Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - He Wants To Destroy The Government // The Eric Rudolph Bombing Story

Episode Date: September 10, 2026

Eric Rudolph is an American criminal who carried out a series of bombings across the American South between 1996 and 1998.

What would cause a man to go insane and blow up a lesbian nightclub? Now this starts with this guy Rudolph, and Rudolph is 29 during this time, living in Nantahela, North Carolina. And here's the thing about Rudolph. He really, really hates abortions. Like he hates women getting them. He doesn't want women to have reproductive rights. He hates the federal government because abortion care is legal during this time. And these far right extremist views, make him want to humiliate the government in front of the entire world, and he wants to do it by using deadly force. And one day in 1996, he finally sees an opportunity to do just that. Because in the summer, the Olympic Games are going to be held in Atlanta,

about three hours away from where he lives. So he comes up with a plan to detonate five bombs around the city while the games are going on. Specifically, he wants to cause such a state of panic that the government will have to cancel the games and lose all the money they invested in it. And in doing this plan could cause a lot of people to die. In fact, it likely will. But he doesn't seem to care, as long as he gets to teach the government a lesson. So Rudolph gets to work on this plan. Inside his mobile home, he builds a massive pipe bomb.

Then he drives all the way down to Atlanta and he goes to Centennial Olympic Park. This is going to be his first bomb site. So he's got this bomb in a backpack, and he leaves the backpack inside the park. Then he walks away, and he goes to a payphone, and he calls 911, and he warns them that a bomb is about to go off in Centennial Olympic Park, and that they have 30 minutes to evacuate the area. Now, here's where things get contradictory. He says he called 911 so that they would evacuate the area, and no civilians would get hurt.

But he also packed the bombs with a bunch of nails and screws that would fly out upon the explosion and hurt as many people as possible. So I personally think he's full of shit. I think he wanted civilians to get hurt because, I mean, there's just no way to avoid it by planning a bomb. Regardless, while he's making this 911 call, a security guard working inside the park notices the abandoned backpack. And he signals the police to come over and check it out. And so bomb specialists take a look while the security guard helps evacuate the area. And so the security guard, Richard Jewell, ends up saving a lot of people. I've actually already done a video about Richard Jewell back in 2025.

You might remember it. Anyway, so is Richard Jewell and police are clearing people out of the area? Kaboom! The bomb explodes. And nails and screws and shrapnel go flying into the crowd and more than a hundred people get hurt and one woman, unfortunately, dies. And of course, Rudolph gets away, and no one knows it was him. Now, you would think that he would feel bad about all this. I mean, a woman is dead, and over 100 people are hurt.

But that's not actually what's bothering him. What's bothering him about all this is that it didn't go the way he wanted. It was supposed to be clean and humiliating for the government, but instead, it was a whole ass mess. I'm not sure what he was expecting. I mean, blowing people up is what bombs do. Anyway, he gets super pissed off, and he kind of throws a fit, and he decides to completely abandon the rest of his Olympic bombing plan,

and he takes the four remaining bombs to a vacant lot in a remote area, and he destroys them. Then he leaves Atlanta. And that didn't go the way he wanted, but he isn't going to stop there. No, no, no. He continues to build bombs because he wants to plant more of them. This time he starts working with dynamite and making bombs out of that so that he can focus the blast more directly on whoever he wants to hit.

And about six months pass, and it's now 1997. And he decides it's time to try again. This time, he's going to target an abortion clinic just outside of Atlanta. So he goes to this clinic, and it's closed that day, but he leaves two bombs outside, one in a small rubber made container and the other in a trash can. Then he leaves. Sometime later, Kaboom, the first bomb goes off.

But no one is at the clinic because it's closed, so no one gets hurt. But the explosion attracts a lot of people to the area to come look, police, reporters, emergency workers, other onlookers, which is exactly what Rudolph wants. Once the area is crowded with people, Kaboom the second bomb goes off. And six people are unfortunately injured.

And I guess Rudolph is satisfied with these results because he decides he wants to do it yet again. And remember, he's got those extreme far-right beliefs. So he actually doesn't like the gay and lesbian community either. And he feels like the government isn't doing enough to keep the gays and lesbians out of our society. So about a month later, he decides to target. a lesbian nightclub. So one night he goes to a local lesbian nightclub and he plants one bomb on the

back patio and another in the bushes near the parking lot and he leaves. Then, kaboom, the first bomb explodes and it injures five people. And pretty quickly, police and emergency workers arrive and luckily they find the second bomb before it goes off. Now, from here, Rudolph decides to just keep going. I mean, he wants to hurt more people, I guess. So he gets to work and he develops a new kind of bomb, one that he can detonate himself with a remote control instead of the timers that he's been using on the other bombs. So in 1998, he travels down to Birmingham, Alabama, where he plans to target abortion clinics. But his main target is a specific doctor that works at one of them. So one morning, Rudolph hides a bomb packed with dynamite and nails in some bushes near the entrance of one of the

clinics, and then he waits nearby with the remote control. But before the doctor arrives for work, an off-duty police officer is working security at the clinic, and he walks by, and he notices something is off about the shrubbery there. So he walks over to check it out, and Rudolph sees him walk over, and he presses the button on his remote, and kaboom, the bomb explodes, and it unfortunately kills this officer, and a nurse who was just showing up. to work, it leaves her blind. Now from here, Rudolph flees the scene. But a witness follows him and sees him getting into his truck. And he writes down his license plate number and he reports him to the police. So now reports about the bombing start coming out. And Rudolph, he knows

the police are probably looking for him. So he decides to flee and he drives back to North Carolina and he abandons his truck in the woods and he disappears into the National Forest. And he starts living there, in the forest, completely off the grid. Foraging and scavenging for food and sleeping on a bed made of stacked leaves. And of course, police are looking for him. And the FBI is also looking for him. And he eventually ends up on the FBI's 10 most wanted list. And this guy spends years living out here in the woods, hiding out.

And the FBI, they know he's likely out there. So they set up a command post at the National Guard Armourer. armory, which is near where he's been hiding out. And Rudolph, he starts planning on bombing the command post, like he builds an explosive and everything. Luckily, he changes his mind and he doesn't go through with it. And about five years go by, and he's still living out there in the National Forest. Then one day, he's dumpster diving behind a local grocery store, and a police officer sees him, and he thinks he's a burglar. And so, bam, he gets arrested. Here's his mugshot. And later, after they bring him in, he's identified as the Olympic Park bomber.

And ultimately, he takes a plea deal to avoid the death penalty, and he gets sentenced to life in prison.