Letters supporting Eric Rudolph sent to two NC businesses

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Posted 11:03PM on Monday, March 18, 2002

ANDREWS, NORTH CAROLINA - Letters found at two Cherokee County businesses Monday expressed support for accused serial bomber Eric Robert Rudolph and vowed ``lethal force'' to stop abortions. The letters, claiming to be from the Army of God underground anti-abortion group, were found at The Andrews Journal newspaper and at Roper's Boot Store, where Rudolph once bought a pair of hiking boots. The typed letters were topped with the words ``Eric Robert Rudolph'' and ``May God be with you.'' There was no other mention of Rudolph in the letters, which vowed a continued effort ``including lethal force'' to stop abortions. A three-paragraph statement declared ``war on the entire child-killing industry,'' but made no specific threats against any person or business. The documents ended with Internet addresses for three anti-abortion Web sites. Kathy Roper found one of the letters taped to the boot store's door when she got to work Monday. ``I was scared to death,'' Roper told the Asheville Citizen-Times. ``What would you think if you came to work and found a letter like that? I called the local sheriff's office and they told me not to touch it.'' Police told her to take it off the door without touching it directly, put it in a folder and hold it for the FBI. Roper can think of no reason why she or her store would be targeted, although the store did have a well-publicized brush with Rudolph in 1994 when he brought a pair of $212 waterproof boots there. Sally Hudson of The Andrews Journal said the letter she received was in the newspaper's mailbox. There was no envelope. Similar letters have surfaced in Cherokee County before, including one sent in 1998 to The Cherokee Scout newspaper in Murphy. Agents in those cases ruled out any connection to Rudolph. Rudolph, a Florida native who moved to Western North Carolina in 1981, is charged with the 1996 bombing of Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park, which killed one person and injured more than 100. He is also charged with the 1998 blast outside a Birmingham, Ala., abortion clinic that killed an off-duty police officer and maimed a clinic nurse. Investigators also believe Rudolph bombed an Atlanta-area abortion clinic and a gay nightclub there. If he's alive, Rudolph, who is on the FBI's most wanted list, is 35. In a statement Monday, the Southeast Bomb Task Force said it was aware of the letters and was investigating. ``The author of the letters is unknown, but there is nothing in the letters indicating it was authored by Rudolph or any other identifiable person,'' the statement said.