Domestic Terror: The Hunt for Eric Rudolph | King of the Mountain | 1

It's the morning of March 10th, 1993. In the Florida Panhandle, a small group of people are gathered in an office complex parking lot. They're holding signs and waving banners, chanting as they mill about in front of the Pensacola Women's Medical Services Clinic.
Among their number is Michael Frederick Griffin. Have you ever heard someone say that hate ages you? I think that's what's going on with Michael.

With the haircut of a middle-aged high school principal and cheeks that are already sagging into jowls, Michael looks older than his 31 years. As Michael watches, a car pulls into the parking lot and steers into an empty space near the clinic. Behind the wheel is 47-year-old Dr. David Gunn.
Seeing the doctor, Michael narrows his eyes. Here is the target of his hatred. Michael first saw David's face on a wanted poster, not an official one issued by law enforcement, but one printed up by the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue.

The poster listed David's regular schedule, his home address, his home phone number, even where his daughter goes to school. Sharing all of this information is justified according to Operation Rescue and to their fundamentalist Christian followers like Michael. To them, David Gunn's work providing abortion services to women makes him a killer.

David gets out of his car and starts walking past the protesters on his way into the building. There isn't a sign advertising the name of the clinic or what they do there, but Michael knows what will happen inside those four walls today. Those wanted posters urged people to pray for David, to write to him, and to urge him to leave his profession.

The most extreme suggestion was that people fast. Fasting. That's not good enough for Michael, but it's okay.

He's decided that he has the answer. He's determined to show his comrades what commitment to the cause looks like, what it looks like to actually care about the sanctity of life. Michael pushes through the small crowd of people, closing the distance between himself and the doctor.

He puts his hand into his coat pocket, closing his fist around cold steel. He raises his voice as he chases David. Don't kill anymore babies, he shouts.

David doesn't even turn around. Michael's lip curls in disgust, furious that this man is ignoring him, that he's ignoring the will of God. He won't accept that.

Not anymore. Michael pulls his hand out of his pocket and aims his .38 caliber revolver. He squeezes the trigger three times, hitting David in the back.

The father of two goes down as the other protesters step away from Michael. They're shocked by what's just happened, but few, if any of them, are all that upset about it. After all, they'd wanted David to stop performing abortions.
They watch as Michael stands on the sidewalk, a placid smile on his soft face. Police will arrive on the scene within minutes. Michael Griffin will calmly hand the officers his gun and admit to what he's done.

He'll be handcuffed and eventually charged with murder. At trial, he'll claim to have been brainwashed by his mentor, an anti-abortion activist and white supremacist named Paul Burt. But he'll also refuse to apologize for his actions, and will insist that what he did was justified.
He did what he had to to protect the unborn children. David Dunn had become the first American doctor killed by an anti-abortion protester. But he won't be the last.

And in the coming decades, Michael Griffin will serve as an inspiration for people eager to follow in his footsteps. Zealots who'll ignite a deadly war over abortion in America.

From Airship, I'm Jeremy Schwartz, and this is American Criminal.

In 1996, Atlanta was the host for the Summer Olympic Games. It was an exciting time for locals, and plenty of other Americans around the country as well. And Olympics here, at home?

But then the bubble burst. On July 27th, a free concert was going on in downtown Atlanta. There were tens of thousands of people there to celebrate their city, celebrate the games, celebrate the global community coming together.

But in the middle of all that joy, a bomb exploded, killing one woman and leaving over a hundred other people injured. In the aftermath of the bombing, investigators rushed in to try and find answers. Who had done this?

And how? Was it a group behind the explosion, or was a lone wolf to blame? Should the authorities prepare for more bombs?

I can tell you the answer to a couple of those questions right now. The Atlanta Olympics bombing was carried out by a man named Eric Rudolph. And no, he wasn't done after that first attack.
But understanding the rest of what happened, the how and the why of it all, requires a much more thorough explanation. This is episode one in our five part series on Eric Rudolph, King of the Mountain.

It's a warm summer evening in the late sixties. In Merritt Island, Florida, Patricia Rudolph climbs into her station wagon with a sigh. She's just left evening mass early.
Again. Pat considers herself a fairly progressive woman. But after her family's recent move south, she can't help feeling like her values are clashing with her faith.
Back in Missouri, she and her husband were involved in a forward-thinking family group at their church. This new congregation though, it feels like she stepped years into the past. As she starts the car and steers out of the still full parking lot, Pat wonders if she'll ever reconcile her religious convictions with the way she sees the world.

She wants a relationship with God, no question. But she also wants to be a woman with an identity beyond wife and mother. She wants her church to be a force for good, for it to stand against government-backed violence and regressive rhetoric.
It doesn't feel like she's asking for the world. The sun's still setting and it's stifling inside the car, so Pat rolls her window down as she drives through the neighborhoods on the peninsula. She's just pulled up to a stoplight when she hears it.
Music. It's a hymn, though it doesn't sound like any hymn she's heard before. Just the sound of it fills Pat with a warmth separate from the summer heat.
She feels it in her heart. Looking around, she spots a small church across the street. She pulls into the parking lot and gets out of the car, practically running towards the open door.

On her way in, she passes a wooden sign, Community Church of the Nazarene. Inside, she finds a congregation smaller than the one she left behind a few minutes ago, but she can sense the Holy Spirit in this room. It's the sound of the vocalist's voice and the words of the hymnies singing, in the tears she feels rolling down her cheeks.
Pat smiles as she takes a seat in the back of the room. She's found her new spiritual home. Long before she found her way into a Nazarene church in central Florida, Patricia Rudolph dedicated her life to doing good.
For two years, she'd been an avitiate with the Medical Mission Sisters in Pennsylvania. But in the early 1950s, she left the order before taking her vows. From there, she moved to New York, where she joined the Catholic Workers Movement, led by social activist Dorothy Day.

During her time with the workers, Pat cared for the sick and dying, learned to cook for large numbers of people, and did anything else to serve their mission. At one stage, she traveled to Washington, DC to protest against the H-bomb. She and a group of other religious protesters and pacifists rented a house for months, carrying placards and holding prayer vigils outside the White House.

Then, it was back to New York to continue with more practical tasks. It was when she was living in a communal home run by the Catholic workers that she met her eventual husband, Robert Rudolph. Like Pat, Bob came to the Catholic workers after a flirtation with taking a more active role in the church.

He'd wanted to become a priest, but was deemed unsuitable for the role. Something about a nervous breakdown? He never told Pat much more than that.
But she wasn't concerned with his past. She liked his dedication to his work as a laborer, his unwavering faith, and his skill as a woodworker. He was handsome, and he wrote songs?

Pat was intrigued. The feeling was mutual. Bob fell quickly, and they married before leaving the Catholic workers to move in with Bob's mother in St. Louis.
They started having children in 1959 when Pat was 31. Bob got a job as a mechanic for Trans World Airlines, a role that eventually took them south to Florida in 1966. Their fifth child, Eric, was born soon after they arrived.

Now, Pat and Bob might have been pacifists, and the group they'd been members of when they met might have been considered subversive by the FBI, but they didn't totally fit the mold of progressives as we know them today. They shied away from modern medicine, refused vaccinations for all their children, and Pat herself believed in natural childbirth. She even taught the Lamaze method to other expecting mothers.
In short, the Rudolphs weren't your typical suburban couple when they settled in Florida. So it's not that surprising that Pat felt disappointed with her family's new diocese. When she's drawn into a Nazarene church by the sound of a beautiful hymn, it feels like a revelation.

Soon enough, she and Bob leave their Catholic faith behind in favor of the growing Pentecostal movement. Jumping ship like this signals the beginning of a new life for Pat. Stepping away from the church she grew up in opens her eyes to the other possibilities out there.
She'll spend the rest of her days searching for the perfect religious expression. Part of that exploration takes the form of evening prayer meetings that Pat and Bob host in their living room. Bob plays songs for the group.

On guitars, he's made with his own hands. Then, at the end of each meeting, some or even all of the attendees start writhing on the floor speaking in tongues. To people in the Pentecostal movement, this is a sign that a person has received the Holy Spirit.
Of course, to young children hearing this from their bedrooms, it can be a strange, maybe even scary, experience. But grown adults making off putting noises in the living room isn't all that religion brings to the Rudolph home. It also brings structure to the once chaotic household.

Though she'll later claim they didn't force faith onto their six, yes, count them, six children, Pat and Bob insist that their kids memorize biblical proverbs to guide their discipline. They're expected to do chores every day, to be in bed at scheduled times, and to be home before dinner. When rules are broken, the kids are given a warning.

After that, a toe out of line earns them a pants-down paddling from their father. Pat doesn't want anything to do with the punishment and lets Bob get on with it. But she's sure that it's never too bad, just a good firm reminder of how to behave in the future.
Eric, the second youngest, is the one kid who never breaks the rules. Whether that's out of fear of punishment or a belief in the reasoning behind the rules, Eric never does anything to warrant a paddling. It could be that Eric's got other things on his mind besides breaking the rules.

From a very young age, he displays an inclination to fixate on subjects that interest him. One of the earliest of these fascinations is history, specifically the US Civil War. There's a National Geographic book on the topic on the family's shelves, and he loves pouring over the pages, reading the words he can understand and drinking in every detail of the pictures.
But he doesn't just read about history. Eric wants to experience it for himself. As a little kid, he dresses as a Native American warrior, making himself approximations of buckskin moccasins and stalking through his coastal neighborhood with a bow and arrow.

The perfect weapon for a boy who wants to kill, but who wants to be far away from his victims when it happens. After dabbling in their Pentecostal faith, the Rudolphs swerve to a Baptist group, where Bob and Pat volunteer as youth ministers. That's how Tom Branham comes into their lives.

Younger than Bob and Pat, but older than their kids, Tom moves to Florida from the Northwest. When he joins the congregation, the Rudolphs welcome him as a surrogate member of the family, inviting him over for meals and prayer circles. Lucky for them, Tom's as good with his hands as Bob is, and he thanks them for their kindness by building an addition to their home in the early 1970s.

But Tom finds Florida too congested for his taste. In 1973, he hears the voice of God telling him to return to the land. Heeding the call, he uses his savings to buy an isolated plot in North Carolina.
He builds his own house on the property, occasionally welcoming the Rudolphs' visitors to his little slice of paradise. As they get older, some of the kids visit Tom over the summer, spending time with him in the relative wilderness. Seeing how happy Tom is, Pat and Bob start feeling the itch to move too.

Florida is nice, but they're ready for a change of scenery, both spiritual and literal. Towards the end of the 70s, Bob finds a congregation in Northern California that he wants to join. But he's a practical guy, so he wants to make sure it's a good fit before moving the whole family west.
He applies for a transfer with his job and flies out to San Jose to scope out places to live. But it turns out that NorCal is a lot more expensive than Central Florida, and Bob's paycheck won't be enough to support them. Reluctantly, he gives up his plan to join the new congregation and returns to Merritt Island.

Only when he gets there, he's been away from his old position for too long, and the window to step back into the role has been closed. Transworld Airlines lays him off after almost 20 years. So at the age of 48, Bob's lost his job, his benefits, and his pension.
And then, things get really bad. In 1980, Bob's diagnosed with malignant melanoma. For a lot of people, that would mean it's time to start treatment.

But remember, the Rudolphs aren't fans of modern medicine. So they seek out alternative cancer treatments, like wheatgrass juice and potassium supplements. Through all of this, Pat ups her hours as an x-ray technician to help support her family and pay for Bob's care.
And Eric watches all of this happen, mostly from afar. He's around 14 when his dad is diagnosed with cancer, and he's sent off to North Carolina to stay with Tom Branham for a few months. Eric's always liked visiting Tom.

Surviving in the wilderness, chopping wood, cooking on a camping stove, all of that appeals to him. It fosters a sense of self-reliance that he relishes. So, while he's worrying about his father, Eric's also getting to practice and hone his skills.
He watches Tom take care of himself however he can. Doing construction work, hauling scrap metal, dumpster diving for food, whatever he needs to get by without relying on anyone else. Eric soaks it all up like a sponge.

Eventually, though, his stay in the Appalachians comes to an end. In the spring of 1982, Bob Rudolph dies, leaving his family bereft. They all remember Bob as a quiet, gentle man with an unassuming nature.

He'd provided for them not just money to get by. He built the furniture that filled their house. He played music on guitars he made.
And he'd willingly followed his wife on her journey for religious satisfaction. And now, he's gone.”

It's the spring of 1982 in Homestead, Florida. His father has been dead for a few months when Eric Rudolph walks into his mother's kitchen. It's almost time for dinner, so Pat's at the stove when Eric tells her he needs to speak with her.
Pat turns around. 15-year-old Eric looks tired. He's just finished his afternoon shift hauling branches for a local tree trimming company.

But despite the sap and dust covering his clothes, Eric looks resolved. He tells his mom that he's not going back to school, not in South Florida at least. It's too violent, he explains.
He doesn't want to mingle with the black kids who he sees as the source of the problem. There are two choices, Eric says. Either Pat sends him back to North Carolina to live with their family friend, Tom Branham, or he stops going to school altogether and risks being sent to juvenile detention for truancy.

Pat nods and tells Eric she'll think about it. But she knows there's no real choice. Her son has made up his mind, and all she can do is go along with his decision.

After his father's death, Eric returns to the small community of Toppton, North Carolina. His mom stays in Florida while his sister Maura finishes high school. Once Maura graduates in the spring, she marries her boyfriend and Pat prepares to face the next phase of her life.
For his part, Eric wants his mother to move north. He loves where Tom lives and thinks Pat will too. So when the plot of land next door to Tom's comes up for sale, he and his brothers convince Pat she should buy it.

The property is relatively remote, but it comes with the completed shell of a kid home, as well as an outhouse. It isn't much, but Eric and his older brother Dan know enough about construction that they're confident they can turn it into a comfortable home. So Pat packs up what remains of her life, including her youngest son Jamie, and sets herself up just east of the Nantahalla National Forest.

She arrives just in time for Eric to enroll in ninth grade at the local high school. Now, Eric's always been the sort of kid to delve deep into a subject to understand everything there is to know about it, but he's not a great student. His grades improve at his new school, but his teachers find him stubborn, a little odd, and difficult to teach.

Test scores show that Eric has a strong vocabulary, which isn't surprising given how much he's always reading. But his comprehension skills are quite poor, which is interesting because together those two things suggest that Eric can understand individual words and concepts, but doesn't always truly follow what he's reading. So he might take away a different meaning than the one intended, and if that's true, it might explain some of Eric's later actions.
But for now, he's just the slightly weird new kid in school. Topton is a small place with a lot of families who've been in the area for generations. New arrivals like Eric are seen as outsiders.

He tries to fit in, wearing flannel and denim like the rest of the kids, blending in with the crowd wherever possible. But of course, that's not always possible. And Eric sometimes makes waves to get him the wrong sort of attention at school.

Here's an example. In history class, he turns in an essay that argues the Holocaust never happened. When his stunned teacher asks where he got his information, Eric hands her a pamphlet from his family's home library.

Years later, Pat Rudolph will say she had no idea what was in Eric's essay and that Tom Branham was the one with all the Holocaust books in his house. But exactly where Eric got his information from is secondary here. The important thing is that he felt strong enough about what he read and trusted it to the extent that he put it in a school assignment.

And his teacher's questions about the essay aren't enough to sway Eric's way of thinking. On the contrary, he gets into arguments with other students about his views, and not just about World War II. He can often be heard talking smack about gay men and women as well as black people.

Though, I can assure you those aren't the terms he's using to describe those groups. But despite his off-putting opinions, Eric manages to make a few friends at school. He likes teaching these friends some of the things he's learned from Tom over the years.
Survivalist skills like how to build a fire, which plants are edible, and the best way to create a shelter in the woods. Mr. Boy Scout, they call him. Mr. Boy Scout or not, Eric's an all right-looking and athletic young man, which helps him make headway with the coeds out of school.

When he's about 16, he starts dating a girl from the 8th grade and brings her home for dinner one night. Pat's delighted to meet her son's girlfriend and offers up some advice for the future. She explains that because she's had midwife training, they can deliver any babies they have here at the Rudolph Homestead.

That way, she explains to the 14-year-old girl she's just met, they can keep the child off the government's radar. They won't have a social security number or anything. It'll be ideal.
But in the end, Pat's careful plans for a future grandchildren don't eventuate. Eric and his girlfriend break up towards the end of the school year, around the time he drops out. Before he leaves forever though, Eric reminds everyone just how odd he is.

This whole year, he's carefully avoided having anyone take his picture, so there's practically no record of him in the yearbook. And when people ask him to sign theirs anyway, he refuses. He doesn't want to leave behind any handwriting samples that might be used against him someday.

Luckily for him, he'll have to worry about much less moving forward because his mom's gonna home school him. For a family that's as increasingly self-sufficient as the Rudolphs are, that's not a surprising development. Since moving to Toppton, Pat's been growing her own veggies, raising goats and chickens, and making handicrafts to sell.
For anything else they need, she relies on benefits. The family home, now a more livable building thanks to Eric and Dan's efforts, is looking pretty remote. So the family doesn't get decent TV service.

But there are plenty of books on offer. Wall-to-wall shelves full of texts about philosophy, evolution, history, all things that Eric has been or will become fascinated with at some point or another. But though Pat feels like she's the best one to teach her children what they need to know about the world, homeschooling is more challenging than she anticipated.

After a year, she talks about her frustrations with Tom, who tells her about a group in rural Missouri called the Church of Israel. Led by founder Dan Gaiman, the group is associated with the Christian Identity Movement. And if you don't know, that's an offshoot of Christianity centered around a belief that white people are the true descendants of the ancient Israelites.

They are the chosen ones and no one else. Strictly speaking, it's not an organized religion in its own right, but followers share some core values, like advocating for racial segregation and railing against interracial relationships, as well as an insistence that the world's banking systems are controlled by Jews. To plenty of people, that kind of thinking might put them off wanting to associate with the Church of Israel.

But not Pat Rudolph. Remember, she's been searching for her perfect religious expression for over a decade now. So a Christian compound in the middle of nowhere that has its own school setup sounds ideal.

In the fall of 1984, she, Eric, and youngest son, Jamie, make the almost 800-mile journey to Shell City, Missouri. Dan Gaiman welcomes them with open arms. Dan puts the Rudolphs up in a trailer on his group's sprawling property.

Pat starts contributing to the community right away, throwing herself into craft projects that can be sold to fund the church. Jamie goes to the small schoolhouse each day, but 18-year-old Eric's lost all interest in studying. He does show an interest in girls, though.
For a while, he even dates Dan's teenage daughter. In the strapping young man, the preacher sees potential for a loyal new follower, one who could be an asset to recruiting people to the flock. So he encourages the teens to date at first.

But Eric's never shown much patience for religious leaders, even very charismatic ones. Dan soon finds Eric undisciplined and aggressive, and the team resists all attempts to curb his behavior. Still, Dan keeps trying, and around the beginning of summer 1985, he gives Eric a chance to prove himself.

He's chosen to read scripture in front of the congregation, but Eric lets him down. See, like most belief systems, the Church of Israel has certain rules members have to follow. One of theirs is that they refer to God as Yahweh.
When Eric stands for his reading though, he insists on using the Lord instead, which is just outright blasphemy. On top of that, he treats the event like it's some kind of story time, putting on different voices for parts of the reading. To everyone in the church, it comes off like he thinks it's all a big joke.

And maybe it is. Or maybe Eric's trying to make some kind of point to the group. If he is, he never gets the chance to explain it.
Dance furious about the incident and ask the Rudolphs to leave. Or at least that's what some versions of the story say. Depending on your source, there are variations of how long the Rudolphs stayed in Missouri, how eagerly Dan received them, Eric's commitment to the church's teaching, and so on.

According to Eric's own brother, the Church of Israel compound is where Eric developed the political beliefs that will one day lead him to kill. All that to say, the truth about how much this time influenced Eric as a man and eventual criminal is something we may never know. But what comes next will absolutely have a huge impact on how the rest of his story unfolds.

Or, actually, what comes after this next bit. First, the Rudolphs return to North Carolina, where Eric applies to study at Purdue University. But because of his spotty formal education, he doesn't meet the enrollment requirements.

The school encourages him to catch up on those and apply again when he's ready. So he heads to Western Carolina University, where he should be focusing on the high school subjects he missed out on. But things like science, math, and literature don't interest him.

He's more into history and art, so he fills his schedule with those instead. Even when he's studying what he's chosen for himself, though, Eric can't help but make waves. He's argumentative in class, arrogant in his general demeanor.

Neither makes him a popular student. Luckily for his classmates and teachers, they don't have to put up with him for long. In the spring of 1987, he drops out of college.
He's ready for a new direction altogether.

Okay, let's see. So far, we've covered Eric's religious education, his fascination with survivalist skills, his tendency to fixate on topics that might be beyond his level of comprehension, and a burgeoning belief that he can see truths others ignore.

So what are we missing? Oh right, government-funded training on how to build a bomb.

It's August of 1987 in a health food store on the main street of Andrews, North Carolina. Andrews is just about 8 miles down the highway from Topton, where Eric Rudolph spent most of his teenage years. Now 20, he's come to ask George Nordman's advice.

The 60-year-old shop owner has always seemed to know a lot about how the world works, and without his father to turn to, Eric needs guidance. He's just enrolled in the army, but he's worried. He's not scared of basic training or even combat.

It's something much more insidious than that. He's concerned about being vaccinated. Pat and Bob Rudolph refused to let any of their children receive vaccinations when they were young.
But Eric will have to roll up his sleeve if he's going to serve. So he's come to the only person he can think of who might know how to deal with that issue. George Nordman's got deeply held religious beliefs, a keen interest in holistic remedies, and not that Eric would put it this way, but he's a bit of a conspiracy theorist.

He's someone who believes the kind of things Eric wrote about in his high school history assignment, that the Holocaust never happened. He also spent time in the Navy when he was younger, so it makes sense that Eric is turning to him. The store isn't busy this afternoon.

A tape deck behind the register blairs Christian worship music as George unpacks a shipment of vitamins. When Eric's finished explaining the problem, George turns to him holding out a bottle of vitamin C pills. His advice?
Take some of these and hope for the best. If Eric wants to be in the Army, then he's gonna have to deal with the vaccinations. The government has rules about these things, and yet just can't fight them.

Eric takes the pills from George with a sigh. He was afraid of that. After completing basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia, Eric earns his air assault badge by doing things like rappelling out of a helicopter.

Aside from moments like that, though, Eric finds himself bored stupid by the mundane parts of his service. Things like weapon maintenance, cleaning toilets, trash pickups, painting parking lots, and guard duty. It's utterly dull.
But not everything he does feels useless. Eric's commanding officer is a former ranger. He takes his troops through what they'll need to know in case they have to fend for themselves or rescue a comrade behind enemy lines.

Eric and his cohort are taught how to stay ahead of anyone who might be pursuing them, how to sustain themselves by finding food and water in the wilderness, and how to build and lay booby traps. These traps are usually some kind of explosive. In their simplest form, a can stuffed with a stick of dynamite and shrapnel like small stones or nails.

Others resemble a traditional claymore mine, which is kind of a directional explosive. These are designed to send projectiles and a wide targeted arc to do as much damage to the enemy as possible. And there are careful tactics to keep in mind with these weapons.
Depending on the situation, it might be feasible for a soldier to plant two bombs. One is a diversion to draw the target closer to a second, more deadly explosive. Of course, this is all taught to troops with the understanding that this knowledge will only ever be used against combatants from enemy nations.

But things don't always turn out the way we hoped. Eric knows that very well. He enlisted with a dream of one day joining an elite unit like the Special Forces or the Rangers.
He told this to the recruiter before he signed up and was told that he could volunteer for the Ranger indoctrination program after he completed his airborne training. But there weren't any openings in the Ranger program, so Eric's been posted to a basic infantry unit in Kentucky. And he's not happy about it.

So Eric's rebellious side emerges once again. The instinct he's been suppressing for months now. He drinks plenty, chews tobacco and smokes pot at every opportunity.
And as often as he can get away with, he's in his room reading. Just like when he was in school, he's not shy about sharing his views on the world with his comrades. He rants about the control Jewish people have over banks and openly praises Hitler.

He's disgusted by taxes and insists that the government is too powerful. On a more day-to-day level, though, he has deep issues with the way the military is being run. He's never liked any authority figures, but he especially hates taking orders from officers who are black or women.
It's just not right that they're allowed to serve alongside of me, thanks. By the summer of 1988, less than a year into his service, Eric's receiving counseling for his attitude problem. He mocks authority, gets high in his room, and is often caught sleeping on duty.

It's clear he's not enjoying himself. Whenever he can be off base, he is. His older brother Joel lives relatively close by with his wife in Nashville, and Eric visits them to crash on their couch.
But family isn't the only reason he has to spend time in Texas. At some stage that summer, he starts dating a teenage girl named Claire. And I want to be clear that I'm using air quotes around the word dating here because Claire is still in high school and Eric is a 21-year-old man in the military.

But her parents seem to approve of the relationship because Eric visits Claire at her father's house whenever he can, and she's allowed to visit him at the barracks on weekends. Eric's really into Claire. Specifically, he tells her he's a big fan of what he calls her Aryan traits.
They'll make beautiful Aryan babies together, he says. And Claire definitely thinks this is a dark thing to say, but she's so charmed by Eric. In her eyes, he's funny, smart and good looking.

He's tall and slim with a strong jawline and intense blue eyes sitting beneath prominent brows. So when he goes off on one of his racist tirades, Claire rolls her eyes and waves it off. She's too smitten to care.

When her friends tell her that her boyfriend is a dick, she insists that he's sweet behind closed doors. He's ambitious too, he wants to be a preacher. He's got big ideas to share with the world and even jumps on milk crates to give him promptu sermons sometimes.

Clearly, Eric's fallen completely out of love with being in the armed forces. He feels like he's been lied to about becoming a ranger and he wants out. In November of 1988, a little over a year and a half after he enlisted, he purposely fails a drug test.
He's offered an honorable discharge and he takes it. But it's not like he doesn't have a backup plan. When he gets back to North Carolina, Eric pursues one of his more recent passions, cannabis.

He starts growing plants deep in the forest near the family home in Topton. Doing this gives him plenty of excuses to go hiking through the wilderness. When Claire comes to visit him, he takes her on trips into the woods, bringing water and fertilizer to his crops.

Once he starts distributing his product, he stuffs it into gallon bags, then shoves those into hidden compartments in his yellow Subaru, which he drives to Nashville. For some of his trips, he packs the weed in his army issue duffel, dons his old fatigues and boards a bus to cross the border, confident no one will disturb an enlisted soldier. He avoids selling in his hometown because he knows the people of Topton and surrounding communities.

He's sure no one there can keep a secret. Then again, Eric's not the most discreet guy himself. He writes to some of the guys he met in the army.
He wants them to move to North Carolina to help build a cannabis empire. Always a subtle guy, he signs one of the letters, Your Comrade, King of the Mountain, Eric R. Rudolph IV.
Another he signs is Adolf Rudolph. Yeesh. But despite Eric's increasingly aggressive request that people join him, no one accepts the invitation.

So as the 1980s draw to a close, he's mostly left to his own devices. Getting by selling pot, reading about things that interest him, and watching the world spin on. But what he sees doesn't please him.

There's always been things wrong with the world, but lately he's noticed it getting worse. He grew up with an inherited disdain for the federal government. But now from his vantage point at the foot of the mountains, he can see it so clearly, the decay of Western civilization.
It all stems from the US government. And he doesn't know how much longer he can sit by and do nothing.

From Airship, this is episode one in our series on Eric Rudolph. On the next episode, Eric's anger towards the federal government crystallizes into a blistering hatred. It's a hatred that will lead him to kill.

We use many different sources while preparing this episode. One we can particularly recommend is Lone Wolf by Marianne Vollars. We also read Eric Rudolph's autobiography, and we wouldn't go so far as to recommend anyone else do the same.

This episode may contain reenactments or dramatized details, and while in some cases we can't know exactly what happened, all our dramatizations are based on historical research. American Criminal is a co-production of airship and evergreen podcasts. It's hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Jeremy Schwartz.

Audio editing and sound design by Sean Ruhl-Hoffman. Music by Thrum. This episode is written and researched by Joel Callan, managing producer Emily Burke.
Executive producers are Joel Callan and Lindsey Graham.