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CNN Live At Daybreak
Trackers Search for Eric Rudolph in North Carolina
Aired July 24, 2001 - 07:51 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: It has been five frustrating years since the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, frustrating because it seems as though the trail to find the bomber has grown cold.
Well, this week, CNN's Art Harris is doing a series of reports on the search for Eric Rudolph, the prime suspect, the man police say planted the bomb.
Today, Art introduces us to the trackers.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ART HARRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): North Carolina's Nantahala National Forest, a half million acres of wilderness, natural habitat for wild animals, poisonous snakes and the FBI says, at least one deadly human predator, accused serial bomber Eric Robert Rudolph. For five years, the FBI has fielded hundreds of agents, spent more than $20 million and found evidence Rudolph was here, but no Rudolph.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not good.
HARRIS: Early on, the FBI enlisted two unique trackers to help. A cave expert...
DARREN FREE, CAVE EXPERT: It's a hand mark.
HARRIS: ... and a folksy cop from Georgia.
CHARLES STONE, FORMER BOMB TASK FORCE MEMBER: It's just like when you're hunting, you're listening with your ears, you're seeing, you're sensing things. Eric has got that down to a fine art.
HARRIS: Charlie Stone, 25-year veteran of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, he feels he knows Rudolph. He's hunted the suspected bomber from day one.
How could one man elude all the law enforcement personnel that have been looking for him for the last three years?
STONE: You've got a double-canopied forest. You had the Appalachian Trail. I believe he's staying on the trails and roads, but he can move from point A to point B with relative ease and without any real danger of being discovered. HARRIS: After teams of bloodhounds, high-tech helicopters and an army of agents couldn't find Rudolph above ground, the FBI went underground.
FREE: And this thick, as you can tell, 15 feet over there, it could be a mine and we'd walk right by it.
HARRIS: Darren Free, part Cherokee Indian, part Indiana Jones. He taught agents how to search caves and mines safely.
FREE: I can smell the sulfur and the copper.
HARRIS: Free's explored them since he was 12 years old, about the same age as Rudolph when he discovered the woods and caves here.
FREE: He may have went further down.
HARRIS: Is there a way to tell if Rudolph's been here?
FREE: Oh yes, you could have told with the tracks and all that there wasn't no tracks, no -- someone hadn't probably been in here in 60 years or more. This is just one out of about 400.
HARRIS: The same Rudolph, seen in this exclusive video obtained by CNN, who dug out this secret room beneath his house, should be able to convert a cave into a home, says Free.
FREE: I feel that his is, like I said, is just as good as a Motel 6. Who knows, he may even have a Jacuzzi.
HARRIS: These two trackers believe Rudolph is still alive and sometimes feel that Rudolph is tracking them.
(on camera): A loner who can live off the land, add Army training, food, spring water and shelter and you've got everything a fugitive needs to run and hide.
Art Harris, CNN, in the Nantahala National Forest, North Carolina.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIN: Tomorrow, Art will explain how authorities came to believe that Eric Rudolph is the man they want to arrest.
And then watch Art's hour-long documentary: "The Hunt for Eric Rudolph" right here on CNN on "CNN PRESENTS." That's Sunday night at 10:00 Eastern, 7:00 Pacific.
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