On July 27, 1996, a bomb went off at the Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta where the Summer Olympics were being held, which left more than a hundred injured and one dead. The FBI didn’t immediately identify the perpetrator, and he went on to plant more bombs, two in abortion clinics in Atlanta and Alabama, and in a bar in Atlanta. The bomber was finally identified by the FBI as Eric Rudolph, and he was added to the bureau’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives in 1998.
By the time he was identified, however, Rudolph had already fled to the Nantahala National Forest to go into hiding. As reported by Blue Ridge Outdoors, Rudolph was used to living off-the-grid, as that was how his family lived during his teenage years. The FBI painstakingly searched for the fugitive, and after years of no results, they entertained the possibility that he died in the wilderness. In 2003, however, a cop came across a man going through the garbage behind a grocery store, and he ran away as the officer approached. He was eventually apprehended, and he turned out to be Rudolph, who had survived living in the wilderness for five years (via ABC News).
