to trial to seek the death penalty. She understood the situation with the explosives but had to know they weren't being played.

[Alice Martin]

FBI ATF agents, people that are familiar with explosives, told us that those explosives would be highly unstable and volatile, might not have been buried deeply, could result in people, you know, being killed. And so we were very interested in that.

[Mike Wisenant]

Nitroglycerin. Dynamite, after a while, becomes unstable. If you have it stored in a box, the nitroglycerin literally leaks out of the dynamite, sticks, and will pool in the bottom of the container. And then it can be detonated by a shock or a jolt. So if somebody were digging a tent stake or hit it with a shovel, it could set it off. So we went to the attorney general and said, this is the situation. He will give us this information. We think it's a matter of public safety if you will take the death penalty off the table and let him plead to life without parole.

[Becca Andrews]

Martin went to the trial judge in Birmingham and told him the circumstances.

[Alice Martin]

I remember distinctly we started jury selection in this case, April 5 or 6, I believe. And I told Judge Linwood Smith of what we were trying to work. But I said, we're not going to. You know, we'd already said it. 500 people would come into the Sheraton in downtown Birmingham. We were handing out questionnaires. And he said, what do you want to put that off? I do not want to put that off. We want to keep the feet to the fire. Because if he's misinformed us, if he's been lying to us or they can't find this dynamite, then we want to keep his feet to the fire.

[John Archibald]

Since Rudolph didn't trust government agents, he wouldn't tell them directly where the stuff was. But he told an investigator for the defense who told agents who went out to look for it. Namius remembers the shock of it.

[David Namius]

So we had bomb squads in the Murphy command post ready to go out to wherever he told us the dynamite was. And I had A group, the FBI were actually in my office in the U.S. attorney's office with Sally was there and the FBI, SAC and others. And Paul Kish called and said the first thing to do is go out the front door of the command post, go across the highway, and there's some rocks. And behind the rocks, you'll find a fully constructed device. It's not armed, but it's sitting across the street. And, I mean, the reaction, as you can imagine, was like, what the hell?

[Mike Wisenant]

So we dug it up, and sure enough, we found a bomb already ied, already there, ready to go with a remote control detonator. We found, I believe, a second one that was virtually complete. He outlined several other locations where we also found and dug up either devices or dynamite or tools that he used. And then ultimately he. He led us to where the dynamite was buried, and it was in a bear preserve.

[Becca Andrews]

So the dynamite really was out there. But could they actually reach a deal? Time was running out. It was on the third day of the jury selection in Birmingham. Just as she was handing out copies of the jury questionnaire, an agent came to Martin.

[Alice Martin]

I'm at council table. And he whispered, and he said, we've recovered it all. At that point, I approached Judge Smith and I said, judge Smith, we. We now have a deal.

[John Archibald]

So Eric Robert Rudolph, the serial bomber who disrupted the Olympics, who killed and maimed and hid in the woods for five years to avoid capture, agreed to spend the rest of his life in supermax rather than die. He got to write a manifesto. He got to keep on breathing, which really doesn't make Emily Lyons happy.

[Emily Lyons]

So that's what the deal came from, is don't give me a death sentence. And they went for it. I would have rather have been on that first road where, you know, you see on movies, the execution room. I wanted to be on that front row. I wanted him to see me, and.

[John Archibald]

I wanted him dead.

[Paul Kish]

He did not like Emily Lyons because Emily Lyons definitely did not like him. She would come to court and glare at his ass. Man, she was, like throwing daggers with her eyes every time she was in there. And so he was a little bit daunted by her.

[John Archibald]

That must make her feel pretty good. But I've been on that front row at execution six times, including one where they had to electrocute a guy twice. In the moment, you don't know how to feel. But it's the sort of thing you still wake up thinking about 20 years later. It's Complicated. Everybody loses. But then I've never been blown up.

[Becca Andrews]

The feds were having nightmares about Cub Scouts stumbling onto dynamite and having to explain why they weren't able to find it. They sort of felt like they had no choice.

[John Archibald]

There was a lot of dynamite. Remember, Rudolph had used five or six pounds in the Birmingham bomb, about 10 in the Atlanta club and clinic bombings, and he'd stolen £250. He may have used some in practice bombs, but there was a lot left.

[David Namius]

So we had to then detonate them in place because it was too much dynamite. It was too volatile to try to move it. And so we. I remember, I think we did radio announcements that we were doing some construction or something so people wouldn't panic.

[Becca Andrews]

Namius asked the bomb guys what an explosion like that would be like, and.

[David Namius]

They said, well, we've never actually said anything this big off. And there's a video of they, you know, fire in the hole. And you see this big blast. And literally, for almost 45 seconds, debris is still coming down. And then there's a still picture of the bomb squad people and their dogs standing in the bottom of the crater. And it's. The crater's, like, up to their heads.

[Mike Wisenant]

And it blew a hole in the ground about the size of an Olympic swimming pool.

[John Archibald]

Wow.

[Mike Wisenant]

Yeah. And it was heard all over the county. The sheriff got all kind of complaints about this loud, loud explosion.

[John Archibald]

There was one moment when it seemed to kish the whole plea deal would fall apart, but really, it just spoke to who Eric Rudolph is.

[Paul Kish]

We're working our butts off trying to get this plea agreement done. I'm going back and forth. Birmingham to Atlanta. Atlanta. Birmingham. Huntsville. Birmingham. Atlanta. I mean, at one time, my clothes are about falling off. I'm not a big guy, but, I mean, I haven't eaten in days. And then we're just working. We're going back to get, like, some little point with Eric, and he walks in a bunch of us, and he goes, I'm not going to take the deal.

[John Archibald]

We're going.

[Paul Kish]

And he goes, I just want to see how you react. I think you like, with people.

[John Archibald]

A lot of people, not just Emily Lyons, were less than happy with the deal. But the kismet of folk hero Eric Rudolph spending the rest of his days as a great indoorsman and a chef beneath the Colorado mountains had its appeal.

[David Namius]

We locked him up without the delay and risk of trial. Two trials, you know, then got put at the ABMAX facility, which is a unpleasant place where I had lots of other people, mostly international terrorists, that we sent there who were on the wing with him that really annoy him because they speak in Arabic and he complains about it.

[John Archibald]

Rudolph moved into bomber's row. His hero, Timothy McVeigh, had been executed two years before, but the Unabomber was there before he died. It would be home to the world Trade center bomber, Ramzi Yousef, the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber, A Boston marathon bomber and McVeigh. Today's conspirator, Terry Nichols.

[Becca Andrews]

Paul Kish later went to see him there.

[Paul Kish]

That is. That is daunting. The elevators go down into the mountain, like 10, 15 floors. I mean, it's, it's scary. You are locked inside a mountain. He was still a bit shocked, I think, by his, you know, surroundings. And he had been in custody for many years by that point. But being locked in a supermax is a different, different thing.

[Becca Andrews]

Why did Eric Rudolph take that deal? To protect other people. To lean into his claims that his crimes are ideological and therefore somehow justifiable. To save himself. Rudolph didn't respond to our interview requests, but his former sister in law, Deborah Rudolph, has some educated guesses.

[Deborah Rudolph]

I think he took a play for a couple of reasons. One, to keep his family out of it because he knew that they would have to testify. I don't think he wanted to put his family, much less his mom, through that. Another reason I think. I think he was scared he was going to die. You know, you did this. You killed people. You were willing to kill more than just what you did. Are you prepared to die yourself? And I don't. I don't think he was. I don't think he was prepared to do that.

[Becca Andrews]

Deborah thinks he got exactly what he deserves.

[Deborah Rudolph]

I think he's worse off. He's used to living off the grid, being free to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it. But you take somebody like Eric and then you put him In a, what, 8 by 8 cell with a very narrow window, and you can't even see the sky. And you're in a supermax prison where you can't even go outside for an hour a day without a complete body search. Death or life in prison. I mean, you think about it. So I think what he got is a lot worse than death. And a lot of people say, oh, you know, he should die. But I think he's living his punishment.

[Becca Andrews]

It's Wednesday Adams. I see you're trying to distract yourself from your own banal thoughts.

[John Archibald]

Let me help.

[Becca Andrews]

Here's a recording thing made of my latest root canal.

[Alice Martin]

Wednesday Season two is now playing only on Netflix.

[John Archibald]

There are a lot of good reasons to accept the plea deal. There are reasons to be upset about it, too. It has no finality. It has allowed him to spew his rhetoric in his manifesto, in essays he writes for the army of God website. It has allowed him to couch his violence and idealism to stoke the flames of his hate for radicals who still see him as a crusader instead of a criminal. Maybe he saw a future that would be kinder to. To him.

[Becca Andrews]

The hard, hard truth is that the words Eric Rudolph has written over the years seemed like crackpot ideas. In the 90s and early aughts. They were fringe and recognized as such by all our institutions, regardless of political party.

[John Archibald]

And now they are common, not just in mail order hate rags or at the darkest corners of the Internet, but in state houses, courthouses, cable news networks, and the US Capitol, the White House. Joyce Vance worked the case from the Birmingham prosecutor's office before she was appointed U.S. attorney in 2009.

[Alice Martin]

What I think is different in this day and age is, you know, white supremacist nationalism is on the rise in this country. This Christian nationalism that touches back to Eric Rudolph. It's really an effort to obtain power in almost a theocracy sort of a style. And so Eric Rudolph, when we first began to look at him as a subject in the Birmingham abortion clinic bombing, something that stuck out was the army of God signature and his identification with a Christian identity group and this very right wing militant focus that, that had not really emerged center stage yet. And of course, now, you know, everybody, everybody accepts it. I mean, the, the white supremacist movement has got popularity, it has got backers, it has got some public approval. It's just a super frightening moment.

[John Archibald]

Doug Jones, the former U.S. attorney and U.S. senator, the guy who convicted the last two Klan bombers of the 16th Street Baptist Church that killed four little girls in 1963, believes a death sentence for Rudolph would have made him a martyr. But what if it happened today? Today it would be a whole different story. Today you would you. I am absolutely convinced you would have been seeing defense funds out there. You would be seeing him being held up, and all of a sudden the FBI would be being weaponized for a political purpose that he really didn't do this. He just has these views that he's expressed and also happens to collect dynamite.

[Becca Andrews]

We are now left to wonder, in a country where millions of women have no control over their own bodies, where mothers are made criminals and criminals are elected to office, who the Winners are. We wonder, in a country where gun violence is committed with such deadly ease that bombs are no longer necessary, what would happen if a man as watchful, as committed as Eric Rudolph were on the streets today? I keep thinking about the people who are brutalized in this. The thousands of people from around the world who gathered to celebrate at the Olympics and woke up with nightmares and scars. The people like Chris Edson, who are still haunted about whether they could have done more. I think about the families of Alice Hawthorne, Sandy Sanderson. I think about Memory Creswell, who would agree with a lot of Rudolph's political points, but got blown up by him anyway. The women who needed those clinics on the days that they were bombed. I think of Emily Lyons and Diane Derzis. Emily thanked Rudolph that day for making clinics safer and more secure. She told him, I am living proof of your failures. I am still here. Diane looked at him and said, we are the victors here. Eric Rudolph is in a hole under a mountain, but America is in its own prison. And I wonder who the victors are today. Now the Supreme Court has overturned Roe vs. Wade. Rudolph has argued that he deserves a new trial, that his actions were justified by the Dobbs ruling, that he's been vindicated. So far, judges have not agreed. But President Trump continues to decimate abortion rights and the remaining federal protections for clinics like the FACE Act.

[John Archibald]

And Eric Rudolph is changing with the times, influencing and being influenced by the movement. In 2013, he wrote a novel, his own version of the Turner Diaries. The villain wasn't an abortion provider, but a trans woman. Rudolph's like that blob man in the picture the feds got from Centennial Park. Just an amorphous shape filled with rage and propaganda and misguided righteousness that many did not, could not recognize. Like Rudolph said, the issues themselves don't matter. The only thing is the war.

[Deborah Rudolph]

So you see, I also call myself.

[Alice Martin]

A Christian nationalist, and that's not a bad word.

[David Namius]

Some will say that I am advocating Christian nationalism, and so I do.

[Alice Martin]

We continue our live coverage of the.

[Emily Lyons]

Shootings and killing of Representative Melissa Hortman.

[Alice Martin]

Her husband, and then the shootings of.

[Becca Andrews]

Senator John Hoffman and his wife.

[Alice Martin]

The Hoffmans surviving their injuries, but shot multiple times.

[Paul Kish]

On Thursday night, President Trump announced he.

[Judge Linwood Smith]

Would pardon 23 anti abortion extremists who.

[Paul Kish]

Had been convicted for violating the FACE Act.

[John Archibald]

More than a dozen neo Nazis staged.

[Judge Linwood Smith]

A demonstration on the I7 overpass in Lincoln Heights showing firearms and swastika banners.

[John Archibald]

They're poisoning the blood of our country. That's what they've done. They poisoned mental institutions and prisons all over the world.

[Alice Martin]

Joe Biden's 5 million illegal aliens are on the verge of replacing you, replacing your jobs, and replacing your kids and school.

[Judge Linwood Smith]

We have large exposure.

[Becca Andrews]

With the building compromised, a calculated act.

[Alice Martin]

Of terror shaking the community of Palm Springs, California.

[John Archibald]

This was a targeted attack against the IDF facility. Make no mistake, we are treating this as an intentional act of terrorism. So this is January 6th. And these are the hostages. Approximately 1500 for a pardon. Full pardon. January 6th was not an isolated event. The problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across the country for a long time now. And it's not going away anytime soon. There was no tape of Rudolph sentencing. And because the case is in some ways still active, Judge Linwood Smith didn't want to recreate the words he spoke that day. But those words are worth hearing. This is what he said when he sentenced Eric Rudolph to two life sentences without the possibility of parole.

[Judge Linwood Smith]

Mr. Rudolph, I also want to speak a few words to you. Unlike the killers I confronted in state court, you did not act from fear for personal. Personal gain, for personal survival as a result of mental disease or defect or in the heat of passion. Instead, you carefully calculated and crafted your crimes, and you committed them in cold blood. Even to this point, you have exhibited no remorse. You posture yourself as a superior being. I simply would remind you that alone among the creatures that inhabit this increasingly small planet, humans are endowed with the ability to reason and to speak intelligently. We also are given thumbs that oppose the other digits of our hands. Those three gifts have allowed us to rise above all other species and to craft tools, languages, mathematical equations, and many other inventions that have lifted us from. From the muck and mire of bestiality to the edges of the infinite. All too often, however, these gifts are misused. In the name of faith you hate. For the professed purpose of saving human life, you have killed. Those are riddles I cannot resolve. When discovered, you retreated to a literal state of nature in the North Carolina mountains, but it was also a figurative wilderness of the human spirit. Those are not acts to be proud of or to boast about, no matter how cleverly or how long you manage to survive in the long years to come. I sincerely hope that you will reflect upon these failings and seek forgiveness from those persons that you have harmed so grievously. In any event, this case is concluded when I remand the defendant to the custody of the United States Marshal.

[John Archibald]

Blob. Men. They could be anybody in a basement or a cabin or a chat room or a shopping mall or the halls of power. They are hard to focus on, hard to see with clarity, but they are there. They are there, louder, bolder, and with friends in higher places.

[Becca Andrews]

American Shrapnel is a production of Alabama Media Group. It was written and hosted by me.

[John Archibald]

Becca Andrews and me, John Archibald. Our co creator and executive producer and great shepherd is John Hammondry.

[Becca Andrews]

This episode was engineered by Daniel Potter. Our other engineer was Chris Hoff. Our trailer was engineered by Alexander Ritchie. Our field producer is Sarah Weiss Kotechek. Challyn Stevens is our editor in chief.

[John Archibald]

The thank you to everyone you've heard throughout the series. Emily Lyons, Diane Derzis, Kala Hales, Joyce Vance, David Namius, Chris Edson, Emory Creswell, Greg Garrison, Carol Robinson, Peggy Sanford, Doug Jones, James Blanton, Scott Morrow, Mike Wisenant, Mary Ziegler, Deborah Rudolph, Carol Mason, Hubie Dodd, Paul Wolf, Richard Jaffe, Alice Martin, Paul Kish, Travis McAdam, Alon Wilwicki, Rachel Fugardi and Jeff Postel.

[Becca Andrews]

Our social media producers are Caroline Vincent and Mila Oliveira. Voice acting in this episode was provided by W. Scott Stewart. Photography for the series was provided by Will McClelland and Libby Simpson.

[John Archibald]

The song you're hearing right now is Birmingham by Beth Thornley and Rob Cairns and our logo and graphics were designed by Jackson Browning.

[Becca Andrews]

Thanks to [e-mail] including Marcia Oglesby, Justin Yerkonen, Ben Flanagan, Laura Goldman, Walisha Morris, Paul Beaudry, Bill Thornton, Bob Carlton, Kent Falk, KA Turner, Sydney Batten, Tamika Moore and Ashley Rumpkes.

[John Archibald]

Thank you to RL Nave, Elizabeth Whitmire and Kelly Scott for Greenlight.

[Becca Andrews]

Thank you to Kurt Tondorf and Nomadica Films for help along the way.

[John Archibald]

Special thanks to Katherine Osayas, champion of the Birmingham Public Library, and her assistance in sorting through a treasure trove of FBI files. Thank you to Rachel Carroll Rivas for combing through the Southern Poverty Law center archives on domestic terror organizations.

[Becca Andrews]

Thanks to WPLN's Tony Gonzalez for interview record recording space and Paige Flager for script advice. Thank you to Boston College for recording space. Thanks to Deborah Murray for public records assistance.

[John Archibald]

Thank you to Paul Wolf for guiding us through the Nantahala Forest and to Eric De Torres for the introduction for this series. We also drew from the writing and expertise of Gene Hallman, Kathleen Ballou, Carol Mason, Marianne Bollers, Mary Ziegler, Renee Bracey Sherman and Regina Mahone, among others.

[Becca Andrews]

Thank you to WKU's Potter College of Arts and Letters and the School of Media and Communication for your support.

[John Archibald]

Thanks again to Beth Thornley and Rob Cairns for guidance and expertise and of course, music. Thank you to Lisa Hagan, Richard Banks and Chip Brantley for feedback. Thanks for the talents of Dan Carson, W. Scott Stewart, Elizabeth Hammondree and Sam McDavid.

[Becca Andrews]

Thanks to our spouses Alicia, Robin and Dan for tolerating the last three years.

[John Archibald]

We love you and thank you to Jermaine Hughes and all the everyday heroes who fight against the bullshit Sam.