Bomb Suspect’s Truck Chased, Lost In Colorado

The suspect in the Alabama abortion clinic bombing was being sought in Colorado late Tuesday after authorities stopped a pickup truck registered in his name - and then lost it during a chase.

Eric Robert Rudolph, who also is being investigated for a series of bombings in Atlanta, had been sought in western North Carolina.

Police said they pulled over a gray Nissan pickup truck in what they described as a routine stop in east Denver.

Police Chief Dave Michaud said that when the officer approached the truck to ask the driver for identification, the driver “took off at a high rate of speed.”

The driver of the truck turned off its lights during the chase, eventually losing the pursuing officers.

A check of the truck’s North Carolina license plate turned up the link to Rudolph.

“This truck comes up wanted for a bombing in Atlanta where a police officer was killed,” Michaud said.

However, Michaud said, “We have no idea if it was Eric Rudolph.”

Rudolph, a 31-year-old carpenter, is charged with January’s clinic bombing in Birmingham that killed a security guard and badly injured a nurse. It was the nation’s first fatal bombing at an abortion clinic.

Investigators have been trying to learn if Rudolph was in Atlanta when bombs exploded at Centennial Olympic Park in July 1996, at an abortion clinic in January 1997, and at a gay nightclub in February 1997. Agents think the same person or people were behind all three, but have not been able to learn where Rudolph was at those times.