Convicted Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph was sentenced to life in prison without parole on Monday for the 1998 bombing of an Alabama abortion clinic that killed a police officer and maimed a nurse. The 38-year-old abortion foe pleaded guilty in April to the clinic bombing in a federal plea bargain that spared him the death penalty. Rudolph was given two consecutive life terms without parole for the Birmingham bombing.
As part of the deal, Rudolph confessed to the 1996 bombing of the Summer Olympics in Atlanta and subsequent blasts at an abortion clinic and gay bar in and around the Georgia capital.
He will be sentenced to two additional terms of life in prison without parole on August 22 for the three Atlanta bombings, which killed one person and injured more than 100 others.
Federal agents were able to tie Rudolph to the string of bombings largely because witnesses noticed him acting suspiciously moments after a nail bomb exploded on January 29, 1998, at the New Woman All Women clinic in Birmingham.
The blast killed Robert Sanderson, an off-duty police officer, and badly injured nurse Emily Lyons. Lyons was blinded in one eye and has had more than a dozen operations to treat injuries to her face and body.
Rudolph disappeared into the mountains of North Carolina after the Alabama bombing, outfoxing the FBI for five years until he was captured while scavenging for food in a dumpster in Murphy, North Carolina in 2003.