Police Find Possible Rudolph Hiding Place

June 2, 2003 -- Officials searching the mountains of western North Carolina found a campsite where they believe bombing suspect Eric Robert Rudolph hid out during his winters on the run.

Officers found a rifle at the site and have identified another possible hideout, law enforcement sources told ABCNEWS. Rudolph told police about one campsite but it was not clear if it was either of those discovered by searchers.

What officials want to know is how Rudolph — suspected in a string of bombings dating back to the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta — eluded authorities since he was identified as a suspect in 1998. Also, officials are trying to learn more about Rudolph's beliefs and possible motivations.

"We're doing interviews, we're combing the forest area for any evidence that he had any help, we're trying to see what type of places he stayed in up there and trying to assess whether those are long-term places or places that he just moved to and from on a short-term basis," FBI Special Agent in Charge Chris Swecker said today on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "Those are questions we have to get answered."

Added Swecker: "He's a good enough outdoorsman that he wouldn't necessarily have to have any help. Certainly, in the past, he's had friends and associates in that area. We've tried to stay very close to those friends and associates and keep in touch with them."

‘He Wanted to Further Our Race’

Deborah Rudolph, the bombing suspect's former sister-in-law, described him as a man whose opposition to abortion seemed based more on racial concerns than moral issues.

"If he is guilty, I think that if he did do this, I think the reasoning behind it would be … he wanted to bring issues such as the abortion issue to the forefront of the media," she told Good Morning America. "He wanted to bring it to people's attention, this is wrong. Killing babies, predominantly white babies. He thought the white race was slowly becoming a minority. He felt that the abortions were performed predominantly on white women, and he was against that. He wanted to further our race, to better our race."

She said that his strongest hatreds seemed to be for Jews and homosexuals. He not believe that interracial marriage should be allowed and was concerned about the increase in the numbers of Latinos in the United States, she said.

"I think he hated the Jews more than probably any other race, more than the blacks or Hispanics or Latinos," she said. "He was more hateful about the Jewish race. He felt that they had been run out of every country they had ever been in. They destroyed every country they had ever been in. They had too much control in our country."

Though Rudolph has a brother who is gay, Deborah Rudolph said, that did not lead him to any sympathy or understanding of homosexuals.

"He was outspoken about gays," she said. "He would call them sodomites and say that it was against the Bible. So I don't think it mattered whether his brother was gay or not. He was still against it, and, you know, it wasn't going to alter his opinion."

But Sean Devereaux, Rudolph's court-appointed attorney, said today he saw no indication of the attitudes that Deborah Rudolph described. Devereaux said the bombing suspect was "reflective."

"If I didn't know what I know about this case and having spent about two hours with him, I would never believe that he would hold any kind of radical beliefs," he said.

ABCNEWS' Steve Osunsami and Pierre Thomas contributed to this report.