U.S.

Still No Justice In Olympics Bombing

July 27, 2001 / 8:44 AM EDT / AP

Five years after a deadly explosion ripped through Centennial Olympic Park, victims are still seeking justice as authorities try to track down the elusive suspect.

They believe Eric Rudolph, 34, placed the bomb, hidden in a knapsack, in the crowded park on July 27, 1996, killing one woman and injuring 111 people. More than 200 searchers armed with tracking dogs and infrared-equipped helicopters fanned out into the North Carolina mountains looking for Rudolph, but no one has reported seeing him since 1998.

“It's just amazing a person could just disappear when we have our best law enforcement chasing after him,” said Calvin Thorbourne, 30, who vividly remembers the blast that left shrapnel in his leg. “I guess it's God who will have to do what he wants with the person who put a bomb in that park during the Olympics.”

The explosion killed Alice Hawthorne, a Georgia woman who brought her teen-age daughter to the park. Federal investigators focused on security guard Richard Jewell for months, then decided they had the wrong man.

Rudolph was charged in 1998 with the bombing and three others. Police say he also planted bombs at a gay nightclub in Atlanta and a Birmingham, Ala., abortion clinic. Some of the steel and nails used in the bombings were similar, and some included messages claiming that the “Army of God” was responsible.

Searchers have combed a 550,000-acre Appalachian wilderness but haven't confirmed a Rudolph sighting since July 7, 1998.

“It's been such a long time since anyone had any sighting of Eric Rudolph, and that would lead me to believe he's no longer alive,” said David Tubbs, an FBI special agent who is coordinating security in Salt Lake City for the 2002 Winter Olympics.

In Atlanta, a stone “quilt of remembrance” has been installed in the park to memorialize the bombing. It's practically ignored, tucked in a corner, far from the visitors' center and the Olympic ring fountain that children run through on hot days.

“When people find out I got hurt in the Centennial Park bomb, they're like 'Wow,' like they'd forgotten all about it,” Thorbourne said. “But it's still burned in the back of everybody's memory. And I still have a piece of metal in my left leg. I really hope they catch the guy.”