New Clinic Bomb Clue Revealed
Authorities are confirming that a fatal abortion clinic bombing in Alabama one year ago was triggered by remote control.
They say they're releasing that information to make it clear that the suspected bomber, Eric Rudolph, intended to hurt people.
Rudolph is charged in the Jan. 29, 1998, blast at New Woman All Women Health Care, plus three bombings in Atlanta, including the 1996 Olympic Park bombing in which one person died.
Authorities previously said the Atlanta bombs, which also targeted an abortion clinic and a gay nightclub, were detonated by timers.
A police officer was killed and a clinic nurse was injured in the Jan. 29, 1998 bombing. A federal prosecutor says both were targets of the bomb.
The FBI is convinced that Rudolph - a man still on the run in the North Carolina mountains - had a clear motive in the Birmingham attack: murder.
"The AFT lab has determined the bomb was not time detonated, but exploded by remote control," said U.S. Attorney Doug Jones.
And that means the killer was watching when the bomb blew up.
Nurse Emily Lyons was critically injured by shrapnel from the bomb, reports CBS News Correspondent Byron Pitts.
After 12 months and 13 operations, Lyons tells of her damage.
"Lost my left eye, damaged my right eye, tore my eyelid off," she says.
Lyons says it's been a long journey that has been aided by her husband and by a sense of humor -- like the refrigerator magnet she sticks to her leg for the amusement of visitors.
"It sticks where there's metal," Lyons says.
The metal pieces embedded in her flesh are nail fragments from the pipe bomb that injured her and killed an off-duty police officer outside a Birmingham abortion clinic last January.
On Friday, the slain officer was remembered at a memorial service.
The abortion clinic is still open, and the same anti-abortion
protestor still stands outside.
One year later, fear is as real now as it ever was. Employees still look over their shoulder everyday. Michelle Farley, director of the clinic, says that won't change until the bomber is behind bars.
But one year. later Emily Lyons is busy making public service
announcements, speeches and enjoying life.
"I look at it almost as a birthday. . .It was like being born again. Because I didn't die that day. I came awfully close."
However, she is not a victim, she says: She is a survivor.
Reported by Byron Pitts
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