| Eric Rudolph, the Olympic bomber, has sent a series of letters to a newspaper complaining that the maximum-security federal prison in which he has been sentenced is designed to drive him crazy. Rudolph was given a live sentence and currently is housed at the Super Max prison in Florence, Colorado, which is also home to such infamous people as the Unabomber and was the prison which held Timothy McVeigh prior to his transfer to Indiana where he was executed by lethal injection. Rudolph, in a letter to the Gazette of Colorado Springs, describes the prison as being a closed off world designed to isolate inmates from social and environmental stimuli with the intent of causing physical and mental illness in the inmates. Rudolph likely does spend about 23 hours each day confined to his cell. He is given exercise opportunities throughout the week, however. One of Rudolph's victims had no sympathy for the bomber's plight. Diana Derzis oversees a Birmingham, Alabama women's clinic that Rudolph also bombed. She said she was glad to know that Rudolph would never be in the real world again. The Gazette reported on Sunday that it had corresponded with Rudolph for more than a year. The Gazette also noted that prison officials have refused to allow the paper an interview with Rudolph. The Gazette has refused to publish Rudolph's letters in their entirety. Rudolph is considered an anti-government extremist and pleaded guilty to setting the bomb that killed at least one person and injured more than 100 other people during the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. He also pleaded to three other bombings, including a gay nightclub in Atlanta and the Birmingham clinic. |
[ Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph laments in a series of letters to a newspaper that the maximum-security federal prison where he is spending the rest of his life is designed to drive him insane. ]
