Lone Wolf: Eric Rudolph: Murder, Myth, and the Pursuit of an American Outlaw

First an introduction: From 1986 - 1992 I was employed as an investigator at the Office of Capital Collateral Representative (CCR) in Tallahassee, Florida, where Scharlette Holdman worked as the supervisor of the investigators from October 1985 - March 1988. I have known Scharlette since the mid-1970s death penalty debates at Florida State University, including the debate between Professor Richard L. Rubenstein (author of "After Auschwitz", "My Brother Paul", "The Cunning of History: Mass Death and the American Future", "The Age of Triage", "Religion and Eros", and other books) vs. Baptist Minister and Philosopher Will Campbell (the debate was circa 1977). Her office, the Clearinghouse on Criminal Justice, was in the same wing of the Petroleum Building as my office at Common Cause in Florida (where I was a full-time volunteer during the day and worked at the Brown Derby Restaurant at night from 1981 - 1986). The Petroleum Building was next to the State Capital, the Florida Supreme Court and the State Archives and Library. When it was torn down, the space and the space for the first CCR office became the Mary Brogan Art and Science Museum and a storm water retaining pond. The Petroleum Building was called by those of us who worked or volunteered there the "Forces of Good" (FOG) Building -- as opposed to FOE -- Forces of Evil, such as Associated Industries, the Chamber and other big business interests in Florida. The FOG building also included (not an exhaustive list) the Clean Water Action Project, the ACLU, NOW, Florida Legal Services, Migrant Farmworker's Organization (directed by Cliff Thaell, who has more recently been a Leon County Commissioner for over ten years), Mike Vasilinda's television news service. About every two years at CCR there was a Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist-Maoist purge due to the pressures and dysfunctions of the work and the people. I survived two such purges. With the third, I was the first to go in the spring and summer of 1992. When Scharlette had essentially declared war upon CCR in 1987 and thereafter, some of us decided to investigate her background given some things that we had heard. Low and behold, Scharlette's claim of a PhD in anthropology from the University of Hawaii and a Master's Degree from Memphis State (now University of Memphis) don't exist. A claimed undergraduate degree from Memphis State: I no longer recall if this was confirmed by the university. We used Scharlette's Social Security number, her maiden name and her married name -- with all this information, both universities had no record of Scharlette having received any degrees from these institutions. As I understand Scharlette, she needed the "degrees" to confer upon her "credentials" that she really never needed as she is indeed then and now a national expert on capital mitigation, litigation, etc. However Scharlette can be deceptive, as her lack of a PhD and Masters so demonstrates. Even today she claims to have the degrees as when she give

I was highly impressed how the author Maryanne Vollers represented the Murphy, NC area in her book Lone Wolf. I had follwed the search and capture of Eric Rudolph closely and she was right on the money with her story of this area. I was on the edge of my seat as I read through this captivating book. I couldn't put the book down once I began reading it! I had read the book from cover to cover in less than three days. I was most interested in the time Eric Rudolph spent in the mountains of Murphy and the surrounding areas. As I read the words in this book, it was almost like I was there! I would highly recommend this book to anyone that enjoys entertaining reading material. Again, thank you to the author Maryanne Vollers for such wonderful writing!

While not as dramatic or as memorable as other terrorist attacks on American soil over the past 20 years, the Olympic Park bombing is one of those events where you'll always remember where you were and what you were doing when it happened. (Most people were watching the Atlanta Olympics!) This bombing was just the first in a series of heinous acts committed by Eric Rudolph, whose short, but effective bombing spree in the South ended up in a massive manhunt and an anti-climactc capture and prosecution. Ms. Vollers writes an excellent piece of investigative journalism, explaining in great detail the events of those days and the reasons behind why Rudolph acted the way he did. This was no easy task. Researching law enforcement and prosecutorial actions can be very difficult, as they are rarely made public and many law enforcement personnel (and criminals) are wary of the media. Also, trying to get into the mind of someone who is intelligent enough to manufacture a device as complex and dangerous as a bomb, but amoral enough to actually want to use it, is extremely hard to do. Ms. Vollers takes this task on very well and tries her best to show a fair and even-handed account of Rudolph, his crimes and the response from the law enforcement community. The book moves along quickly, starting with the bombings, moving into the manhunt in the hills of western North Carolina and finally ending up with Rudolph's capture and prosecution. This book does not glorify Rudolph's actions in any way. Rudolph murdered three people and seriously maimed another. The excuses he gives for his actions only harm his cause instead of supporting it, a fact that the author brings forth at the end of her book. Ms. Vollers has some decent access to law enforcement and to Rudolph himself and is able to put both sides into perspective when explaining the events surrounding the investigation and prosecution of Rudolph. I am sure the hardest part of the author's job was getting the residents of North Carolina to discuss them with some sort of objectivity. After reading this, I firmly believe that Rudolph would still be a fugitive if he had actually been born in this area. The fact that he was a Florida transplant was the one factor that kept him a true outsider in that community. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.

I asked for and received Vollers' book as Christmas gift after reading a review of the book in the local newspaper. I was anxious to read this book as an individual who was watching the Olympics live the night Rudolph's Olympic Park bomb exploded, read and watched the news reports of the other Atlanta bombings, the Birmingham bombing, and finally the ensuing manhunt for Rudolph in the western NC mountains - a place my family and I frequently visit. I was not disappointed when I picked up the book on Christmas evening and could not put it down. Rarely do I read a book cover to cover in less than a week. Vollers' text is the rare exception. As a scholar, I found the book to be well written (although I did note a few editorial errors such as the fact "Flint, Michigan" is spelled "Flynt" in the book) and easy to follow and read. It was obvious that Vollers had done an exceptional job of researching her subject and presented what I perceive to be a fair and accurate reporting of the events from beginning to end. In order to verify this, I actually took the time to followup on some of the information and citations that Vollers mentions in her text that are easily available via the internet. The information contained in her text was true to form. While some of this information had been edited(I suspect for space and form reasons), anyone with a computer can find the full text readily available if they care to read in more detail Rudolph's writings or other information cited in the text. I would highly recommend this book for anyone interested in Rudolph, his actions, or the history behind the events, investigations, and eventual capture of Rudolph.